LOGANMIX2003: The Piccolo Snare

2003 in brief: The state of indie rock in the first half of the decade could be tidily summarized with The Postal Service's Such Great Heights EP, featuring covers from Sub Pop royalty The Shins and Iron & Wine that have gone on to soundtrack our entire commercial reality. Just be grateful that UPS didn't option "Sleeping In" -- the early front runner for worst track of the decade.


10. Clearlake - Cedars

9. Junior Senior - D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat

8. The Darkness - Permission to Land

Stealing a page from Borges's short story Pierre Menard, I would like to suggest that Permission to Land is the first truly post-Rock Band album. The evidence is all there: just about every song on the album demands to be sung-along/air-guitared/drummed-on-the-table with shameless abandon. Moreover, The Darkness clearly have benefitted from Rock Band's brazen disregard for the assumed cultural boundaries between traditionally disparate scenes. One moment you are questioning your dislike of 80s metal while jamming away to Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" and the next thing you know, you are helping a leotard clad Justin Hawkins crowd surf atop a life-sized stuffed tiger (true story!). Wait a second: not a single The Darkness song is available for download through Rock Band? Preposterous!


7. M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

6. Goldfrapp - Black Cherry

5. Apparat - Duplex

4. Four Tet - Rounds

3. The Rapture - Echoes

I demand a recount. Surely the greatest band of all time deserves a better position on this list than third. "Sister Saviour" was my musical augenblick: until I heard the track on internet radio, I didn't realize other people still liked this kind of music, let alone still made it. For me, The Rapture (to abuse a poor analogy for a moment) were like the messianic second coming of synth-driven post-punk -- nevermind that New Order had already returned to the scene a couple of year earlier. Forget that unfathomable dud of a track "Open Up Your Heart" that almost derails the entire album: "I Need Your Love" is sheer electro-bliss and the roller-coaster-stomp of "The Coming of Spring" sets up one of the finest track runs of the decade. And just when your local hater is ready to deflate the party with a snide reference to Gang of Four, The Rapture throw a curve ball and end the record with the absolutely stunning Talk Talk styled "Infatuation." Have I mentioned that they are - no exaggeration - the best band of all time?


2. Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power

Phantom Power stands out as a bit of an anomaly in the Super Furry Animals discography. For most of their career, the Super Furry Animals have unpredictably whiplashed through genre after genre on their records (Guerrilla shifts from Tropicalia to techno in the span of two tracks). Yet, Phantom Power has an underlining conceptual focus and a - dare I say it - restrained palette, which might sound strange for an album that ends with a schizophrenic 7+ minute technopop number. Not that the Super Furry Animals have lost any of their playfulness; for the most part, Gruff Rhys is still impishly oblique. "Venus and Serena" certainly sounds like a song about the tennis playing Williams sisters, but in actuality is about a boy adopted by wolves talking to his pet turtles. The introduction to "Hello Sunshine," a sample ripped straight from the flower power duo Wendy And Bonnie, might seem like a nostalgic cry for the halcyon 60s, but the Super Furry Animals have claimed that they merely added the snippet because they were too lazy to actually write a duet. The sunny harmonies and rich melodies, however, belie a surprisingly melancholy album. "Liberty Belle" might be the most joyously barbed critique of America put to song: "Liberty belle is ringing out / Across the sea / And everyone sings along / Though she's singing way out of key." Even the calypso soccer paean "The Undefeated" metamorphosizes into a haunting phantasmagoria as it dissolves in a volley of machine gun fire.


1. Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash

Sasha Frere-Jones recently posted on his New Yorker blog that at the turn of the century, he had predicted that Basement Jaxx and not Daft Punk would be the big crossover dance/electronic act of the decade. In a just world, he would have been right. Over the past ten years, Basement Jaxx have produced an endless parade of scorching singles ("Romeo" , "Lucky Star" , "Hey U" to name a few), while Daft Punk have been essentially coasting on the popularity of their 2001 jocktronica album Discovery. Perhaps - and this is just a hypothesis - Basement Jaxx are too imaginative. Every one of their songs is its own Garden of Earthly Delights; too densely stuffed with maniacal brilliance to be distilled into easy press bites or re-appropriated in delightful YouTube videos. Don't believe me? Just listen to the positively cathartic post-break-up anthem "Good Luck" that is probably still #1 in the charts of a more sane parallel universe. And the true testament to Basement Jaxx's power: for a brief moment in 2003, they made a few people actually believe that JC Chasez was more of a superstar than Justin Timberlake. Only the pure euphoria of "Plug It In" could create such a beautiful delusion.

Now I'm waiting for a signal or a sound. Where can you be found now, my love?

LOGANMIX2003: The Piccolo Snare

1. Almost The Same - Clearlake [Cedars]
2. Now It's On - Grandaddy [Sumday]
3. Satellite - TV On The Radio [Young Liars EP]
4. Ambulance - Blur [Think Thank]
5. Love Is Only A Feeling - The Darkness [Permission To Land]
6. Some Velvet Morning - Primal Scream [Some Velvet Morning Single]
7. Sister Saviour (Radio Edit) - The Rapture [Sister Saviour Single]
8. STD Dance - Ima Robot [Alive EP]
9. Strict Machine - Goldfrapp [Black Cherry]
10. The Last High - The Dandy Warhols [Welcome To The Monkey House]
11. Tiny Birds - Yo La Tengo [Summer Sun]
12. Such Great Heights - The Postal Service [Give Up]
13. Slow Life - Super Furry Animals [Phantom Power]
14. Good Luck (Original Mix) - Basement Jaxx [Good Luck EP]
15. Shake Your Coconuts - Junior Senior [D-D-Don't Stop The Beat]
16. Heartbreak Stroll - The Raveonettes [Chain Gang Of Love]
17. Miss Teen Wordpower - The New Pornographers [Electric Version]
18. There There - Radiohead [Hail To The Thief]