The Best of 1999
Yes, you old fogy. 1999 was 25 years ago, so let's party like it.
It was a time of teen pop: Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, ‘NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, and the rest flooded the airwaves with disposable, yet catchy, pop confections - the same way everyone from Fabian to the Archies and the Bay City Rollers to Tiffany and Debbie Gibson had done in the years before. It was also the year two Michigan rappers hit the big time: Marshall “Eminem” Mathers III and Robert James “Kid Rock” Ritchie. Their albums, The Slim Shady LP and Devil Without a Cause, respectively, were everywhere in '99, as was the Y2K scare. Everyone was freaking out about the possibility that computers may not recognize the double zeros when midnight, January 1st, 2000 hit, throwing us all into chaos or some such nonsense.
For mainstream country music, it was the same old Nashville milquetoast shenanigans for the most part with a side order of the strange rise in popularity of prank phone calls being recorded and packaged, and people actually paying money for them. (Roy D. Mercer’s How Big a Boy Are Ya? series, for example.) Why anyone would want to hear those things more than once - or once - is beyond me. On the other hand, Steve Earle teamed up with the Del McCoury Band for The Mountain, which almost made the cut here, as did Kris Kristofferson with his fantastic Austin Sessions. I went back and forth on their inclusion several times, so rest assured they're resting at numbers 11 and 12, so if any two of the top ten cannot fulfill their obligations…
New rock in 1999 was not something I was pursuing. Creed, Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray, Limp Bizkit…need I say more? I heard it everywhere but grunge had muddied the waters so much, I couldn't get into the guitar tones, vocals, and messages. The only new rock bands I gravitated toward sounded old, like Gov't Mule, who put out a fantastic four-disc live set, Live...With a Little Help From Our Friends. (It’s not on this list because I'm only counting studio albums.)
On the upside, the production values of the '90s improved greatly - mostly back to the "warm" standards of the storied 1970s - than what we mostly had to endure in the cold, thin, bassless, digital-crazy '80s.
So, here are the 10 brightest spots of the year … before Y2K destroyed us all.
(A song from each album is represented in a handy mixtape at the end.)
Tom Waits - Mule Variations
In the 1990s, Tom Waits was a busy man. He acted in movies: from Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula to The Fisher King, and he collaborated with everyone from Primus to jazz saxman Teddy Edwards. As far as new studio work, Waits only released the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth in 1991, 1992's Bone Machine, and 1993's The Black Rider - an album of songs Waits wrote for the play of the same name. Otherwise, the '90s saw a variety of compilation and tribute albums and anthologies. Then came Mule Variations at the end of the decade, as if to remind everyone that he could still bring it. Like a Tom Waits fanatic's dream come true, Mule Variations has it all: tear-stained ballads, junkyard blues, back-alley vaudeville, creepy spoken-word noir, and otherworldly hobo noise. In 1999, Tom Waits finally delivered the album of his career.
The Chicks - Fly
The [Dixie] Chicks were the best thing to happen to mainstream country music in the last half of the 1990s. (Garth? Please. 1999 belonged to Chris Gaines.) To say Wide Open Spaces was a breath of fresh air is an understatement. They were head and shoulders above 'em all. (Yes, even Alan Jackson.) Maybe it was the Texas edge they had. Maybe it was just the fact they were that damn good. Whatever the case, their second, Fly, built on the promise of their debut. Sure, there's "Cowboy, Take Me Away," "Ready to Run," and yes, "Goodbye, Earl." (It still amazes me that “Earl” was controversial. There's absolutely nothing wrong with women singing a murder song about an asshole. Go listen to the Louvin Brothers' "Knoxville Girl" and get back to me.) But there's also the breathtaking "Cold Day in July." Formerly a minor hit for Joy Lynn White in 1992 (and Suzy Bogguss that same year), Natalie Maines digs in and gets inside it, like she does everything. The result is devastating.
Robert Cray - Take Your Shoes Off
In 2017, Robert Cray teamed up with drummer/producer extraordinaire Steve Jordan and the famed Hi Rhythm Section and recorded the fantastic Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm. As good as it was, it was still in the shadow of Take Your Shoes Off. With Jordan behind the kit and the board, and bringing super horn power from none other than Jim Horn and Bobby Keys, Cray was never more soulful, more greasy, more in pain. From the beginning, Cray was unfairly lumped in with the Stevie Ray Vaughans of the time. Cray was more like Stevie's older brother Jimmie. More style than show; more subtlety, and more groove. Take Your Shoes Off was Cray at his laid-back, yet stinging, best.
