A Decade Ago…

As I write, it is December 2014.  Every Christmas, since the year 2000, my friend Adam and I exchange a top 20 albums of the year list (full-length, studio albums of original material released that year).  This has evolved into a major geek-fest exercise where we write detailed notes/commentaries on our selections and post them online.  I have, for instance, just posted my top 20 albums of 2014 here. 

These lists first started going up online in 2005, but this year I have come across (at least what remains) of my lists going back to the first year we did this.  So I thought I’d upload these ‘lost’ early lists too so there is a record of the tradition going back to its very inception.  For most of these early years (2000-2003), we either didn’t write down any commentaries/reviews for our entries, or  -where we did - I have since lost them.  I have nonetheless now put the bare-bones lists for 2000-2003 online for the first time here.

For 2004, though, my full list, notes and commentaries have survived, so I have uploaded them below: a decade on.  Everything is essentially left as I wrote it at the time (although I have not been able to resist adding in a few notes here and there – these are fully signposted as 2014 additions!).  This is very much what I considered to be my favourite albums of the year at the time too – if I drew up a 'best of 2004' list now it would, I suspect, be very different…

Anyway, from the archives, I present The List 2004.  Enjoy.

20. BEN KWELLER - On My Way

This has crept in at the bottom of the list, and when I realised it was going to I was fairly surprised.  This album is good, there are some lovely pop songs here, but it is just a bit of a disappointment.  I adored Sha Sha so much that this just feels like a little bit of a letdown.  The title track is my favourite, and ‘The Rules’, er, rules.  Plus the live show he delivered in Nottingham was excellent.  Still, it was the songs from Sha Sha that made me cheer the loudest.  Yet, it has beaten about ten other eligible albums to be on this list, so it is far from bad.  Just not awesome.

19. GREEN DAY - American Idiot

Another album which is a really good one, but ultimately a disappointment.  I prefer this to Warning [Note, 2014 - weirdly I've really grown to love Warning in subsequent years, while I never ever play American Idiot], but it has nothing on Insomniac.  The killer song is the title track – awesome.  And so I expected every track to be like that, to make me feel 15 again.  Perhaps that was the problem; I approached this in the wrong way.  Having said that, this has grown in stature from my initial outburst of ‘that’s it! I’m never buying a Green Day record again!’ to find its place within this list.  ‘Extraordinary Girl’ is fantastic, as is ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’.  Plenty here to enjoy, with Billy stretching his wings.  A grower.

18. KATASTROPHY WIFE - All Kneel

This would be classed, I guess, as ‘girl-punk’, but it really is just a class rock album with a female vocalist.  It has the oft-used elements – the power-chord shouty songs, the slow and odd number, the rumbling chunky one.  Nothing to change your world, but done with such style, and more importantly conviction, that it’s really hard not to love.  Katastrophy Wife are what The Distillers would sound like if they were any good.  This is the first album on this list that my Dad got me into.  There are others…

17. DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS - Please Describe Yourself

A little gem, this one.  Lovely pop songs, with an 80s tinge; great up tempo piano and odd funky guitar parts.  Bought this after seeing them on TV from Glastonbury, where they really stood out from the rest of the bands they showed.  Great lyrics (the first band I know of to have a verse of a song dedicated to Catherine Zeta Jones, something I wholly approve of).  Again, this is not an album you must own, just one I’m pleased that I do.  Plus the photo inside of the band members’ heads transposed onto ugly naked bodies is at once both hilarious and disturbing.  And they have potentially the best band name ever.

16. THE BRONX - The Bronx

Hardcore has never really been my thing.  I’m told The Bronx qualify as hardcore.  Whether this is true or not, I’m not sure, but either way this album is a killer.  It just kicks arse, no messing.  Three minute powerhouse songs with great hooks.  The whole quiet/loud dynamic employed to devastating effect.  There is not a shred of subtlety anywhere on this CD, and that is what I love it for.  This is a jump-around-the-bedroom-like-a-loon-and-damn-the-neighbours type album.  It gets to #16 on my list because it bashed its way there.  If I was still 16 myself, it’d be in the top 5.  Scream ‘f**king die!!!!!!’  Scream it like you mean it.

