So, if you've been following national news for fellow Malaysians, and the international news for international readers, the one newspiece that has been headlining the Malaysian press as of late is about the uncivilized attack on churches and mosques in Malaysia, which many people believed that it was deliberately done so as to cause social unrest and racial tension. Deliberate or not, to the culprits: please do the world a huge favor, go watch the news about Haiti, read some books on current politics and economy, have a drink while ponder on philosophical question about the real purpose of our being here in this world, and go fuck yourself you fucking sons of cock-blowing bitches because we're all for a stable, united and civilized world, assholes.

The Off-colored Officer - Gifts From the Aughties (Pt.2)


I read a newspaper yesterday and in one of the many articles featured, one in particular caught my attention which was about the last decade. The writer wrote that the English language has hit a wall in its incapability to come up with a name for that particular decade. I mean, we've had the 70's, the 80's, and the 90's. So what about the 00's? That was exactly the question raised by the writer. There has been a number of suggestions on what would be the best and most appropriate name, and among few of them:
1) The New Millenium - it's too Dean Koontz-y
2) The Singles - reminds me of cheese (Kraft Singles)
3) The Aughts - a cheap, one-album-wonder The Pretenders' imitator band
4) The Naughties - a better, more well-known Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine's imitator band
5) The Zeroes - sounds utterly hopeless
6) The 00's - dangerously looks too similar with a pair of boob
As you could have probably guessed so, none of the suggestions work. Thus, it is with great irony though for me to celebrate the death of the failed decade with a feature on some of the most important album ever released during the Aughts. We have started with Badly Drawn Boy; so now, here's the second part...

Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
Release date: May 22, 2000
Label: Aftermath

It's a milestone in cursing and moaning. Sure, we've had loads of Hip Hop record all the way back to the 80's, and some of them have been real good like Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique and Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. However, during mid to late 90's Hip Hop went through a disgraceful fall thanks to rappers (or so) like Puff Daddy, Ma$e, DMX, and the whole Bad Boy Records ensemble. So, the year 2000 HAS to be the year where it makes a "comeback". And a comeback it does made - all totally pissed off and whining about the cruel injustice that had befallen on the defenseless little dude called Hip Hop (or Mr. Mathers himself, in which case is a pussy).

Outkast - Stankonia
Release date: October 31, 2000
Label: LaFace/Arista

This album made number 359 in the 2003 edition of Rolling Stones' 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It also received an honorable mention in 2006 in Time magazine. It was one of the most diversified Hip Hop album by two of the most creative and innovative musician today. And it has "Ms. Jackson".

The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Release date: July 3, 2001
Label: Sympathy for the Record

The Strokes may have been the band that popularized the Garage Rock revival movement but that is because they are a fashionable band - they are a fashion icon. The Jack and Meg duo is the anti-thesis of Julian Casablancas and co. They are not the most fashionable, they do not have mass MTV appeal, they are not the darling of the media at the height of the revival, but they made one of the most honest-to-goodness fun-filled Garage Rock album of all time. "Fell in Love With a Girl", though clocking at a very brief one minute plus, is more the party tune in oppose to "Last Nite", which is a late night, groggy-headed, personal recollection musing after a wild night out.

The Strokes - Is This It
Release date: August 27, 2001
Label: RCA

Alas, The White Stripes may have been the most "The" band of them all but one simple fact remains: The Strokes made the revival. They didn't start it, they made it happen.

Jay-Z - The Blueprint
Release date: September 11, 2001
Label: Roc-A-Fella

How good was this album? Well, for the simple matter of fact that Jay-Z went on to release a further two albums all as a continuation of this album speaks volume. It also made a total number of eleven appearances in various lists of greatest album ever made. Plus, Jay-Z has been struggling ever since to release a record that surpasses this one Hell of a blueprint. All of his later works has been, at best, patchy.

Incubus - Morning View
Release date: October 23, 2001
Label: Epic/Immortal

Even with this album making it into the list, I am still of the opinion that S.C.I.E.N.C.E. is still Incubus' best album so far, irregardless of the fact that they sound like a copycat Red Hot Chili Peppers rip-off in that album. It's a proper rocker. What I am tempted to say about this album is that it marks the complete departure of the band from Hard Rock to Soft Rock - like shifting from listening to Metallica to listening to Aqua. Like changing from working out at the gym every fortnight to attending Cake Baking Class every Thursday. But as a result of that, apart from forever being ingrained in my psyche that they have turned to a bunch of pussies, Incubus have become a class act. And that is the best option of all the available evolution options. (Are you reading this Limp Bizkit?)

