Tomorrow never knows, today sure sucks

Depending on how much of a pretentious bastard you are, the end of 2000 either marks the true beginning of the millennium or just another year of tricking brilliance and torrential inanity. Either way, A&E's best and brightest are strapping on their galoshes and wading in up to their knees to assess the damage.

Nathaniel Rich: Heed not the infidels! Nostradamus' millenial prophecies did come true in 2000:

• "In the year 1999 and seven months/The Great King of Terror will come from the sky" (Book 10, Quatrain 72): In July of 1999, Carson Daly started hosting TRL. His reign thrived throughout the dawn of the new millennium.
• "After a great misery for mankind an even greater approaches/The great cycle of the centuries is renewed" (Book 2, Quatrain 46): N'Sync's popularity grew even greater than the Backstreet Boys' in 2000, renewing the cycle established last century by NKOTB.
• "It will rain blood, milk, famine, war, and disease/Those against RAYPOZ will be exterminated" (Book 9, Quatrain 44): I don't know who RAYPOZ is, but the new Sea and Cake album was kind of mediocre, come to think of it.

Daniel Silk: I wish I could offer a witty little word blanket, a unifying theme, in which to wrap the oeuvre of 2000. But unifying themes are for English professors and bad novelists, and who needs either of these things when you have Yo La Tengo? The band's recent album, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, is mature in the best possible way, an intimate dialogue between man and wife, guitarist and drummer, melody and rhythm. I defy any listener to find a note on Nothing that doesn't belong.

And while I'm lavishing praise on records that no one else noticed, Radiohead's Kid A, despite the occasional dip into unintelligibility, follows up the deft pretension of OK Computer with conviction. If you can make hearts swell, it doesn't matter if you use a guitar or a modem.

Gladiator kicked ass, too.

Julie O'Connor: For a little millennial number-crunching, the math and science geeks descended on Broadway in stellar plays like Copenhagen and Proof, and didn't all those New Yorkers feel clever. Worst production all year: The Yale Rep's Imaginary Invalid. Poor Molière. Most notable trends: Mad Cow Disease and leather pants take off in Europe (coincidence?). Apparently, both are gratifying to Yale vegetarians. Best catch: Ally McBeal finally bags herself a boyfriend: it's Robert Downey Jr., on the rebound between charges. Best album by an Eminem-whore: Dido's I'm no Angel. Worst single: Britney Spears, Pity me I'm a "Lucky" Star. No-longer single: Brad Pitt, People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in the year 2000. Luckiest star: Jennifer Aniston.

Sam Frank: Now that all those 2001-millennium spoilsports are turning into the Party People of The Future, here's the scoop from Spaceworld: In The Future, hardcore doesn't die, it just finds new ways to spazz (Fat Day, Black Dice, Kid 606, Chicks on Speed). At The Hip-Hopcalypse, California (Jurassic-5) goes first, wimpily, but NYC (Anti-Pop Consortium), Hotlanta (Outkast), and the Motor City (DJ Assault) blastoff and ass-off. Big Punk/Rawk gets supernova-sized and slobber-sloppy (Oneida, Royal Trux) while passing out in Ericka's Room (The 1985). But the robots man, the robots, they're disco-dancing while falling down the stairs (I-F, !!!, ESG, DAT Politics, Punctuate!/?)! In The Future, put on your moon boots and polish your widgets, but look out below!

Jim Laakso: All signs indicate that I'm going to finish this bloated millennial fast year asleep thanks to a growing addiction to Ny-Quil. This is hardly an inappropriate way to see off 2000, however, as it should stand as one of the lousiest and most depressing years any of us will have to face. The best way to go through it was half-asleep and dead to the world, and it's a shame I'm only figuring that out now. Any year that brings us 25 Pearl Jam live albums, Olivia Tremor Control's implosion, the firing of Spiritualized, the death of the free MP3, and Converse's bankruptcy is one worth missing. Good grief. Wake me up when the Flaming Lips put out a new record.

