Music 

Amazon's Top 100 CDs of 1998

Amazon.com's 100 Best CDs of 1998 See more of the Amazon.com 100 Best CDs of 1998! 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-75 | 76-100 Say It Live And Loud: Live In Dallas 08.26.68 James Brown Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 James Brown had just recorded "Say It Loud--I'm Black and I'm Proud" when he visited Dallas in summer 1968. Mixing Soul Brother Number One's more traditional gospel- and jump-blues-influenced early hits with the funk he was still developing ("Cold Sweat," "Licking Stick--Licking Stick"), Say It Live and Loud captures that show in a time-capsule piece that's hardly just a historical document: it brings the full-force power of Brown, Maceo Parker, and the rest of the "James Brown Orchestra" front...Read more Independent Intavenshan [BOX SET] Linton Kwesi Johnson Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $22.97 Our Price: $20.67 You Save: $2.30 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 The fact that 1998's highest-ranking reggae album is a reissue speaks more to the power of dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson than to the weak crop of contemporary reggae artists. Independent Intavenshan is a two-fisted blast of LKJ's smoldering patois poems backed by the liquid rhythms of Dennis Bovell's Dub Band. Including all four of LKJ's Island albums--Forces of Victory, Bass Culture, LKJ in Dub, and Making History--Intavenshan is a timeless, literate, and politically charged document. --S. Duda Read more Starters Alternators Ex Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $14.97 Our Price: $13.47 You Save: $1.50 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Like no other band on the planet, Holland's experimental punk band the Ex demonstrate that punk rock can encompass artistic dualities and still swing. The 11 forceful, buzzing, in-your-face songs on Starters Alternators (produced by Steve Albini) are simultaneously political and personal, frenzied and beautiful, frenetic and tasteful. "Frenzy" and "Two Struck by the Moon" possess the taught, sharp delivery of early Wire, while "It's a Sin" sounds like Sonic Youth raised on Eastern European folk...Read more Combustication Medeski Martin And Wood Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 The rather plainly named Medeski, Martin and Wood have almost single-handedly returned the spotlight to the more out-there fusion between bop jazz and on-the-one funky rock music. Wheezing and huffing behind a bank of old-school keyboards, Medeski, Martin and Wood plow into their songs with abandon. The drums of Billy Martin push the band out and away rather than gathering them neat and tidy, while bassist Chris Wood delivers the rhythms that somehow manage to keep every musical tidbit strapped...Read more Djam Leelii Baaba Maal, Mansour Seck Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Recorded in 1982 and originally released in 1984, Djam Leelii reappears in 1998 with all its graceful glory intact--and a little added on. Adorned with three previously unheard remastered tracks from the original sessions, this atmospheric masterpiece is carried along by the complementary voices and guitars of Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck, two of West Africa's leading lights. A sense of mystery permeates this classic of acoustic world music. --Steven Stolder Read more Coming Home Jamaica Art Ensemble Of Chicago Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $11.88 You Save: $5.09 (30%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Coming Home Jamaica, the Art Ensemble's first studio album since 1992's Thelonious Sphere Monk: Dreaming of the Masters, Vol. 2, (which also featured Cecil Taylor), was actually recorded in 1995. Except for the long the delay, AEC fans will have little to complain about since Jamaica is an entertaining, great-sounding release. While it's not as adventurous as the group's finest material, AEC comes off here as tight, confident, and swinging. After 32 years in the business, the Art Ensemble still...Read more F No. 9 No. (Infinity) Godspeed You Black Emperor Special Order Click here for more information List Price: $14.97 Our Price: $13.47 You Save: $1.50 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 On first listen, Montreal collective Godspeed You Black Emporer sounds familiar, like sonic-landscape architects the Dirty Three. But pay closer attention to this debut full-length and you'll find something much more compelling: G.Y.B.E. mix found sounds, voices, lilting string sections, and musique concr?te into structures that tell a story. With each listen, a new plot twist is unraveled, a new movie sample identified--you start to listen closely with headphones to pick up new...Read more Chippeha! The Essential Dixie Cowboy Jenks Tex Carman Special Order Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Cowboy music, hillbilly music, Hawaiian music, and some just plain weird music combine on this anthology of tunes by Jenks "Tex" Carman, an offbeat recording artist who straddled the dangerous line between comedic genius and idiot savant. Carman was best known for "Hillbilly Hula," a song whose title pretty much describes his style on these recordings. Covering 1947 to 1953, the cuts include radio spots that feature Carman recruiting listeners into the armed forces. The Beasties were right: You...Read more The Art Of The Trio, Vol. 3 Brad Mehldau Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23% Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Art of the Trio Volume 3 was easily the finest rainy-day album of 1998. Moody, pensive, and