Indiecast - A Look Back At The Albums Of 2002

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

This week on Indiecast, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen take a deep dive into the most talked about albums from 2002. Re-examining releases like Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights, Beck's Sea Change, and Rilo Kiley's The Execution Of All Things, Steven and Ian sort the albums into a few different categories: Overrated, underrated, properly rated, and their absolute favorites (30:30).Along with revisiting music from two decades ago, Steven and Ian discuss all that happened in the music industry during their week-long hiatus. Elon Musk is trying to buy Twitter (10:26), Greta Van Fleet's Josh Kiszka apologized for cultural appropriation (7:17), and Succession's Cousin Greg is apparently starting an indie rock TV series (5:01).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 86 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast on the show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we look back on the albums of 2002. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. It's now his turn to get COVID. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

Yeah, I mean, I feel weird kind of congratulating you on the massive outpouring of support that you received when you announced COVID on last Friday. But also, it just kind of revealed to me that aside from, you know, the actual symptoms of getting COVID,

like I live in fear that, you know, my COVID announcement would be like a total flop. Like just, it's like, you know, when the bassist goes solo from the band and like no one gives a shit about like their album and whatever,

it's like, no, wouldn't happen. I think, you know, the emo discourse, I think would be taken off offline for a week or two.

If you were not, you know, in the middle of it, if you were sick, I think there would be a lot of people out there. Imagine, like, all of the emo albums that would not be represented on pitchfork. Yeah. If you were sick. I don't know if I have to imagine that. But, yeah, I think it just kind of shows the difference between the way, like, perhaps, like, you're viewed in the public realm for me.

Like, when I got married and I, like, took, like, a week off, like, I, like, I remember one guy tweeting, it's like, dude, how could you get married instead of reviewing the world as a beautiful place out? Now look what happened. I think people just maybe view you as a human being and me just as like a liaison to greater emo discourse. But you know what? That's the role we serve in Indycast. It's a good balance. Exactly.

And I just want to say, too, and you alluded to this, all the people that sent along their well wishes. I appreciate that. I'm about 85% right now, I would say. My head is still kind of cloudy. I have a bit of a cough. I don't know if you can tell my voice. I'm congested. I'm probably going to mispronounce even more words in this episode

because my throat and my brain are both compromised right now. But I don't know. I mean, I'm glad I'm vexed. I'm glad I'm boosted because I think this would be a lot worse. I had like one or two kind of bad days. One of them was the day that we were supposed to record last week. I was looking at the outline, which is basically the outline for this episode. We were going to do 2002 albums last week.

And I was looking at it. And I was like, I cannot think of anything to say about turn on the bright lights right now. There's nothing. I'm trying to think of something to say about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. and nothing's come to mind. So this must be a pretty bad illness if I can't talk about these albums that I know very well.

But I don't know, I mean, I don't know if you know anyone who's had COVID-ups who you do, but like, for me, it just, it wasn't like any, like, overwhelmingly bad sickness at any point. It's just like this lingering fatigue. Yeah. You know, I just, I feel like I've been hung over for a week.

Yeah. And I was kind of hope, not hoping, like I obviously wanted you to rest, but like in, in light of you publishing the best lead singers of all time, a massive undertaking, by the way, over at Uprocks. Like I thought that like the episode would be like sometimes you see on YouTube, like shows where the lead singers like clearly struggling with a hangover or they're drunk on stage. And yet you see like the bassist have to have to like pick up the slack with banter or maybe they let like, the lead singer sing what like one of this or the lead guitarist sing one of the songs just like I don't know if we were going to have like a fader fort situation here like with Salem but uh I'm glad I'm glad you rested up instead I was thinking more of like that time that Dave Grohl like had to do a tour sitting in that big chair because he broke his leg you know it could be something

like that um but I I felt bad canceling I don't like to cancel a show I had every intention of doing the show last week I actually I think I text you about 45 minutes before we were about to record. I was pushing it right up to the deadline. Then I was like, I can't do it. Then I had woken up at 545 my time for absolutely no reason. But we're not going to get into that. I know, I feel bad.

I feel that's like the downside of living in sunny San Diego that you have to get up really early to record our show. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. But it was also bad because we had so much good banter last week that we weren't able to do. We had the cousin Greg. starting an indie rock TV show or he's developing indie rock show. There was a lot of banter there that we could have done. I'm sure that'll come to pass. Like that'll totally make it all the way through development.

Do you remember that movie that was going to be made about pitchfork? Yes, I do. About 10 years ago. Yeah, who was starring in that? I'm trying. I think it was Jonah Hill. Yes. Yes, that was it.

Was it like, I think the story of it because like the Duplas brothers were going to do it. Yes, that's right. I forgot to ask Mark Duplas about it when. I interviewed him. What a fucking unforced error. Yeah, I know. And I'm told from inside sources that there's a screenplay for this movie

that is floating around that being certain people higher-ups at Pitchfork still have, and that needs to be leaked, I think, at some point. But I think the story of that movie was that Jonah Hill plays a pitchfork writer who writes a

review of this band. Very snarky review and the lead singer of the band takes his own life and Susan Sarandon is like his mother the dead musician's mother and she gets she tries to get revenge on Jonah Hill

sounds like a massive hit Is it possible that this that this Joan Hill character was based on you? Because I feel like you would have been the guy in 2011 or so that would have been panning people so maybe this is like in some way Ian Cohen related

No one consultant me so I don't know I guess I guess I missed out on, I guess, like, what might have been, like, I don't know, being on the interview circuit or the subject of much indie rock innuendo. So, I don't know. I guess that was like a rejection equals protection type thing. I'm pretty, in light of that, I'm pretty, I can say I'm glad this never came to pass.

Yeah, that would have been amazing. It might have been, I feel bad for my country, but what amazing content. I was going to say, it might have been, or like Brent D. Chrysenzo. I don't know if I pronounce that correctly. Like he was, he was, like, a pretty famous. Yeah, he was that dude for a while. And the aughts for pitchflip. I have to link, I have to link to a lot of his post when I write 20th anniversary reviews of, like, uh, emo records.

