I recently saw two music-centred movies, "8 Mile" and "24 Hour Party People". In both cases, I got a lot of the film that I expected to get from the other movie. First off, I thought "8 Mile" would centre on working class people whose lives revolved around the music. And it does, but there's another primary character whose role I hadn't expected would be so prominent. Detroit. More than anything else, this movie is about scenery. It's the disgusting slums of Detroit, with the crumbling houses, disintegrating trailer parks, and the streets choked with graffiti that drive the characters to do what they do -- find a way out. The film graphically demonstrates that the battles may be about rapping, but they're no game. Succeeding in battles is an act of desperation. It's either win, or be resigned to walking down those ugly streets for the rest of your life. Win, and maybe get the hell out of your crappy life, or live in Detroit forever.

"24 Hour Party People" seems to employ a cast of thousands. For two hours, musicians, producers, and various Mancunians punters swirl in and out of the film, which is certain to confuse any viewer who isn't familiar with any of the history or the music. With only one lead character -- Steve Coogan's awesome portrayal of impresario Tony Wilson right down to the intonations in his voice -- I figured the cohesive force would be Manchester itself. The on-site filming, the factories (no pun intended), a painstakingly recreated set of the legendary Hacienda, these would be present in lieu of prominent supporting characters. But again I was wrong. This is first and foremost a film about music (Coogan bluntly says so in the film) and about the people who made it. There are clips, flashbacks, snippets of important happenings from Manchester past, and very little focus on the city itself other than being repeatedly told how important their music scene was. And if Coogan hadn't said so, or if you weren't into the scene back in the day and could therefore vouch for the accuracy of these boasts, you would never believe it to be true, since how could such incredible music history have come together when everyone streaks around completely wasted most of the time acting like assholes? Well, that's exactly what DID happen, despite the lack of any and all good business sense. That is the whole point, after all.

On a completely different note, I want to comment on the historical accuracy of the film. As for the timeline, I was completely lost for most of the movie. They'd play a song, I'd ground myself by recalling what year we must be in based on the song, but invariably the next scene would be something that I could swear had happened a year earlier or later, the next scene would jump another few months one way or another ... none of this bothered me too much, since it just adds to the overall chaotic tone of the film. Then there's the scores of little things they nailed down. Joy Division were playing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" onstage at one point, and the recreation was unreal. Far beyond dressing up "Barney" in his white shirt and skinny dark tie that he wore onstage throughout that time period, "Ian"'s guitar looked PRECISELY like the one the real Ian played in the video, and it was even HELD the same way that Ian held it (another side comment: "Ian" did well to clone Ian's dancing mannerisms, but some of the intensity I felt was misplaced. "His" gripping the mic with veins bulging was a shade too much Henry Rollins for me). But the version of the song that was being played was the remixed single version (the one on "Substance"), which was put out after Ian died and was never played live! That happened a fair number of times -- they'd get a whole load of little details exactly right but miss out on one or two other little things.

All the nitpicking is admittedly a bit of overkill. This film is fun fun FUN and the incredible character and setting recreations are plenty enough to almost make you feel as if you were there ... a wonderful fantasy for those of us born on the wrong side of the pond.

This past Monday, I finished listening to my latest California CD haul. I got through all 29 in just 17 days, compared to a month for 37 CD's last time around. So I'm improving. Progress IS attainable, kids, and you've gotta start somewhere. Some hard-to-find nuggets and highlights:

First, I have to confess, that I actually came back with 30 CD's, #30 is a CD I already own, but it's the glow-in-the-dark limited edition of Spiritualized's "Pure Phase". I could have had a great deal on it in Feb 1995, when the owner of the now-defunct CD Bar on Yonge made me a great offer. I ended up buying the regular CD on import, but the day-glo one would have cost me a measly five bucks more and I passed on it. I figured I'd been spending enough money as of late and needed to cut down a bit. I never, ever forgave myself for that decision, and since then I've gone out of my way to lean on the side of "buy" every time I'm confronted with similarly structured decisions involving hard-to-find music.

Hey, do you miss the days when Stereolab weren't trying to write futuristic pop, the days when all their songs contained only two chords? I do too. Flowchart's "Multi-Personality Tabletop Vacation" misses those days as well. Although, when the album was released in 1995 those days weren't such distant memories. But today, it's a rollicking trip down memory lane with a fat colourful photo album. This album sounds more like Stereolab than any album has ever sounded like any band, ever. The resemblance is so strong, it's scary, and it's also lovely. They could re-release it as a synthetic music product called "I Can't Believe It's Not Stereolab!".

