Best of the 2000’s Part 3: 2002

So it’s been busy here the past few days – yesterday was the first time I got near a computer in four days, and even that was only for 15 minutes or so. Sidney (aka “Sadie”) Claya Perry-Joyce, the love of our lives, was born at home in Santa Fe on Sunday afternoon at 12:36pm and it’s been an incredibly busy joy ever since.

Still, there is music to be enjoyed, and Sidney particularly seems to like John Coltrane’s “Lush Life” and Alela Diane’s To Be Still so far, but she’ll probably grow up with Tom Waits’ timeless voice as a ubiquitous guide like her mother did. One thing’s for sure: Sidney will be hearing my favorite album from 2002 a lot in her childhood.

2002: The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Warner Bros.)

Better than ecstasy. World peace might literally be attained if one of the Flaming Lips’ climactic concerts – such as our ecstatic evening with them at Red Rocks earlier this year—took place at a major political summit, but the band’s symphonic affirmations of love and life actually make the most sense on headphones. If you spent the 00’s on another planet, slept through them, or were simply too busy to discover new music, it’d be tough to find a track that’d better sum up the audio glory of the past ten years than “Do You Realize??” It’s a psychedelic koan that will be intriguing Earthlings (and maybe others) for a long time. Partly a fantastical concept album about a robot-fighting Japanese girl, Yoshimi finally made these Oklahoma oddballs a worldwide sensation.

Honorable mention: Broken Social Scene You Forgot It In People (Arts & Crafts), Godspeed You! Black Emperor Yanqui U.X.O.(Constellation)