We also miss the Greta van Fleet, uh, lead singer. She apologized for appropriating indigenous culture. Yeah, boy, who amongst us? Yeah, because he wears, like, Native American garb. Or war. Wasn't this like from 2015 or something? I feel like he did it. I feel like when they are in S&L, he was wearing feathers.

Okay. I could be mistaken. I think there was feathers and maybe some sort of like headdress of some sort. I don't know. But yeah. So that would have been a great thing. That's definitely a thing that happened. Yeah.

And Wilco, they released the Yankee Hiltow Fox Trot reissue and there's like 11 LPs. 11 LPs, man. Which I can't, you know, not to... I mean, I like how I said that we can't do this banter. Now I'm kind of making us do this banter because I'm sad that we missed it. But to me, like, that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot boxed, which by the way, I'm psyched that it's so big because there's a lot of cool outtakes on it. But it just, to me, it illustrates, again, the ridiculousness of the vinyl boom to some degree that,

Like, why would you buy that on vinyl? It's just so much vinyl. It is a lot of vinyl. But you know what? Like, Wilk, I mean, I like that they're just leaning into the stereotype of the Wilco fan. That, like, just someone who just will, A, has, like, the money to buy it and will buy it. And also, like, I know it's not, like, Adele or Taylor Swift, like, causing a bottleneck in the vinyl production line. but doesn't this kind isn't it kind of the same thing like and mind you I don't believe that

Wilco is selling like one 11th of what like the last a dollar Taylor Swift album said but 11 I like how it wasn't 10 it's 11 like no not 12 we have just enough outtakes to do like is it a Zyrika type thing where like one of them has like the left stereo mix or like maybe one day like that's what we will do like oh yeah yeah we're gonna do we're gonna do an indie cast vinyl release you know satisfy our fans and I'm gonna be on one disc and you're gonna be on another

and you gotta play it just right or else there's like some weird mixing things going on I think we should release every episode on vinyl I think that's something we should do I think that the fans out there would love it yeah like whatever that the thing that fish does you know like hey guys we're going like straight from the audio board

This is the cleanest possible indie cast. I mean, it is great. I do wonder, too, because sometimes you buy records and they'll put, like, one album on two vinyl, just so it sounds better. So then you get, like, three songs on one side. Yeah. And you have to keep flipping it over. Like, I wonder if that's part of it.

Like, if maybe the album proper is two records, too? I mean, that's possible. I always thought that was annoying, though, that you hear like two songs. You know better than I do. Yeah, maybe so. Do we want to talk about Elon Musk? buying Twitter. This is not an indie rock story, but Elon Musk buying Twitter, I feel like it's such a... It's India adjacent. It's India adjacent. I think that, you know, the fact that like he was, I don't know,

had a child with Grimes means that Elon Musk is like forever grandfathered into the trend hashing industry. So I don't even know if this, apparently it's not going to happen now. So it was more or less, I read something yesterday that he might be pulling out. don't you're you're asking the wrong guy I mean it seems like on his part like a bad investment I don't know why you would yeah no shit it's a bad investment why would you want to be the person that decides you know what's allowable on Twitter it just seems like you're you're you're set up to lose no matter what because you're basically dealing with like the most ill-tempered people on the planet, you know, are drawn to Twitter like Moss to a flame, just perpetually

upset, perpetually indignant. Many of them work in the media, these ill-tempered people. And I don't know how you, I just feel like if you have like, if you're the richest man in the world, why put your hand in that hornet's nest? I don't understand it. Because if you have that much money and like money is absolutely meaningless to you, perhaps like owning Twitter is its own appeal. Like you can say fuck it, I own Twitter.

Like or you know, but I'm like hoping this like I'm not one of those people where it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to quit Twitter because I'm like so philosophically opposed to Elon Musk. Like what I'm hoping for is that he buys it and like just does things that make it so lame that it turns into Facebook and just something I gradually stop using because there are, I think there's a pretty significant, maybe it's more amongst media people. We're just hoping for like a comet hitting the dinosaurs extinction level event for Twitter that will just like free us from free us from our bondage of Twitter. And like this is as close as like we're going to get to it aside from I don't know like Elon Musk like opening all the DMs public for like an hour, like a purge,

you know. People like to blame Twitter though. And it's like Twitter is a sort of neutral piece of technology. It's us. It's the people who make it bad. Like, we're the bad ones. So even if you get rid of Twitter, wherever we are,

we meaning like humankind, it's going to make it bad. So, you know, just blaming Twitter to me is really hilarious. It's like, it's that Twitter. It's us.

It's how we behave. You're coming back from this COVID thing being an awful grim and existential, man. Well, you know, I've seen the other side. A brush with mortality. This is like our Rick Rubin

episode, man. Exactly. I got to ask you something. So I saw this story about, and this is a band I don't ever remember hearing about. Yeah. Dispatch? Do you know the band Dispatch? Like, I went to college at the University of Virginia, which is like real like Roots Rock

Central. And I got to say, I've, dispatch is a band that I've only like referenced in type of guide jokes like on Twitter. I probably get them confused with Switchfoot. Well, they're kind of more, so the reason we're talking about them is that they have an anti-war song called The General.

Yes. It's re-recorded in Russian, and The New York Times had a story on this, and basically the purpose of re-recording is that the band hopes that Russians hear this song and they quit the army, basically. Like, they're, this is sort of like,

I don't know what you would call it. It's... Fortunate son of our times. Yes, it's like some sort of brainwashing, maybe brainwashing for good. Like CIA doing wind of change, like the darker, more introspective follow-up? I don't know. And I was like, who is Dispatch? And they're a 90s band, and you mentioned Switchfoot, but I listened to a bit of their music.

It reminded me more... It seems like they're more in that sort of like, maybe like rusted root, a-o-or kind of hippie-ish 90s music, but like the second or third tier of that. Yeah, and the thing is, like, when this story hit, it seems like it exists, almost, you would think it was like made up to make a New York Times story or like an Onion article, but more people made like O-A-O-A-R, like crazy game of poker jokes than, like, actual dispatch jokes, which I don't know if like people like get them confused or whether people are just like out there looking for opportunities to drop crazy game of poker jokes.

