The year 2000 was so ridiculously awesome. There was Y2K, for one, then hanging chads and Almost-President Gore. I even managed to graduate from an American high school that year and begin my higher education at an American university. I was but a sapling in the dense rainforest of life, and it was right around then (thanks to Napster and a new, non-dial-up, high-speed university internet system known as a “T1”) that I began my decade of digging for good music beyond what was played on the radio.
I just do whatever Incubus tells me to do.
In a way I guess you could say I was a Fresh Scout long before Fresh Scouts even existed. I had recently fallen in love with Incubus and did all I could to get my paws on any and everything Brandon Boyd and the gang touched. One of those projects was something called “Loud Rocks,” a gimmicky yet entertaining album crossing hip-hop and hard rock. Some of the hottest rock groups of the era (which, humorously enough, includes Crazy Town) teamed up to remix tracks from some of hip-hop’s biggest guns.
As far as the album is concerned, this usually turned out pretty well. Incubus, for example, teamed up with Big Pun to remix “Still Not a Player,” while other tracks included mash-ups of classic Wu-Tang Clan songs by teaming up with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ozzy Osbourne, and System of a Down, as well as a redo of Xzibit’s “What U See is What U Get,” one of my all-time favorite rap songs made even more awesome by the talents of Sevendust.
Mobb Deep and Everlast do a rocky version of “Shook Ones” that’s just as soulful as the original but a little more energetic, and Dead Prez teams up with Static-X to do an interesting re-rendition of “Hip-Hop.” Yeah, there’s the Crazy Town song and, inexplicably, something featuring Sugar Ray as the “rockers,” but it really was such a cool album. Mixing these two genres back in 2000 was sort of a new thing, and this was a great example of how that experimentation could churn out some musical magic.
Plus, like I said, anything with Incubus gets my time, attention, and appreciation. Those boys can do no wrong in my eyes, like a biological child that I’ve spent my life spoiling. This didn’t sell a ton of records, but I love it all the same.
Oh, and I forgot about Elian Gonzales. Remember him? The cute Cuban boy who eventually got deported after a long, drawn-out custody battle? That was awesome. I miss 2000.
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