Nicholas Webb: Favorite moment of the Year 2000: Sleater-Kinney at the Roseland Ballroom this April, doing an absolutely unstoppable version of the old Credence Clearwater Revival chestnut "Fortunate Son." CCR's straight-up-no-bullshit rock is the Summer Of Love legacy that still holds up after the bong smoke has cleared, so hearing Carrie Brownstein cut into that classic opening riff dispelled all my lingering doubts as to whether or not S-K are the avenging saviors we geeky critic-types make 'em out to be. For two-and-a-half minutes, Sleater-Kinney had a roomful of new-millennium indie kids pogoing to a 30-year-old song about the Vietnam draft, and if that's not rock 'n' roll, what is?

Georgina Cullman: We've sat through some pretty dismal offerings by Hollywood this year. When mind-numbingly predictable slop like Bounce is the best we can expect from the studios, we know we've really hit rock bottom. Even the stuff that was supposed to be innovative and clever, like Nurse Betty, came up short. I would say, however, that this has been the year of the good bad movie (you know the kind I mean—the ones that are as light and fluffy as meringue, all sugar and no nutrition). While short on meaning, films like Bring It On, Charlie's Angels, and Center Stage brightened your weekend and had you bouncing around like a lunatic and gleefully spouting such one-liners as, "Don't put the 'duh' in dumb." But it hasn't all been for naught: some people—even this year—have been pushing the limits of the medium and of our comfort level with movies like Dancer in the Dark and Bamboozled. Let's hope 2001 has more quality in store for us than did 2000.

Rick Cortazar: 2000 had some noteworthy zeniths and also some disappointing nadirs. Among the duds: Neil Young's twangy Silver and Gold contains "Razorlove," but the rest is touchy-feely sewage, such as "Buffalo Springfield Again." Go back to the gutter, Neil, as you once wrote. Stay away from Wyclef Jean's Ecleftic. Kid A sucks, Radiohead fans. Rock isn't dead; it just has some gray areas.

And the victors: On Faith and Courage, Sinead O'Connor returns and shines, even with star producers at every turn. D'Angelo haunts with Voodoo. Louise Post revamps Veruca Salt with Revolver, while forgotten Nina Gordon panders for Beelzebub (producer Bob Rock). The Dandy Warhols breed glam and shoegazer for Thirteen Tales. And finally, Stories from the City by PJ Harvey tones down the gloom and steals the year with a late release.

Elisabeth Marshall: All right, so I'm getting old. I don't care. The crap that kids are listening to these days: Blink 182, Vitamin C, Sisqo?! I swear, close your wallet for one minute and the future class of '09 or some obscene year has managed to wrest hold of the cash cow demographic you used to define. Granted, all is not lost: films like Ratcatcher succeeded without casting anyone in the TeenBeat role, while the misanthropic members of bands like Radiohead sacrificed the singles circuit to court the more cantankerous—er, "mature" among us. Nevertheless, Gen Y still adopted Max Martin as the voice of a generation. Who said the apocalypse was a bust?

Eliot Rose: (singing wistfully) When I did A&E...it was a very good year... it was a good year for old indie rock (Yo La Tengo) and art-school freaks (Godspeed You Black Emperor)...I stayed up to watch ABC (Dan Rather's campaign coverage)...when I did A&E.

When I did A&E...it was a very good year...it was a good year for old shoegazers (Kevin Shields' return to the boards on Primal Scream's XTRMNTR) and stoned MCs (Del tha Funkee Homosapien's sham-tastic live show)...I rocked AM frequencies (the impending resurgence of WYBC)...when I did A&E.

Josh Drimmer: Best line of the year, hands down, even if it was in a fairly bad movie: "The American people can stand a lot, but what they cannot stand is the image of their vice-president with a cock in her mouth!" Other than magical misogynist moments like this one from The Contender, unfortunately, we're definitely heading toward the apocalypse. The cause of WWIII? The uncontrollable breech between Britney and Eminem fans—laugh now, but if Pakistan already has the bomb, how hard will it be for Dr. Dre or Justin Timberlake to get it? In these last days, at least we have movies like Wonder Boys, albums like Outkast's Stankonia and Common's Like Water for Chocolate, and productions like Merrily We Roll Along and Antony and Cleopatra to amuse us. At least you and I can bask in the oncoming nuclear winter knowing Fred Durst won't survive it either. Heheheh.

Graphic by Sarah England.

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