hopelessly romantic, Brad Mehldau's fifth album as a leader staked out a deeply personal, strikingly handsome territory. Aided by sympathetic playing from bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, Art of the Trio may not be the most exciting jazz album of the year, but it is certainly the most gorgeous. Mehldau's take on Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" is...Read more Step Inside This House Lyle Lovett Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $24.97 Our Price: $17.48 You Save: $7.49 (30%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Lovett puts down his pen and applauds the work of fellow Texas songsmiths on this inviting dissection of his musical influences. Buttressed by the fluid work of acoustic pickers such as Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush, Lovett attaches his uptown drawl to the works of writers including Robert Earl Keen, Guy Clark, and Michael Martin Murphy as well as to a pair of Lone Star traditionals. Disc 2 is dedicated to two of Lovett's biggest mentors, Walter Hyatt and Townes Van Zandt. --Marc Greilsamer Read more Actual Sounds And Voices Meat Beat Manifesto Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $12.97 Our Price: $11.67 You Save: $1.30 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Meat Beat Manifesto represent everything that is right about electronic music. Perhaps it's their signature acoustic drum patterns that maintain their songs' timelessness. Perhaps it is leader Jack Dangers's ability to infuse each album with a variety of influences. With Actual Sounds and Voices, Dangers builds his songs around two jazz greats improvising in a recorded session. But the jazz influence never overpowers Meat Beat's bombastic vibe--it only enhances it. Considering their track...Read more Still Burning Mike Scott Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $14.97 Our Price: $13.47 You Save: $1.50 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 All the promise of Mike Scott's former band, the Waterboys, is realized on his second solo release. With an open heart and an electric guitar, Scott creates his most personal and impassioned album to date. A disc that displays a complete lack of irony, Still Burning paints him as a natural mystic and spiritual seeker who worships rock & roll. Like fellow traveler Bob Dylan, Scott lords over a full-on rock sound with a timeless quality that proves that after all these years the fire's still...Read more Monteverdi: Combattimento di Tancredi, etc / Alessandrini Claudio Monteverdi(Composer), et al Special Order Click here for more information List Price: $17.97 Our Price: $15.49 You Save: $2.48 (14%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Monteverdi's Eighth Book of Madrigals was a milestone, coming late in the then septuagenarian composer's life and offering the fullest flowering of the madrigal form. The two lengthy works collected here fall into the two chief camps in the Eighth Book, martial and amorous madrigals. The former type is represented by Il Cambattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, and the latter by Il Balls delle Ingrate. The singing is extraordinary, warm in the lower ranges (of which the lowest is bright and full...Read more Featuring "Birds" Quasi Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $12.97 Our Price: $11.67 You Save: $1.30 (10% Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Like Mark Eitzel's best work with American Music Club, Featuring "Birds" finds Elliott Smith's old Heatmiser cohort Sam Coomes in the sort of hope-deprived mood that leads not to suicide, but to nonstop wisecracking: "Life is dull, life is gray / At its best, it's just OK / But I'm happy to report / Life is also short." Driven by ex-wife and Sleater-Kinney member Janet Weiss's powerhouse drumming, Coomes's overamped electric keyboard is the perfect vehicle for his wryness and melodicism. ...Read more Powder Her Face-Complete Opera T. Ades Usually ships in 1-2 weeks Click here for more information List Price: $31.97 Our Price: $28.77 You Save: $3.20 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 In search of a topic for his first opera, Thomas Ad?s originally turned to Lolita before being drawn to the ironic morality tale of sex, privilege, and the media that furnished the basis for Powder Her Face. Nevertheless, he exudes a Nabokovian delight in the rich possibilities of his allusive musical language. Most winningly, Ad?s's detailed portrayals of character and mood add depth to the tabloid fall-from-grace story that was the opera's germ. --Thomas May Read more Alcantara: Arabo-Andalusian Voice - Morocco Amina Alaoui Special Order Click here for more information List Price: $18.97 Our Price: $13.28 You Save: $5.69 (30%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 The ancient Andalusian poetry that Moroccan singer Amina Alaoui brings to radiant life in Alcantara has been in her family for generations. Her relatives sang the 500-year-old poems at gatherings and her grandmother murmured them while working on embroidery. The CD, whose title means "the bridge," takes listeners over time and land to the Muslim dynasties of medieval Spain and the music created there. This unique, melodious music along with Alaoui's aromatic voice makes Alcantara one of the best...Read more Blues On The Bayou B. B. King Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $11.88 You Save: $5.09 (30%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Opting for simplicity this time around, B.B. King gets by with a little help from his excellent backing band, producing an album that's evocative of the Louisiana