September 17th, 2007
1. Radiohead, OK Computer
1967 is rightfully—though overly, especially during its 40th anniversary—revered as a watershed year for pop music: It saw the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Songs Of Leonard Cohen, Are You Experienced?, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Forever Changes, and many other incredible and/or important albums. 1997, though lacking the benefit of as much hindsight, packed a pretty earth-shaking musical punch, too, clearly led by Radiohead's already-canonized OK Computer. Enough ink has been spilled about the album's dystopian outlook and overall concept, sometimes to the point of ignoring the most important element: Every track, from pure pop in wolf's clothing ("Paranoid Android") to experimental animosity ("Fitter Happier") feels exactly right. Everything in its right place, indeed.
Radiohead on Jools Holland, with Yorke shades
2. Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West
Modest Mouse's journey from drunken shows in dingy basements to packed auditoriums and Johnny Marr joining (that's still weird!) didn't begin with "Float On," it began with The Lonesome Crowded West, an overlong, barking, mean, and ultimately brilliant distillation of Isaac Brock's cranky worldview. Delivering the promise of less-studied earlier MM albums, it polished the sound—but only to a point. There's a remarkable edge to "Cowboy Dan" and the Mouse-defining "Heat Cooks Brain." While Crowded West didn't exactly pave the way for a seismic shift in music as a whole, it paved the way for more Modest Mouse.
Modest Mouse Vs. Bela Tarr
3. Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out
Punkish Portland trio Sleater-Kinney began hitting its stride on 1996's Call The Doctor, but Dig Me Out became the group's defining album. The band formed in 1994 during the riot-grrl era, but gradually used hooky pop melodies to transform the scene's abrasive personal politics into something more sonically palatable. Singer-guitarists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein created an engrossing interplay, tightened by new drummer Janet Weiss. The first six of the album's 13 songs should've been worldwide hits, from the intense title track through the similarly hard-hitting "Words And Guitar," but there isn't a dud in the bunch. Dig Me Out made such a powerful mark that Sleater-Kinney spent the next decade attempting to live up to it.
4. Elliott Smith, Either/Or
In many ways, Elliott Smith's first three albums—Roman Candle, Elliott Smith, and Either/Or—can be viewed as of a piece: Each is spartan, confessional, and nearly claustrophobic. Either/Or dresses the songs in more than just his acoustic guitar and whisper-sing, mostly because it was recorded before Smith found the wherewithal and cash to get more ambitious in the studio. (Its success certainly led to the cash part, not to mention an Oscar nomination.) Delivered this way, though, the songs are allowed to be deeply sad in a way he would never quite reach again: He's got angry broken hearts ("Alameda"), complete dejection ("2:45 A.M."), and sweet, miserable longing ("Between The Bars"), all somehow delivered with sparks of hope. The next generation of punks would try to get songwriter-y in his wake, but no one succeeded in the same way.
Jem Cohen's short film about Elliott, Lucky Three
5. Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
After more than a decade spent as one of indie-rock's most respected underground bands, Yo La Tengo broke wider in 1997 thanks to stellar reviews for I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One and a clever, Mr. Show-aided video for "Sugarcube" that wormed its way into rotation on MTV. That track's tinge of bubblegum pop was a surprise for a band that had always hidden its emotions behind walls of Sonic Youth noise and Ira Kaplan's detached, Lou Reed-esque speak-singing, but then, I Can Hear The Heart was full of surprises, from twangy country-ish numbers ("One P.M. Again") to shoegazing Beach Boys covers ("Little Honda"). By far the group's most eclectic work, I Can Hear holds all its playful genre experimentation together with a touching emotional center crystallized in "Autumn Sweater," a ballad for soft-spoken boys in Buddy Holly glasses and the cardigan-clad girls who love them.
Yo La Tengo, taken to Rock School by Mr. Show
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