[Editor's Note: My Top 21 of the 21st (So Far...) is a retrospective feature where our writers were invited to write a list of top 21 favorite songs, albums or anything else music-related, of the new millennium, explaining why it was picked, or what particular significance it has had over the past ten years. (There is an ongoing debate on whether or not 2000 A.D. counts as part this millennium. For sake of argument, we're going to go ahead and count it. Hey, a lot of good music came out that year, anyway, so suck it up, and enjoy the feature.)]

Hello, Constant Readers. For those of you who don’t know me, my name’s Tom Cocozza, and I used to write for this site. As part of this decade-in-review thing, they asked me to come back and write something up, and after nearly letting the deadlines fly by, I submitted this, my Top 21 songs of the 21st Century. Now, these are mine, not yours; but if you don’t agree with me, well… you’re wrong. Just thought I’d get that out of the way now.

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Scarlett Johansson – Anywhere I Lay My Head
Atco / Rhino Records (5/20/08)
Rock / Alternative

Perhaps the most notable thing about Anywhere I Lay My Head is not that it’s not particularly good; it’s a debut album by an actress best known for being remarkably good-looking, so you expect it to not be a good album. Another notable thing about the album is what they do with those expectations. In opening this album, putting it on, looking at the cover notes, experiencing the album, you have to make a decision as a listener. You either have to accept what they’re telling you at surface value, or else you have to take a more cynical view of the whole process.

First off, Anywhere I Lay My Head is, with one non-remarkable exception, an album of Tom Waits covers. Here’s the thing, if you’re not a fan of Tom Waits, and you know any of his songs, you know someone else covering them; Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles, Rod Stewart, whomever. An uninitiated listener trying to jump into a Tom Waits album is like someone who can doggie paddle jumping into a stormy sea. Tom Waits fills his songs with discordant notes and harmonies, using instruments improvised from household items and junk, and sung with a voice that sounds like Fozzy Bear, if Fozzy Bear drank whiskey every day since The Great Muppet Caper came out.

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Barenaked Ladies – Talk to the Hand: Live in Michigan
Shout Factory (11/6/07)
Unrated
67 minutes

Barenaked Ladies (no “The” necessary) are a band that thrives on their live performances. While performing live, at times they seem more like a comedy troupe that learned how to play instruments than an actual pop band. In saying this, and as somewhat already shown by their album Rock Spectacle, I’m saying that you really can’t fully appreciate the band from only listening to their studio albums—kind of like The Who, only with less destruction.

Of course, for a band who hit the big time in 1998, and really peaked, popularity-wise, in the States around 2000, the glory days of youth have passed them by. These are no longer joking kids—the kind of guys who thought it would be a lark to name their band so it sounds like a nudie show. These are people rapidly approaching their middle years. It shows, not only in their faces, and in the kind of antics they pull on-stage, but in the maturity of the band’s songs.

This CD/DVD was recorded and filmed in Michigan, natch, this past June, at the DTE Energy Music Theater, which is an outdoor, tented venue in suburban Clarkston. The band plays for a little more than an hour, mixing in old hits (it’s weird to say that, but they’ve been around for fifteen years), with stuff off their last two albums, Barenaked Ladies are Men and Barenaked Ladies are Me. They play one song for the true diehards, a lost classic called “Powder Blue”, and also have time to make up a song on the spot, about a drunk guy in the crowd who was playing two beer bottles like maracas. It’s with this last song that they most clearly recapture the feeling of the old days—laughing, joking and flying by the seat of their pants on stage.

Musically, the band has probably never been better. They always had impressive vocals and harmonies, and it seems that they get better with their instruments on every album. Here they all play a variety of instruments from song to song (or in the case of keyboard/guitarist/accordionist/vocalist Kevin Hearn, from chorus to bridge), and even show off their acoustic chops, performing “Be My Yoko Ono” and “For You” clustered around a single microphone, accompanied by bongos, an upright bass and a banjo.

Part of the feeling of maturity comes from the subject matter of their newer songs. Their last two albums deal with grown up themes, of family and mature love, and of anger and rage at the situation in which the world and their countries (Canadian/American) seem to be. You cannot just play a song like “Adrift” and crack jokes. It doesn’t happen.

Still, they manage to poke fun at their own situation, where at the end of the song “Angry People” the band just drops their instruments, a pre-recorded riff comes out, and they start to do a dance routine that soon breaks down to an equally choreographed brawl which ends with vocalist Steven Page breaking a bottle over band-mate Ed Robinson’s head, then all five members freeze-frame posing for the audience. It’s like they know they’re self-righteous, so at least they can lambaste themselves as well.