The Off-colored Officer - Gifts From the Aughties (Pt.1)


I read a newspaper yesterday and in one of the many articles featured, one in particular caught my attention which was about the last decade. The writer wrote that the English language has hit a wall in its incapability to come up with a name for that particular decade. I mean, we've had the 70's, the 80's, and the 90's. So what about the 00's? That was exactly the question raised by the writer. There has been a number of suggestions on what would be the best and most appropriate name, and among few of them:
1) The New Millenium - it's too Dean Koontz-y
2) The Singles - reminds me of cheese (Kraft Singles)
3) The Aughts - a cheap, one-album-wonder The Pretenders' imitator band
4) The Naughties - a better, more well-known Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine's imitator band
5) The Zeroes - sounds utterly hopeless
6) The 00's - dangerously looks too similar with a pair of boob
As you could have probably guessed so, none of the suggestions work. Thus, it is with great irony though for me to celebrate the death of the failed decade with a feature on some of the most important album ever released during the Aughts. Starting with...

Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast
Release date: June 26, 2000
Label: XL Recording

I guess it would be very easy for me to begin this feature with Radiohead's Kid A, already the single most important record of the Aughts. It is kind of obvious where did the idea for this feature came from so I thought I better save it for later and instead wrote on something less obvious. Something that perhaps not many people realize it but that's the fact nevertheless. Badly Drawn Boy is essentially a vehicle for one-man-show, play-all use-all, where-available, where-fitting Damon Gough. He make, wrote, and sang some of the most delightful, fun, occasionally weird, uncompromising, occasionally beautiful, and occasionally impromptu songs that man has ever listened to.

The sole reason why BDB's debut album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast deserves the recognition as the most important album of the last decade is the same with how BDB's music has essentially 'reconfigured' the term singer-songwriter. I'm not sure the term 'reconfigured' is the most appropriate but that's the only word that my brain is capable of producing right now. What was traditionally associated with the term singer-songwriter is the image of a troubadour: usually unwashed for several weeks, reeks of alcohol and sweat and blood and tears, faded shirt and jeans, and holding a guitar while face pointing towards somewhere vague in a deep-in-thought pose. Singer-songwriter's music are usually a highly personal recollection of the singer's experience with drugs/alcohol abuse/failed romantic relationship and how he/she dealt with it. They are choke full of emotion. But then BDB came along.

A singer-songwriter is no longer a stinking, heartbroken, lonely hobo with a guitar and lots of songs in their head. A singer-songwriter now, according to BDB, is a highly civilized member of the society who has a lot of money at his/her disposal and is making/writing songs because he/she can do it. So they are able to throw every single musical instrument that their hand can reach into a single composition. Gone are the stark soundscape of a broken heart and replaced with a spectacular orgasmic concoction of equal genuine songcraftmanship and insanity. A singer-songwriter nowadays is now, in practice, a full blown strings ensemble. No I meant to say in theory.

What The Hour of Bewilderbeast has achieved that merits its status as "the most important" lies within the heart of the record. It may be a tad too long a record (18 tracks altogether), and that all the songs in the album don't seem to slot in nicely to make it a cohesive unit. But then exactly in that chaos and perplexing weirdness that makes the album a true gem. Because as with Damon Gough himself, Badly Drawn Boy is as a whole a representation of the 'do as I please' mantra. The same goes with the album - it sounds and feels like the album was made purposely to sound and feel like it was made with no purpose at all. Like it was made not as a statement of the singer's artistic craft, but as a statement of the singer's artistic freedom.

As we'll move along this feature in coming weeks with more important albums of the decade, we will be able to see how artistic freedom has become the go-to mantra for many artists/bands. How artistic freedom has shaped the music that we've listened to in the last decade. Because the Aughts was all about individuals standing out from the rest. Because the Aughts was the year of Facebook and Twitter - it was the decade of 'me'. The Hour of Bewilderbeast is an outstanding record, and an outstanding example of how the 'me' culture has shaped the music as well. The 'me' culture resents itself of having any purpose, so long as it stands out from the rest, a lot of people pay attention, and that's that.

The album, in practice, is a bewildering collection of nonsensical musings that is at odds with each other. It is beautiful and mesmerizing because of how fun and childish the album feels. It is an outstanding piece of art because the way the album was engineered, it becomes a collage and not a pile of incomprehensible garbage. It is important for the decade because it shows how music of the 'me' decade should be.