The top music of 1998 — revisited

Reviewed by SCOTT SWINDELLS
Collegian Staff Writer

It seems like 1998 was the year millennial hysteria took hold of the music world. Seagram's acquisition of Polygram Records gave the new company hold of approximately one-quarter of the recording industry. Many critics wondered about the direction of our music, fearing that too few people now control it.

Will this lead to the mass-production of generic hit songs by established artists instead of mining for new talent and style? To many critics, this question is almost as ominous as whether the Y2K bug will crash computers and bring the economy and planes down from the sky. But if 1998 is any indication of what's to come, there will be just as many positive results as there are negatives.

For every release by Marilyn Manson, Hole, Hanson and the slew of boy bands that sought instant gratification with generic hit singles in 1998, there will be room for arrogant upstarts like Gregg Alexander of the New Radicals to tell them "all fakes, run to your mansions / come around, we'll kick your ass in."

Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, released in October, is one of the most promising efforts of the year, yielding more than the witty lyrics and catchy tunes of its FM-radio hit "You Get What You Give." Alexander and his band, formed in 1997, helped prove bands can still break into the business without an overt political agenda and without rehashing the standard rock formula. The New Radicals successfully combined elements of 1970s-flavored soul and danceable rock with songs like "Mother We Just Can't Get Enough," "I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away the Ending" and "Flowers" -- all creative and intelligent tracks with clever lyrics. Alexander is writing about insurance companies while Manson is still droning about how "the drugs like me."

The Flys were able to tread a similar line between retro sounds and catchy rock, combining 311-like "rapping" with vocal harmonies, proving alternative rock wasn't dead in 1998, just regrouping. "Got You (Where I Want You)" was one of the best songs of the year, and recordings like "Groove is Where You Find It" and "She's So Huge" were quietly written in the alt-rock formula of the early ‘90s. Holiday Man is perhaps the most under-appreciated album of 1998. The Flys' continued success may bolster a fading genre.

The Barenaked Ladies began to irritate a much larger group of listeners in 1998. But if nothing else, the pop-quirkiness of their lyrics and unabashed pop numbers like "It's All Been Done" managed to turn listeners on to their older staples "Brian Wilson," "Life in a Nutshell" and "Be My Yoko Ono." Stunt also produced that little song "One Week" -- overplayed, sure, but also one of the most fun and catchy songs heard in a long time.

Always one to push the envelope, Lenny Kravitz brought his most inventive work yet to the table in 1998 with his fifth effort, appropriately titled 5. Kravitz dabbled with elements of trip-hop and electronica, but, to his benefit, didn't ditch his roots in Jimi Hendrix and early ‘70s guitar rock. All this album needed was a blockbuster song, which Kravitz found in "Fly Away." Besides his musicianship -- Kravitz plays virtually every instrument on his albums -- the highlight of this album for many listeners was popping in the disc and getting a first taste of "Supersoulfighter."

Even though Metallica continued to sound more and more like Mellowica, by no means did 1998 see the end of loud, hard rock. Even though the fading out of a third-wave ska revival and metal left a void, Eve 6, Blink 182 and Fuel filled it with loud alternative rock. Their slightly softer predecessors, Third Eye Blind and Matchbox 20, continued to release good singles from their respective albums that all sound alike (one theory -- they are really the same band). The downside? Korn and obnoxious rockers like Limp Bizkit, whose 3 Dollar Bill Y'all$ and its "cover" of George Michael's "Faith" got an insane amount of airplay on MTV, mostly due to the network's fascination with DJ Lethal.

With Semisonic's "Closing Time," Brandy and Monica's "The Boy is Mine" and Usher's "My Way" giving the radio some quick pop tunes, there were plenty of solid songs in 1998. But only a handful of promising new artists is not enough to assuage fears that the record industry is heading into the new millennium as nothing more that a hit-song-now machine.

Enter the rappers to save the day.

Hip-hop continued to be a hotbed of creativity in 1998, much as it has been for the second half of this decade. Producer/rapper Wyclef Jean's The Carnival featured a wide variety of styles from the hippy-hop of "Gone ‘Til November" to an irreverent version of "Guantanamera" to the creative humor of "Anything Can Happen." Jean also dabbled in just about anything he could get his hands on in 1998, bringing fresh voices like Destiny's Child, Mia and Khadejia to hip-hop soul. Jean also managed to collaborate with his Fugees bandmates, appear on the majority of Funkmaster Flex's album and get involved in an almost overlooked but interesting rap feud between Canibus and longtime scrapper L.L. Cool J.

While rap moved away from its history of sampling and reworking old songs -- much to the chagrin of Puffy and the Bad Boy family -- innovative beats and hard-hitting lyrics kept the genre moving forward. Canibus and L.L. swore to keep their battles strictly lyrical in lieu of the deaths of 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G., and the result was some of the best trash talking since "Jack the Ripper." In "Second Round K.O.," Canibus irreverently told his influential predecessor that "99 percent of your fans wear high heels," to which L.L. responded "99 percent of your fans -- don't exist." Meanwhile, Jean sat back with Canibus and the rest of his production empire and got rich.

Timbaland was another busy man in 1998. Not only did he work with Magoo and Missy Elliot -- there was also that little song "Are You That Somebody," Aliyah's donation to Dr. Doolittle, that never seemed to grow old.

Fugee Lauryn Hill offered an album with a different feel. Her hip-hop and Motown combination earned her Rolling Stone's Best Album award for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Jay-Z shined in ‘98 with Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life, featuring a slew of hits including "Hard Knock Life (The Ghetto Anthem)," "Can I Get a …" and his collaboration with Jermaine Dupri, "Money Ain't a Thing." Meanwhile, new artist DMX unleashed his rough-edged voice and style on the rap world while the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith, revised his. Big Willie Style was the top-selling rap album in 1998.

And millennial fears certainly didn't bypass the rap industry. Method Man's vision of a world gone bad, with heroes like himself emerging from the chaos in Tical 2000: Judgement Day, proved to be a rather forgettable album. But it was a significant effort because of the contributions of Wu-Tang Clan "god" RZA, who continued to push rap beats and techno sounds to new levels on this and his own release in 1998.

The whole millennium disaster motif is nothing new to rap, though. After all, Busta Rhymes has been predicting the "final disaster" on his albums for the past five years. The release of Extinction Level Event -- The Final World Front continued his personal saga of weirdness and innovation with tracks like "Gimme Some More," and he continued predicting the end of the world as we know it in 2000.

R.E.M. avoided its own disaster, returning to the studio after the loss of its drummer to record the successful set Up. Other welcome returns were made by Joni Mitchell, who released an album and toured with Bob Dylan; Willie Nelson, who returned with Teatro, and Pearl Jam, whose militant touring finally earned the band a successful live album, Live on Two Legs. Even though the sound quality is poor, the Neil Young cover "Fuckin' Up" and a great take of "Evenflow" brought the band back into the spotlight.

The music of 1998 was clearly the product of a commercial machine at times. But Mezzanine, the London-based Q. magazine's album of the year from Massive Attack, Beck's Mutation and creative efforts from members of Rage Against the Machine, Lenny Kravitz, the Flys and the New Radicals gave music aficionados hope that things will work out.