I know I am. But I don't even like, you can talk about like how gross it is to like try to utilize this terrible event to leverage your own career. But at the same time, I think the you got to just respect the level of ego that you need to think that yeah, this is going to change shit. right here. Like, people are going to turn their guns into plowshares because they heard the general and we're going to, like, I am the new Bono. I was looking at their streaming numbers and they're actually like pretty robust. Like the general has 62 million streams.

Damn. And I don't know what it was before this, you know, re-recording. I think this is the original recording. It has 62 million. They have another song called Only the Wild Ones that has 50 million streams. a song called Bang Bang, which I don't know if that's Pro War. Is that a Pro War song? Maybe, I don't know.

Anyway, that is like 36 million, almost 37 million. So I don't know. I'm always fascinated by bands that are sneaky popular. And this seems like maybe one of those. Fans also like G-Love and special sauce O-A-R and Citizen Cope. Yeah, they are exactly. Oh, Slightly Stoop is in there too. Oh, slightly stupid.

Yeah, by the way, if like, if you're out for another week, I probably need to do a deep dive on Slightly Stupid because that is like the dispatch for San Diego. Like I cannot express to you how popular that band is here. I thought isn't slightly stupid more of like a sublime type adjacent band? Yes.

And like they're more like a sublime but it's sort of like that but even more San Diego I guess. How stone do you have to be to go with slightly stupid as your band name? And stupid with like the it's not stupid. Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah, double O.

So, like, let's make our band name that much worse by spelling stupid that way. I mean, how do you feel good about yourself saying I'm going to the slightly stupid show? I mean, I... Hang out in San Diego and, like, spend like 10 minutes in San Diego. This is, like, to San Diego what the Bodine's are to Wisconsin. They're just, like, this cultural ambassador. I'll take the Bodine's, baby. Yeah, that embodies every, every stereocer.

type about our city. Do you know what OAR is short for? Of a revolution. Of a revolution. Maybe they should record a... Yeah, seriously. Fucking live up to your name. Exactly. What revolution has produced you? I'm very skeptical of that bad name. By the way, we got an email this week from someone who was mad that we made fun of the name English teacher. Oh.

They didn't like that. Okay. Okay. I don't know why. Actually, I think that was a couple weeks ago. We'll dwell on that and see how we can do better indie cast. There is like a subgenre of our letters where people get upset when we make fun of band names. Oh. That's happened more than once. And it's like, look, it's easy comedy for us, okay? Yeah.

We can't always just be hashing out trends in an insightful way. Sometimes we have to pick up a low-hanging fruit. And, you know, making fun of a band name, it's the lowest-hanging fruit there is. Nothing hangs lower than that. Yeah, but, you know, we got to eat. And that fruit, that low-hanging fruit can be tasty. It can be juicy. We're not going to do a mailbag this week.

Yeah. Too many people getting on our ass about making fun of wet leg and English teacher and laundry day. We're putting you guys in the penalty box. No, we're not doing a mailbag. Just because we're talking about the albums of 2002, there's like a lot to talk about here. So we're clearing out some space. We're also not going to do recommendation corner this week just because we have so much.

We want to talk about albums from 20 years ago, not albums that are coming out now. We want to live in the past. in this episode. So we're going to be talking about some of our favorite albums of this year, albums that maybe haven't aged for us as well, but before we get to that, should we just set the stage here?

What were you doing in 2002? Do you remember that far back? Oh, absolutely. And I think this is important for us to bring up because one thing that I try to point out as much as possible when talking about bands in a grander scheme of things is that, you can never overstate the influence of someone's age, like, when it comes to, like,

how they feel about music. And so 2002, like, as opposed to 2001 or 2003, like, 2002 is a very specific year for me in that, like, I don't think I could possibly be objective about anything going on here because there were two very important. It was like a split screen where the first half of it was my final semester of college. I tried really hard to graduate a semester early. Couldn't pull it off, so I only had one class that semester, and it was Indian music and film. I got a B-minus, graduated.

And pretty much every single night, we were just, like, partying our ass off, like, 10 beers deep listening to I Get Wet and Is This It? And, you know, that was the first half. It was beautiful, but also kind of doomed. And then the next. The next semester, the second half of the year, I graduated. I had no real job prospects, no skills. And like many people in that position, I decided to go to law school. And so for that, the rest of 2002, I was just living at home, working at a place called ubiquitous. Yeah, I know. It was like total office space type shit. Like killing time reading 5,000 words sports guy Collins and like the pitchfork archives. And, uh, yeah. I know. It was like total office space type shit. Like killing time reading 5,000 words sports guy columns and like the pitchfork archives. And, uh, Just going to D.C. and New York on the weekend. And I mean, life was pretty fucking miserable at that point.

And so music was the thing that I cared about more. Like, I have to remember when, like, I see, like, 22-year-olds on Twitter that I find to be, like, annoying or whatever with, like, the, you know, run me over with a truck, Mitzki kind of stuff. Dude, that would have totally been me. I would just love to tell myself in 2002, like 20 years down the road that, hey, you're going to write, you're going to get to interview. you, Connor Oberst for the sports guys media conglomerate or even better, look, you're going to say some jokes on the internet. Not only will Jenny Lewis see them, but she's going to think they're funny. I mean, that might have kept me going. The 2002 Ian Cohen, do you think you'd be disappointed that they weren't like flying cars in the future? No, fuck that. I just,

I want Jenny Lewis to think I'm funny. That's it. Well, there you go. 22 year old Ian is happy. Yeah, you know, I had a similar experience in 2002. I was a little bit farther along. I wasn't in college anymore. I was working my first job. I was working for my hometown paper and working the Tuesday to Saturday shift and going out almost every night and like closing down the bar. And I didn't work until 10 a.m. so I could do that. I could stay out until 2. Like on a Wednesday night and then go go to work. I also have those weird hours. So like I stand up until 2 or 3 watching MTV too. But I was, you know, covering truck pulls and strawberry festivals and corn shows. I did cover a corn show 2002, as a matter of fact.