15. THE BLUESKINS - Word of Mouth

This is ‘Dad inspired’ album number 2 of the list, and a cracker it is.  This, for me, is 2004’s Elephant.  Garage rock with heart; just quality rock music.  As with many of the things I got into this year (as apposed to 2002/2003), The Blueskins are no frills.  But they write great tunes.  ‘Ellie Meadows’ is a classic blues-rock tune, and ‘Stupid Ones’ forces me to dance (reminding me of the way ‘Molly’s Chambers’ got me last year).  This was an album that really did me well during the cold months of February/March 04, and then slipped away in the chase somewhat – I think at the mid-way point of the year, this was in about 5^th.  Still a great album though.

14. KASABIAN - Kasabian

I love it.  At least, I truly love about five tracks from it.  These rule, but then there are too many fillers – this is why it’s down at #14, and not at #4.  I love the rolling sound they’ve got going – that kind of rumble.  I think this comes from the mix of solid bass lines with electro beats.  There are 80s influences at work here too, but in a very different way to Dogs Die in Hot Cars.  The opening track to this album (the name of which escapes as I sit here in the office) is one of the best tracks of the year.  Great riff, dark, menacing and cool.  Kasabian are in to big hair, big hats and not giving a toss.  Fair play to them.  [NB: Dad inspired #3]

13. SURFEROSA - Shanghai My Heart

This was second in my list at one point this year.  I mean, at the time I’d only bought two albums which came out this year, but hey…  This is just crazy fun pop lunacy.  And it makes me smile.  An album I really needed at the time when I got it (I was in a pretty bad place and was only listening to Nick Cave and the like).  It reminds me of The Start in many ways.  There is 80s pop and 90s rock at work here, and it makes for a bounce-tastic record.  And ‘German Socks’ is insane.  They must have been taking drugs when they wrote/recorded that.  Surely…

12.SNOW PATROL - Final Straw

This was everywhere for most of the year, and so has lost some of the sheen it had when I bought it based on a review in The Times, the day it came out.  I thought it was great, but unfortunately the rest of the world did too.  So now the singles get on my nerves because they play them at me in Woolworth’s and in the pub and everywhere, but this is still a great album.  ‘Somewhere a Clock is Ticking’ is a truly brilliant song, and as a whole the album is top draw indie fare.

11. KEANE - Hopes and Fears

I hang my head in shame.  How could I?  I not only ended up buying this, but I bloody like it too.  A lot.  Christ, it nearly made the top ten.  I have spent ages making nose farts when Keane come on the TV.  Then one day, I actually listened to some.  And it is what I thought, dripping guitarless pap.  But I love it all the same.  God knows why.  It sounds like Travis or Starsailor, and yet…  Music is mysterious sometimes, and how Keane wormed their way into my head I will never know.  They stayed there, though, and forced me to buy their CD.  And now they’ve forced me to admit I like them to you.  Terrible.  I was horror struck when I saw the final draft of this list.  11^th!  It’s just so...lovely.

10. PJ HARVEY - Uh Huh Her

We reach the top ten now, and also reach the first album of the list which is truly awesome.  Polly is inconsistent with her releases at best, but this is her most accomplished album for years.  Simple songs, by and large, but with real grit to them.  This is not an album that sticks in my head, but every time I play it, I think I should play it more.  I still prefer 1998’s Is This Desire? but otherwise this album is my favourite of hers.  A return to form.

9. HEAD AUTOMATICA - Decadence

A great record.  It reminds me of the Surferosa album in the way it makes me feel – bouncy and happy.  ‘I Shot William H. Macy’ is the stand out track for me, but there are so many great songs here.  ‘King Caesar’ particularly does it for me too.  It’s not what I expected from the collaborators (but then, what did I expect from such a diverse pairing?).  Class flows through every track here.  You put assassins in my little head!!!!

8. HOPE OF THE STATES - The Lost Riots

Well, here’s an odd one.  Hope of the States, through any sound application of logic, suck.  The singer can’t sing.  The band members can all play, but they can’t play together.  It’s a bloody mess, truth be told.  The first time I heard it (again, via my Dad, #4) I was appalled.  How can a band get away with being this bad?  Yet, a few listens, and Hope of the States’ disconnected noise finds a home in your head.  They don’t sound like anyone else, to be sure.  I guess they are indie (not too heavy rock with strings and the like), but in truth it is impossible to categorise them.  They are simply Hope of the States.  And they are bloody amazing.  I saw about half their set at V (had to leave for Muse), and more than two thirds of the crowd walked out before the first song was finished.  An acquired taste, no doubt.  A diamond in (a large amount) of rough.  Let your inner head scrub this album and somehow it shines brighter than most.  The most bizarre band of 2004.  Because by rights they should never have even got a record deal, and yet they rule.