One of my goals was to buy some experimental music (i.e. noise, minimalism, etc.). For whatever reason, the inventory and prices on the West Coast are unbelievable for this music. I returned with stuff by Kevin Drumm, Pure (from the Mego label), and Brighter Death Now, to name a few. I also scored Tony Conrad's "Early Minimalism Volume One" box set, which is totally THE psychedelic shizznit. Just listen to those drones for half an hour and try to deny that it's one fine drug, I dare you. This made me clamour for my early Spacemen 3 CD's. A thoroughly cleansing, inspirational, three and a half hour experience. I was droning away on my sampler in a matter of minutes, just by sampling as I cooed into a microphone.

Acid Mothers Temple released 5973 records last year, and I've begun the catch-up process with their take on Terry Riley's "In C". The melodies are carried almost entirely by the keyboard, and fifteen minutes in, with the robo-chug overwhelming the track, I completely forgot what I was supposed to listening to. That's a compliment. The other two tracks, In E and In D, are amphetamine fueled noise-rock and blissed-out shimmering drones. I find that it's impossible to get bored of this kind of stuff.

I caught the new Zwan video this morning. The title couldn't have summed up my reaction any better. "Honestly", Billy, who do you think you're fooling? A female bassist, singing backup vocals no less, a guitarist with straight shoulder length hair framing his pouting face, Jimmy Chamberlain on drums ... three guesses which defunct band this reminded me of. No, Billy's goatee does not count as a novel artistic development. Respect for the three guitars, but he's transparently dumped the old band for a new band of people that must hate him less and picked up where his old band left off.

The Grammy nominees were announced. Yippie. Nothing like the granddaddy of useless awards shows to make for some quality ranting.

Grammy can talk all it wants about how there's not one artist that ran away with the nominations, or how this years' field is more wide open than ever. Screw that. Does anyone doubt for one second that Bruce Springsteen will win all the important awards? It's the "Steely Dan" factor from a couple of years back. Grammy NEVER goes out on a limb -- hell, they won't even climb the damned tree -- unless there's a complete dearth of decent nominees (call that the "Alanis" factor). Alan Jackson and the Boss will clean up, because it's ALWAYS the Alan Jacksons and Bosses that clean up at the Grammys. Rather than pick the best music, you can just eliminate all the stuff that you know won't have a chance, and pick the winners that way. Let's play the process of elimination game right now.

Record of the Year. This can actually be difficult to predict, mostly because nobody even knows what the record of the year even means in an age of mainly singer-songwriters. I'll say the blandest record will get it, so that leaves Vanessa Carleton and Norah Jones. I mean bland as opposed to edgy -- "Don't Know Why" is a wonderful song, but it's really easy on the ears which will please all the voters whose tastes haven't progressed beyond Natalie Cole in the last decade. But Norah Jones will probably win Best Newcomer, so her votes will be split across the other categories, so I'll pick Vanessa Carlton here.

Album + Song of the Year. Just engrave Bruce's name on the trophy right now. Alan Jackson is the sleeper pick for Song. Grammy is always 18 months behind the times due to their asinine eligibility period, so they haven't had the opportunity to memorialize 9/11 yet, so they'll do it here.

Rock Album. Bruce again, but many voters will still have a soft spot for Sheryl Crow. Although I don't believe Robert Plant has ever won a Grammy, if so, they may pull out a corollary of the Steely Dan factor and give it to him even though roughly 0.0001 % of American human beings are even aware that he put a record out.

Rap Album. This could be interesting, since there aren't any Fresh Prince - style embarrassments for Grammy to cheese out with. I've never heard of Petey Pablo, so I think I'll pick him. But this could also be the year they pick Eminem, since he's a movie star now and everything, so some of the voters might assume this means he's safe for children.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't blast Grammy for citing the soft and safe "Dilemma" featuring grizzled rapper plus cute female armpiece, instead of the REAL Record of the Year, "Hot in Herre". Grammy absolutely loves duets, and this lets them say they've given appropriate recognition to R&B artists. Besides the infinitely higher sweatyumphbumpandgrindfactor, I'd be willing to bet that way more kids downloaded "Hot In Herre" than "Dilemma", and we CERTAINLY don't want to be promoting file sharing or anything.

Hello, it's DECEMBER 15, 2002, and you know what that means.

TOP 10 ALBUMS OF THE YEAR.

10. CLOSER MUSIK -- AFTER LOVE. This is not your older brother's synth-pop. It may be made with the same vintage instruments, but it's not synth-pop at all, it's equal parts playful house, lounge pop, and minimal grooves. Lo-fi and lovely.

