For all intents and purposes, The Year of Our Lord 2002 is history. By and large, the national music scene was more interesting to monitor this year than it has been in a while. Rock came back in a big, predictable and fashion-driven way, as the teen-pop fade folks have been predicting for two years finally began in earnest, symbolized by the Justin/Britney split. Eminem reasserted himself as pop culture's biggest near-palindrome, while maintaining his street cred by duly taking part in the resurgence of hip-hop's most entertaining publicity device, the spat (with Benzino). (See also KRS-ONE/Nelly, Ja Rule/DMX). The Red Hot Chili Peppers tied their personal best in the category of Most Consecutive Albums Made with John Frusciante (2). Nü-metal albums began to sound decidedly less like Limp Bizkit and decidedly more like Nickelback. Indie rock albums began to sound decidedly less like The Replacements and decidedly more like Depeche Mode. Major labels were too busy lining up emo releases for 2003 to notice the genre's most respected acts and core fanbase outgrowing it. Finally and most devastatingly, with all of the larger-than-life idiots deserving a bullet this year, it had to be pioneering DJ Jam Master Jay who caught one.
Locally, things are almost always intriguing on one level or another, and this year was no exception. A handful of new venues popped up, like Seminole Heights' Liar's Club and Temple Terrace's Pegasus Lounge, while a few established watering holes — such as Duke's Garage in Clearwater — began to give original acts a go. The Emerald in St. Pete bucked the odds by keeping both original music and a throng of hipster regulars around for more than a year.
Rap label Peripheral Records came on the scene with an able compilation of thug tracks, while Red Tide remained the only Bay area hip-hop outfit willing to tack the words "self" and "promotion" together on a regular basis.
Misfortune 500 fell prey to what insiders have dubbed "The Eagles Syndrome." Jack Spatafora's Aestheticized show schedule inundated us with weird-sounding shit. Coffeestain.com's graffiti board seemed to finally jettison any vestiges of usefulness and/or marginal grammatical acceptability, while scores of local nü-metal acts finished their sets at the State Theatre, convened offstage and wondered what to do next.
But hell, man, that was last year. Water under the bridge, metaphorical beer-spew sopped into oblivion by the dirty mop of time's inexorable passage. Let's not dwell on the past; let's look ahead to the untainted horizons of 2003. It's time to dig out the old Magic 8 Ball, put the rep on the line and indulge in a little informed speculation regarding what will happen in music over the coming 12 months.
With Regard to The Big Time …
* In the wake of the recently aborted Guns N' Roses arena tour, Axl Rose's hired hands all jump ship. Rose makes one more go of it, with all of Neurotica save Kelly Shaefer as his backing band, before officially declaring GNR kaput. Chinese Democracy never sees the light of day, but in 2005, an album of discofied torch songs by one William Rose Bailey inadvertently sets the gay-club dance-floor standard for years to come.
* The Strokes finally adopt an energetic, compelling stage dynamic worthy of their fine debut album, just in time for no one to care.
* Following the release of an interim EP, Wilco opt out of their contract with Warner Brothers subsidiary Nonesuch Records, citing corporate strangulation of the creative process. The band eventually signs with unknown indie label Steve's Records, out of Taos, New Mexico. Steve mortgages his sister's house to make it happen. But when Steve rejects their opus as "commercially non-viable," the band sues for breach of contract. Eventually, the disc, Better Music Than You Deserve to Hear, comes out on Reprise, the Warner Brothers subsidiary that nixed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Reprise pays $3-million for the new record.
* By mid-fall, Ryan Adams has taken to humming loudly snatches of his song "New York, New York" in Manhattan dive bars, in the hope that someone will recognize him. Ironically, dudes with dark, fashionable bed-head and frayed jean jackets are still living at strippers' apartments, rent-free, worldwide.
* N'Sync member Chris Kirkpatrick forms the obnoxious garage-rock side project Chris & The Piss, the cover of whose first album, Stream of Consciousness, features him in a flatteringly slimming black shirt/skinny tie ensemble. Spin ridicules the concept, before giving the album 10 out of 10 and putting him on the cover. The band is forced to drop off the Avril Lavigne tour prematurely, however, when too many fans figure out that the two acts' shared songwriter planted the hook and some of the lyrics to "Sk8er Boi" in more than half of Chris & The Piss' setlist.
* Disturbed frontman David Draiman endeavors to back up his quoted intention to become "the U2 of metal." Unfortunately, most high-profile causes shy away from being publicly lauded by the singer, who ends up the star of several rarely-seen PSAs in support of the "Hey America, Recycle Your Darn Nylons!" initiative.
The Big Mainstream Trend for 2003: Bands consisting only of bassists and keyboard players who play complex prog-influenced songs made accessible by Beach Boys-style harmonies.
The Big Underground Trend for 2003: '70s arena rock, complete with inordinately long hair, fringed leather jackets, prominently displayed packages and copious amounts of mic-spinning.
Meanwhile, on the local front …
* Shawn Beauville's collection of REO Speedwagon covers, You Can Tuna Fish But You Can't Killowatt, catalyzes a sold-out Japanese tour, during which the singer is often mistaken for a beard-less Jesus.
* By mid-summer, every Christian posthardcore band within a 100-mile radius has been signed to Solid State Records, The Militia Group or Epic. The groups signed to indies spawn a worldwide fad akin to grunge, complete with fashion styles, an insanely lucrative annual festival/revival tour, and several independent films sardonically documenting the scene's eventual exploitation and downfall. Those signed to Epic endure endless stretches of "development," and are perceived as irrelevant when their releases emerge long after Christian posthardcore has been unseated by a renewed interest in klezmer.
* Bay area resident Khia's real abode — a nice but comparatively understated condo in Apollo Beach — is showcased on MTV's Cribs, sparking a major controversy and newfound "less is more" trend in hip-hop, as evidenced by Trick Daddy's "Thug Shack" segment in next season's premiere.
* Bill Soma, frontman for The Semis, is romantically linked to problematic actress Winona Ryder, and immediately signed to a $5-million deal with RCA. The band's major-label debut is recorded entirely to two-track in a dusty culvert pipe outside of Las Vegas.
* Southeast Music Alliance titular head Joran Oppelt's ambitious weeklong showcase festival comes off as a massive success during autumn. Most local pundits begin to question the enthusiastic scene promoter's grip on reality, however, when plans for a box set containing every song every local band has ever recorded — and a massive, environmentally friendly theme park called GitaLand — are made public.
The Big Local Trend For 2003: Ominous, classically inspired acoustic metal. With hand bells.
Music critic Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or by e-mail at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2002.