Two complaints about this DVD stand out: one from a casual fan point of view, and the other, which is more of a nitpicking complaint. First, it seems pretty clear that either (a) this was edited or (b) those concert-goers got gypped, because this concert clocks in at just over an hour. I would have liked to see more songs, even if they weren’t spot on. It’s live, we understand if there’s feedback or what have you. Second, I have a problem with the order of the songs. The song “Wind It Up” is a perfect song with which to close out a show—it’s hard-rocking, it’s got a satisfying ending (no fade outs or unresolved musical measures), and for Pete’s sake, it’s called “Wind it Up”! You hit that, then you do “If I Had a Million Dollars” for an encore. Instead, they play “Wind It Up” in the middle of the set, and close with “Easy”. Just bothersome to me.

As for the extras, there’s not that much—a sound check, a photo montage of the concert you just watched, and a backstage interview with the band. The last thing is the only one worthwhile, as the band tells stories of crazy fans, crazy band-mates and the dangers of getting a boatload of people to take a naked picture.

Oh, one more thing. The reason the album is called, in part, Talk to the Hand is that the band feels Michigan itself looks like a hand. There are no sassy black women from circa 1993 present.

Rating:

Prince – Planet Earth
Sony Music (7/24/07)
Pop / R&B

I enjoy Prince’s hits, let me say that. I’m not a hardcore fan, but I enjoy the songs you hear on the radio. I’ve enjoyed them since I was a kid in the ’80s, thinking Prince basically as a funky alternative to Michael Jackson on the R&B/pop scene. But that’s the problem. No, not Michael Jackson… he’s his own problem. It’s the funkiness. I know that’s probably not a good thing to say, given the site I’m on, but I fear that Prince may be too funky for me. Sometimes I worry that I just don’t get him.

Planet Earth, let me start off, is a perfectly serviceable album. If it had come out in the ’80s, even in the early ’90s, it would have had two or three hits, and the mediocre songs would have been brushed over. Unfortunately, it’s the late aughts, and Prince doesn’t have that luxury anymore. It’s not that the music has passed him by—anyone who know anything about music will tell you that his songs are as cutting edge and modern as can be, following both the latest trends in funk and R&B, and even forging new trends. It’s not the music that passed him by, it’s just the world. Like it or not, the man is a product of the past. He’s hopelessly mired in Purple Rain and in TAFKAP. So much so that I feel compelled to mention these things in a review for an album released this year. I mean, Purple Rain came out 23 years ago.

Even with whatever problems I had with the mediocrity that exists in times on this record, Prince still has a capability to come up with a good turn of phrase, which I always look for in an artist. Some things that jumped out at me include stating of a model, “she’s so fly, she’s coast to coast”. That’s just witty. Also, in talking about other potential suitors in a club, “they’re all nickels lookin’ for a dime”. I happen to like that last one quite a bit, as it simultaneously disparages them and sums up the club scene succinctly. I think he does swing and miss with trying to make “shake it like a juicy-juice” a viable catch phrase.

In listening to the album a few times, as happens with almost any album, a few songs jump out at you, so I’ll discuss them here, as, well, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

“All the Midnights” is a good soft ballad, sung in the classic high crooning Prince style. It has some interesting biblical references, being that the guy is a fairly devout Jehovah’s Witness, and it’s really very interesting how he combines that with constantly sleeping with hot women. I’m pretty sure there’s something in the Bible about not sleeping with Carmen Electra.

“Guitar” is obviously the “big hit” on this album, not only because it’s the first single and it’s getting significant airplay, but just because of its structure and its makeup. It’s brash and cocky, it’s got a catchy rock/pop hook, the lyrics are easy to understand and straight-forward and its production is impeccable. In fact, the song is so catchy that Prince doesn’t even bother finishing the last chorus, he knows you know what the remaining lyrics are, and tells you so. It’s the confidence that leaks out of it that really sells it.

The other song that has that confident swagger is “The One U Wanna C” which is just apparently how Prince picks up girls. It’s a classic rocker number, the singer just expressing that he’s cooler, badder, richer and in every other way better than any other possible suitor. Still, Prince breaks out that old Prince swagger, which allows a five-foot-six guy who dresses excessively fruity to score supermodels. You can’t help thinking when he’s singing ridiculous things like this that at least he can back it up.

