The second full-length album by Damon Gough, a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy, reveals the true depths of his songwriting and arranging talents. While his debut, The Hour of the Bewilderbeast, knocked us dead with his fey, indie-folk-rock sensibilities, Have You Fed the Fish shows a musician striving for top-shelf greatness in the pantheon of British pop, à la the Beatles, Oasis, and Radiohead. Lush arrangements with strings, horns, a very grand piano, and guitars abound, with a richness rarely found in pop and rock music these days. Gough's songwriting is topnotch and by turns catchy and clever, stinging and personal. But you've been warned: this album gives us less of the indie-pop hero you may want to love, and more of a classic rock idol in the making.
Beck
Beck has focused is efforts on an unprecedentedly earnest singer-songwriter album SEA CHANGE, which finds him purposefully peeling away his multiple levels of irony. SEA CHANGE was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Alternative Music Album. Sonically, he seems to have laid aside his R&B/hip-hop aspirations in pursuit of a late-'60s/early-'70s folk-rock aesthetic. SEA CHANGE seems an inevitable and important step in Beck's artistic maturation.
Belle & Sebastian
Formed in 1995, Glasgow, Scotland, the band took its name from a French children's television series. Belle & Sebastian is precious, private but not insular, pretty but not wimpy; they make gorgeous, delicate melodies sound full-bodied. Led by guitarist/vocalist Stuart Murdoch, the seven-piece band has an intimate, majestic sound that is equal parts folk-rock and '60s pop, but Murdoch's gift for not only whimsy and surrealism, but also for odd, unsettling lyrical detail keeps the songs grounded in a tangible reality. Through their first two years of public existence, the band shielded their personalities, submitting publicity photos featuring a girl that wasn't in the band. Furthermore, they performed in odd venues, playing not only the standard coffeehouses and cafes, but also homes, church halls, and libraries. All seven members were college students, and all agreed that the idea behind the band was to stay on a small scale, to keep it as a project and not let the band run their lives.
Björk
Throughout the '90s, Björk established herself as a sui generis solo artist, unswervingly following her own idiosyncratic path after stepping out from the sheltering umbrella of Icelandic alt-rock stars the Sugarcubes. With her almost-alien little-girl-lost vocals, unconventional song structures, and adventurous production that married electronica, rock, and orchestral traditions, she became one of the decade's most striking artists
Blue Six
Blue Six is known for music that's deep, soulful, largely song-based and always immaculately produced. And this album is no exception. Listen to the first cut on Blue Six's Beautiful Tomorrow and you'll think, hey, this is sweet: lounge-y warm house music, toasty synth washes that cascade atop a penetrating (but not intrusive) bottom end. This is positive energy, not the seedy late-night vibes often associated with the genre and after-hours clubbing. Each track is a lofty, dreamy soundscape.
David Bowie
Based on the success David Bowie had by resurrecting his collaborative relationship with producer Tony Visconti on 2002's stellar HEATHEN, Bowie returned to the well with Visconti for its follow-up, REALITY. Avoiding the nostalgia treadmill that's mired down many of his peers, Bowie has instead used REALITY as yet another stepping-stone to latter-day greatness.
Chicklet
Toronto-based indie-pop duo Chicklet teamed singers/multi-instrumentalists Julie Park and Daniel Barida. Forming in mid-1995, the pair issued their debut cassette EP Daisy Smile and Kitty early the next year, and after another self-released cassette, 3, Chicklet signed to the Pasadena, CA label Satellite, a move yielding the single "Premiere." During the six months bassist Sean Bettam joined the line-up, the group recorded "Shellac" with producer Warren Defever (the track later surfaced on the Splashed with Many a Speck compilation); bassist Chris Sytnyk signed on for the 1998 EP Lemon Chandeliers, and the following year Chicklet issued their first full-length effort, Wanderlust. Their latest CD Indian Summer was released in the fall 2003
Coldplay
Coldplay required a lifetime to make its wonderfully assured debut, Parachutes. But it took less than two years for the moody British quartet to deliver a masterful follow-up. As a band they have advanced to a stage where they outshine nearly every one of their rivals in terms of imagination and emotional pull. A Rush of Blood to the Head is a soulful, exhilarating journey, moving from the cathartic rock of "Politik" to the hushed tones of "Green Eyes" without once breaking its mesmerizing spell. Singer Chris Martin takes his voice on soaring flights, reaching places only Jeff Buckley previously dared to go.
Dandy Warhols
"I wear my influences like a f***ing badge," proclaims lead singer-songwriter Courtney Taylor regarding Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia. But while the Dandy Warhols liberally steal Rolling Stones riffs, Iggy Pop vocals, Britpop sonic surfing, and even Burt Bacharach horn sections, they give it back in spades, delivering one of the best rock albums of 2000: a masterpiece of sex, beauty, strife, and wry, raunchy-cool attitude. Their fourth album Welcome to the Monkey House arrives with a cover that melds Sticky Fingers and The Velvet Underground and Nico. Co-producers by Nick Rhodes, Monkey House takes the Dandys into a challenging sphere while remaining undeniably organic sounding.