LISTED: 30 Best Albums of the Last Decade (2000 - 2009)
*As the year 2010 is about to draw its curtain close, it is the time of the year (of any year) for many music sites and blogs to come up with a top list of albums of the year. Yes indeed the year 2010 has seen many interesting releases worthy of at least a top 20 list. But here at The Genuine Mind Zine we decided to do things a bit different and take a look at some of the best (of the best) releases throughout the last decade. This may not be the most comprehensive list around, lack of hip hop records for one, but all the albums listed here are indeed the most precious of last decade's precious gems.
11. Deftones - White Pony (2000)
Question: what would you do if you're in a band, and your band has released the breakthrough record of your entire career two years ago, and now in the process of writing a follow-up? Would you: a) write something of a similar vein, trying to maintain the momentum, or b) write something that nobody quite expected, and go for broke? If you're from Sacramento, California and your band's name is mentioned in the same breath with Korn and Limp Bizkit, then the obvious answer would've been B.
Riding high from the release of 1997's Around the Fur, Deftones had been tasked with a seemingly insurmountable burden of expectation of coming up with a release that would top, what was, and actually still is, Deftones' career defining album. What resulted from it then not surprisingly crippled the band to its core, leaving them frantically in search of any focal direction to head to; and then White Pony was born.
The title, which is a reference to cocaine, pretty much sums up the whole feel of the album - though the core of Deftones is still there, it all sounds very much subdued and mellowed out as if the whole band, and the listener, is on a trip. They no longer sound like a totally badass rap rock band they once were in the 1997 release but instead they have gone soft, they have gone mellow. Sounds terrible but actually no; and this is the genius (and magic) of Chino Moreno.
For one, the attitude is still there (somewhere), like for instance when the album kicks off with a spirited 'announcement' of "fuck off" which opens up "Feiticeira". Then the blow was smoothen out throughout the entire album with Moreno crooning emphatically to almost all the eleven tracks, saving for two tracks where he did get to rip his vocal chord off (in "Elite" and "Korea"). It was a trademark sound that fans and listeners alike has been acquainted with since day one but is now stamped all over the album, marking its existence for the foreseeable future. This album then is the template in which all their future releases, and, I have to stress this, most especially 2010's superbly brilliant Diamond Eyes, is based on. Make of that what you will but that means that this album is the grand daddy.
If that fact alone is not badass enough then you know that you're not a proper Deftones fan. And "fuck off" to those who argued that Deftones sounded just like Limp Bizkit and Korn because they're not. Limp Bizkit is just a bunch of potty-mouthed posers who were very good on their first album, still good on the second album, but then completely irrelevant from there onwards. While Korn is just a washed-up deluded has-beens right after their first album. But of course we're talking about depth of musical ability here.
*As the year 2010 is about to draw its curtain close, it is the time of the year (of any year) for many music sites and blogs to come up with a top list of albums of the year. Yes indeed the year 2010 has seen many interesting releases worthy of at least a top 20 list. But here at The Genuine Mind Zine we decided to do things a bit different and take a look at some of the best (of the best) releases throughout the last decade. This may not be the most comprehensive list around, lack of hip hop records for one, but all the albums listed here are indeed the most precious of last decade's precious gems.
11. Deftones - White Pony (2000)
Question: what would you do if you're in a band, and your band has released the breakthrough record of your entire career two years ago, and now in the process of writing a follow-up? Would you: a) write something of a similar vein, trying to maintain the momentum, or b) write something that nobody quite expected, and go for broke? If you're from Sacramento, California and your band's name is mentioned in the same breath with Korn and Limp Bizkit, then the obvious answer would've been B.
Riding high from the release of 1997's Around the Fur, Deftones had been tasked with a seemingly insurmountable burden of expectation of coming up with a release that would top, what was, and actually still is, Deftones' career defining album. What resulted from it then not surprisingly crippled the band to its core, leaving them frantically in search of any focal direction to head to; and then White Pony was born.
The title, which is a reference to cocaine, pretty much sums up the whole feel of the album - though the core of Deftones is still there, it all sounds very much subdued and mellowed out as if the whole band, and the listener, is on a trip. They no longer sound like a totally badass rap rock band they once were in the 1997 release but instead they have gone soft, they have gone mellow. Sounds terrible but actually no; and this is the genius (and magic) of Chino Moreno.
For one, the attitude is still there (somewhere), like for instance when the album kicks off with a spirited 'announcement' of "fuck off" which opens up "Feiticeira". Then the blow was smoothen out throughout the entire album with Moreno crooning emphatically to almost all the eleven tracks, saving for two tracks where he did get to rip his vocal chord off (in "Elite" and "Korea"). It was a trademark sound that fans and listeners alike has been acquainted with since day one but is now stamped all over the album, marking its existence for the foreseeable future. This album then is the template in which all their future releases, and, I have to stress this, most especially 2010's superbly brilliant Diamond Eyes, is based on. Make of that what you will but that means that this album is the grand daddy.
If that fact alone is not badass enough then you know that you're not a proper Deftones fan. And "fuck off" to those who argued that Deftones sounded just like Limp Bizkit and Korn because they're not. Limp Bizkit is just a bunch of potty-mouthed posers who were very good on their first album, still good on the second album, but then completely irrelevant from there onwards. While Korn is just a washed-up deluded has-beens right after their first album. But of course we're talking about depth of musical ability here.
Labels: 30 Best Albums of the Last Decade (2000 - 2009), deftones
posted by Hafeez at 5:36 AM
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