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Music > Features > The Edge of Change: The Most Memorable Albums of 1999 The Edge of Change: The Most Memorable Albums of 1999January - March 1999: Britney Spears to Blur[22 June 2009] By PopMatters Staff
16 February 1999
Before Of Montreal was one of the most discussed indie bands of the 21st century, they were merely a charming remnant of the Elephant 6 collective, working first within the Kindercore label’s oft-praised stable of psych-pop tweesters, then struggling to survive the scene’s dissolution. Years later it seems clear that the major turning point for the band came with the signing to Polyvinyl and the release of 2004’s grandiose Satanic Panic in the Attic, but way back in 1999, when more people thought Of Montreal was a description of origin than a band name, Kevin Barnes and his shifting outfit released their first truly cohesive, brilliant collection of songs. The Gay Parade sprung out of the Athens psych-pop pack to show that Barnes and his band should no longer be relegated to the side stage behind the Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel. Filled with lighthearted piano, bright guitars, a hodge-podge of effects, and bouncing melodies, The Gay Parade is suffused with a smiling, wide-eyed joy that those only familiar with Barnes’s recent work would find surprising. With the standard Beatles influence worn on its sleeves, the trippy light psychedelia of “Tulip Baroo”, “The March of the Gay Parade”, and “Y the Quale and Vaguely Bird Noisily” could have spilled out of any yellow submarine or lonely hearts club band, while “The Miniature Philosopher” and “A Man’s Life Flashing Before His Eyes While He and His Wife Drive Off a Cliff Into the Ocean” reveal hints of the everyday melancholy that would mark much of Of Montreal’s work in the future. Certainly, as a band Of Montreal is constantly evolving, as is the songwriting of Kevin Barnes, but it’s informative to look back at this period in the group’s discography to reveal the path he’s charted. The Gay Parade was the first fully-formed expression of Barnes’s musical ambitions, a testament to the goddess who gave his hometown a name, and a huge leap forward from the spare twee recordings Of Montreal had yet produced. It’s the foundation for all that was to come, even as much of its innocence and lo-fi organic pop sound fell away over the years. And if a shot in the dark in 1999, The Gay Parade proved its strength by continuing the psych-pop dreams of its peers into the next century.
17 February 1999
Opening with plucked strings and the sounds of droplets falling, XTC’s Apple Venus, Vol. 1 makes an immediate and surprising impression. A new direction for the band is made clear at once. It’s only when Andy Partridge’s distinctive vocals come in that it becomes obvious that this is XTC, albeit an XTC making some changes. Their first album since 1992’s much poppier Nonsuch, Apple Venus, Vol. 1 shifts to a more acoustic sound with extensive use of orchestral arrangements. Songs such as the spare “Knights in Shining Karma”, the vitriolic “Your Dictionary”, and the restrained “Harvest Festival” all offer the listener an opportunity to glimpse the musical turns XTC has taken. The band was moving forward and changing in ways that led keyboardist and lead guitarist Dave Gregory to quit a 20-year stint over creative differences during recording. Nonetheless, the band went on to create an album of sparse beauty with gorgeous melodies, biting lyrics, and allusions to 20th century classical music—a mix of the expected with the unexpected, and wholly successful in execution. Marked by Partridge’s idiosyncratic songwriting (along with bassist Colin Moulding’s contribution of two of the more traditional XTC-sounding songs), Apple Venus, Vol. 1 fits into XTC’s previous discography while also carving out a new direction. The album is not one easily identified by its time period. In fact, ten years later it sounds as fresh as if it were just released, no easy feat for any band, much less one with such a distinct sound. Apple Venus, Vol. 1 is an ambitious album, and one that manages to exceed expectations for a band that had been releasing music for the last 20 years. 
 The Edge of Change: The Most Memorable Albums of 1999 |
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Comments
No offense but, it’s really an amazing stretch to say that Silverchair was more versatile than Pearl Jam or especially Soundgarden. I politely dissent. Go back and listen to the discographies of those two bands. I still think that Silverchair, even though Diorama, are a fairly generic and boring band.
Comment by Bob — June 22, 2009 @ 12:55 am
There are so many things wrong with your critique of Britney’s deput album and her influence of youth I hardly know where to start, but here’s one. If you are going to somehow blame the Backstreet Boys for poor Britney’s success, at least explain why. A sample of Britney’s debut album was included on some, not all copies of Backstreet’s brilliant MILLLINEUM album-which sold over a million copies in one week, millions upon millions upon MILLIONS total sales around the world. I assure you-those sales did NOT occur BECAUSE of Britney’s song. Most copies did NOT have that song.
Comment by Marlena — June 22, 2009 @ 5:30 am
about the Britney article:
first of all Britney was just a girl following her dream, when you get the opportunity to make you dream come true you don’t really say no cause you’re 2 years younger than you should be to get into the music business and wait for the second opportunity that might never come…
second of all, her problems and her meltdown don’t come just from the fact that she’s famous, Britney has bipolar disorder so the fame only added to it but didn’t cause it…
plus her songs are nothing like Michael Jackson’s, she’s got her own style of music and her songs are great, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten into the top 10 of the billboard charts
she’s a very talented girl so even if it got her through some serious problems, she is where she should be: a successful artist to remember.
even though she messed up a lot, she’s proven to be a survivor, a girl doing what she loves to do and fighting for it !
Comment by Sandy — June 22, 2009 @ 6:21 am
That’s one take on <i>13</i> - the “jilted Blur fan” take, I suppose. Marianne Faithfull’s rebuttal (paraphrased): “It’s this generation’s <i>Pet Sounds</i>.”
Comment by Joseph M — June 22, 2009 @ 6:47 am
BSB wasn’t bringin’ it so that’s when Jive unleashed Britney? Um, no. Britney got famous during the height of BSBs’ career. They could hold their own. Also, I have never heard of copies of Millennium that had a sampler of Britney’s album on them. I’m not doubting that they exist, but between the 40 million copies that have moved of their “Millennium” album, I’m sure those rarer copies with Britney samplers are few and far between. I’m a BSB fan of 12 years, and I have never seen a such said copy of the album myself. Most of what I’ve seen are either the 12-track US version, or some other international versions that had extras such as postcards, mousepads, etc but mostly bonus tracks that were also found on the singles, like “I’ll be there for you,” “My Heart stays with you,” “If you knew what I knew,” “You wrote the book on love” and such.
Where I DO know that Britney WAS sampled on when it came to BSB stuff, however, was an additional extra bonus Jive sampler CD that came with BSBs’ All Access VHS (the tape that has some music videos like “Everybody” (and the making of it), “ALAYLM” (plus on-set footage), “Quit Playing Games”, some live performances, and such). The CD has maybe a couple of Britney’s old songs on it (don’t remember one of the songs, the other one was “Soda Pop”), and songs by other artists that were signed to Jive at the time as well. Most BSB fans I know (myself excluded though) pitched the CD because they already had the only BSB content from it, a performance of “Darlin” that they obtained through another concert special of theirs on VHS—the “Live in Concert” special from 1996.
Comment by Anna from Kansas City, Missouri — June 23, 2009 @ 11:05 am
Those are some pretty grandiose statements for a fairly decent - not great, but decent - rap record, regarding The Roots’ Things Fall Apart.
“Act Too: Love of My Life”, the only love song I’ve heard written for hip-hop as a whole.”
—-Uhm… Common’s “I Used To Love Her” doesn’t apply, huh? I guess because it was five years earlier.
“But if we educated our youth on the true meaning of hip-hop and its roots—socially-relevant lyrics, jazz, blues, and rock and roll—then we, as a people, would be in a much better position to vocalize our thoughts and our emotions through positive music.”
—- What is the “True meaning” of hip hop? I guess rappers, or MCs (emcees) from the late 70’s and early 80’s weren’t full of braggadocio and weren’t interested in superficial materialsim, ie: heavy jewelry, money and “shakin that ass”. That’s what Shyam means, yeah?
Yeah because modern day hip-hop has nothing to offer when the ‘Golden Age’ was all about uplifting humanity because - ahem - it wasn’t.
There’s nothing wrong with identifying with history, having socially-relevant lyrics, referencing or sampling jazz and rock, but I feel too many of us in the “hip-hop community” romanticize the late 80’s - early 90’s hip hop Golden Age, when that era was full of many of the contradictions we see unfolded today.
This is not to argue that hip hop isn’t a “mockery of itself” becoming the new Hair Metal, but if we are truly to “educate our youth”, we have to soberly look at hiphop’s past and understand that the seemingly selfish and seemingly socially uplifting elements of rap have always been apart of the hip hip community and as we see so often (Kanye, JayZ, The Wu, et al)these traits can be occupied by a sole artist all at once.
One can cite a hip hop album that has also stood the test of time from 1999 to get a grasp of hip hop’s contradictory nature: MF Doom’s “Operation Doomsday”. I guess it wasn’t cited because upon release unlike now, it wasn’t very “pop"ular.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Even though I love popmatters.com, there’s no need to over-credit an album just for a 10-year look-back retrospective to have relevance.
Sorry, I got work to do.
Paz.
Comment by Hip Hop Attacks? — June 25, 2009 @ 2:54 pm