Jimmy Fallon - The Bathroom Wall (2002)

"(I Can't Play) Basketball" by Jimmy Fallon

The only person to really benefit from the Tonight Show's Leno/Conan/Leno hosting shuffle was Jimmy Fallon. After a six-year stint as one of SNL's most popular cast members and a misguided turn as a film star, Jimmy Fallon fell into Conan's open seat on Late Night and thus became the natural heir to the Tonight Show desk. (Unlike for Letterman and Conan, Fallon's Late Night tenure felt more like on the job training for future, bigger stakes.) Leno lasted four more years before retiring. Jimmy took over as host of The Tonight Show on February 17, 2014 and has been behind the desk since. Before he was on TV, Jimmy Fallon was a stand up comic. While he was on TV, he released his first comedy album The Bathroom Wall in 2002 on DreamWorks Records.

Jimmy Fallon's hefty bag of impressions impressed Lorne Michaels enough to hire him for SNL where he was a valuable utility player: good for celebrity lampoons and silly-voiced bits. His bag also includes musical impressions; he can break out a guitar and a convincing Dave Matthews yowl. So, the album is naturally designed around this skillset—however far that will carry—and is made up half of musical genre parodies and half of his pre-SNL stand up material. The anchoring routine is also divided into halves. The first half is a run of impressions of celebrities vying to be the spokesman for Troll Productions Inc, makers of Troll Dolls. The second is a run of musical parodies of bands vying to write a jingle for Troll Productions Inc. Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Gilbert Gottfried, then U2, the 4 Non Blondes, R.E.M. et al switch in at breakneck speed, inspiring the awe of recognition. and leave before any one voice or song gets stale and before the audience catches on that the bit is stupid and bereft of actual jokes.

Like any musical parody album, the songs jump through a variety of genres and "parodies" them by contrasting expected lyrical content with actual lyrical content. What if a punk band sang about a snowball fight? What if the Beastie Boys couldn't hoop? What if Prince was an "Idiot Boyfriend"? The characters in these songs are all the same pathetic white boys and the jokes detail exactly how pathetic. Mark Ronson and Justin Stanley handle the production to at least give the songs a professional sheen that helps sell the parodies. But they weren't in the room for the worst musical bit on the album, the closer. A live bit reverse engineered to show off Jimmy's ability to sing off key...I mean, sing popular songs in a way that is vaguely familiar to the originals. The conceit: you can play MC Hammer's "Hammertime" under any 80s pop song. Sure, you can do that, but it doesn't work. It's also not a joke. Good crowd work, I guess.

Back to the stand up material because Jimmy Fallon is more than just impressions though impressions sneak in anyway (see the unfortunate "Chris Rock Was My RA" bit.) The material is all college jokes—roommates, community showers, mini fridges, etc.—and probably been the filler to his routine for nearly ten years at this point (and definitely five years since he was performing the set a year before joining SNL.) But college jokes are timeless especially when delivered to college audiences. On the recording, the college kids are slightly drunk and very generous and unwittingly give voice to the flaw running through Jimmy's whole routine. Impressions and jokes are greeted alike with cheers, not laughs. But Jimmy's a nice guy and the audience wants to have a good time with him and wants him to succeed. So does Lorne, so do NBC executives, and so do his agents. Turns out, doing only one thing well can take you pretty far.

Here is the discography surrounding Jimmy Fallon's debut album:

The Concert for New York City (To Benefit the Robin Hood Relief Fund) (2001 compilation song)

MTV TRL Christmas (2001 compilation song)

The Bathroom Wall

Hammertime (2002 promo single)

Idiot Boyfriend (2002 promo single)

Selections from The Bathroom Wall (2002 EP)

Jimmy Fallon Stand Up

Jimmy Fallon's Late Night Debut

Jimmy Fallon Hosting the 2002 MTV VMAs

Jimmy Fallon Interview Before Taking Over Late Night

Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show Debut Monologue (delivered as if it's his last)

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Brain Damage - Always Greener (On the Other Side) (2002)

"Pre-War Psychosis" by Brain Damage


Fixing the last stop's misfortunate spoonerism, we now end up at Brain Damage.  Although many a band are named such, this particular French dub band just happened to be the easiest Brain Damage to deal with in terms of finding a generally complete and accessible discography.  Brain Damage released its debut album Always Greener (On the Other Side) in 2002 on the French independent record label Hammerbass.

Here is the discography surrounding Brain Damage's debut album:

Bipolar Disorder (1999 EP)
Always Greener (On the Other Side)

"Brain Booster" by Brain Damage


"Genetic Weapon" by Brain Damage


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Norah Jones - Come Away With Me (2002)

"Nightingale" by Norah Jones


Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar) was the lead vocalist for jazz rock band Laszlo and also the half-sister of Anoushka Shankar and daughter of Ravi Shankar (with music director Sue Jones).  She moved to New York in 1999 where she started work as a backup vocalist and lounge singer.  She gained the attention of executives at Blue Note Jazz while singing backup for Victoria Williams.  Norah had yet to develop a "voice of her own", but the record label was willing to work with her to find it whether it be jazz or not.  She started down that path on a first set of demos that would be released in 2001 as the First Sessions EP.  She followed that up the next year with her landmark debut album Come Away With Me.  The album gained critical attention and sold over 26 million units worldwide, going Diamond on the US charts.  Norah Jones would also end up winning five awards at that year's Grammy Awards and three of her collaborators would also win awards.  It is considered one of the best albums of the 2000s.