“Mr. Goodnight” is a track that reminds me of LL Cool J’s “I Want Love”—it’s just basically a rap love song. Well, except for the fact that Prince rarely talks about romantic love, and more about boning. So it’s basically Prince rapping to a girl about how he’s going to nail her later, and how she’s going to brag about it later. What can you say? He certainly has balls.

There’s an awful lot of religious imagery on this album, from “Lion of Judah” to the title track “Planet Earth”, which—and I’m not kidding about this—encourages us to save the Earth because God went through the trouble of making it. As an argument against global warming, it certainly doesn’t have the immediacy of “we’re all going to die!”, but it might reach the crowd that doesn’t really care about that, I guess.

So why doesn’t it work? Why isn’t this album going to sell well, or really have any big singles? Prince himself is the answer there. After years of being way too freaky, and not having a name, and being a eccentric personality who flaunted his sexuality for publicity, the public can’t really get into him as an artist anymore.

Last year, Prince was the artist for the half-time show of the Super Bowl. I was watching this show with about a dozen friends, and all but myself and one other person met this news with not only apathy, but disappointment. Pointing out his musical skill, his great backlog of songs and his show-making abilities did nothing. People were more excited to see Paul McCartney. Now, I’m a huge Beatles fan, so I was excited to see Sir Paul, but really, one had his career high in the mid-sixties, the other (Prince) had his twenty years later. I mean, all of us were alive and listening to music during Prince’s heyday. But he’s just too out there now, and there’s no connecting with casual fans anymore. It’s a shame, because it’s not his music’s fault.

Rating:

Cake – B-Sides and Rarities
Upbeat Records (6/19/07)
Rock / Alternative
Purchase it at CakeMusic.com

California band Cake (or CAKE, as the kids say) have been producing their unique blend of alt-country-rock with undertones of 1940s jazz-pop since 1995. Through six albums, they have carved out a niche almost exclusive to themselves and have attracted a loyal, if not large, fanbase. This album is for that base.

Any collection of B-sides and rarities is made for the fans first. If the tracks were thought to have widespread appeal they would have been A-sides, or at least grabbed a spot on an album. Still, what a band chooses to record when the spotlight isn’t shining is always interesting to look at, especially with such an eccentric band as Cake.

They start off the collection with a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”. It’s a classic song, and lends itself well to lead singer John McCrea’s vocal stylings (that is, syncopated delivery without singing so much as speaking lyrics in a sing-song voice). It’s a pretty straight-up cover of the original, which is fine for a live performance, but Cake really doesn’t make it its own until the last thirty seconds of the song, when their signature trumpet sound (courtesy of Vince DeFiore) comes in to escort the song to the fade out. Still, it’s a powerful opening, and stands in contrast to most of the rest of the album. I say most of the album for a specific reason, which will be detailed later.

The second track is one of several country songs on the album. It stands out somewhat as it tells the tale of a crippled, dying veteran who’s begging his wife not to cheat on him again. It speaks of the anger and frustration of veterans, and the reason it’s on here is pretty clear in today’s climate. It ends with the main character of the song, the veteran, murderously yelling for his lady to get back in the house. Powerful stuff, even with Joel McCrea’s normally passionless voice.

The next track is a cover of the Muppet classic “Mahna Mahna”, lately seen in Diet Dr. Pepper commercials. This is a song that the Muppets sang, and is therefore great. The fact that Cake covers this pretty much perfectly explains why I like this band. Well, that and they have a song called “Mr. Mastodon Farm”.

Some more country songs and some instrumental pieces help fill out the album, but the next song of note is a cover again (there’s only three original songs on a 12-track album, but they usually, “War Pigs” aside, do a good job of making a song their own, so one doesn’t really mind). It’s the standard “Strangers in the Night”, which is as much a Frank Sinatra song as any. Now while it’s fair to say that Frank Sinatra would have not only disliked this band, but would have likely threatened to punch Joel McCrea in the face if he heard this version of the song, The Chairman of the Board was an angry man, and I’m not so quick to judge. This cover is not only good, but it actually does justice and pays homage to the more classic renditions of the song. McCrea also shows off his vocal chops a bit here, and shows that he really could sing, he just chooses not to—which you have to admit, is a daring decision for a front man.

