The aught's was Atlanta's Decade...
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I have held the belief for awhile that Atlanta is neglected in music as far as music is concerned. Well, maybe not hip hop, it is the capital of The Dirty South, but some other bands and artists go overlooked as representing for Atlanta, even though you've probably heard, snapped your fingers to, or flipped your top over something from Atlanta this decade.
Most notably, Outkast took Hip - hop into the stratosphere, right before it kinda imploded on itself. Artists like Danger Mouse bridged the cultural divide, and Deerhunter let their freak flags fly.
The following is the top 11 list is taken from Atlanta's local free paper, Creative Loafing, who compiled a (justifiably Atlanta based, Atlanta/Georgia biased) 101 albums of the decade. That article can be found here.
My biases aside, I feel this is a pretty cohesive list that most music heads could recognise as being some crucial albums to the musical landscape managed to seep into our psyche's in the past decade. Check out the whole article for more bands, and hopefully you'll discover some of the great talent that city has to offer.
11) Prefuse 73, Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives (Warp, 2001) Cut-n-paste vocal chirps blended with abstract beats that took blip-hop to a higher level.
10) Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (Downtown/Atlantic, 2006) Nothing's crazier than the psychedelic, soul-searching suite from odd couple Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo.
9) Gentleman Jesse, Gentleman Jesse (Douchemaster, 2008) Former punk rocker rises above to flesh out the craft of powerful and concise pop songwriting.
8) Pastor Troy, Face Off (Universal Records, 2001) The pastor of crunk blurs the line between heaven and hell in this maddening, self-conscious psychodrama.
7) Black Lips, Let It Bloom (In The Red, 2005) The fuzzy, garage-rock album that made people say, "When did these guys get good?"
6) India.Arie, Acoustic Soul (Motown, 2001) Self-love wrapped around acoustic chords and earthy lyrics make for an innovative debut from one of Atlanta's favorite singer/songwriters.
5) OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (LaFace, 2003) 'Dre proves he's bigger than hip-hop with an experimental disc of love and longing, while Big Boi grants the 'hood a sonic holiday.
4) Mastodon, Leviathan (Relapse Records, 2007) The perfect balance of shining production, warped tempo shifts and murky metal. Mastodon's true masterpiece.
3) Deerhunter, Cryptograms (Kranky, 2007) Spaced-out resonance, distortion, avant-pop hooks and automatic nostalgia define the quintessential Deerhunter album.
2) Danger Mouse, The Grey Album (Self-released, 2004) The Jay-Z/Beatles fusion defined the decade and elevated the ironic mashup to the level of original art.
1) OutKast, Stankonia (LaFace, 2000) The stanky duo conjures up a surreal slice of Southernfuturistictechnoghettofunk.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (9)
have a Happy New Year.
i like this. i have been adding some local music entertainment weekly from different parts of country that i try to read about music i haven't heard before. not that i have a lot of time for this but it is more interesting reads.
The ATL. rules..they've been doin' good things down there for awhile now..I love the production team outta there called Organized Noise heads of the Dungeon Family.
Coo, Coo, Cool post.
Hey-ya, man! You ain't far off... (Seriously though, happy new year, c.b.w.! And a jolly, funky 2010 to you and yours!)
@cpeterson - I could reccomend a couple bands on the larger list that I know through aquaintance. From the rock end of things - The Selmanaires, Atlas Sound (members of Deerhunter), Gringo Star (I'm not super familiar with them, but their previous incarnation as A Fir Ju Well were great). If you like metal, check out Mastodon, and an old friend there is in a band called Light Pupil Dialate which sounds better with every record.
Strangely enough,there are a few big metal bands coming out of ATL but really no Metal clubs or scene per se. Mastadon are HUGE everywhere else in the world.
@Cody yeah, Organized Noise are legendary.
@Mike, thanks! Happy New Year to you too! Hope to have a playlist up soon
Wow, supacool post, Tyler. Lovin' the list, lovin' the insightful introduction to the list. Cryptograms and St. Elsewhere seem like excellent choices of albums for the artists in question, and I'm glad to see Mastodon and Prefuse 73 on there, too.
Also, Happy 2010. (:
Aww, no love for Snowden?
@poe - yes, Deerhunter have come (and gone I guess, since their on a sort of indefinite hiatus) a long way since I first saw them as a bunch of booze stealing noise makers who opened a fund raiser we did years ago.
@dale - I must confess , other than hearing good things about Snowden, my knowledge of them and their work is sadly lacking. But I'd love to hear your input or opinion of the band or their albums.
I could prattle on and on about Snowden, but it's in seeing them live that their genius becomes apparent.
However, since I can't resist:
chalk this up to another great band I missed out on. Some how I slept through the elephat 6 revolution in Athens as it was happening (Nuetral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor control, Elf Power, etc). I found out about it in like mid 2000's.
Nice clip though. reading their bio though I see they went the way of most Atlanta artists, which is to move to New York. There's a bit of a glass ceiling.