2002 in music. • Page 3

1. Glassjaw - Worship & Tribute
2. Biffy Clyro - Blackened Sky
3. New Found Glory - Sticks & Stones

Worship & Tribute is one of my all time favourite post-hardcore records with a juggernaut of a vocal performance by Daryl Palumbo all the way through, and some of the genre's best songs, (Pink Roses, Tip Your Bartender, Mu Empire).

Blackened Sky is the beginning of an incredible run of three albums released over a three year period, with some of Biffy's best songs (Stress on the Sky sounds titanic, Justboy is as anthemic as anything they've written, Scary Mary is beautiful). Incredibly, the b-sides might be even better than most of the songs on the album, (check out Breatheher, Being Gabriel and Time As An Imploding Unit which are all stellar).

I love a lot of the pop-punk albums that were released across 2002, but none have remained with me as closely as Sticks & Stones has. It's just a collection of top tier catchy pop songs which largely became the soundtrack of my adolescence and growing up.

 

Oh fuck. I was going to post this earlier

 

1. Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things
2. The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
3. Spoon - Kill the Moonlight

Honorable mentions to:

• The Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas (didn't want two records from the same artist and I reach for Tallahassee more)
• Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975 - The Rolling Thunder Revue (dunno if people would really call this a 2002 album)
• Bright Eyes - Lifted... (if we did this poll 10 years ago this would surely be number one, still a great record though)
• Tom Waits - Blood Money (his best 21st century release imo)
• Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle (I could take or leave the rest of this dudes output tbh but this one still holds a special place in my heart, particularly "Upward Over the Mountain")
• Justin Timberlake - Justified (still his best record to me and the one that has held up the best years later -- much preferable to the *serious* *important* and overblown records he'd make later)

 

Wild that voice comes out of that body

 

wtf man. he makes the album. this sucks

 

yeah this is sad..... Heard "Hangin' Tree" this morning on shuffle too. Total bummer

 

This is absolutely MASSIVE. Fucking epic.

 

1. Cam’ron - Come Home With Me
2. Talib Kweli - Quality
3a. Clipse - Lord Willin
3b. Non Phixion - The Future is Now

honorable mention the song “Like Glue” by Sean Paul. What a jam.

 

2002
1. Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head
2. Finch - What It Is To Burn
3. Eminem - The Eminem Show

4. Unwritten Law - Elva
5. Good Charlotte - The Young And The Hopeless
6. t.A.T.u. - 200 KM/H In The Wrong Lane
7. Glassjaw - Worship And Tribute
8. Box Car Racer
9. Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
10. The Used
11. New Found Glory - Sticks And Stones
12. Chevelle - Wonder What’s Next
13. Avril Lavigne - Let Go
14. OK Go
15. Bright Eyes - LIFTED or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground
16. Allister - Last Stop Suburbia
17. Paul Oakenfold - Bunkka

Honorable Mentions
Atticus: …Dragging The Lake (Compilation)
8 Mile: Motion Picture Soundtrack

Favorite Songs from other 2002 albums
Nickel Creek - “Smoothie Song”
Thrice - “The Red Death”
George Harrison - “Marwa Blues”
Minus The Bear - “Absinthe Party At The Fly Honey Warehouse”
Thursday - “Jet Black New Year”
Red Hot Chili Peppers - “By The Way”
Queens Of The Stone Age - “No One Knows”
My Chemical Romance - “Our Lady Of Sorrows”
Linkin Park - “P5hng Me A*wy”
Johnny Cash - “Hurt”
Goo Goo Dolls - “Big Machine”
Papa Roach - “M-80 (Explosive Energy Movement)”
Weezer - “Slob”
Jason Mraz - “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry)”
Frou Frou - “Let Go”
KoRn - “Thoughtless”
Foo Fighters - “Low”
Something Corporate - “I Woke Up In A Car”
Christina Aguilera - “Beautiful”
David Bowie - “Cactus”
Sum 41 - “Mr. Amsterdam”
Jets To Brazil - “William Tell Override”
Taproot - “Poem”
DJ Sammy - “Heaven”
Hot Hot Heat - “No, Not Now”
Goldfinger - “Open Your Eyes”
Las Ketchup - “The Ketchup Song (Asereje)”
Maroon 5 - “Harder To Breathe”
Home Grown - “I Love You, Not”

 

GREAT list. Shoutout to that Finch record for real. Def forgotten but not by me - they were another band that arrived fully formed. I probably am forgetting my festival lineups , but DC's WHFS had the annual HFStival, and they had Coldplay, Finch, and Eminem (among countless others of course) around the 02-03 era. That's the shit I worshipped as a teenager.

 

Who am I even kidding, just looked more at your list.... they had Unwritten Law too and OF COURSE Waldorf, MD's own Good Charlotte. I saw Good Charlotte I think like 6 times between 00-03. Cheers!

