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.