And I think I met the woman that I got engaged to that year who later broke up with me because she's a lesbian. I think that was the beginning of that narrative in my life 2002. But the beginning was nice, you know, with her. It was a really good relationship in the beginning. But, yeah, I was living in a small town. I remember, you know, and this is another thing we need to talk about, you know, the, it was such a different time in media at that point. Yeah.

Like I said, I was working for a daily newspaper, which, you know, in 2022, it sounds like saying that you work for the railroad or something. Tell us the name of this daily paper. I think this will, I think this will help. The Post Crescent. Say it again. The Post Crescent. In Appleton, Wisconsin. Appleton, which I think is still there.

It is still there, but it's diminished. I mean, you know, most local newspapers now are slowly dying. You know, just laying people off. It's a sad situation. But so, you know, you had such a thing as local media back then, which now, I mean, that seems like that's kind of gradually going away. And you also had, I think, distinct audiences for different kinds of media. And we can see that when we look. look at the different best-up list. Like, we pulled up the Pazzoop list, which is the

village voice critics poll that they did every year. It was like really the best way back then to see what critical, critical consensus was, like when you couldn't just log on to Twitter. Yeah, this one's like legit. It's not like what it had been the last couple of years where it's just like these random scattering of, you know, critics like coming together to vote. This was like a thousand critics or, you know, 1500 critics. Like this is big boy stuff. This is as good as it got. And you had that list. And you have that list. And you have, like the pitchfork list. And this is when, you know, pitchfork was deliberately counter programming what Rolling Stone was or

spin was. It was purposely not covering it, like the whole music world, but, you know, this sort of segment of indie rock really is what they were focused on, which is something now I don't think any music site would do. I mean, now it's about going after the broadest possible thing. And, you know, and there's like a lot of virtue to that. But also there is something, I kind of miss that idea that you could have a specific audience that you were talking to. And you knew what that audience was.

And the audience came to you for a specific thing. Yeah, it's very poignant to look at. Like, I think that's the separation between like the, like, quote, online media and prestige media went on for longer than, you know, than people think. But like 2002 is definitely like the beginning of the end. Like you definitely, there is a distinct difference. And that's why it's so fun to look at this specific year as opposed to say 2007 when things aligned a lot more. Or like 1999 when like online media was still just in its very formative stages. This is like when the power is accumulating.

So the Passing-Jop list we have, I'll just run through the top 10. Number one, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Two, sea change by Beck. Three, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by Flaming Lips. Four, the streets, original pirate material. Five, Slater Kinney, one beat. Six, Bruce Springsteins, the Rising. Seven, the roots, phrenology.

Eight, Eminem, the Eminem show. Nine, Coldplay, a rush of blood to the head. And ten, Missy Elliott under construction. A fair number of legacy acts, I would say, in that time. you know, Springsteen. And I love Bruce Springsteen. I'm not a huge fan of The Rising. That's like his Let's Cure 9-11 album, right?

Yeah, that was the album that he was required to make as Bruce Springsteen. He had to make that album. Yeah. And I don't know. I know a lot of people love that record. I'm not a huge fan of that album. You got Beck.

Wilco, I think, was just coming into being a legacy act. I mean, Yanky Othoff, Ox Trout was the album that really cemented that status for them. The roots, phrenology. I'm trying to remember that record. It's all right. It's pretty good record.

I mean, Questlove, I think, still has me blocked on Twitter, so I'm going to watch it. He blocked you? I'm pretty sure he blocked me. For what? Fuck if I know, dude. I don't know.

Like, I'm sure I deserved it, but, I mean, just the nicest guy in media is blah. Like, that's the shit that really makes me reconsider my choice. in life. But phrenology was like the, that was like the album. And I think you see a lot of this in 2002. This is something about 2002 that is really hard for people to grasp is that between phrenology and Commons Electric Circus and like Taleb Quali's quality. There was this and Ciloh's first album. There was like a lot of hip hop that like critics actively rooted for these guys to like,

I wish they'd sell as many records as Jay-Z. Like people still worried about album sales. Well, yeah, and that was sort of like the raucest version of like for rap music. Absolutely. And yeah, for Nology is like a, they had like a 10 minute song that was like a lot of it. It was like kind of like a precursor to Wilco's less than you think. Yeah. Well, and I, because I remember like when Jay-Z did his unplugged and the roots for his backing band.

Like now you wouldn't think that's a big deal, but at the time. Enormous. That was a huge deal. It was sort of like, you know, I don't know, like Jay-Z. crossing the picket line or I guess the roots crossing the picket line or something pretty funny the the pitchfork list there's some crossover here yeah but but fairly different number one interpol turn on the bright lights to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot I'm surprised that Interpol's above Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on this list

I think that's the way to plan a flag though and you'll know us by the trail of dead source tags and codes number three yeah which shows that they were already having some buyers remorse because they gave that record a 10. I guess Yanky Hotel Foxtrot also got a 10 that year. Yeah, and Interpol got a 9.5 that year. It's interesting. The two tens. You got two tens.

And neither one were the number one record that year. Also, let's just consider the fact that back then it was probably just like 10 guys on a message board. So I'm not going to like, I'm sure the voting process wasn't particularly like complicated. The book Stought for Food, number four.

very 2002. Number five, The Flaming Lips, six, Spoon killed the Moonlight. Okay. Number seven, the Notwist,

neon golden very 2002. Great fucking record. Yes, that is a good record. Boards of Canada, number eight, Geogadi?

I don't remember that album. Oh, that's a great one. Number nine, Murray Street Sonic Youth. There's your version of like Bruce Springsteen. That's a great record,

though. I'm pro putting Murray. I think that was considered their comeback because that NYC goes and flowers, man, which got like zero point zero, break B. creshenzo on. Yeah, that was, that's a hatchet job. That record deserves better than that.

But I think they were ready to reembrace Sonic Youth after that. And number 10, liars, they threw us all in a trench and stuck a monument on top. So those are the top tens from Pass and Chop and from Pitchfork. Yeah. Let's get into our choices here. Yeah. For what we like, let's start with the most properly rated album of 2002. This is an album that was acclaimed in 2002 and that we feel like deserved the acclaim.