7. THE VINES - Winning Days

A late charger.  This album has got to #7 in three weeks.  Three weeks of solid play, though.  I love ‘Ride’, but it is the mellow tracks that make The Vines something special (the title track, being only one example).  Nothing like what I thought it would be after (and I stand by this) the shite of the first album.  A magnificent record, start to finish.

6. MASTODON - Leviathan

I would usually see the top five as the watershed of these lists, but this year the top six were clearly ahead of the rest before I started thinking about it in any detail.  The order of the top six was harder, though…  With Tool having released an album in 2001 (they take around six years in between), and no System of a Down record this year, the progressive metal baton has been passed to the little known Mastodon.  And they have risen to the challenge.  My god, have they.  This album is metal at its most essential, crushing yet subtle, beautiful whilst ripping your head of.  What makes this stand apart is the sheer inventiveness of the record.  They have taken the metal blueprint (the one set down by Machine Head/Sepultura/Pantera) and completely re-vamped it.  Crazy guitar licks, insane lyrics (this is a concept album based around the story of Moby Dick – where the hell did they get that from?  Hardly fits the metal image, does it?), and what I assume to be a nine-armed drummer, combine to create something that is utterly unique.

5. THE ZUTONS - Who Killed the Zutons?

What do ya know?  How has this snuck into the top five?  It is garage pop/rock (with trumpets).  Hardly life-changing.  But it is so life-affirming.  I have played this fairly solidly for months.  It gets in here based on sheer airplay.  I must love it because I come back to it so often.  The Zutons are awesome live (seen them twice and counting) and write brilliant songs.  Really brilliant.  ‘Dirty Dancehall’ makes me jump like a fool (and is about Zombies, cool or what?), ‘You Will, You Won’t’ is stomping great, ‘Confusion’ is beautiful and lets the lyrics take over, and ‘Zuton Fever’ is as crazy as they are.  Mad scousers with a love for music.  And the most attractive trumpet player ever.  Even when I saw her in a yellow boiler suit.  I love this album and I love this band. (NB: Dad inspired #5)

4. INCUBUS - A Crow Left of the Murder

You have to go back to #10 in this list to find a band which I already owned an album by, but with Incubus we’re back into familiar territory.  I bought this with some trepidation.  The most anticipated album for me of the last few years was Morning View, and after a couple of weeks of adoring it (cause I expected it to be great), I realised that it was actually rubbish.  What if Incubus are rubbish now – for good?  The end of an era.  Thankfully, this is a storming return.  Incubus have gone off in a new direction (it was time), and have produced something great again.  Tracks like ‘Agoraphobia’, ‘Beware! Criminal’ and ‘Here in My Room’ are all classics, and even the over-rated ‘Megalomaniac’ kicks butt.  Brandon has re-discovered his soul, and Mike his guitar pedals (thank god).  Perhaps the biggest improvement here is Ben’s introduction on bass.  He was in The Roots (undisputed hip-hop masters) for years and it shows on this album.   There is rhythm, not funk, at work here, and Incubus are better for it.  A reprieve for a band I would once have said were my favourite.  Well done guys.

3. AUF DER MAUR - Auf der Maur

The big hitters now.  Top three time.  And we start with another album for which the credit must go to my Father (#6).  I never liked Hole that much (although live through this is a great album), and the Smashing Pumpkins were only ever ok.  But Melissa has left all that behind and grown into something special.  This album is full, start to finish, of classic songs.  I love them all.  Now, to be fair, her supporting cast is immense: members of QOTSA, Perfect Circle, Marilyn Manson, Kyuss, Screaming Trees etc.  She was not so hot live.  She needs a much better backing band.  But still, this list is about albums, and this one is superb.  It has stayed in the top echelons of my list all year (this was the first 2004 album I bought).  And she’s got that whole sexy thing going on (though not as much as the Zutons’ trumpet lady).  

