by Arsenio Orteza
Post Date:
February 15, 2003 Issue Date:
February 15, 2003

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The Top 5 most-played albums on college and noncommercial radio, according to CMJNMR (College Media Journal New Music Report), Issue #798

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1 ( ) Sigur R-s

7 weeks on chart

STYLE Somber, minimalistic New Age mood music from Iceland.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW With turgid, title-free songs almost entirely bereft of melody and eerie, meaning-free singing almost entirely bereft of human characteristics, this album constitutes an extraordinarily ambitious exercise in pretentiousness, leaving one little choice but to conclude that it exists mainly to prove there's (still) a sucker born every minute.

OVERALL QUALITY Commensurate with the album title.

2 REDEMPTION'S SON Joseph Arthur

5 weeks on chart

STYLE Expensively produced, occasionally catchy, intermittently meaningful, and thoroughly inner-directed British-sounding pop from Atlanta.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW "I don't know where we've been / Could you tell me where we are again? / And Jesus is my only friend / No one else knows who I am / ... Forgive us for what we've done, Lord" ("Redemption's Son").

OVERALL QUALITY Definitely above average as Christ-haunted albums go.

3 EVIL HEAT Primal Scream

3 weeks on chart

STYLE Techno-punk.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL "The Lord Is My Shotgun," the bonus-DVD "Miss Lucifer" video (sinister eroticism)

WORLDVIEW "A life of work / is a life of crime / you pay your taxes / you serve your time / all that money / where does it go? / schools, prisons, hospitals, roads? / government funding of military science? / genetically modified ultraviolence?"

OVERALL QUALITY Better than U2 in its techno-punk phase.

4 HAVE YOU FED THE FISH? Badly Drawn Boy

9 weeks on chart

STYLE Capriciously witty, expensively produced, undeniably catchy, essentially meaningless British pop.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW In the tradition of his most obvious antecedent-Paul McCartney in his latter years as a Beatle-Damon Gough (a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy) doesn't make music with a worldview; he just generates a flow and goes with it.

OVERALL QUALITY Empty package, great wrapping.

5 SPEND THE NIGHT The Donnas

11 weeks on chart

STYLE Punky, all-girl garage-band rock.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL "Take Me to the Backseat," "Take It Off," "All Messed Up," "Too Bad About Your Girl," "Please Don't Tease" (adolescent flooziedom)

WORLDVIEW Sex, booze, and rock 'n' roll (mitigated somewhat by the comparatively innocent bonus DVD).

OVERALL QUALITY The catchiness and production values of the Go Go's and Bangles; the overtly trashy demeanor of the Runaways, the Ramones, and the Pandoras.

Arsenio Orteza

Arsenio is a music reviewer for WORLD Magazine and one of its original contributors from 1986.

@ArsenioOrteza

Bestsellers

The Top 5 most-played albums on college and noncommercial radio, according to CMJNMR (College Media Journal New Music Report), Issue #798

Full access isn’t far.

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