Richard McComb: Noughties not naughty enough in rock world
Take your time and try to name one, just one, truly brilliant album of the Noughties.
Struggling, I bet, and with good reason. Because there haven’t been any. From January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009, not a single album worthy of the classification “classic” has been committed to digital vinyl stuff.
This makes the job of music and rock correspondents, usually one of the easiest in journalism (put in CD, listen, yes, it’s all right, nice tambourine fade-out, 6 out of 10), fiendishly hard.
I don’t envy the trend-watchers’ end-of-year task, having to put together credible articles and playlists to accompany their reviews of the past decade. The NME had a go and I can tell you, unreservedly, that none of the albums featured in its Top 50 will be of any interest to subsequent generations.
Sure, there have been some good pop singles and the girls have been on top. Female singers – Britney (Toxic), Kelis (Milkshake) and Beyoncé (Crazy in Love) – left the boys in a booty-shakin’ wake.
But a pop gem on its own doesn’t make a set of crown jewels. I’m looking for a defining album, a Pet Sounds, a Dark Side of the Moon or an Exile on Main Street. I’d settle for a (What’s the Story) Morning Glory or a Blue Lines from more recent recording history. But I’m not hearing it.
Having passed 40, I appreciate I am officially old but I have not lost all sense of taste and discernment. For years, I was ridiculed for picking up my rock-u-cation amid the supposed rah-rah skirt dirge of the 1980s.
How I smile nonchalantly now when I see the influences of 80s pop electronica and innovation inspiring inferior Noughties acts.
Pop, dance, indie and anti-pop, it’s all there in the 80s: Prince’s Sign o’ the Times, Joy Division’s Closer, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Public Image Ltd’s Second Edition (all right, I know it was originally released in very late 1979 as Metal Box). It’s not bad for the Decade That Taste Forgot.
So ta-ta, Noughties. You were nice, too nice, not nearly naughty, or rocking, enough.
