2004: The Music Year In Review
Submitted by stooky on Thu, 10/21/2004 - 08:49
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In 2004 music was changing and boundaries were being stretched. There is enough great music to satiate everyone’s taste and a few albums to frighten even the hardened audiophiles. So here’s 11 albums you should invest in:
Modest Mouse: Good News For People Who Love Bad News- **The perfect pop album MM had been threatening for years finally comes and lays waste to everything else. Every song is great and the cumulative effect is surely one of the great albums of the last 5 years.
Elliot Smith: From The Basement On The Hill- **Elliot finally made the best album of his career which is also his most desolate, a sad irony that the feelings that killed him also elevated his art to such a high level. His best lyrical effort by far, his arrangements have lost the tentative qualities of XO & Figure 8, and the two intermingle in a beautiful noise. Here’s hoping this is the last posthumous release.
Les Savy Fav: Inches- **Technically not a 2004 release since these singles stretch back to 99 but let’s not have such quibbles restrict us. Inches is the best punk album of 2004 and there’s absolutely no reason to doubt its dominance. A mesmerizing spastic album on which every song could be…and was…a single, it’s just real damn good.
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand- **Look, it’s the disco-Strokes…and they really bash that sound out. A retro-chic band of the 3rd generation who make some bitchin’ tunes aimed at rock-chick hips.
The Arcade Fire: Funeral- **The strangest enjoyable music you’re likely to hear this year full of stylistic experimentation and genre-bounding bravado. The unusual instrumentation makes the exceptional songs more exceptional and they’re Canadian, which makes them even better in my book. If you want to make your friends go “whut the f**k?” and still like the music you’re listening to here’s the answer.
Madvillain: Madvillainy- **Dropping all of modern rap’s pretentious blarney and keeping the great hooks and sly rhymes Madvillain make a tiny, enjoyable rap opus nugget. At 48 minutes in length and sporting no dud interludes you could hard call this a rap album. Unless you call everything else C-rap; yeah that sounds good to me, Puff Daddy,Busta Rhymes and Juvenile make c-rap. If you like rap at all you’ll love this album, if you don’t…get out your shot-gun pardner and go bonk a couple of sheep for the equivalent rush.
Nick Cave: Abattoir Blues/The Lyres Of Orpheus- **A really great 2 disc reaprisal of Cave's entire career on which almost every song is a highlight; A must-have album.
Mark Lanegan Band: Bubblegum- **Quiet avante blues-metal is finally created and the rock gods were happy. They sat in Valhalla and quoth “Bubblegum is good” and all their subjects in the resulting confusion went on a Spearmint binge, twas a sad day.
Sam Phillips: A Boot And A Shoe- **While everyone invests good time in listening to Snorah Jones serenade the nascent sleepers Sam Phillips is making the wonderful jazz-pop. Her sultry voice equally adept with playfulness and husky sexuality and T-Bone Burnett keeps the arrangements inspired and fun. But you just listen to Norah cus she’s more pretty and that certainly matters in music now doesn’t it.
Junior Boys: Last Exit- **Another Canadian band who bring the funk, or synth-techno as it would seem. This is a modern extension of The Human League: Dare…and if right now you’re wondering “Who is Human League?” imagine I’m looking at you with disdain and then I won’t actually have to do it.
The Libertines: The Libertines- **Ballsy rock’n’roll went the way of the dodo years ago…well the dodo is back and he’s lookin’ frisky. Hell of a good album from a band who seemed to be losing their pungency.
Really good, well-thought out list.
But, I have to disagree about the the new pop creation that MM released last spring. It was an interesting step in a new direction, but (IMO) it didn't lay waste to everything else. The band's best stuff was earlier in their catalog. I think this album was successful and acclaimed for three reasons:
1- Marketing
2- Timing
3- Lack of great music in 2004
I also think if Interpol would have released Antics as their debut album last spring, it would be regarded better than it has been (see The Killers).
Yes, there was some great music in 2004 (see AAA's '04 list). But, against '03 it dosen't come close. The band of the year to me is Franz Ferdinand. A catchy, rocking (mostly) non-filler debut album outta-nowhere. 2003 had several bands that could be band of the year, including The Shins, The Rapture, White Stripes, The Strokes, Postal Service, and My Morning Jacket. Franz dosen't really have much substance lined up against some of those bands.
Anyway, enough ranting for now, I'll have a similar list soon.
I find the song-writing generally stronger on "Good News" and the lyrics are wonderful, It's as good a listen as White Stripes: Elephant which is another user friendly pop masterpiece. But I generally just like the polished sound more. It's user friendly, which isn't the bad thing people make it out to be. I've never gotten the reason why edgier music gets the cred when the pop stuff stays entertaining for years to come. Anywho, definately better marketing on this album and both it and Franz Ferdinand seemed to find a spontanious audience.
I don't agree about the lack of great music, this was a fine year for music. Many different styles with genre-bending in full force, I personally prefer the years when daring music comes out more than years when 3 or 5 palid masterpieces are made.
Interpol: Antics is 5 great songs with boring filler and only one defining moment in "Evil", not what I would call a fine release. It's gonna gather dust on my shelf while I play "Turn On The Bright Lights" into the next decade. As a first release I believe critics would say it showed promise and they would make some lists but overall it'd be buried by year-end.
2003 was also a great year for music in which certain sounds peaked, but 2004 will be remembered for the diversity of it's classic albums. Hopefully 2005 will follow trend and I can be a contended audiophile.
T'ho
:?)