September 17th, 2007
15. Helium, The Magic City
Beholden to Kim Gordon and Kim Deal, Helium leader Mary Timony crafted a bold, raw classic with 1995's Dirt Of Luck. By '97, though, her band was in flux. Bassist Ash Bowie was recording the sitar-smeared Shapes, the fragmented fuck-off of his other project, Polvo, and everyone from Liz Phair to Hole had swiped enough of Helium's sound to drive Timony in a new direction. That direction turned out to be utterly astounding: The Magic City, while retaining some of Helium's previous acidity, incorporates unabashed Yes-style prog and Renaissance-faire instrumentation. Fantasy and science-fiction themes abound—there's even a song called "Medieval People"—and tracks like "Lullaby Moth" and "Blue Rain Soda" presage Joanna Newsom's Ys a decade in advance. The Magic City sounded kind of like a prank in 1997, when prog was still a four-letter word, but recent history has proven Mary Timony to be a prophet.
Mary Timony has a rainbow dragon we could ride
16. The Promise Ring, Nothing Feels Good
The Promise Ring became an indie favorite with 1996's 30 Degrees Everywhere, but Nothing Feels Good secured the band's status as the most important entry in emo's second wave. Songs like "Is This Thing On?", "Why Did We Ever Meet," and "Forget Me" showed the Ring's punk roots, but wrapped them in big pop hooks with sweet sentiment. The Promise Ring didn't create a new aesthetic on Nothing Feels Good—other bands were doing something similar—but the album was its apotheosis. Even though the group never lived up to the "next big thing" status Nothing Feels Good conferred, the record remains one of the era's defining albums. As such, it fomented thousands of crappy-sounding copycats, a curse that lingers a decade later.
Roller-blading, BMX-ing, and gingerbread men with The Promise Ring
17. Bob Dylan, Time Out Of Mind
1997 wasn't just about new artists breaking fresh ground. It was also about older artists finding inspiration in the past. After a long period of writer's block set in following 1989's remarkable Oh Mercy, Bob Dylan dug back into the American folk songbook for a pair of covers albums. When he finally released new material in 1997, it was shot through with the spare sound of eccentric folk, drawing on sources from what Greil Marcus memorably described as the "old, weird America." By this point, Dylan was an old, weird American too. Time Out Of Mind's meditations on mortality foreshadowed a life-threatening ailment that set in shortly after its completion. The album is obsessed with death and last attempts to make sense of things, but it's wryly funny, too. The album-closing "Highlands" spins a shaggy-dog tale for more than 16 minutes, dwelling on minute, mundane details while referencing the eponymous hills as the singer's natural home. It's as if he had to keep singing to avoid ending up there too soon.
The White Stripes tackle Dylan's Love Sick
18. Other essential 1997 listening:
Portishead's Portishead, Pavement's Brighten The Corners, Clem Snide's You Were A Diamond, Catherine Wheel's Adam & Eve, The Verve's Urban Hymns, Smog's Red Apple Falls, Will Oldham's Joya, Rex's 3, Blonde Redhead's Fake Can Be Just As Good, Built To Spill's Perfect From Now On, Robert Wyatt's Shleep, The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole, Cornershop's When I Was Born For The Seventh Time, The Spice Girls' Spice, Joan Of Arc's A Portable Model Of, Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope, Roni Size/Reprazent's New Forms, Timbaland & Magoo's Welcome To Our World, The Get Up Kids' Four Minute Mile, Blur's Blur, Foo Fighters' The Colour And The Shape, Grandaddy's Under The Western Freeway, The Sea And Cake's The Fawn, Godspeed You Black Emperor's F♯A♯∞, and Chisel's Set You Free.
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