by Ray » 1/8/2004, 7:59 pm
I suppose I'm the only one, but I easily nominate Room On Fire by The Strokes. Drums and bass, two guitars, and a voice, all perfectly tuned and bouncing off one another at a speed that'll make your head spin.
Otherwise, The Pillows had an incredibly amazing release in November with Penalty Life. If you've seen the anime show FLCL (source of my avatar, Ninamori, who's the source of my sig) on Adult Swim, then you know the band's logo -- it's on Haruko's Vespa, that circled P! right on front. And, oh yeah, they are the entire backing soundtrack to the six-episode series. Penalty Life doesn't have anything you heard on FLCL -- most obviously because the show was aired in 2000. But stuff like "Terminal Heaven's Rock", "I Know You", and "Super Trampoline School Kid" are major stickouts on a solid album from these guys -- imagine the Pixies gone Japanese, with a mega-guitar fetish, and you've got the basic sound of The Pillows.
Otherwise, everything else is kind of relegated to the background. Although I'd nominate Jay-Z's The Black Album for Hip-Hop Album of The Year.
Ninamori:"Our little secret, okay?"