Critical Mass 2002, Part 2

COREY DUBROWA

1. BECK

Sea Change

(DGC)

When last we heard from Beck, he was partying like it was 1999—literally—on Midnite Vultures his plastic-trousered excursion into Prince's sexed-up netherworld of funk. Three years and an emotional Armageddon later, Beck's heartsick and melancholy Sea Change finds him in altogether different sonic raiment, chastened and alone in a world he can barely make out. This record is Beck's breakup opus for the ages—supposedly his Blood On the Tracks—and serves as the mirror in which his artistic pretensions come face-to-face with his true self, where the Knight of Non Sequitirs ascends to the throne assigned to the new Crown Prince of Pain.

2. WILCO

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

(Nonesuch)

Hello darkness my old friend, it's time to fight with you again. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Sound of Stubborn: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the record Jeff Tweedy needed you to hear, damn the artistic, commercial, or personal consequences. After ensuring that it got him and his group punted from their previous label (not to mention providing the fodder for a feature-length film that captured the band coming apart during its creation, ࠬa Let It Be), all we're left with are the naked remains of one of the year's finest accomplishments, an LP that resonates with the spirit of experimentation and the sound of fearlessness.

3. NEKO CASE

Blacklisted

(Bloodshot)

Immediately after recording Blacklisted, her third and finest album, Case proceeded to hit the road with Nick Cave, and to judge from the sexy 3 a.m. vibe seeping through these tracks, she's clearly been destined for the life of a Bad Seed all along. Take the title for what you will— blacklisted in love, in life, or from the Grand Ole Opry stage —the oppositional attitude it connotes ("anti" as in: anti-alt country, or goin'-nowhere relationships, even her undergarments four drinks into any given show, etc.) is as clear as a declaration of war.

4. BRIGHT EYES

Lifted, or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground

(Saddle Creek)

A pretentious, larger-than-life effort that infuses Conor Oberst's postadolescent fever dreams with the sort of emotionally enabled lifeblood his emo-boy counterparts would give their secret-squirrel diaries to tap into for just one day. Bright Eyes is this year's bright, shiny indie-kid button, but in that vaguely familiar, jacked directly from Highway 61 Revisited kind of way.

5. COLDPLAY

A Rush of Blood to the Head

(Capitol)

Slump? What slump? As unfashionable as it is these days to make big-sounding, unironic "rock music" with a heart so plainly visible on your sleeve (well, if you can call doing all that and dating Gwyneth Paltrow simultaneously "unfashionable"), Coldplay mainman Chris Martin has nonetheless shouted down his many naysayers with a sophomore release that renders all that came before it a mere cup of coffee in the minors. Dark, confused, and sparkling with both promise and regret.

6. BETH GIBBON AND RUSTIN MAN

Out of Season

(Go Beat!)

In which Portishead's erstwhile Diva of Depression force-feeds that group's ProTools trappings and sampler-whiz snobbery to the lions in favor of one quick turn around the track in Billie Holliday's trainers. The result is a modern-day blues album of deadly accurate precision and confession-booth grace; a whisper that quietly turns into Munch's silent, horrifying Scream.

7. AMON TOBIN

Out From Out Where

(Ninja Tune)

This Brazilian expatriate's Tropicalia breakbeat psych-hop (can there really be such a thing?) is electronica gone completely subatomic and totally off the reservation. Voodoo cockfighting soundtracks for the psychologically irredeemable. !Tudo bem!

8. INTERPOL

Turn On the Bright Lights

(Matador)

No, it's not a Richard and Linda Thompson tribute album—more like a Joy Division cover band with survivor's guilt, a fierce hangover, and enough attitude to sink Morrissey's ship under a freakish squall of the Bunnymen's Ocean Rain. The '80s are back with a vengeance, ya'll— like, totally.

9. THE STREETS

Original Pirate Material

(Locked On)

Straight Outta Birmingham: rap and the U.K. haven't exactly proved to be the musical equivalent of "your peanut butter's on my chocolate," but if Eminem had grown up in Ozzy's desperately impoverished hometown, this is what his records might sound like. Whether you call Mike Skinner's droll street science two-step, hip-hop, or the latest incarnation of England's Dreaming, make sure you leave enough props on the table for the man destined to make British rap more than an oxymoron.

10. PAUL WESTERBERG

Stereo/Mono

(Vagrant)

ELVIS COSTELLO

When I Was Cruel

(Island)

And now, the story of two late-in-life chroniclers of despair, heartbreak, and redemption. In a year otherwise noteworthy for bratty, underskilled guitar hoodwink, Westerberg returned with a pocketful of dust reminiscent of his finest hours with the 'Mats, a Physical Graffiti-sized accomplishment that kicks the relevance question back to the gutter where it belongs. And as for Declan, Cruel may not be an achievement on the same scale of importance as Get Happy!! (or even Brutal Youth, for that matter), but This Year's Model clearly demonstrates that when Elvis feels like dusting off his red shoes for a stroll down memory lane, few of his contemporaries are capable of matching his acerbic wit and incisive eye for detail.