 

1. Glassjaw - Worship & Tribute
2. Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade
3. QOTSA - Songs for the Deaf

Big RIP to Mark Lanegan. Chevelle and AOF both brutal omissions

 

I listened to Copywrite’s The High Exhaulted a ton in high school. Copy had bars and punchlines.

 

Ooh I did forget to include Chevelle

 

good band imo

 

1. Taking Back Sunday-Tell All Your Friends

As stated in previous threads, I wasn't really in my musical own yet in 2002, so I actually ended up listening to this album more years later after going through a brutal breakup. But I had friends who were quoting their lyrics on AIM profiles and away messages, and I had definitely heard a few of the songs before. Man, what an album. Yeah it feels immature lyrically now, but every song on this album a certified scream along while driving around at night banger. Funnily enough, the only song I used to skip was Blue Channel, and I later realized that was a mistake. Head Club is weak for a closer, but even that is a fun one to shout to. But yeah, this album really helped me scream through my depression. Cute Without The E is still a classic that millennials will cheer when they hear it played in the wild somewhere. The back and forth vocals on every song just make them all so fun.

2. Eminem-The Eminem Show

I wasn't quite converted to a rock music fan totally yet in 2002, so Eminem was still quite prominent in my CD player. When this album dropped, it was wild how much it took over the radio here. Like, looking at the track listing now, the amount of songs I heard on the radio from this album is wild. White America, Business, Cleaning out my Closet, Square Dance, Without Me, Sing For the Moment, Superman, Hailie's Song, Till I Collapse...I don't know if I've ever heard so many songs from one album on the radio? Just crazy. Yeah there's a weak run there in the middle with tracks 7-9, and I didn't care much for When The Music Stops or Say What You Say either, but the rest of the album I listened to a LOT. I don't listen to rap music much anymore but the ones I do stop and listen to on shuffle or when I hear them on the radio, probably a lot of them are from this album lol.

3. System of a Down-Steal This Album

As Toxicity had helped spark my interest in rock music the previous year, I had fallen down the kazaa rabbit hole of trying to find more SOAD songs, especially after I read that there were all these demos out there. So I was super excited when they decided to finish up those songs and put an album out. And, for an album that is supposedly songs that didn't make it onto Toxicity, it is a hell of an album. It's wild how many great songs they were writing in that timeframe. Chic N' Stu, Innervision, Boom!, Highway Song, Ego Brain, Roulette, and Streamline are some of my favorite songs the band has done. And most of the other songs on the album are great too. I think 36 is the only one on the album I never really got into at one point or another. All the rest I like at least somewhat. Funnily enough, I think I remember liking the demo of Innervision better than the album version. And if I remember correctly, this album's version of Streamline was different from the one that ended up on the Scorpion King soundtrack? Or maybe I'm mixing it up with the demo version, but either way I remember liking the more stripped down version of that as well. Boom! becoming kind of an MTV/VH1/TheBox hit when they turned it into a protest song video during the Iraq War protests was cool as shit too

There are a TON of songs from other albums that I loved where I never went out and bought the albums. Lover I Don't Have to Love comes to mind first. Coldplay songs, Good Charlotte songs, The Used, etc.

 

1. Counting Crows – Hard Candy
2. Butch Walker – Left of Self-Centered
3. Matchbox Twenty – More Than You Think You Are

All three of these are extremely formative albums for me. Discovered each of them when I was between the ages of 12 and 14, and they all defined huge parts of my life.

Hard Candy gets written off as the “pop sellout” record from Counting Crows, but it’s so much more than that. Under the big hooks and studio sheen are some of the darkest, saddest, most intimately honest songs Adam Duritz ever wrote. And some of his best, too, in “Miami” and “Up All Night” and “Hard Candy” and “If I Could Give All My Love.” An overlooked masterpiece.

Left of Self-Centered is an amazing collection of pop songs, a display of an extremely charismatic performer, and Butch’s proof-of-concept as a producer. I sometimes forget how good it is, just because he made better records later.

Matchbox Twenty were my favorite band in this era, and More Than You Think You Are is probably my favorite album of theirs. Their vinyl boxset arrived on my porch last Friday, and it’s been fun playing through those albums again, especially this one. Probably my favorite “radio rock” album of the decade.

Excruciating cuts:

Something Corporate – Leaving Through the Window: What a fucking debut album this is. I didn’t hear it until probably 2005, but that was fitting, because it’s such a perfect “teenage angst” album. So many memories around songs like “I Woke Up in a Car” and “Cavanaugh Park.”

Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head: Some days, my favorite Coldplay album. About as good a stadium rock album as anyone has made in the 21st century. Immense singles, and killer album tracks (“Amsterdam,” “Warning Sign”) to boot.