9. SIX BY SEVEN -- THE WAY I FEEL TODAY. This year's Verve release. When the punk thrashing gets tiresome, "American Beer" forgives any transgression. But the screaming never stops. May they always be bitter and angry.

8. DELGADOS -- HATE. Certainly the best overproduced album of the year, it's also filled with gorgeous melodies that swoon, smash, blare, and wail across ten emotionally wrought tracks that deal with maudlin, anti-pop topics. Gargantuan stuff.

7. SCION -- ARRANGE AND PROCESS BASIC CHANNEL TRACKS. Is this really a *new* album? I've stopped caring -- whether it's a breathtaking DJ mix, a radical re-work/re-structuring of classic techno, a demonstration of how software continually redefines the music creation and recording process -- it just doesn't matter anymore.

6. TIM HECKER -- MY LOVE IS ROTTEN TO THE CORE. This mini-album tears a hole in hair metal, kicks and stomps it into quivering submission, but somehow retains it's wild-eyed spirit. Maybe because it's ten times louder than any 80's metal album. Or maybe it's the Van Halen samples. Electronic high-density mayhem done right.

5. LUKE SLATER -- ALRIGHT ON TOP. It's the album I'm not sure I'm supposed to like. If you have no burning desire to relive the 80's, when Luke Slater slaps that decade into working order by imposing his techno-funk sheen, even the toughest resolve will weaken.

4. AIDAN BAKER -- LETTERS. Two sublime, endlessly drifting tracks of chilled calm and ghostly looped anti-melody. The drones fill any sized room and it's thick tones prove difficult to peel from the walls.

3. SPEEDY J -- LOUDBOXER. Speedy's slamming return to pounding techno, it's the full album that last year's "Electric Deluxe" single hinted at. It builds you up, it spits you out, it runs from peak to mountaintop in ways that 99.9% of trance music can only hope.

2. HOLLOWPHONIC -- MAJESTIC. Remember when all Toronto bands used to suck? Remember the times when Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg or Halifax were the Canadian cities du jour for great bands? Remember when Slowdive used to be this really awesome band, but self-destructed, leaving the next generations of downtrodden shoegazers like Hollowphonic to pick up the mantle? Every time I hear "Majestic", I continue forgetting.

1. GODSPEED YOU ! BLACK EMPEROR -- YANQUI U.X.O. It's bordering on prog. You're probably bound to dislike some of it's overt politics. It wishes it were a live album. It's not as good as "Levez Vos Skinny Fists ...". But it's still essential.

TOP 10 GIGS OF THE YEAR. Through June, I kept up with last year's breakneck gig-going pace, but saw only four gigs during the second half of the year. In my present state of mind, this could be the last time I make such a list, for I may never again see enough gigs to warrant such a list. On that somewhat down note, here's the list:

10. Neil Halstead @ Soundscapes, February 16. As the rain drizzled down during his solo acoustic set, Neil Halstead provided an entrancing reading of his weary, weathered debut solo album. Lovely tunes, although I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't have traded the entire fourty-five minutes for one three-minute take on "Alison".

9. Merzbow, Promonium Jesters, DJ Skeeter, noCore/Schizoid, Unitus @ Kathedral, September 20. A mixed bag with some tumultuous peaks and valleys. Local noise bands, local crap metal bands, and Masami Akita. I'd be lying if I said the volume was cranked high enough.

8. Do Make Say Think, Creeping Nobodies @ Lee's Palace, April 4. My hippie self let his hair down and just couldn't stop the boogie. DMST really wig out live, they jam, now where are the crusties? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't honestly thinking that stuff throughout their whole set.

7. head/phone/over/tone, Cabana, The Electric Shoes, Hollowphonic @ B-Side, November 14. What might have been just another night out with a few nondescript local indie bands became a memorable night thanks to blowaway performances by Hollowphonic and head/phone/over/tone, not to mention some damned fine fuzz-pop by the Electric Shoes. I'd be lying if I lumped Cabana in with those accolades. I'd also be lying if stated I wasn't a bit embarrassed that so few people were in attendance.

6. Low, Mark Eitzel @ Lee's Palace, October 15. Low were their usual quiet but stunning selves, but Mark Eitzel arguably stole the show with his usual outspirts of verbal bile posing as lyrics for songs. I'd be lying if I denied that I honestly believed the gig's early start time (7:30 PM on a Saturday) was due to Alan and Mimi wanting to be up early for church the next morning.

5. Hood, I Am Robot and Proud @ Horseshoe Tavern, March 11. Hood's newest material hits this lo-fi hip-hop krautrock groove, and it's infectious to watch live. You can dance, but it feels kinda wierd to do so, because the music is funkadelic almost by accident, much like Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures". I'd be lying if I told you that I Am Robot and Proud looked cool sitting crosslegged on the floor smiling a goofy smile and ripping off Boards of Canada.