Now we cover what originally made me excited to get this album, Cake’s cover of “Never Never Gonna Give You Up” by Barry White. Unfortunately, nothing will ever match up to their incredible cover of “I Will Survive”, and the comparisons here are inevitable, as both originals are late ’70s R&B-disco hits. That being said, when the chorus kicks in, the whole band hits a really good groove and the sense of fun that you’re looking for the whole track really comes in. However the chorus doesn’t come in until halfway through the song, and until then the track kind of flounders a bit. It’s worth noting that it sounds much more natural for McCrea to say “quitting just ain’t my shtick” then it does when Barry White says it.

They close out the album with two live tracks, original compositions both. “It’s Coming Down” and “Short Skirt/Long Jacket”. “It’s Coming Down” is actually the better live track, having a driving rhythm section to push it forward. However, “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” is just one of the best songs written in the first half of the decade. And I sing it every time I can at karaoke, much to the chagrin of people of who have never heard the song. Actually, I feel bad for anyone who hears me sing karaoke, but never mind that now.

There is a hidden track on this song, and let me take this opportunity to say that I love this practice. Hidden tracks are great, and make me feel like (a) I have a secret with the artist and (b) I have gotten more for my money. Now this is exactly what they may want me to feel, but whatever. It works. The hidden track in this case is a third live song, and that song is a second rendition of “War Pigs” which is just much better, with a little bit harder edge, and a little bit more of a flavor of the band in it.

All in all the album is a fun listen. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it has a good variety of songs. It won’t be gaining any new fans, but then again, that really wasn’t the intent.

One last note. The album is advertised as having a scratch-and-sniff cover, and I was happy to find out that this is not a joke. I don’t think the smell really matches the car and flowers that appear on the cover, nor does it smell like a cake, but you scratch it and it smells like something other than paper, which is more than most albums can say.

Rating:

Charlotte Gainsbourg – 5:55
Vice Records (North American release 4/24/07)
Rock / Pop

My first thought when listening to this album was that Charlotte Gainsbourg is trying to prove something. There was a subtext throughout the eleven songs of 5:55 that spoke, at least to me, of a breaking away of chains. It was clear I was going to have to do some research. Luckily, not only am I a hip internet writer, I can also use this sucker as a research tool of sorts.

You see, it turns out that Charlotte Gainsbourg is famous. Not famous; she doesn’t possess an omni-present celebrity like Tom Cruise, Paul McCartney or Optimus Prime. But she is a French actress of some note; she’s been a critical darling and box-office success since she was 13 (she’s now 36). Furthermore, her father, Serge Gainsbourg, is famous, at least in his native France. He was a musician, and a controversial one to boot, changing genres album to album, and singing frankly, sometimes outrageously, about sex. On Charlotte’s debut album—again, when she was 13—her father and she shared a duet on a song about incest.

Hey, look, they’re French.

So this is not only an album by the scion of a musical icon, but of a successful actress as well. Luckily for her, for me and for everyone else that has or will listen to 5:55, this is the only time she’ll be compared to J-Lo meets Jakob Dylan.

The tracks on the album aren’t particularly personal, at least not to Charlotte Gainsbourg, having been crafted by team that includes French duo Air (writing the music), British pop star Jarvis Cocker (who handled the lyrics with Neil Hannon and Gainsbourg), engineer David Campbell (father of Beck!) and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. Perhaps, needless to say, but with all the talent involved, the album sounds a bit over-produced. But hey, so does “Strawberry Fields Forever”. I’m just saying, it’s not always a bad thing.

Onto the album itself. First off, it’s almost all in English, which is a score for me, because my high school French was tres mal. The tracks range from the ethereal title track to the upbeat pop of “Everything I Cannot See”. You almost can’t tell if Gainsbourg can really sing or not, because her voice rarely goes above a whisper, but it works for the kind of music they’re making. It causes you to pay attention to the lyrics more, and in doing so, listen to the music (mostly piano, strings, and percussion) closely as well. The music and lyrics very mesh well on the album as a whole, giving the whole thing a deep, meaningful feel, even if it’s not actually deep and meaningful.

Most the songs on the album deal with relationships in a very esoteric, very… French way (I shudder to use stereotypes, but the whole album makes you think of a guy in a striped shirt and a beret smoking a cigarette in a cafe and lamenting about love). A few songs stand out, or are at least notable for their metaphoric subject matter.

“AF607105” is one of these songs, using the metaphor for airline travel, and specifically a flight (AF 6070105, natch) that is crashing, to talk about relationships. Somehow this song isn’t straight out depressing, but more thoughtful and studied. It also includes the lines “The cabin is burning / I smile and feel complete”, which is just kind of bad-ass.