Bruce Springsteen – The Rising: It’s surprising in retrospect that more artists didn’t make 9/11 albums. Then again, Bruce hit the mark of sadness and uplift so well that I doubt anyone else could have matched him. The last four songs still get me.

Nada Surf – Let Go: Came out in 2003 in the states, but I’ll go with the European release date here. “Inside of Love” is one of my favorite songs of all time, but the entire album has this gorgeous wintry vibe that I’ve come to love more and more as I’ve gotten older.

Others I love:

The Wallflowers – Red Letter Days: Would be a perfect 10-song album. As is, it’s got some bloat and a few clear duds, but also a few of the greatest Wallflowers songs ever (“How Good It Can Be,” “Three Ways”) and some welcome pop plays that show how good Jakob Dylan could be at writing hooks.

Avril Lavigne – Let Go: I think there’s a pretty decent argument to be made that Let Go is the most influential pop album of the past 20 years. It also has Avril’s greatest song, in “I’m With You.”

Beck – Sea Change: Some of the saddest shit on the planet. “The Golden Age”? Ugh.

Norah Jones – Come Away with Me: The rare Grammy sweep album; didn’t happen again until Billie Eilish. It doesn’t have the cultural legacy you’d expect an album that solid that many copies and had that kind of reach would have, but it holds up. Some of the best-sounding guitar playing I’ve ever heard is on this album, especially the solo in “Nightingale.”

Goo Goo Dolls – Gutterflower: I once again don’t love the Robby songs, and John’s stuff isn’t quite as uniformly great as on Dizzy, but when this album hits, it really hits. The 1-2-3 of “Big Machine,” “Think About Me,” and “Here Is Gone” is just perfect.

Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane: It’s kind of a running gag around these parts how much I hate Maroon 5, and that’s mostly because I hate how far they’ve fallen from this album. Smart, soulful, catchy, genre-bending pop music with a ton of charisma. Wish they’d made anything that even remotely measured up to it.

Patty Griffin – 1000 Kisses: Runs out of gas a bit toward the end, but it also has four legitimately perfect songs, in “Rain,” “Stolen Car” (a lovely Bruce cover), “Long Ride Home,” and “Nobody’s Crying.”

Dixie Chicks – Home: Remembered now as the album that got The Chicks cancelled – or, more accurately, the album cycle – but it’s terrific with all that baggage discarded. The “Landslide” cover was the crossover hit, but the highlight is “Godspeed (Sweet Dreams),” literally one of the most beautiful songs of all time.

Foo Fighters – One by One: I bought into the “One by One kind of sucks” narrative for a long time. Revisited it last year and fell in love with it. A shit ton of bangers. “Halo”? “Overdrive”? “Disenchanted Lullaby”?

Shouts also to a few pop-punk classics (The Young and the Hopeless, Tell All Your Friends, Say It Like You Mean It) and Details by Frou Frou, an album I just heard for the first time during #MWE but really loved.

 

Also really loved Let Go by Frou Frou....thanks, ex girlfriend that made me watch The Garden State with her lol

 

1. Against Me! - Reinventing Axl Rose
2. The Early November - For All of This
3. Cam'ron - Come Home With Me

HM:
Weezer - Maladroit
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
The Starting Line - Say it Like You Mean It
Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
Lawrence Arms - Apathy and Exhaustion

Ton of good shit this year:
Ashanti - Ashanti
Avril Lavigne - Let Go
Coheed and Cambria - Second Stage Turbine Blade
Clipse - Lord Willin'
Green Day - Shenanigans
Missy Elliot - Under Construction
Nelly - Nellyville
New Found Glory - Sticks and Stones
Paid in Full Soundtrack
Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things
The Roots - Phrenology
Sean Paul - Dutty Rock
Something Corporate - Leaving Through The Window
Talib Kweli - Quality
Vanessa Carlton - Be Not Nobody

 

Y'all are killing it with these lists. I need to make more time to speak about these albums I love so much but we are getting into Primo shit here

 

Hey Ma was a hell of a song. For a while there a lot of people in my orbit forgot about it and whenever I'd put it on at hang outs/pre games people would go nuts.

 

Man, I like that Butch album but the lyrics and production are verrrrrry early 2000s. Some incredible guitar work and catchy choruses though.

 

There are definitely songs on there that I think Butch would take back, but I think you can see his writing skill even through some of the clunkier lines. (Guessing you’re thinking of “Suburbia” here, which is…interesting to revisit.) I think it ultimately holds up pretty well, including the production which I think has actually aged better than a lot of the other rock albums of that era.

 

This year is like peak underground hip hop for me in high school. Copywrite, sage Francis, cage, weathermen, nighthawks, el-p, non phixion and probably more I’m missing. Wild. Should probably edit my ranking but don’t care enough