4. Jon Langford and the Sadies @ Horseshoe Tavern, February 2. Beer-fueled, rocking out, no nonsense, red blooded pub rock. I went to the show based on Jon Langford's semi-legendary reputation, and I'd be lying if I said he wasn't a billion times better than I thought he'd be.

3. Mens/Koolwyk @ SAT (part of MUTEK 2002), May 30. Pumping, minimal, nearly industrial, with the flickering seizure-inducing visuals to match. This year's MUTEK wasn't as much about the music as it was about the merging of visual arts with the supposedly boring live demeanour of laptop electronica. At least that's how I'll remember it. I'd be lying if I said I didn't rack my brain to figure out how I could better represent MUTEK on this list, for there were a good two or three other performances that might have merited their own inclusion on this list, but I didn't want to unbalance the Top 10 in the direction of any one single festival or event, so I considered just putting MUTEK itself as #3, but finally settled on representing the festival by my own personal highlight.

2. Bardo Pond, Mean Red Spiders @ Lee's Palace, July 3. Ahhh, I could listen to bands open their sets with "Two Planes" from now until the end of time. By the time they cranked out "Tommy Gun Angel", even the most stoic in attendance were swaying in a trance. Isobel Sollenberger remains the sexiest woman in rock. I'd be lying if I claimed I knew what the big deal is with Mean Red Spiders.

1. Scion + Tikiman, Tomas Jirku, naw @ Mockingbird, May 11. Scion and Tikiman were simply godlike, that's all there is to it, and I'd be lying if I said that any gig this year came even remotely close to touching their magnificent work.

More random "year in review"-esque thoughts.

Oasis' 593rd comeback single, "The Hindu Times" is their best single ever. I figured that they'd come back with an over-the-top anthemic singalong, and I figured right! But it rocked!! Definitely their best single ever. Maybe except for "Some Might Say". Ever.

Akufen sold a bucketload of "My Way" CD's, stayed huge all year, and had the #1 album of the year according to Exclaim! magazine. I still don't get the *really* big deal about him, he's good, but Mitchell Akiyama and Deadbeat (Montreal contemporaries) are still better for my money. Whatever, Montreal rules.

Primal Scream's "Evil Heat" is a lot better than the (in)-attention it's been given, but it's no classic. I'm obviously biased, since I would gladly mate with "XTRMNTR" and bear its children. Similarly, Speedy J's "Loudboxer" is WAY better than the reviews I've seen. People complain that it's just one hour of banging techno. But it's a storming, emotionally draining hour of banging techno. Granted, it doesn't open up new frontiers for techno and it's not as inventive as "A Shocking Hobby". It's structured like a DJ mix album (everything seamlessly mixed, slow start, big build, slow comedown) which means he's "confined" himself to more or less one style. But that one style is storming, emotionally draining, MINIMAL techno, so if you love that (as I do), you'll love this. (Disclaimer minimal = minimal, not "quiet")

In the 14 November NOW, there was a perfectly decent article about Lali Puna, who were playing a show in Toronto that week. There was also a pitiful and unneeded nod to Radiohead.

No wonder they don't like going out in public and talking to strangers. People must be coming up to them all the time and accusing/crediting them with being the first rock band in the history of the world ever to use electronics in their music, not to mention "making" bands through their mid-80's Morrissey-esque endorsements.

Now I can appreciate them turning a few more people onto Lali Puna, but I cannot accept that Lali Puna owe a good chunk of their present success to Radiohead. LP are on an incredibly hip label, Morr Music, and would have garnered most of their attention that way.

More gems from NOW: "Sigur Rós. The Icelandic space rock ensemble went from comfortable obscurity to object of global attention after playing a handful of shows with Radiohead". People forget that "Agetis Byrjun" was released in 1999. The people who forget that sort of thing didn't hear about Sigur Ros until 2001. It was a #1 album in Iceland soon after its release, but a distribution deal with famed UK music shop/label FatCat didn't come about until the end of the year. The initial FatCat pressings sold out in five seconds, and practically nobody in North America was able to get their hands on a copy for months afterward. During that waiting period, the hype surrounding Sigur Ros reached fever pitch among indie heads in the know. THEN, they supported Radiohead. By THEN, their record had become more easily available internationally, although Radiohead certainly had nothing to do with that. I'd be willing to bet that two-thirds of the people who heard of SR after they toured in support of Radiohead (whether they heard of them that way or not) don't know that they have a new record out now. Those aren't fans, those are curiousity seekers and bandwagon jumpers. Sigur Ros probably did more to make themselves by playing high-profile festivals such as All-Tommorow's parties, and the five dates they played in support of Godspeed You Black Emperor! that same spring likely earned them more long-term fans than the Radiohead tour in the fall.

