Melody Maker: 10 Essential Bands For The 2000 Festival Season

Thursday Songs:

Cranes - Thursday (on Wings of Joy) - A cross between a wispy cloud and a bit of lemon sherbet as it melts on your tongue.

Piziccato Five - Thursday (on The Sound of Music by Pizzicato Five) Breezy Japanese pop unless the lyrics are sinister, in which case it's superficially breezy, sinister, and sneaky.

Melody Maker:



Whether it's remembering "the one that got away" or posting and discussing music from 5 years before you started your blog, an anniversay often prompts a nostalgia for some time before the date itself.

While that's true, you might think an anniversary can also serve as a convenient way to link otherwise disconnected events and give someone an easy excuse to talk or write about virtually anything in the past.

Well, aren't we just Mr. Perfect? Hopefully, you can set such cynical feelings aside, at least for the moment.

I recently found a 2000 disc tucked away, and found it intriguing for a few reasons, aside from the ones raised by my lack of knowledge of my music collection. The disc came with the June 14th 2000 issue of Melody Maker, which published its last issue that Christmas, then merged with NME.

Did All The Rural Things: 10 Essential Bands For The 2000 Festival Season accurately forecast what bands were "essential" that festival season? Either way, did the process of trying to ensure musical bliss for their readers help drive Melody Maker out of business? Musical prognostication can be pretty expensive, depending on the methodology used. If they rang psychic hotlines and consulted tarot card readers, the costs might get pricey quickly.

Did Melody Maker know they wouldn't be around for long? Maybe they thought the publication was going to end sooner, so that they could easily evade the throngs who might endure "not particularly inspiring set"(s) based on their advice. Did empty superlatives hasten their demise? My guess is no. It's a superlative culture over there, innit?

Naturally, the impact of an "essential" endorsement (on bands as well as artists) is diluted by the number of them.

Of course, some of the artists on the disc are still clearly, actively, in the biz. Saint Etienne, for instance, performed a bit this month... and took a moment to praise a certain ubiquitous Alanis Morrissette video on their website ("I'm no fan but her video/cover of My Humps deserves a tip of the hat - maybe a wink, even...")

And Moby now has a new band. He's also scheduled several DJ gigs this May:

May 5th - New York - Studio B
May 16th - Cannes - VIP room
May 17th - Montpellier - La Dune
May 18th - Barcelona - Catwalk
May 19th - Madrid - La Rivera Club

However, we haven't heard much from several of these bands since 2000. Maybe they were essential then because people wouldn't get many more chances to see them. The don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-them nature of the entertainment industry is a bit sad. Why, in my day, FOX would sometimes give their rare good show a season or two before prematurely canceling it. Now, they won't wait three weeks. Bands and TV shows alike don't always get the real nurturing they need to thrive. But a positive reception may also bring more pressure than an artist wants or can handle.

Which artists who are commercially successful now will still be going strong in 2014? Time will tell. So will a psychic, but that might be pricey.

Melody Maker: All The Rural Things: 10 Essential Bands For The 2000 Festival Season:

1. Moby - Honey (on Play, Go: The Very Best Of Moby, and on a slew of compilations, and was a single)
2. Ian Brown - Love Like A Fountain (Radio Edit) (on Golden Greats, The Greatest, and was a single)
3. Bentley Rhythm Ace - Madam Your Carriage Awaits (on For Your Ears Only and the compilation FSUK, Vol. 3)
4. Day One - Bedroom Dancing (on Ordinary Man and the soundtrack to Cruel Intentions)
5. Elastica - The Way I Like It (on The Menace)
6. JJ72 - Snow (on JJ72, was a single)
7. Saint Etienne - Boy Is Crying (on Sound of Water, Interlude, and was a single)
8. Soulwax - Funny (on Much Against Everyone's Advice)
9. Crashland - Glued (on Glued)
10. Feeder - Waiting For Changes (on Yesterday Went Too Soon)