Best Album to Feature Buddy Rich Samples: Solex, "Low Kick and Hard Bop" (Matador)
Those decrying the early and unfortunate death of electronica need look no further than Solex -- aka Dutch record geek Elizabeth Esselink -- to find everything necessary to carry the genre on, and notice everything it was missing up until her. Noticeably, that amounted to a sense of humor, which "Low Kick and Hard Bop" has in spades -- big-band drum rolls and Ramsey Lewis overbite grooves mesh into song after song of delirious white-girl musings (delivered in a Liz Phair-y singsong rap style) that can only make you smile. Rich would have been pissed, but he secretly would have loved it. How could you not? The gal's got moxie.
Best Sideways Cleavage: Nikka Costa, "Like a Feather," from "Everybody Got Their Something"
This was the best sideways cleavage to be seen anywhere this year. Ms. Costa is not here this evening to accept this award, so I will gladly accept it for her, taking special care to honor her requests that I thank God Almighty, her fans and the makers of Scotch tape.
Best Symbiosis Between Nick Drake and an Actual Volkswagen: Maximilian Hecker, "Infinite Love Songs" (Kitty-Yo)
Maximilian Hecker is a male model -- quite popular, apparently, with the same Berlin-at-night scene that produced shock feminist Peaches and her own brand of bloody Salt-n-Pepa tributes -- who at heart is but a softy of English folk proportions. His overlooked debut album referenced Drake so heavily -- as well as Cat Power, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead and all the other great mopes of our time -- that it felt like a deliberate attempt to squeeze the singer's sensibilities into a modern context. It was shockingly, blissfully successful. Give it a crack and you won't believe you missed it.
Best Reissue of a Record From the Immediate Past: Pedro the Lion, "The Only Reason I Feel Secure/It's Hard to Find a Friend" (Jade Tree)
Sure, it's easy to grouse about Pedro the Lion muddying the waters of punk rock -- more specifically, post-emo -- with all that icky spirituality and highfalutin straight-edge judgment calls. But this reissue proved that Pedro -- mostly the work of one David Bazan, wearer of a young man's beard and seemingly an honest-to-goodness nice guy -- has become Bono for guys who still wear dickeys and gas-station attendant jackets. Bazan's guitars are pristine, his voice is affable and honest without ever resorting to indie faux-coyness and the production on his records -- which he does mostly by himself -- is crystalline and, at times, oddly joyous, never steering away from a big pop payoff. That his vision was this clear this early on -- way back in the late '90s! -- only proves how many more great records the guy has in him.
Best Foreign-Language Frug Freakout to Appear on a Movie Soundtrack: Mohammed Rafi, "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" from the "Ghost World" soundtrack (Shanachie)
"Jaan Pehechaan Ho" plays during the opening credits of "Ghost World" -- a wondrous (if flawed) film adaptation of the Daniel Clowes comic -- as the camera pans from one blue-television-lighted suburban window to another, looking desperately for signs of life. As the camera finally happens upon the window of the film's protagonist Enid (played masterfully by Thora Birch), we realize that it's "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" that's blaring out of her bedroom TV in an absolutely raucous '60s Bollywood sequence. That sense of otherness -- and the sly charm of it -- goes on to inform the whole movie, but it never hits this early apex again. "Jan Pehechaan Ho" is Enid's freak flag brought to speaker-bursting life.
The "20: That's a Nice Age" Award: Britney Spears
Well, you knew it was inevitable that Spears would grow up -- I mean, the signs were everywhere. Ahem. But it took her enlisting Jon Voight on her HBO "Live in Las Vegas" special -- wherein the actor debased himself in a bit of fatherly playacting that went beyond camp and into sheer (but cruelly hilarious) vulgarity -- to realize how much her love had matured, and in turn, just how cold and calculated it had become. Spears' maturation-in-public might have gotten a lot of sweaty dads off the hook, but its handling was so hammy and preapproved that you couldn't help but feeling something very essential about what we loved about Spears was lost in the process. And the overarching message of Spears-as-young-adult wasn't very comforting, either -- that she would survive, not because she's got chops or great looks, but simply because she is now an enormous personality-driven corporate entertainment presence. That, oddly, puts her now in the same boat as Martha Stewart.
Best Comeback When You Could Have Just as Easily Assumed All Was Hopelessly Lost, Consigned to a Different Age: New Order, "Get Ready" (Warner/Reprise)
"Get Ready" perfected the poncy jock-rock formula New Order had been working on since the late 1980s. That it came without warning -- just as I finally joined a gym -- made it even more of a delight. All the pieces were in place: Bernard Sumner's deadpan winsome vocals, Peter Hook's octave-favoring bass runs and no end of post-Manchester disco groove. I thank you, everyone waiting for a new Morrissey album thanks you -- after all, this was the next best thing -- and eventually, my cholesterol count will thank you, too.
About the writer
Joey Sweeney is a contributing editor at Philadelphia Weekly.
Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)
Salon Directory (browse by topic)