"Warp Records. During his post-OK Computer meltdown, when the sound of guitars would send him bonkers, fragile frontman Thom Yorke plugged the "intelligent techno" catalogue of Warp Records to anyone who'd listen". I cringe whenever I read something like this. It's sickening that by 1991, Warp records had released as many legendary records as any record label in recent memory, and yet when their name is thrown around in rock circles, it's primarily as a "Kid A"-inspiration footnote. It's not Thom Yorke's fault that countless writers are too lazy to do a bit of homework, but he's most definitely guilty of discovering Warp for himself, acting as though he'd translated the Rosetta Stone and opened up new avenues for rock music by doing so.

Warp's catalogue was an electronic music template back when On A Friday were playing to six people in college beer halls. After dominating early UK techno with the infamous "bleep" sound, they overhauled it yet again -- only two years later -- with the "Artificial Intelligence" series, becoming the foremost flagbearers for giving techno as much credibility in a living room as it did on a dance floor. At this juncture in time, Radiohead's "Creep" single, a relatively bright spot on a blase debut album, had failed upon initial release and was being prepped for a second go around, at which point it was disturbingly hailed as a classic in the post-grunge slipstream even though it was nothing but a passable attempt to rip off Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine simultaneously. During the next few years, Warp expanded its repertoire, branching into sweet electronics melded with soul (Nightmares on Wax), pop (Broadcast), not to mention the usual bevvy of excellence from the usual suspects (Aphex, Autechre, Mike Ink, etc.). Thom Yorke was said to be still quite happy playing his guitar during this period, thank you very much. But he's never put up much of a fight when writers and fans put Radiohead into the vanguard of electronica. So, in this specific respect, there's loads of people who need to readjust their thinking and give Radiohead the credit they are due -- which is nothing, absolutely nothing at all.

It's been so long since I ripped on Radiohead, I'd forgotten how much fun it could be (just then, a solitary tear rolls down Barry's cheek, cutting a jagged path through the stubble to the bottom of his chin, and makes a faint splash on the space bar of his grey keyboard ... )

A couple of days ago, I had to kill time while waiting my hair dye to set, so I flipped on MuchMusic. Good music or bad, the station is quite often entertaining. First, I caught the end of the Justin Timberlake Spotlight. Yes, they ran a spotlight on someone with exactly one solo single to his credit. So obviously it was mainly NSync videos and Justin speaking during their interviews. I've now heard "Like I Love You" a few times, and I'm shocked to be admitting that it's actually quite good. I'm not shocked that it *is* good -- the top pop producers and songwriters working on his album have seen to that -- but that I'm *admitting* it's good, since Justin's sissy cute momma's boy look and blatant Michael Jackson mannerisms aren't the kinds of things that I would normally like. Nevertheless, I'm completely sold on the NME's view of his solo career, that is, with the people he's hired to work on his records, they can't help but be good, so the only remaining question is whether they are actual Justin Timberlake records, or if you could have stuck any old shmo in there, Phil Spector stylee, and achieved the same effect. Guess which side the NME and I picked.

Mere minutes later, "French Kiss" began, and the first video was "Symphonie Pour un Dingue" by K-Maro. I don't have the slightest idea what he was rapping about, I can't understand French too well anymore (let alone French rappers) but the video itself was a strange and bizarre amalgamation of styles and trends that was very refreshing. First, kudos for tossing "symphonie" in the title, I don't think any hip-hop artist has had the guts to do that since Maestro Fresh Wes' debut more than a decade ago. Then there's the cheesy synth strings over the music, and the -- hello -- 4/4 beat! In a rap song! But the best is K-Maro himself, dress and posture straight out of Eminem 101, styling and profiling with a club full of bodacious hoochies. And their vice of choice? A fattie?? Malt Liquor??? Hell no, dogg, it's WHITE WINE. Head boppin', booty talkin', mack walkin' guys and their hos and their WHITE WINE. I love French culture.

The new Sum 41 video "Still Waiting" is a parody of the Strokes et al. Complete with a skit starring Will Sasso as a bandwagon-jumping industry exec, he renames the band "The Sums" and they film a picture-perfect knockoff of a Strokes video, complete with low quality film, identical outfits, ridiculous mid-song tantrums, and gigantic shining letters S-U-M-S flanking the performance. Cute, and very, very clever.

But the real joke is on "The Sums" themselves. One fad poking fun at another? Sad, really sad.