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Recent Articles By Randall Roberts

  • Rebuilt to Suit
    SLU won't say what it has in store for the Locust Business District.
  • I Want My MP3
    Digital music just gets better. See ya later, major labels.
  • Horse's Kick
    Monarch, 7401 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314-644-3995.
  • Lemp Lager
    The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill, 6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-727-4444.
  • Hendrick's Martini
    Lester's Sports Bar & Grill, 9906 Clayton Road, Ladue; 314-994-0055.

Recent Articles By Daniel Durchholz

Recent Articles By Roy Kasten

Recent Articles By Terry Perkins

Recent Articles By Jordan Oakes

Recent Articles By René Spencer Saller

  • So Long, Saller!
    Radar Station prepares for a regime change
  • Dott Com
    Meet Ahdedott, who just might be St. Louis' next hip-hop superstar
  • Expat Alert!
    The exodus of the creative class continues apace
  • Mix Masters
    These days anyone can make a mix CD, and everyone does. Two local standouts manage to challenge as well as entertain.
  • Public Enema
    For the noble souls of Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, relieving social constipation has become a real pain in the ass

Recent Articles By Steve Pick

Recent Articles By Jason Toon

Recent Articles By Paul Friswold

National Features

  • Village Voice
    A Long Way Wrong?

    Another celebrated memoir threatens to blow into a million little pieces.

    By Graham Rayman
  • LA Weekly
    Hoop Dawg

    Billionaire Donald T. Sterling owns the L.A. Clippers and loves the ladies. And those are just two of his problems.

    By Patrick Range McDonald
  • The Pitch
    Children of the Porn

    Elvin Boone's sex-shop empire crumbles as his offspring feud.

    By Justin Kendall
  • Westword
    The Good Soldier

    When the Army tried to take down Andrew Pogany, they messed with the wrong coward.

    By Joel Warner

Best defiantly derivative sounds: Macy Gray's On How Life Is, Stereolab's Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, Wilco's Summerteeth, Mandy Barnett's I've Got a Right to Cry and April March's Chrominance Decoder. Sometimes you've got to wonder: Shouldn't I be listening to something cutting-edge and difficult, maybe some electronica or turntablism or freaky bleating free jazz, something that looks ahead to the 21st century, not backward? The records listed above shamelessly cannibalize pop's canon, ripping off hooks and chord progressions and daring you to care. (You don't.) You can hear E.L.O. and Cheap Trick riffs all over the Wilco record, enlivened by Pet Sounds-era production flourishes. Barnett's creamy voice sounds like Patsy Cline's -- and Owen Bradley's luscious production doesn't hinder the illusion. Serge Gainsbourg and other luminaries of French '60s pop inform March's and Stereolab's efforts, also studded with glacial vintage synths and ba-ba-da vocal parts. The best songs on the debut of deliciously croaky Macy Gray sound like they're cribbed from Sly and the Family Stone or the Staple Singers. So what? Didn't the 20th century teach us that originality is an outdated virtue promoted by uncool Romantics? Are we suckers? Possibly. (RSS)

My favorite album this year only qualifies because of a belated U.S. release date. The Manic Street Preachers' This Is My Truth You Tell Me Yours is a spare, severe colossus, the smartest Big Rock record in a while. It was a huge hit everywhere but the United States, probably the only characteristic it shares with David Hasselhoff's musical output. (JT)

It's About Time Award: Goes to the hip-hop community, which finally realized full-force that the major-label system is a farce and that there's a way to thrive without lapping at the butt of The Man. The result was an avalanche of hip-hop CDs and LPs put out on tiny labels. Of course, the allure of getting paid may ultimately tempt many of these labels and artists to sign into the system. But for now, the indie hip-hop is the shit, the best of which was the incredible compilation The Funky Precedent, which featured the cream of the Left Coast crop: Jurassic 5 (who have already been scooped up by Interscope), Dilated Peoples, Styles of Beyond and the Beat Junkies. (RR)

