1997: a good year for brains

Quelle année, quelle année. It's that time of year again, folks. Once again, we must reflect, and A&E writers have put their brains to use to compile their "best of" lists for the year nineteen-hundred and ninety-seven. Prepare to be amazed.

Dan Silk: Here's a partial list of noteworthy (for one reason or another) releases that make getting out of bed in the morning worthwhile.

Sloan--One Chord to Another. This brutally underrated Canadian band broke up to get out of David Geffenland, and then re-formed for this record. As if that wasn't cool enough, One Chord to Another boasts about eight songs that are more or less what pop music should be. Ween--The Mollusk. Aahhh...a new Ween offering. Elaboration is unnecessary. Elliott Smith--either/or. I think I would sign a legislative bill to make Elliott Smith president and chemically exterminate all other "folk" musicians. Aphex Twin--Come to Daddy. The beats...those beats!!! The Flaming Lips-- Zaireeka! Worth owning just to own. Pavement--Brighten the Corners and Guided by Voices--Mag Earwig! Two reasons not to dis Matador. Iggy and the Stooges--Raw Power (remix). Iggy is still the world's forgotten boy (god), and the guitars on the new Raw Power are flat-out abusive.

Disappointment of the Year--Shudder to Think--50,000 B.C. Why a band, on the heels of discovering the missing link between cock rock and the avant-garde, would so proudly release such an obvious shitloaf is beyond me. 50,000 B.C. is the missing link between Journey and the toilet.

Jeff Sprague: The best thing that happened to rock music this year is that a few creative women finally got some widespread acclaim. Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out put the female trio on Spin's cover and got them a spot on Central Park's Summer Stage. Best of all, their success bellowed a big "fuck you" at all the hype over pseudorocker mademoiselles like Fiona Apple and Jewel.

Daniel McGarry: Even without a Frank Black album, the first few months featured strong efforts from other Gods of Rock. Pavement's Brighten the Corners, especially, was an example of an established act surpassing even their own amazing best. U2, earnestly attempting to grow old gracefully, returned with a firm grip on Pop, silencing the doubters, all the while pleasantly chafing a few Joshua Tree-era diehards.

Then, in late April, I left England and realized Pavement was not the only band from America. I had missed Built to Spill putting the screws to pop yet again-- Perfect From Now On might not be that far from the truth. Brad's sophomore masterpiece, Interiors, is easily the best American release of the year. The Yankees also stole the crown for best new artist in the form of Big Wreck, with notable work from Talk Show and Marcy Playground.

While the rest of me came back from the old country, my ears stayed behind; Oasis gets my nod for Album of the Year with Be Here Now. Fellow Brits Radiohead made it close with OK Computer, which features the no-contest Song of the Year, "Paranoid Android." Blur, too, got in on the act with "All Your Life," which wins my award for Song You Must Hear Even Though It's Only Available On An Import Single B-Side.

David Auerbach: The best music David bought wasn't made this year. These Immortal Souls--Get Lost (Don't Lie!) (1987); Three Johns--Best of (1984-90); Laughing Clowns--Ghosts of an Ideal Wife (1984); Felt--Ignite the Seven Cannons (1984); Fall--Fall in a Hole (1982); Victor Dimisich Band--My Name is K (1981-82); Pin Group--Retrospective (1981); Nocturnal Projections--Nerve Ends in Power Lines (1980-82); Can--Tago Mago (1970); Frank Zappa--Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1968)

Conclusion: David is a geezer.

R.I.P. Epic Soundtracks, a very talen-ted man.

Barry Levey: For Recording of the Year, it's got to be Leonard Cohen: More Best Of. Sure, almost all of it has been previously released, but everyone's favorite Canadian Jewish Buddhist hasn't put out a greatest hits disc since the '70s, and if you ask me it's past time for a sequel. More Best Of has it all: "Tower of Song," "Democracy," "Closing Time"--it even has Cohen warbling through a couple live tracks in his endearingly awful monotone. The only letdowns are the sub-par rendition of "Hallelujah" and the spoken-word final track, which would have been a nice bonus but just doesn't cut it as one of the disc's two trumpeted "new releases."

The year's other hits include: the brutal film The Ice Storm (just don't see it on a rainy day), the brilliant play How I Learned to Drive (otherwise known as Incest: the Road Comedy), those fabulous wraps and smoothies, and the jocular journalism of our Bud in London.

Jason Heller: Best Albums: Bjork--Homogenic; Radiohead--OK Computer; Chemical Brothers--Dig Your Own Hole; Elvis Costello--Live: A Case for Song; The Simpsons--Songs in the Key of Springfield; Various Artists--Beg, Scream & Shout!: The Big Ol' Box of '60s Soul; Funkadelic--Live: Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan, 12th September 1971; Curtis Mayfield--Superfly (25th Anniversary edition); John Coltrane--The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings.

Best Book on Music: Greil Marcus--Mystery Train (new edition); Best Tour:

Prince--Emancipation Tour; Worst Albums: Puff Daddy & The Family--No Way Out (write your own damn songs, Puff); Bush--Deconstructed (quit writing songs, Gavin); Boyz II Men--Evolution (who the hell writes your songs?); 311--Transistor (you call those songs?).

Most Spectacular Deaths (tie): Notorious B.I.G--Tragic Gangsta Attack; John Denver--Harebrained Plane Crash.

Andrea Lynch: 1997 was a good year for driving. I took some of my favorite drives. I drove to North Carolina, and I left New York at 3 a.m. Then at 6 a.m., I went to sleep at a rest-stop off the New Jersey Turnpike. I had had a really bad week. Then I drove back from Charlottesville to New York, and I met a trucker who was writing a novel and we talked for a really long time. It was going to be called The 12th Rose, because in Germany if you want to give a woman a dozen roses you actually give her 11 and then tell her to look in the mirror to see the twelfth. Another drive: I raced my friend from New York to New Haven on I-95. That was really fun. I just drove west one night at the end of the summer, from my home all the way out to western Massachusetts. And then I drove back, for no reason. Oh yeah, and then there was that time when I was I driving down Storrow Drive in Boston with my friends from home, listening to cheesy Top 40 music and dancing in the parking lot of a diner. That was fun too. Can I do another one? The funnest drive of all was when I was driving 80 mph in a 30 mph zone in Cooperstown, New York, listening to The Descendents, and a cop was coming the other way; he did a U-turn and pulled me over. And he was really young and cute and it was the Fourth of July, so I just said "I'm so sorry officer, I was just trying to make the fireworks," and he just gave me a warning.

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