It's the season of superlatives and Bronx cheers, time to take stock of the best and worst in pop this year. This list of top 10 albums is based on a complicated formula: time spent listening to a CD, multiplied by pi. The bigger the number, the better.
Here we go.
Liam Lynch came out with "Fake Songs" and the mimicked songs are captivating.
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1) The White Stripes, "Elephant"
A roaring beast with a heart of gold, the White Stripes' fourth album has a thick, menacing exterior and a hopelessly tender soul. Jack White, the guitarist and songwriting half of this Detroit duo, drew heavily on Led Zeppelin and vintage bluesmen for these garage-rock valentines, which tacked from the sentimental ("I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother's Heart") to the leering ("Ball and Biscuit"), from up-tempo seductions ("Hypnotize") to slow-motion farewells (a cover of Burt Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself"). Recorded in a studio with pre-digital, early '60s equipment, "Elephant" sounds timeless. It's also playful: Somehow White works the word "acetaminophen" into a rhyme, and the album ends with a lass named Holly Golightly inviting the Whites to a cup of tea. Why isn't there a herd of "Elephants" every year? It must be harder than it looks, pairing monsoon riffs with words that amuse and touch. But the Whites make it look awfully easy.
2) OutKast, "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below"
Unwilling to limit themselves to just one disc, Andre 3000 (Andre Benjamin) and Big Boi (Antwan Patton), the dueling egos of OutKast, rolled out a gargantuan double CD with 135 minutes of music, spoken interludes and skits. Insanely self-indulgent? No question. But "S/TLB" more than rewards the time. Big Boi's "Speakerboxxx" tackles politics and the stress of life as a single dad, while Andre 3000's "The Love Below" is the uncensored diary of a tireless Romeo in search of a classy Juliet. Both albums jumble up decades of rap, soul, R&B, jazz, electronica, rock and funk, both have raunch and occasional moments of class. (Norah Jones stops by for a cameo.) This franchise might not last -- Big Boi and Andre didn't collaborate much on their respective discs, and in interviews it's clear that on a personal level, they're drifting. But if "S/TLB" is the end of OutKast, then OutKast has gone out in magnificent style.
3) Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Fever to Tell"
The debut LP of this Brooklyn trio re-scorches some trails blazed by '80s punk bands, then threshes a few acres all its own. Singer Karen O. is the centerpiece, her voice lurid and sadistic one minute and girlishly vulnerable the next. ("They don't love you like I love you," the chorus of a song called "Maps," is the heartbreakingest moment in rock this year.) Drummer Brian Chase avoids every rhythm cliche in the canon, and Nick Zinner's guitar has the wailing density of a whole motorcade of sirens. Noisy, naughty and affecting, "Fever" gave everyone a fabulous case of the chills.
4) Missy Elliott, "This Is Not a Test!"
The X-rated ringmistress of rap grabs the mike to once again rhyme about peace, lust and her ample thighs. Party ensues. Longtime producer Timbaland provides most of the beats, many of them as stripped-down as Morse code -- but with the double-time rhythm of rope-jumpers, and bass that resonates like a foghorn. Elliott is joined by enough celebs for a season's worth of "MTV Cribs" -- Jay-Z, Monica, Fabolous, Mary J. Blige, R. Kelly -- though most seem like a distraction from the main show, which is Miss E. and her sex drive, Miss E. and her conquests, Miss E. and her tirades against violence.
5) The Kills, "Keep on Your Mean Side"
Another male-female garage-rock duo, but one that travels even lighter than the White Stripes, unless you count silly pseudonyms as baggage. The Kills are singer VV (born Alison Mosshart), guitarist and co-vocalist Hotel (Jamie Hince) and a drum machine. "Mean Side" is bare-bones and weirdly seductive, filled with dour ruminations about sex and dead ends, all narrated by Hotel's jagged guitar-playing and the mournful harmonies he makes with VV. These crazy kids made doom seem cool.
6) Vic Thrill, "CE-5"
Don't worry, no one else has heard of him either. Heir to the kingdom abandoned by Devo, Thrill makes highly theatrical pop with a pseudo-scientific bent. Unlike his yellow-jumpsuited forefathers, however, Thrill hasn't found much of an audience (beyond a group of local admirers in his home town of Brooklyn), and "CE-5," his debut album, looks destined to be one of those cult productions adored by a few and ignored by the rest of the planet. Part of the problem was timing: "CE-5" was filed under "electro-clash," a style of gaudy, New Wave-inspired synthesizer rock that was spurned about 10 minutes after it was born. Fame, you fickle ho! There weren't many songs in 2003 as intriguing as the album's opener, "Hummingbird Pneumonia," a field holler sung by what sounds like a chorus of funk-loving robots. And that was just the beginning.