countryside where it was recorded. After over half a century in the business, King knows what he's about: he makes playing good blues sound easy, and every track on Blues on the Bayou is a treat. --Genevieve Williams Read more Toxu Wasis Diop Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $11.88 You Save: $5.09 (30%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Many artists who achieve greatness inspire comparisons, but Senegalese Wasis Diop is valued for creating music unlike any other. Eloquent and polished, foreign but familiar, Diop's sound synthesizes rock, funk, West African chant, ambient electronics, and acoustical music. He is daring without being alienating. Whether he sings with his rich, sexy voice about Soweto or "Oh, my heart! Oh, my answering machine!" the sound is meaningful. His interpretation of the Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime"...Read more Live at Future Primitive Sound Session Shortkut, Cut Chemist Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 In a year in which DJs asserted that, yes, they too are musicians, it was the duo of Cut Chemist (a turntablist in Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli) and Shortkut (a member, along with DJ Qbert and Mix Master Mike, of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz), spinning live at a San Francisco party that put the proof in the pudding. Mixing albums from across the decades, some familiar and some obscure, the duo create something entirely--and undeniably--their own. --Randy Silver Read more Life, Love & The Blues Etta James Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 On Life, Love & the Blues, Etta James returns to her blues and soul repertoire, enlivening even the hoariest of tunes ("Spoonful," a gender-flopped "Hoochie Coochie Gal") with her growl. The tinges of funk underpinning "Born Under a Bad Sign" are given full room to stretch on a cover of Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay," and James nearly swipes "The Love You Save May Be Your Own," one of Joe Tex's great preaching ballads, from the master. --Rickey Wright Read more Stumble Ken Vandermark, Aaly Trio Usually ships in 2-3 days Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $3.98 (23%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Saxophonist Ken Vandermark released two excellent LPs this year--Target or Flag, a barn burner featuring his Chicago-based group, the Vandermark 5--and Stumble, his collaboration with Sweden's Aaly Trio. Vandermark is a player with explosive moves and a surprising vocabulary of honks, blats, and horn chatter. Stumble creeps through the shadows like the soundtrack to a noir thriller. Other times, the record is convulsed by Vandermark's horn fits. A player of many moves--clucking, coughing,...Read more O Paraiso: 14 Cancoes Madredeus Usually ships in 1-2 weeks Click here for more information List Price: $16.97 Our Price: $11.88 You Save: $5.09 (30%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Accordian player Gabriel Gomes first heard the silken voice of Teresa Salguiero as she sang at a caf? table among friends in 1986. Gomes, along with fellow Madredeus musicians, was searching for a singer and Salguiero's pensive, crystal voice did the trick. Six albums and 12 years later, the group has released its most intriguing CD to date. Doused in melancholy classical guitar and dripping with beautiful melodies, O Para?so features Salguiero at the height of vocal maturity,...Read more Swing Guitar Masterpieces Oscar Aleman Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $20.97 Our Price: $18.87 You Save: $2.10 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Lingering in the shadows of prebebop guitar legends such as Django Reinhardt, Oscar Alem?n has been rendered to barely a blip in jazz history. First reason is his non-American, non-European status, as precious few jazzers from outside these regions ever garnered acclaim. Second reason is his sound, which upon first hearing smacks very strongly of Django. These two generous CDs point out, however, that Alem?n was in fact very much a genius unto himself. He did the swing circuit, as...Read more Dok Oval, Christophe Charles Usually ships in 24 hours Click here for more information List Price: $13.97 Our Price: $12.57 You Save: $1.40 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 In a year that saw the release of many fabulous archival 78s and field recordings, it's great to hear music that creates new, vibrant art from similar, contemporary source material. With Dok, Oval music ceases to be about manipulating existing CDs and instead is made from the manipulation of field/travel recordings by Tokyo-based artist Christophe Charles. Markus Popp's software does some pretty, narcoleptic, nifty things to the source material, recordings of bells heard in public spaces...Read more Wave Field Rafael Toral Special Order Click here for more information List Price: $13.97 Our Price: $12.57 You Save: $1.40 (10%) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 Wave Field was recorded and released on a small Portugese label but wasn't heard by most until its release by Drag City in 1998. The cover to the disc explicitly suggests My Bloody Valentine, but this is no shoe-gazing exercise; there are no songs per se on this record, just drones and tones overlapping in ambient bliss. Toral harnesses the purest elements of guitar-induced feedback to create dreamy, woozy, unreal music that sounds best when played ear-bleedingly loud. --Mike McGonigal Read more See more of the Amazon.com 100 Best CDs of 1998! 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-75 | 76-100