The White Stripes - The White Stripes
There must be balance. In the '70s for instance, The Ramones were the counter to the big arena rockers of the time. By the end of the 1990s, we needed relief from Limp Bizkit and Creed. Looking back now, Jack White is probably the last genuine rock star: eccentric, devoted, driven. Inspired by North Carolina punkabilly legends Flat Duo Jets, White and “sister” Meg stripped it down to the red and white: guitar (with occasional piano) and drums, and belted out the blues. It was jarring and exciting, much like those first two Zeppelin albums, with Jack's frenetic fretwork and riffing not too far removed from Page, and his high blues screech recalling early Plant on those BBC performances. Meg bashed away with measured abandon, giving the songs just what they needed, driving them harder and deeper. Covering Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, and "St. James Infirmary" showed guts and good taste; that coupled with a nice shot of attitude - and a little talent, of course - is rock at its most visceral.
The Black Crowes - By Your Side
By the end of the '90s, all hell had broken loose for The Black Crowes. Both guitarist Marc Ford and longtime bassist Johnny Colt had cut and run. The Crowes then picked up pride of North Carolina (and fresh off his stint heading the second-best rock band of the '90s, Cry of Love) guitar whiz, Audley Freed as well as bassist Sven Pipien. They also brought in Kevin "Caveman" Shirley to produce. They recorded and scrapped the album Band (later released as part of The Lost Crowes) and then settled down and whipped up By Your Side. Considered a "back-to-basics" album (Rich Robinson played all the guitar parts), it features some of the most exciting, anthemic music of their career. From the fierce one-two punch of "Go Faster" and "Kickin' My Heart Around" (which cheekily "borrowed" Ry Cooder's slide lick from "Memo From Turner") to the joyous title track and the powerful "Go Tell The Congregation," By Your Side has only gotten better with age.
Fiona Apple - When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might so When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right
The bluesy, nihilistic, yet self-aware delivery of "Criminal" was many music fans' first exposure to Fiona Apple from her debut, Tidal, in 1995. That album established the then-17-year-old as a unique voice and a standout among the noise that was the mid-90s. Four years later, she expanded her ambitions and recorded a masterpiece. When the Pawn... captured her smoky, soul-drenched vocals and adventurous, jazzy virtuosity while delivering deep, honest lyrical examinations over sweeping, challenging, yet bluesy melodies. Twenty years on, it gets deeper with every listen.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Echo
An album that has only grown in renown over the last 25 years, Echo is a long, dark, difficult ride. On first listen, it was almost impenetrable. Later, thanks to Tom Petty's candor and Warren Zanes' pen, we learned that Petty was indeed in a very dark place during the making of the album (as was, as we'd later learn, Howie Epstein). In terms of the Heartbreakers' catalog, this is a definite outlier, but its moments of bleakness also reveal a determination to push through and make it to the other side, even if it takes rhino skin to do it.
Van Morrison - Back On Top
In the ‘90s, Van Morrison was surprisingly productive. He kicked it off with 1990's Enlightenment and followed it up a year later with the brilliant Hymns to the Silence. That double album seemed to satisfy his overt search for enlightenment and spirituality - at least on the surface, because Too Long in Exile followed in 1993 drenched in blues and jazz. He alternated between those blues/jazz ventures and deep spiritual musings for the rest of the decade, and by the time Back On Top arrived in 1999, he had the formula down to a science. Thankfully, BOT doesn't sound like a formula. Instead, it's just a natural progression of greasy shuffles ("Goin' Down Geneva"), existential ponderings ("The Philosopher's Stone"), and heartbreaking soul ("Reminds Me Of You").
George Jones - The Cold Hard Truth
In March of 1999, George Jones was driving along in his SUV, talking on his cell phone (which was still kind of a novelty at the time), when, as Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers sang in an ode to the incident ("George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues"), he "hit the pylons on the overpass" and ended up in critical condition. Oh, the irony from one of the great wild men of country if he had left this world not as the subject of "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me" but of "High Tech Redneck." Shudder the thought. Thankfully, he made gold out of the incident, as suddenly everyone cared about Possum's well-being again. He capitalized on it magnificently with the now-classic, "Choices." The entire Cold Hard Truth album is top-notch Jones (thanks to sympathetic production by the reliable Keith Stegall and songwriters like the always-on-his-game Jamie O'Hara), and thankfully we had the true King George for several more years. When he did leave, it was as a legend who knew that as long as you make just one more good choice than bad, you've lived well indeed.
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
In an interview a few years back, Questlove spoke of his childhood and how he would devour all types of music - from classic rock to soul and jazz. It mirrored my love of great music, regardless of genre or in whatever format the suits wanted their music marketed. The Roots typify that philosophy, and if you only know them from being the (fantastic) Tonight Show band, then you owe it to yourself to check out their peerless oeuvre. Things Fall Apart, their fourth full-length, is a great place to start. Lead single, "You Got Me," with a hook (written by a young Jill Scott) delivered by the always captivating Erykah Badu, won the 2000 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, but the proof is in the listening; a high-water mark for hip-hop in particular and music in general at the end of the millennium.
That Fiona Apple record is one of the best-sounding albums I've ever heard.
This list got me through college for sure. We need to also add Black on Both Sides by Mos Def and The Battle of Los Angeles by Rage Against the Machine