Rest in Peace (and with music): Here are the ones with St. Louis-area roots whom I'll remember the most. Leon Thomas, who added his amazing vocals to the mu-sic of Pharoah Sanders, Santana and others. Lester Bowie, a great musi-cian with an even better sense of humor. Joan Bouise, who was born in New Orleans but left many musical memories for St. Louis friends and fans. Ernie Wilkins, an underappreciated trumpet great who added immensely to the big-band sounds of Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry. Then there were the people behind the scenes who added immense support to the music, such as Barbara Rose, who kept jazz alive at the Backstage Bistro, and Josephine Lockhart and Jim Randle, who were key to getting the worthy Crusaders for Jazz organization up and running. But Richard Henderson is still around to head up the Crusaders for Jazz and their efforts to provide a higher profile for local musicians and boost jazz-education efforts. And Gene Dobbs Bradford has stepped in for Rose as director for the Jazz at the Bistro without missing a beat. In fact, he's brought a new energy and broader range of jazz styles to the JAB performance series. (TP)

Some of my favorite songs were by people who knew the classic-pop rules and navigated them with precision and ease. "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys was a creamy-smooth confection of harmony, melody and rhythm. Sarah McLachlan scored with a couple of beautiful gems, "Angel" and "I Will Remember You." Fastball studied the songbooks of Crowded House and Elvis Costello and came up with "Out of My Head." Blondie added another masterpiece to its collection of catchy pop songs with "Maria." Cher made what sounded like the best Pet Shop Boys record in years, "Believe." Other songs covered new ground. Destiny's Child came up with "Bills Bills Bills," which took the clip-clop rhythms of Timbaland-inspired R&B and twisted them around a couple of deftly designed melodic hooks. Len sampled "More More More" by the Andrea True Connection and created something light and airy with "Steal My Sunshine." Santana combined the alt-rock vocals of Rob Thomas (from one of those bands I can't remember) with a sinuous Latin/R&B groove and his trademark guitar stylings to achieve "Smooth," probably the year's most irresistible single. (SP)

Q: If Kid Rock and the Backstreet Boys got into a fight to the death with pitchforks, who would win? A: Music lovers everywhere. (JT)

My inner curmudgeon is extremely disturbed that two songs I actually like, "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz and "All Star" by Smash Mouth, are also commercials. It never used to bother me when, say, Dr. John did a spot for a fast-food chain, but he was crooning, "Love that chicken from Popeye's," not devoting a brand-new song to hyping their Cajun spice. It just seems like, in 1999, another line was blurred between art and commerce, and no one seems to care (sniff).

That said, the year did produce some fine singles: Blink 182's "What's My Age Again," George Jones' "Choices," Everlast's "What It's Like," Macy Gray's "Do Something," Len's goofy "Steal My Sunshine" and Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly." And, OK, two trend-driven songs, the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" and Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba" were also in heavy rotation in my brain. Hmm, and did I mention that Jennifer Lopez video? (DD)

I didn't expect much from Marshall Crenshaw's #447, which arrived nearly two decades after his best work. Bad prediction. One step out of a rut, Crenshaw has put his best foot forward. The album, produced with a homespun resonance, teems with some of the most hopeful, eloquent songs he's ever composed. That they're sometimes partitioned by twangy instrumentals takes nothing away from their impact. Most important, they should prove timeless and memorable through the years. In this overhyped, oversold millennium, I find myself drawn to music that behaves as though it's just another day. Or just another century. (JO)

Best evocation of Astral Weeks: "Pass in Time" from Central Reservation by Beth Orton (Arista). Vibes, double bass that sounds like a quadruple bass, acoustic guitar, dapples and swirls of a string section, the wild prayer of Orton's voice and the purest refrain: "Come now, come on now child, you're here just a while." (RK)

The overhyped, overrated album of the year? That's easy: Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, which consists of the same angst-ridden song playing for two hours. Bart Simpson said it best on the "Homerpalooza" episode of The Simpsons: "Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel." (DD)

Best fucking-around-with-Americana: Trailer Bride's Whine de Lune and the Barkers' Burn Your Piano. (RSS)

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