2. THERAPY? - Never Apologise Never Explain

Damn this rocks.  What a band.  They are just one of the all time greats.  Simple as that.  Last years’ High Anxiety was #6, I believe, and I loved it.  Less than a year later, they give me this.  Mind blowing stuff.  Every track is a winner.  ‘Polar Bear’, ‘Die Like a Motherfucker’ (I know, what a song title), ‘Last One to Heaven’s a Loser’…I could go on.  Andy still bangs out lyrics that do things to me; “For fuck sake help me, because I need a friend to get me through this…” and “I’m the President, and I like it, a fully fledged bible black-belt tyrant…” being examples.  This album reminds me of Nirvana.  I know that’s taboo to say, and I’m not really comparing them – it just has that feel, rock and pop, dirty and simple.  And classic.  The thing about Therapy? is that every album is different.  They never release the same thing twice (which is why they lost most of their fans after Troublegum, way back in ‘95), and yet they retain the essence of what makes them Therapy?  This band has released ten albums to date.  For me six of those are bona fide classics.  I’m not sure there is another band I could say that of.

1. AMPLIFIER - Amplifier

Not really a surprise here.  Let’s just say that I didn’t think for a second about what would be #1.  This album is so far ahead of anything else on this list it is a bit embarrassing for the competition (however much I adore the Therapy? album).  This beats last year’s winner by Mars Volta.  Christ, we are talking In Utero/Holy Bible period before I find something I like this much.  My Dad deserves all the credit – seven albums on my list are due to his rediscovered enthusiasm for music, and this is his best find by far.

Nobody cares about Amplifier.  There are a few of us who are on the website all the time, but none of the others are from the UK (unlike myself, and, er, the band…).  Amplifier have cracked Germany and Finland.  Most people I play them to either come back with ‘it’s ok’ or ‘it’s shit’.  So maybe I’m just crazy.  But I have been blown away.  This album has been played at least 3 times a week since I got it.  Perhaps more.  For eight months!   It has everything, the inventiveness, the riffs, the passion, the vocals, lyrics (ok, ok, the album cover is a bit bland).  I know and love every note.  For me (though I assume for very few other people, if anyone) this is one of the best albums ever made.  Music never normally gets this good. 

[Note, 2014: this remains my favourite album ever made, by any artist, ever, a decade on, by an overwhelming distance – it is, quite simply, an (entirely non-hyperbolic) masterpiece].

Comments

Ok, just a few other things I wanted to say.  This year produced more albums that I thought were worth buying (and in the majority was proved right) than the last few years.  Yet, it didn’t produce so many classics.  Perhaps, for me, all of my allotted classic album juice for the year was poured into Amplifier.  But, from last year Mars Volta and Radiohead, and from the year before QOTSA, Chilis and Silverchair would all beat Auf der Maur, and maybe Therapy? too.  Even so, a good year for music: just more great albums, less classic albums. 

A few trends I notice in my list, and over this year:

• Girl singers/band members:  Katastrophy Wife, Surferosa, PJ Harvey and Auf der Maur all have ladies singing (plus The Zutons’ trumpeter) – a higher ratio than other years, I feel.
• The Dad Thing: My Dad stopped smoking last Christmas and vowed to spend every penny he saved on music.  The thing is, he now keeps sending me tapes of great music, or more infuriatingly rumours of great music.  And he’s invariably right.  It’s annoying when you get sent a tape by your Dad and it’s better than the last four albums you bought yourself.  Seven albums here are due to my Dad’s influence (plus he phoned me to tell me about Mastodon three hours after I bought it myself…), and thus the list would be very different without him.  I think my parents have become my musical confidants.  Strange twist.  To be fair, I have got them into numerous albums too this year, so it works both ways.
• Debut albums: twelve debut albums out of twenty.  Crazy!  Good year for new bands.  And more than that, there were other records by bands who I had not bought anything by before (even if it wasn’t their debut).  So they were new to me, at least.  Only five bands who I already owed a CD by made it into the top twenty (Ben Kweller, Green Day, PJ Harvey, Incubus and Therapy?).
• Disappointing second albums:  the above may be in part due to some shocking second albums from bands who released debuts that I loved.  I know they talk of the ‘difficult’ second album, but really… Zero 7, Bebel Gilberto, Ben Kweller (I know this made the list, but only just, and it’s nowhere near as good as Sha Sha), Kings of Leon – I am not amused!!!!  Buck up your ideas, or album #3 will be ignored.  Second albums in 2004 sucked!  The Vines going completely the other way is the exception which proves the rule.
• It’s all rock:  No hip-hop this year (though I bought good albums by Blak Twang, A Tribe Called Quest and The Roots – all pre-2004), no trip-hop type stuff either (I bought Zero 7 and Bebel Gilberto, but both were poor, and I’m waiting for the Massive Attack soundtrack album to fall in price), and nothing even vaguely dance.  Everything on my list is guitar based (apart, I guess, from Keane, but despite being guitar-less, it’s still indie), but there is still a range to it, with Mastodon/Keane perhaps being the biggest divide.  Just seems strange, because I usually have the odd non-rock album in there.