Here is the discography surrounding Norah Jones's debut album:

First Sessions (2001 EP)
Don't Know Why (2001/2002 single)
Come Away With Me
Feelin' the Same Way (2002 single)
Live in New Orleans (2002 live album)
Something Is Calling You (2002 single)
Come Away With Me (2002 single)
Turn Me On (2003 single)
Nightingale (2003 single)

"Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones


"Bessie Smith" by Norah Jones


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Ms. Dynamite - A Little Deeper (2002)

"Krazy Krush" by Ms. Dynamite


The Streets hit both a wave of critical and commercial popularity that resulted in its shortlisting for the 2002 Mercury Prize (an award given to the "best" album from the UK and Ireland). That particular year's award is notable for the number of debut album's nominated. The Bees, The Coral, and The Electric Soft Parade were a few of the bands celebrated, but the award went to A Little Deeper, the debut album of British hip-hob/R&B artist Ms. Dynamite.

Ms. Dynamite started as a featured artist working with British garage acts DJ Sticky and So Solid Crew in 2001. This didn't last long as her talents quickly attracted the notice of Polydor Records. As soon as 2002, she released three singles (with two in the UK Top 10 and all three in the Top 20) and her debut album (which peaked at 10, going platinum).

The album features tight production and carefully mixes in Dynamite's hard raps with her smooth R&B vocals. There is a sociopolitical and feminist consciousness to her lyrics. She raps about growing up in British ghettos, refraining from abusing drugs, and breaking off bad relationships with abusive others (no matter the situation). She drops single lines about African blood diamonds and lightly touches on racist attitudes, but she does tone down the politics on her softer songs. The album, essentially, begins with urgent messages and calls to action and moves inward to more personal songs. It starts hard and fast and ends softly. A Little Deeper garnered favorable reviews with its greatest praise coming in the form of the Mercury Prize.

Here is the discography surrounding Ms. Dynamite's debut album:

It Takes More (2002 single)
A Little Deeper
Dy-Na-Mi-Tee (2002 single)
Put Him Out (2002 single)

"Dy-Na-Mi-Tee" by Ms. Dynamite


If you have any ideas for where the tour should go next, please give a shout. I'm open to whatever as long as the artists are historically related in some way and go in an artist's chronological order.

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The Streets - Original Pirate Material (2002)

"Turn the Page" by The Streets


The Earlies might have had the benefit of their own record label but distribution rights were held by a larger label group. A subsidiary of Warner Music Group and founded by Nick Worthington, 679 Recordings dealt with the promotion and release of both UK and American artists (or both such as The Earlies) throughout England. Started in 2001, the label jolted out of the gate with the release of the platinum-selling record Original Pirate Material by The Streets in 2002.

Mike Skinner is The Streets, a moniker for his musical output since 1994. There have been musicians he's collaborated with such as the mysterious Johnny Drum Machine and rapper Kevin Mark Trail, but the output is creatively and personally his. He's a rapper from UK's garage movement: simple garage beats, simple samples, and raps with all the imagery of English youth. With a typical rapper's bravado, he boasts in his lyrics about how far he's pushing the UK hip hop scene forward with only a limited palette and a bedroom studio. In fact, he spends the first four songs of his debut promoting exactly how tall his album stands next to those of his peers. The rest of the songs are stories.

The Streets's debut single came out in late 2001 peaking at #18 on the UK charts. A good start, he followed his success up with three more singles in 2002. None charted higher than his first, but none charted lower than #30. Amidst the singles came his debut album Original Pirate Material. It opened to critical acclaim and eventually found itself amongst the "best" albums of the decade. Critics fawned over the album's garage mixes, production value, and embarrassingly honest and humorous raps about English club life, love life, and drug life. There can be a lot said about how "English" The Streets music is. The same has been said about The Kinks, The Jam, and Blur: all English bands that had trouble hitting a chord with American audiences because their subject matter is entirely foreign. Still, Mike Skinner's songs are deeply personal and are imbued with a pathos that refuses to take itself too seriously and a positivity that makes Skinner and the listener "push things forward".

Here is the discography surrounding The Streets's debut album:

Has It Come to this? (2001 single)
Let's Push Things Forward (2002 single)
Original Pirate Material
Weak Become Heroes (2002 single)
Don't Mug Yourself (2002 single)
All Got Our Runnins (2003 EP)

"Don't Mug Yourself" by The Streets


"Stay Positive" by The Streets


If you have any ideas for where the tour should go next, please give a shout. I'm open to whatever as long as the artists are historically related in some way and go in an artist's chronological order.

Pass the Headphones!!