Bernell DorroughIt’s been a long, glorious year in the arts and entertainment world, and though there were a lot of disappointments in movies (Matrix 2 and 3 bring themselves immediately to mind), music, literature and the fine arts, there were plenty of triumphs as well. Since someone was foolish enough to hire me as the arts and entertainment editor of Student Life-as if I were some sort of expert on the matter-here are my not-so-humble opinions of the year’s biggest disappointments and triumphs.
The Triumphs:
Best Album (mainstream): AFI, “Sing the Sorrow”
The major label breakthrough for the Bay Area goth-punk band is all huge riffs and anthemic sing-alongs. Sure, they might have sold out, but they’ve made selling out sound oh-so-good, and their rabid cult of tattooed fans has yet to abandon them, even though they’ve won an MTV Video Music Award. To top it all off, their trip to the mainstream is their most experimental and consistent album to date.
Best Album (underground): Black Cross, “Art Offensive”
Intricate, raw punk rock with a message, Black Cross are probably one of those bands that will go sorely unnoticed until they are gone and bunches of young kids try to imitate their sound. Bold enough to be abrasive and beautiful at the same time.
Best Single (mainstream): Outkast, “Hey Ya”
Riding on a dance beat straight out of “Shindig,” this cut from Andre 3000’s half of the two disc set “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” is the most joyous song to hit the airwaves in ages. With Prince-like vocals and 60s pop guitar filtered through a futuristic hip-hop sensibility, “Hey Ya” is wonderfully infectious. If anything can stop the Middle East Crisis, it’s this song.
Best Single (underground): Give up the Ghost, “Love American”
With roaring yet chiming guitars, harsh, strangled vocals and wonderfully poetic lyrics, “Love American” from Boston hardcore band Give up the Ghost (formerly American Nightmare) redefines punk rock as the music of intellectual and visceral rebellion. Simply the best, most original extreme rock song of the year.
Best Music Video: Outkast, “Hey Ya”
Yeah, it’s “Hey Ya” again. But what could be better than a band of eight Andre 3000s in bright green outfits (especially the backup singers in jockey costumes) playing their hearts out on a “Top of the Pops” style show for an audience of swooning multicultural hotties ready to “shake it like a polaroid picture”? Nothing, I say. Nothing at all.
Best Book: “Fortress of Solitude” by Jonathen Lethem
Following up his wonderful, award-winning “Motherless Brooklyn” with a heartfelt tale of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, Lethem creates two wonderful, believable characters named Dylan and Mingus who struggle against, and love, a world that is constantly stomping them down. “Fortress of Solitude” comes complete with plenty of music and comic book references that only reinforce the bond between high and low culture and the wonders of art in any form.
Best Movie: “About Schmidt”
Okay, technically it came out last year, but it didn’t open in St. Louis until 2003, and it was entirely snubbed on Oscar night, so I’ll give it its due here. Alexander Payne’s story of a retiree (Jack Nicholson) going on a quest to find meaning in his life after his wife’s death is profane and poignant, hilarious and heartbreaking. It’s the kind of movie that can make a viewer wonder about the hopelessness of American life while laughing at situations too familiar to be comfortable. “About Schmidt” also features the funniest haircut in a movie in some time: the balding mullet on Dermot Mulroney, playing Nicholson’s prospective son-in-law.
The Disappointments:
Movies: “The Matrix” parts 2 and 3.
If anyone understands what the hell happened, let me know.
Music: Major label debuts from formerly underground bands that lived up to neither the promise of their previous releases nor the media hype showered upon them: Thursday, Thrice, and the Rapture, just to name a few.