I bought albums by A Perfect Circle and Eminem and neither made the list.  Eminem came close, as did Franz Ferdinand (despite me not actually buying it, and making do with a tape copy).  Dave Grohl entertained me for a while with Probot, but it really wasn’t up to that much in the end, certainly not considering the wait.  I should not have bought the Goldie’ Looking Chain album.  It was funny for two days, and then I realised my mistake.  Never buy comedy records.  The Manic Street Preachers released an album this year and I didn’t buy it.  They have just pushed me too far with the last couple of albums, and it’s come to this…  I can’t keep buying their rubbish just because I owe them for The Holy Bible.  Perhaps it’s great and I’m missing out, but I doubt it somehow…

The Ineligibles

Four albums released in 2003, but bought and loved by me in 2004, would have been high up in either this year or last year’s lists.  As such, I owe them a mention.  The most important of these is A Perfect Circle’s Thirteenth Step which would beat my 2003 winner (Mars Volta) and would only lose out to Amplifier this year.  It is a staggering number of leaps on from the first album (and meant I bought the shoddy covers album this year, darn it!).  An utter classic.  Oceansize’s epic Effloresce album is superb too.  The eponymous Firetheft album (featuring a Foo and a former Foo – Firetheft is essentially the new name for Sunny Day Real Estate) is also great.  Firetheft are mellow, intelligent rock – an album that is grand without ever overstretching itself.  Finally, The Dandy Warhols shocked me with how damn good Welcome to the Monkey House is: ‘I am a Scientist’ is a three minute masterwork.

As for 2004 releases, The Red Hot Chili Peppers gave us a great live album, though I doubt it would have made my list anyway.  Oceansize produced an admirable follow up to the above mentioned Effloresce album (curiously titled Music for Nurses), but this was only in ineligible EP form.  Shame, because it would have featured in the list, although Effloresce is better.  Sigur Rós produced an ep follow up to the excellent, but stupidly named ( ), with the utterly pants and even more stupidly named Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do.  The only list this might make is the ‘most dull eps ever made’ list.  Avoid at all costs.  QOTSA released a stonking limited edition EP(Stone Age Complications) which acts, I guess, as a farewell to Nick Oliveri.  Bittersweet, then, because they won’t sound this good again, I fear.  Perhaps they had their day.  Perhaps he still has it in him.  We can live in hope. [Note, 2014: he does indeed; how great was 2013’s …Like Clockwork - #2 that year - ?].

Live

V Festival (slowly becoming the festival) was great again this year, with Muse (undeniably my band of 2003) stealing the show.  The Pixies came in a close second and The Zutons were good too.  I have seen a couple of great hip-hop shows from The Roots and Blak Twang.  Ben Kweller’s tiny gig here in Nottingham deserves a mention, because it was superb, but the two outstanding gigs came at the beginning and end of the year.  A Perfect Circle in early February was a killer show, and normally would run away with ‘gig of the year’, but it is Amplifier’s year for me, and seeing them last month in the basement at Rock City whilst everyone else was upstairs wasting their time listening to Hell is for Heroes was truly special.  I was right at the front, met the singer/guitarist and the bass player, and rocked my little socks off.  Thank you guys, I will never forget.

Forthcoming…

Speaking of 2005, in February Mars Volta stake their claim to re-take the ‘James Green album of the year’ title for the second year out of three.  This will be doubtless there or thereabouts [Note, 2014: it was horrifically awful and didn’t make the list at all in 2005].  My Vitriol keep emailing me with whispered promises of a follow up to 2001’s Finelines, but I’ve almost given up hope [Note, 2014: still never released a second record but continue to work on new material].  They may have gone the sad way of Bullyrag.  The last My Vitriol album was superb, but after four years, this one had better be, er, better.  Foo Fighters promised a double album, and QOTSA return minus the entire band.  Feeder always produce albums of a high quality, and considering their recent insane output level, I expect a fourth Therapy? album in as many years.  Let’s hope it follows the trend of the last two, and not 2002’s disastrous Shameless.  Amplifier tell me they are writing a new record.  Gods be good, make it soon.

That’s it. 

Peace, love and catnip

Other years!

My lists from other years...

2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005

2000-2003 (added online for the first time in 2014)