Ah, 2002. Who could forget the International Year of Ecotourism, Mountains, and the Outback (in Australia)? If that wasn’t enough, the queen celebrated her golden jubilee, the king came back with a bang to win the World Cup, and Hollywood decided it would release (almost) nothing but sequels. Of course, there was also a lot of great music, and here’s a selection of our favourites.

Tracklisting:

1) Broken Social Scene – Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl
2) Say Hi To Your Mom – Kill the Cat
3) The Decemberists – July, July!
4) Spoon – The Way We Get By
5) The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1
6) The Mountain Goats – The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton
7) The Libertines – Time For Heroes
8) Mclusky – To Hell With Good Intentions
9) Pavement – Baptiss Blacktick
10) Sleater-Kinney – One Beat
11) The Mountain Goats – No Children
12) Okkervil River – Westfall
13) Thee More Shallows – Where Are You Now?
14) Julie Doiron – All Their Broken Hearts
15) Múm – Green Grass of Tunnel
16) Iron & Wine – Faded From Winter
17) Carissa’s Wierd – So You Wanna Be A Superhero
18) Wilco – Radio Cure
19) Songs:Ohia – Didn’t It Rain
20) Sigur Ros – Untitled I

What did we miss from 2002? Let us know via the usual channels! Be sure to check out our posts on 2000 and 2001, and come back next month when we’ll be turning our attention to… 2003.

The post Millennium Mix: 2002 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Oh, and there’ll one a month from now on, which will give us plenty of time to have a think of a new idea before we catch up to present day.

The year 2000 was remarkable for lots of reasons. We got to be the first people to see a new millennium in, well, a millennium, Putin took over within the Kremlin, Bush Jnr. all but made it into the Oval Office, films such as Gladiator, O Brother Where Art Thou? and the indomitable Chicken Run thrilled the public, and, most importantly, Roberto Di Matteo won the cup (again). There were also some pretty notable musical releases, and we’ve cherry-picked some of our favourites (admittedly in retrospect) for your listening pleasure below:

Tracklisting:

1) Shellac – Prayer to God
2) The New Pornographers – Letter From an Occupant
3) Pedro the Lion – Simple Economics
4) Johnny Cash – I See A Darkness
5) Bratmobile – It’s Common But We Don’t Talk About It
6) Elliott Smith – Son of Sam
7) Cat Power – Satisfaction
8) Sleater Kinney – You’re No Rock ‘n Roll Fun
9) Lifter Puller – Nice Nice
10) At The Drive In – One Armed Scissor
11) Dillinger Four – Who Didn’t Kill Bambi?
12) Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, Like Antennas to Heaven…
13) Yo La Tengo – Everyday
14) Múm – Asleep On a Train
15) Sigur Ros – Staralfur
16) The Weakerthans – Left & Leaving
17) Damien Jurado – Johnny Go Riding
18) Songs:Ohia – The Ocean’s Nerves
19) Ryan Adams – Come Pick Me Up
20) Smog – Permanent Smile

The post Millennium Mix: 2000 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

There are three covers on the release; a stirring rendition of Motor Away by Guided By Voices, a lovely version of I Think We’re Alone Now by Tommy James & The Shondelles, and a cover of Sam Cooke’s Bring It On Home To Me which signs off the album perfectly.

Their sound is lo-fi but not scuzzy, with Liz Brown’s vocals nice and clear rather than the aural blur that many bands of this genre opt for. Fans of Screaming Females, Sleater-Kinney, Shellshag, etc. should find a new favourite in Bill Times a Billion.

Say It Nicer is available for free over at Bandcamp.

The post Bill Times a Billion – Say It Nicer appeared first on Various Small Flames.