“The Operation” talks about fixing a relationship, but instead of going to couples therapy, Charlotte is just cutting her lover open and fixing whatever the hell is broken inside of him, using the most modern technology. Sure, it’s weird, but she sticks to the idea and doesn’t break at any point in the song, and she delivers it with a whispering intensity that kind of sells the whole concept.

There are some songs that don’t work as well; “Beauty Mark” is kind of clichéd, and “Little Monsters” reads like high school poetry. Talented high school poetry, but still overly dramatic with florid imagery.

These flaws bring the album down some, but still it does a good job of tuning listeners in to Charlotte Gainsbourg is (a) not her father, (b) not pursuing a vanity project and (c) takes what she’s doing seriously. It also manages to entertain, and be a good lonely Sunday afternoon album.

Rating:

Barenaked Ladies – Barenaked Ladies Are Men
Desperation Records (2/6/07)
Pop / Rock

They’ve gone from singing about macaroni and cheese, underwear jokes and chimpanzees to singing about marriage, perils of success and politics. After seventeen years as a band, Canada’s Lost Boys of pop have grown up. But is that a good thing?

Well, yes and no.

Barenaked Ladies Are Men is the latest album from Canadian popsters Barenaked Ladies, who exploded in America in the late nineties, and kind of dwindled away slowly from the public eye since then. They haven’t stopped making albums though, always keeping their sense of fun, wordplay and youth—at least until last year.

2006 saw the release of Barenaked Ladies Are Me, a companion piece to Are Men, and their first self-produced album of original material. With softer sounds, less whimsy and more adult subject matter, Are Me was quite a departure from their previous work. Unfortunately, it also wasn’t that good, as the whole album seemed to struggle to show to people that the band could write songs for grown-ups.

However, the album doesn’t struggle through those growing pains, as the songs are written and presented with more confidence. It takes the lyrical wordplay of Ed Robertson and the powerhouse vocals that Steven Page is capable of, and applies them to songs more apropos to men in their mid-thirties. Also, they share the album more with voices of other band members, with keyboardist/guitarist Kevin Hearn penning and singing two songs.

The album actually starts off with a Hearn composition, “Serendipity”; his high reedy voice recalling a childhood romance, and reasoning however sweet it seemed, it’s probably better it never worked out, for both of them. There’s no punchline, and no grit; it’s a sincere song about looking back at youth, and an interesting way to start off the album.

The rest of the first half of the album cycles between songs by Ed Robertson and Steven Page. Robertson’s contributions here are workable, with the music and interlocking harmonies overwhelming the lyrics mostly, though he does shine with the bitter putdown “Down to Earth”. Page, on the other hand, struggles with pedestrian songs that rely on his vocals more than any musical worth they inherently have. The album takes a turn, however, on Stephen Page’s third song, “Running Out of Ink”. It’s a song about his struggles to write anything worth a damn, now that he’s successful. It seems his friends, his loved ones, even himself just seems to think he can’t cut it anymore. It’s a startling song, not only because it reveals so much about the mindset of someone who was briefly very famous and is struggling to recapture it, but because its placement on the album, after two weaker songs, reinforces its message even more.

The latter half of the album is much stronger, with songs like “Half a Heart” and “Quality” highlighting the lyrical strengths of Robertson, and “The New Sad” and “Why Say Anything Nice” having Page give his takes on relationships in marriage. The one song that stands out, though, is called “Fun & Games”. It’s written from the perspective, apparently, of President Bush and his advisors. It’s basically asking you, the American public, why are you getting so upset about the war in Iraq. Didn’t you get that it’s just a joke? This song is surprising on multiple accounts. One is blatant political slant—it’s an arena that the Barenaked Ladies almost never venture in, and when they do, it’s usually in a tangential way. Secondly, it’s the viciousness in the lyrics; they have a bite and violence to them you just don’t expect, especially contrasted with the jauntiness of the music. When Ed Robertson sings, “They were shocked and they were awed and they were blown in half” or perhaps even more surprising, “There’s no need to draft them / The poor and black all need their room and board”, you pretty much do an aural double take. Or you would, if I didn’t just tell you it was coming.

The album taken as a whole is good for what it is, which is basically a adult contemporary album by a pop band. After a shaky beginning, the album hits its stride, mixing in the things that made the band successful with strides in a new direction. It’s not for everyone’s tastes, as it’s really aimed at people in their thirties, which really is not a pop band’s ideal target audience. That hurts the album as much as any weaknesses in songwriting.

Rating: