You belong to me, I fill your mouth with dirt

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

02/09/01 : Iowa - Slipknot

Ah - what could be more relaxing on a wet January morning than a calming dose of Slipknot. To be fair, I found our only previous visit surprisingly enjoyable - but that was in '22 so I suspect some age-related calming down might have happened. I'm fully expecting to hate '01 Slipknot though...

Oh yes, 66 minutes of shouty absolute nonsense. Yes, it has its fans and I hope it helps them work some things out - but, with the notable exception of "Left Behind" which is acceptably Nirvana-esque, it's just not for me, I'm afraid. And the closing title track goes on FIFTEEN MINUTES - aaaaarrrrrgh. Next!

And so, we are, quite obviously at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week on the start of an 11 week run - amusingly it came back for a week in '11 and a week in '21 for anniversary re-releases. The rest of the top five were The Strokes (another new entry), Five (and another one), Nelly Furtado and Staind, with two more new entries in the top ten for New Order (#6) and Bjork (#8 - Vespertine, which is a very clever album, but maybe a bit too clever). It's interesting that The Strokes are at #2 - for an album which is agreed by everyone (except me) to be great, this is as high as it ever got and hence we would never have met it except for Rolling Stone's list.

Back to Slipknot, for an album I hated, I actually found the Wikipedia entry to be quite enjoyable and full of interesting and quirky information. It tells us it's their second album and the creative process was a very unhappy time, with all the band members feeling the pressure to follow up their successful debut whilst also hating each other and overly enjoying the drugs which were now freely available to them. And Ross Robinson, the producer, fractured his back in a dirt-bike accident but returned to work the next day - "putting all of his pain into the album" apparently. For a little light relief, we also learn that the opening track "(515)" is a recording of Sid Wilson, the band's DJ (they have a DJ?) repeatedly screaming "Death" after having learned that his grandfather had died.

OK, let's try that light relief thing again - the album cover depicts a goat named Eeyore. That's better now, isn't it? The album has also been "critically acclaimed as one of the only mainstream musical albums to feature blast beat percussion", which was something I didn't think I knew anything about, so I read its Wikipedia entry and I can now confidently state that I still know nothing about it. I also had to chuckle that, prior to the release, they gave away copies of a track on their website - and obviously they limited it to the first 666 responses.

Critically, the album was pretty well received by those that like this sort of thing, with Alternative Press getting it about right for me with "[it is] like having a plastic bag taped over your head for an hour while Satan uses your scrotum as a speedbag" - but apparently they thought this was a good thing! Commercially, it did pretty well globally also getting to #1 in Canada although, somewhat surprisingly, it only got to #3 in Finland - they usually love this sort of thing over there. It also got to #3 in the US and sold a million copies - there really is no accounting for tastes.

discogs.com tells us that, astoundingly, you're going to have to spend a whole three pounds if you want a decent copy of this and if you want an original US vinyl pressing then it's going to set you back £550, making this the most expensive album of the year so far. And anyone who wants to pay any amount of money for it is absolutely welcome to it, provided they don't make me listen to another minute of it.

26/08/01 - Pleasant enough, but mystifyingly popular
09/09/01 - Perfectly pleasant