D. STRAUSS
D. STRAUSS
1. Boredoms, Vision Creation Newsun Japanese Dadaists break from po-mo gamesmanship, embracing pure emotional power, with enough noise that you can’t march to it.
2. Free Dirty: Best of Ol’ Dirty Bastard Serving a six-year prison sentence for smoking crack while wearing a bulletproof vest. OJ he ain’t.
3. Angus Maclaurin, Glass Music Speaking of crack, this was recorded on the glass armonica, invented by Ben Franklin, who also, sadly, discovered electricity and created the post office.
4. Russell Gunn, Ethnomusicology, Vol. 2 Iffy musically, but a primo album cover bamboozling Gunn as a blackface marionette strung in front of an American flag. Who says identity politics is dead?
5. “Get Ur Freak On” Remix Most Inappropriate Musical Moment: Missy Elliott allowed hyperbland Nelly Furtado to attempt a Jamaican patois, culminating in her “meep-meeping” like the Road Runner.
6. Resurrection—The Amplified Bible of Heavenly Grooves Hippie Born-Agains from the turn of the ’70s and their attempts at getting Christ hip to the times.
7. The Moldy Peaches Former indie-rock devotees document their fall from the flock with transcendental mawkishness.
8. N.E.R.D., In Search Of Hubris award for pulling their album after a week to rerecord it with live instruments, like a couple of Francis Ford Coppolas. Apocalypse now!
9. The Langley Schools Music Project, Innocence & Despair Grade-school kids from the ’70s singing and playing Bowie and McCartney—timeless melodies run delightfully ragged, pulled into line by the friendly fascism of the hairy music teacher.
10. Ted Shred, Hip-Hop vs. It All Megamixes inappropriate figureheads onto the same geo-political map—Puffy v. Night Ranger, Peter Gabriel v. Biggie Smalls, CCR v. poor ol’ ODB. Can’t we all just get along? Answers forthcoming.
A longtime critic for the New York Observer, D. Strauss also regularly contributes to Spin, the Village Voice, and other magazines.
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