My top four albums of 2001 are so good that I really could have presented them in any order. I settled on the lineup I did based on a quick dive into each album right here and now, so these rankings reflect my current mood as much as anything.
At #4 is Ben Folds’ first solo album, Rockin’ the Suburbs. Ben Folds Five had split up a year earlier following the release of their third studio album, and this record marked Folds’ shift into what would become a fascinating and successful solo career.
Initially I had Travis’ The Invisible Band lower on this list, possibly as low as #10. But the more I listened to it in preparation for this blog entry, the higher it crept.
This was the Scottish band’s third album and the follow-up to 1999’s smash hit The Man Who. That record is also excellent, and ushered in an era of emotional rock music alongside Coldplay’s Parachutes. But for my money, The Invisible Band is an even grander achievement.
Barenaked Ladies probably spent about five minutes writing this song from their 2003 album Everything to Everyone. It’s goofily catchy but gets old about 30 seconds in.
Apparently this intentionally superficial ditty was written in response to comments then-President George W. Bush made in the aftermath of 9/11. He encouraged Americans to “go shopping” as a way to both help the economy and not let the fear of terrorism keep them from living life as they always had.
‘All Night’ is the penultimate track on Beyoncé’s extraordinary 2016 “visual album” Lemonade. The early single ‘Formation’ closes things out, but this track is the emotional resolution, and on of the album’s best songs.
Much was made of the anger on Lemonade‘s early tracks (“he better call Becky with the good hair”), and people initially thought the album might even be Beyoncé’s very public way of leaving Jay-Z.
My list of favorite albums in recent years is so dominated by female artists that it’s a shock to look back at 2001 and see how bro-tastic my tastes were then.
Lucinda Williams’ Essence, my #6 album of that year, is the only work by a woman in my top ten.
Now, in my defense, I haven’t found a lot of strong female contenders among the albums I missed out on in 2001. Maybe it just wasn’t a strong year for women in music. But it is striking, especially coming off of a year when five of my top seven albums were by women.