And it was, you know, there hasn't been a backlash against it. It hasn't been overpraised. It hasn't been underrated. It's considered a classic now. It was considered a classic then. What's your choice for the most properly rated album of 2002? Well, the way you describe what properly rated means. Now I'm like hesitant to say that my answer to this is Interpol's turn on the bright lights

because my my theory behind this is it's kind of like a horseshoe theory sort of thing where it's been so overrated and like weirdly underrated that it just kind of sits in this stasis of yeah I guess it is properly rated now because I mean the interesting thing is like that if you look at Pa's and Jop like the kind of overall big picture came in at number 15 in between spoon and Nora Jones. So I think like with Interpol that the hype around it has led it to seem a little bit overrated because I mean, if you like break it down in a granular sense, it's like these, it's like these layers kind of silly. It's like locked into the, you know, rising of New York in 2002. Just, you know, indie sleese, you know, meet me in the bathroom type

stories and I think all these all this baggage can distract from them like why people still love this fucking out to this day like why they sell it enormous venues in like Mexico specifically but you know I my experience with this album is that I would listen to it on the train to New York City to visit my friends who are working in like eye banking and like making stupid amounts of money and we would just like go really fucking hard You know, and that's like the kind, it gives me this like sense of like New York romance, which I don't, if I was like 25 when I heard it or like 14 would not have, it wouldn't translate it. But, you know, when I think about it now and its reputation, I think about how even if they were compared to Joy Division, they're more like Depeche mode to me in that it's like total hymbo stuff. It's funnier than people give it credit for, but also like really.

dumb. It also grooves harder. Oh, the rhythm section, like Carlos D, man, and Sam Fogarino, that is a fucking rhythm section right there. Yeah, that was the thing with me when they got compared to Joy Division that I didn't think was fair. I just felt like Interpol was more muscular

than Joy Division. Yeah. It was, again, just great grooves. I mean, I know, like, when Pitchfork, they did that rescore feature last year, they town-graded this record to like a seven. And I feel like there was a huge outcry about that,

which to me shows that, like, in the popular consciousness, people love this record. And I think it's justly remembered as, like, one of the great records of 2002. And I, you put it, I think it's aged extremely well. I think if people are going to downgrade this album, it's maybe because they feel like Interpol wasn't really able to top it afterwards.

Well, of course not. Or that they did the same thing over and over again. Which, again, that's what I want from Interpol. Exactly. Interpol to do Interpol is what Interpol should be doing. My most properly rated album is the aforementioned Yankee Heltel Foxtrot. I think if you're going to commemorate an album by putting out 11 LPs that this is the album from 2002 that you want to do that for, not only because it's a great record, because it just has one of the great backstories of an album in the past 20 years.

just what Wilco went through to make it. Obviously, the movie that came out, the Jeff Tweety and Jay Bennett stuff, the record label drama, and just all the iterations that the songs went through when they were making it. It's just a great story. It's a great record. We're going to be talking about our favorite albums

later on in this episode, and I didn't say this was my favorite because I wanted to put it in this category. This is sort of my way of saying that this is also my favorite. It's like I'm cheating a little bit. I wanted to mention the other record. I'm going to be talking about later as my favorite. But, like, again, I think this is the most properly rated album of that year.

It's considered a masterpiece. I think it deserves to be called a masterpiece. I will say it's not my favorite Wilco record. There's other albums I like more than this one. I actually really love A Ghost Is Born. Yes. The one after this, I'm a big fan of being there as well. Obviously, Summer Teeth is a great record.

but, you know, if you're going to talk about Wilco or you're going to talk about albums of 2002, you're going to mention Yankee Hotel Foxtrot either on first reference or second reference. You can't really get around it. Have you looked at some of the negative reviews of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot from its time? I remember seeing things like by like Robert Crisco

and stuff, who's never liked anything. Jeff Tweety's ever done. Just, you know, I think what Chrisco, said is that he liked the country rock stuff more. He didn't like this R.D. I'm looking at the village voice and it's apparently a positive view. Yankee Hotel of Hoxstra is basically a good album,

even if a great album if you're in the movie, though if you listen to a lot of hip-hop or house music or basement bonger or any other genre not dominated by white people, it probably won't be the most extraordinary album you hear all month. And also the wire electronic magazine called it, Faceless Airbrush

production takes you back to the dead days of 70s AOR radio. You can get away with that stuff in 2002. Well, who wrote that Village Voice thing? There's absolutely no way I'm going to be able to find it. I'm just looking at Metacritic. It still has that poll quote, but of course it goes to a dead link. I mean, that just sounds like someone who is responding to the praise that it's getting from the music press.

But if you don't like this kind of music, it's probably not going to be the best album you've heard all month. Yeah, it's really trenchant criticism there. I like slamming music writers from 20 years ago. Let's talk about the most overrated album. Let's get a little saucier here. Yes. I feel like there's a lot of choices that we could make that. Just looking at the Pazin Jop, top 10.

You know, I don't think there's any outright bad albums in their top 10, but there's definitely albums that have not aged as well. You disagree. Like, okay, what is your choice for most overrated? Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of good. candidates here. My first thought was Yoshimi. Because that one I've actually spent a lot of time

with. I love fight test, but I went back and revisited it, and I feel the same way that I sort of do back then. It's just there's so much gimmick. And even though I'm a huge Dave Friedman fan, this album like, it sounds like shit. There are so many bad sounds

on this, and the production is overbearing and like completely too dense, but... I mean, that was the album that I gravitated to immediately, when I saw that it was number three on their list. But I revisited it and I liked it more than I thought I would. I mean, I remember not really loving it when it came out. I love the soft bolton when it came out.

Yeah, love that. And it felt, and it kind of felt like people were maybe over-praising Yoshimi. Like, I thought this at the time because the soft bulletin was so great. Yeah. It's sort of like their Merry Weather Post Pavilion and Santa Pete Hertz at the same time. well it's just it it's the album where wayne coin is starting to uh you know buying into the gimmick yeah he's leaning into his own whimsical persona like a little too much yeah for me like do you realize you know like songs like that it's i feel like there that was

taking what was on the soft bolt and you know all these lush orchestrated songs about mortality and now he's like almost being like an indie rock Walt Disney or something and i just turned me off. But that's not the album, that is not even fucking close. I think I know what you're going to say. I almost feel bad about this because it's so fucking obvious. But like Beck,

look, man, like Midnight Vultures, if we ever have like an episode of like my most despised the albums, you know, despise as like albums that were like praised, that's up there. To me, it is just like the epitome of everything shitty about late 90s. ironic hipster culture or whatever.

But so, so C-Change, I ignored this. There's so many people that love Midnight Vultures. I fucking hate it. I mean, I don't hate it. I don't hate it. I don't really like it. Yeah. And it is, I think, I don't know, it just seems really obnoxious.

I wish the people I hung out with in college played dispatch instead of fucking Deborah. But yeah, so the elevator pitch for C-Change was like, oh, he's like getting real now. he's had his heartbroken and he's doing like a Dylan sort of singer-songwriter thing and I'm like yeah not interested, fucking pass and it was and you know also the fact that like

Rolling Stone was calling it a masterpiece and so forth and so I revisited it recently hoping that the same baggage wouldn't be there as it was from 2002 and somehow this album was like even worse than I expected

his voice is just not suited for it. I think the lyrics are still like in, they're not like, you know, automatic bazootie type shit he was doing, but it's still like not particularly hard hitting. And, uh, I love Nigel Godrich as a producer, but it just, in a way similar to Yoshimi, it's, it's like garish. It's very dated production. And there's one, it goes at one tempo. And it, it sounds like the sort of album that I would make if I were making fun of Beck. So, yeah, you know, I, and I also think that, like, on the last point, like, this guy spent the past 20 years, like, trying to remake Odeley.

So that tells you something about, like, the, I don't know. Well, he also tried to remake C-Change and was very successful. Well, with the Morning Phase. Oh, right. And he's got a Grammy for his trouble. Yeah, the album of the year for that record. I just looked this up, Rolling Stone, five-star review for C-change, written by David Frick. Real Protect the Shield shit.

I mean, I don't think it deserves five stars, but I like it more than you do. I hope so. I mean, I think there is some cool production on that record, actually. That song, Paper Tiger. I really like the string arrangement on that song, which reminds me of, like, early 70s, sort of like Nick Drake or even, like, Elton John records. There's stuff like that that I really like. I do agree, though, that, and this is something we've talked about Beck before,

I feel like he has sort of an emptiness at his core that makes it hard for me to like revisit his records because it seems like it's all facade to me. It's him dabbling in different genres. But there's not like a foundation of emotion or intelligence or, you know, that really kind of makes the songs down on their own to me. Maybe like one foot in the grave. There's some stuff on there that I like. But I don't know. I definitely think it's overrated, but the record

that stood out to me, and maybe this is more, maybe it's not so much overrated as an album that just seems extremely 2002 to me is the streets record, original pilot material. Like, I wonder, I would love to play the streets for someone

who was born in 2002. Like, what is going to be their reaction? Because, I mean, I don't think that's a bad record, but it just strikes. me as an album, and you see these albums on every year end list where critics are betting on this thing, you know, sort of changing the culture of being really significant and like, and critics just totally whiffed on it. You know, it just ended up being something that was really big in that particular year. And the streets just strikes me as like the hundred gecks of his time, you know?

That's, I mean, maybe 100 geeks are going to be a huge legacy act. But, um, am I wrong? I just feel like the streets have had no impact outside of that small window in the early odds. So absolutely I'm going to challenge you on this because in 2004, Grand Don't Come for Free was equally well regarded. Okay. Two years later. Yes. But like, you know, still, the distant past.

Here's what I think about this as far as its impact. So in 2002, what was happening like almost immediately thereafter is the rise of like grime music, at least in, you know, the UK. And, like, it continues to this day. I think it really opened a lane for Americans to maybe start listening to British rap. So, um, but as far as it being stuck in 2002, absolutely. Like, if I were not 22 years old relating way too much to don't bug yourself, like, yeah, I'd probably fucking hate it. And I don't pick it. I only listen to this album if I want to remember what it was like to go like drinking in like shitty DC bars. Um, I, it, Yeah, I think that it's, it's, it's one of those albums that I would say is dated.

And I can say that maybe as like a compliment. It's just such a reflection of like its culture that there's absolutely no way it could hold up. But I don't know. This seems like an album that could possibly be big on TikTok for whatever reason. Yeah, you know, yeah, exactly. I could see that happening. Like I think you either love this album or like fucking hate it. Yeah, I mean, I would say I'm neither.

I mean, I liked it when it came out. It's just not something that I have thought about in a long time until, like, I saw this list. And I was like, oh, yeah, the streets. Do you still make records? Like, I have not heard from the streets. Recent, like, I think they put out one fairly recently. Like, they made Grand Don't Come for Free and the hardest way to make an easy living in 2006, which is like, their, I think you should listen to them because it's about just the such the minutiae of, like, stardom. like he gets really into drugs.

The last song is about how he received the shipment of fake street hats. So, like, he's making songs about, like, merch. It's a fascinating, like, implosion record. I think you would find it fascinating. Well, I know since we've talked about them on this show, that the streets will probably end up performing on Jimmy Fallon next week and releasing a record. God bless.

We're willing a streets comeback right now. Let's talk about most underrated. You know, an album that, you know, maybe didn't get its shine in 2002 or maybe still doesn't get its shine that we'd like to give some love to here. What would be the record for you? Yeah, so I'm going to, you know, cross over, be the first podcast to crossover sports and pop culture. John Morant just won the most improved player award in the NBA. And like, you almost never see that because it's like not, you always see it's like someone who average. is six points, going to 16 points, not someone making the leap from All-Star to, like, franchise

player. And so, uh, with this, I thought about this category in a similar way. Like, it would be super obvious for me to mention like, Promise Rings Woodwater as an album that was like just really shit on, even though it's like, to me, a very resonant album. I'm going to bring up Riloh-Chaly's the execution of all things because it is held in really high regard in some circles. And yet, when I look back at Paz and Jop, and I look back at like year-end lists or even decade lists, I just cannot fathom how this is not considered like a top line, top 10, like instant classic. It appeared, I believe, number 239 on Spins Decade List and number 68 on consequence of sounds. This album basically invented into Iraq in 2002 as we know it. It's got a

compelling, highly quotable, photogenic female lead singer. All the lyrics were quoted on Live Journal, which, you know, was the Twitter at the time. There's some country influence, some emo adjacent. They got the guy who can't really sing who does a song every now and again. It's related to kind of oboos in some way. Like, you could release this album. And by the way, like, of course, this album resonated with me as like someone who, you know, like was really, could not fucking handle adulthood as a 22 year old.

put it out unchanged in 2020 and this album is considered an instant classic. I think that you know, people love this album.

