Millennium Mix is a new series in which we remember our favourite songs released since Jesus turned two thousand and the Millennium Bug failed to show and left us with a mixture of relief and strange disappointment. The rules are 1) the song must have been released within the specific year (though we’re not going to worry too much if a Japanese vinyl release was actually 1999 or whatever) and 2) only one song is allowed from any one album (so it’s likely we’ll miss out some of our very favourite tracks, but that’s okay). Seeing as we began 2000 as nine-year-olds, it’s likely the mixes will grow longer as we progress through the 00s and pass into an era where we got a little obsessed with music.
The world has always been ending, but 2001 really upped the stakes for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Terror became the buzz word in a world of televised attacks and indefinite wars, Wikipedia emerging just in time for us to catalogue such events and believe they were getting more frequent, more severe, closer and closer to home. While art was probably playing catch-up to developments, cinema went for the escape route, with Shrek and Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings beginning their own seemingly endless campaigns, while music reminded us that, for the majority, life went on as normal. Here are some songs that let us know while the world has always been ending, in ways both crushingly huge and pathetically small, we’ve got little choice but to keep on living.
Tracklisting:
1) Tonight Was a Disaster – Castiotone for the Painfully Alone
2) TV Zombie – The Rondelles
3) Ice Cube – Clem Snide
4) I Remember Me – Silver Jews
5) Adopduction – Les Savy Fav
6) Lucky Number Nine – The Moldy Peaches
7) Jenny & the Ess-Dog – Stephen Malkmus
8) Confusion is Nothing New – Beachwood Sparks
9) Miss My Lion – Scout Niblett
10) Wonder Wonder – Edith Frost
11) Up to My Neck in You – Mark Kozelek
12) It’s a Wonderful Life – Sparklehorse
13) Sunflower – Low
14) Parks – Four Tet
15) Unearned – Patrick Phelan
16) I Want Wind to Blow – The Microphones
17) Bitters & Absolut – The National
Did we forget your favourite? Are our musical opinions now null and void? If so, let us know on Twitter or Facebook or something. Also, if you didn’t see it last month, you can find our post for the year 2000 here. Otherwise, we’ll see you next month as the world’s least efficient/useful time machine chugs along to 2002.