Like, I think that it's held in, like people know it's great, but I don't think it is considered a classic on the level of a say, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or at least a sleeter Kenny one beat. I mean,

I think it's just as, I think it deserves to be held in, as a status of even I think it's better than any bright eyes album too so yeah it's interesting how I feel like at the time Raleo Kiley was not all that well reviewed

my impression of them is that there were some people who loved them but like it was a little hit or miss it was positive but not it was not it was positive but like it was like a three and a half star type relationship and I think you're absolutely right that like if Rialo Kiley was like a new band today.

Like if we could somehow take Rado Cali as they were in 2002 and transplanted them to now, that they would absolutely be like one of the biggest bands in Indy Rock. I think they'd be a much bigger, and maybe they wouldn't have broken up because they would have been so popular. I'm going to pick a record that I love from 2002 that I know was not well reviewed by Pitchfork.

I think it was totally slammed by Pitchfork. But it's an album that, that I've loved when it came out and I loved 20 years later and that's let go by not a surf Oh, wow! That's a, what a curveball.

And I just want to look up the review because I feel like Pitchfork gave it like a 3.0. Probably. This is probably a Brett D. Creshenzo special. And this is like one of those and I feel like, you know, they were basically looked at as this one-hit wonder band because they had a song.

Which they were, though. I know, but. like that they were defined purely by that song popular. Yeah. And yeah, they gave it a 3.8 by my boy Rob Mitchum. Rob Mitchum. Rob wrote that one.

Oh my God. I have to talk to him about that one. Yeah, he also, he's also did the Days of Parasito's review as well. He had a past life as like kind of a hatchet, man. I got to respect that. But,

you know, they had the song popular and I think a lot of critics dismissed them as like, well, they're the popular band, you know, we don't have to take them seriously. Meanwhile, now to serve, I think they put out a series of albums that were actually quite strong after they had that big hit. Yeah.

And moved them in, you know, it wasn't radically different from what they were, you know, what they were, you know, in that big hit song. I think at the time they had this reputation as being sort of like a Weezer knockoff, like maybe a little bit jokier version of Weezer. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And by the time they get to let go, it is moving more almost like in this big star direction, like very beautiful songs, like clever lyrics, and more of like a lush, kind of almost like power pop type sound.

Yeah. It was released on Barsook, which is Death Cab's label, right? Yes, I think so. Yeah. It was released on Barsook records. And yeah, I remember them like kind of being that Chris Walla sort of inner circle. and I know Nauta Serf's just one of those bands that I feel like has never been like a hugely popular band but they definitely have their

their acolytes and people who like them a lot and I feel like this record in a lot of ways was crucial in rebooting them in that direction where they weren't just going to be defined that by that one song but I don't know this is a record that I feel like really holds up and I think should be mentioned more you know you mentioned how the execution of all things isn't doesn't appear on all decade list I think let go deserves at least an honorable mention, if you're talking about something like that for indie rock records. I have no idea how you feel about now to serve for this album.

Yeah. Do you like this record? So, yeah, inside of love, I mean like that. I mean, that sounds like kind of corny, but it's a pretty song, though. It's a pretty, it's like corny, but like it really hit me in a very, in a very, like, emo sort of way. I love Blizzard a 77. I've tried with this album.

I like it. it's never hit quite the way that I expected it to. And here's a funny thing about them. Like, this should show you just what, like, Nata Serf's reputation was this is one of these albums that was released in 2002 in Europe first, and then, like, five months later in the U.S. Like, that stuff used to happen in 2002. I think it kind of shows, like, where they were at at that point.

Yeah, absolutely. And it does seem like, again, like, if there wasn't like a now. out of certain phenomenon going on in the aughts, but I do feel like this record, it did reboot them. It earned them a different following, and I think it allowed them to move forward on their subsequent records.

Yeah, and also, if I'm looking at their Spotify page, they got a guy with, like, huge white guy dreads in the band. Yeah, they've had that for a long time. Yeah. He's really, he's held out of the dreads. Yeah. It's like spoon, but like a guy who sort of looks like Chinese democracy era Axel Rose.

There you go. All right, well, let's get to our favorite album. Okay. We've talked about properly rated, overrated, underrated. This is our favorite album of the year. And again, you know, we've talked about some of the albums that made, you know, the top ten list that year. I mean, this was like a really great year. I mean, I'm just trying to remember if there's any albums that we haven't mentioned that came out this year.

I mean, we're going to say what our favorite is here, but, you know, rush of blood to the head, cold play came out this year. I think that was in the top 10 in one of those. Yes, it was. We have a spoon, no twist. Given Chemistry by Oasis came out this year. Make up the breakdown by hot, hot heat. Pretty girls made graves.

McGlowski do Dallas. I mean, it was such a, it was, like, it's kind of hard to believe that I heard all these albums, despite the fact that, you know, streaming didn't exist and I barely had like 10 fucking dollars to rub together.

It's still somehow, you know, I ended up hearing every, that was important for me to hear. We also haven't talked about Bright Eyes Lifted or Dayso Periparer. Oh, we know. Read music speak Spanish. Fuck. It was just the Cameron's come home with me.

Pearl Jam Riot Act, which I read about my upcoming book. Seagore Ross, the parenthetical album, which I listened to, like, I was taking ambient that year because, like, I could not go to sleep and working weird hours. That one always knocked my ass the fuck out. Hours, they're highly anticipated. follow up the distorted lullabies precious. Oh, good job working hours into this episode.

Ian Cohen fans take a drink. All right, what is your favorite album? Okay. There's lots of great albums, but what was your favorite up to 2000, too? I mean, I could have said this is properly rated, but, you know, my favorite album, I wrote about this extensively at

stereogram earlier this year, is annual nose by the trail of dead, source tags, and codes. I mean, I believe it deserved the 10, but even beyond that. Like, this reminds me of, like, the sort of albums that I put at number one, uh, even these days where it is a rock band, like a pretty straight up the middle rock band, just making this purec masterpiece.

Like, Trail of Dead, when you look at this album in the context of like their entire career, it is abundantly clear. They put everything into this. And to the point where it kind of, I don't know, killed their, not killed their career, but like set this bar that was impossible for them to clear. and it's kind of similar to the execution of all things. It makes me think, it almost seems like this is an album that like various forms of like emo or post-hardcore or just indie rock in general is still trying to push towards rather than follow. It seems like it's an album that kind of splintered off into all these various subgenres when this seems like the kind of destination.

that indie rock is still making. I don't know. Like when I play it now, still holds up incredibly well. The songwriting, it, like, the more I listen to it,

like, the more I get into the lyrics, and it's funny how, like, they, it was kind of seen as like, yeah, this is like a,

kind of a Sonic Youth for Dummies type album or like, my bloody Valentine, but like, kind of like, more Texan. And,

you know, the truth is, it's like, yeah, but like, what if those bands had, emotional pull and

we're kind of more like bright eyes. Yeah, this is an album that was made in a lab for me. I can still throw it on and still feel exactly the way I felt in 2002. Yeah, so shout out to Trail of Dead, making just a fucking, like, one for the ages. Can't say enough good things about it. I got to say, too, like, the records before this album came out are also

quite strong and I think... Madonna fucking rules. Like, Madonna's a really good record. I think their self-titled debut is like a good record, too. You can see them ramping up. Yeah. the source tags and codes and then really hitting it out of the park. I saw them on this tour, which was amazing.

It was like in a smallish club. And just to, you know, be in a room with that band was, being a room with a band like that, like loud and on it was pretty incredible. I didn't see them that year, but like my brother didn't. I think he got so drunk, he fell asleep. I remember the band being like pretty drunk. I think I saw them on Halloween. Oh, fuck.

Which was, you know, even even crazier. So I said earlier, you know, I said Yankee Hotel Foxchrow was my most properly rated album. And it would be, I think, co-favorant. But I really wanted to make sure that I shouted out songs for the deaf as my favorite. Because this was my favorite album of that year in that year. And it's still a record that I love a lot. And it's one of those albums that completely changed my music.

taste for a while where I only wanted to hear albums that inspired this record or were inspired by it or were somehow adjacent to it. I don't know if you've ever had albums like that in your life. I remember like OK computer came out. I had a similar thing where I just wanted to hear albums that were like okay computer and I just I bought so many like just crappy. Yeah, Muse showbiz. This is where

this is where our relationship with Muse begins. Exactly. And with songs for the deaf, I was like, oh, okay, I'll just get all these Foo Man Chee albums. And, you know, things like that. Yeah, Kaius, man. Yeah, Kaius, yes, which was cool. Kias is a great band.

Food Manchu's like, okay, but like not as good as Queens of the Stone Age. Yeah, it's definitely a 90s sort. It's like this is the sort of band that you get a record deal in 1996. And I just wonder, you know, how someone would feel hearing this record

now. I'm not sure exactly like how this album would land for contemporary audience because, you know, when you talk about metal now, it seems like metal records are so crafted for a specific metal audience. So it's about being just as heavy as

you can be. The thing I love about songs for the death is that it is a hard rock record in a classic sense. It's a melodic album. There's lots of great hooks, but there's also a lot of attitude on it. There's a lot of heavy guitars. It feels commercial in a way that I'm not seeing like bands that are this commercial, but also I don't want to say artie, but there was. No, that's the proper word. There was like a thinking man's quality to this record. Yeah. That combined with the accessibility, like this is an album, I think to this day, like you can play songs from this record next to, you know, shine down songs. It makes sense, but it also stands apart from that kind of stuff. And I love that, like, how they threaded the needle in that regard with this record.

And, you know, again, like, you know, Dave Grohl drumming. I mean, I think the knock on this record is that it is from that generation of like of like the loudness wars like where it's it's pretty compressed well that's that's their thing i mean like they have a very distinct guitar tone where it's just like you know when it's them i mean i think the drum sound on this record i don't love like especially because dave grull's drumming is so great but like the drums sound like a little flat yeah and i wish they were roomy or i wish they had i wish like steve albini had had recorded the drums. Like you had the in-uneral drum sound on songs for the death.

Then it might be my favorite record of all time. I don't know. I think it's a load-bearing sound. I think you, like, if you were to change the character, even just a little bit, it wouldn't be what it is. But, you know, you got Mark Lanigan on there. He's sounding great. And this was the last record with Nick Oliveary.

So you had that element in there. And that's a whole other story. Yes, it is. But just speaking purely in terms of the music, you know, he brought. you know like this wild man element to the band that really offset what Josh Ome was doing in a real great way I mean there's like multiple

cancelable characters in this band now Oh yeah You know because Josh Ome has got his own baggage Yeah it's problematic as shit man But again looking at it just as an album I think I'm on the Wikipedia page Calling this the best hard rock album of the early 21st century because I wrote that somewhere

At one point and I stand behind that I think it is And I just love it I loved it in 2002 was my favorite album in that year. And it's still, I think the album, I look back most fondly. Like, if I think of myself in 2002, it's me listening to this album. You know, like, this is the album I remember listening to the most. So that's why I got to say it's my favorite.

Yeah, me, I definitely would listen to this playing Grand Theft Auto. Oh, those are the days. Not a care in the world except where the fuck my life was going. Hey, I'm going to listen to Queens of the Stone Age and feel like, you know, like I'm still, like I'm cool enough to like rob a bank. Yeah, I mean, you know, pre-gaming to go out, listening to First to Giveeth. Oh. You know, that was living.

I'm telling you. Just listen to First The Giveth over and over again. Well, that about does it for this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie mixtape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie. and I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box.