Top 5 Albums: 2004
I started this entry about 3 weeks ago: my top 5 list for 2004. Music can be such a difficult thing to describe, and outside of one or two Amazon reviews this is my first attempt at writing reviews. Of the five only one was released in 2004. Some stretch as far back as 1999, but they were all new to me in 2004. I hope you’ll find it interesting, and perhaps decide to try out something I mention here. They’ve all stood the test of time for me, but as I’m often reminded I have a “different” taste in music than many of my friends. Having good taste can be challenging. So it goes.
In no particular order, my Top 5 Albums of 2004 are… (and no, I don’t get a cut if you buy through these links)
Wilco - A Ghost is Born (2004): It wasn’t until a couple weeks after I saw Wilco play the Fox that I began to like their new album. The concert was “okay” - it’s the kind of music that’s good, but hard to get too excited about - and the political sentiments expressed by Tweedy (which I laughed about at the time) proved surprisingly unsettling in the days that followed. A week after the concert I kept hearing the chorus melody to “Theologians” in my head and went back for another listen. For me, A Ghost is Born contains Wilco’s best work to date. More heartfelt and intimate than the dissonance of YHF, more rousing than the discombobulated alt-country sadness of Being There. Keith Phipps, in The Onion A.V. Club: “Where much of [YHF]’s appeal came from finding art in the sound of a world crumbling, Ghost’s comes from the necessity of making music for the day after.” Cryptic at first, those words have stuck with me, and now I feel I know what he’s on about.
Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism (2003): Death Cab for Cutie is one of those bands that you keep hearing bits about - Amazon thinks you should buy their album, they’re playing at Variety Playhouse - and when you finally buy the album on a whim it’s perfect, and oh by the way the Variety Playhouse show was two months ago. There’s not one song on this album that I skip. It’s all fairly simple stuff, but it works so well. iTunes says I’ve listened to no song less than 11 times, and two of them 16 times.
Listening to “Lightness,” I can’t help but be reminded of Modest Mouse’s “Dramamine” - trading abrasiveness for consistency. There are times to challenge oneself and then there are times to sit back and enjoy some freakin’ good pop/rock.
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin (1999): Yet another band that I fell in love with just after they came to Variety Playhouse (while I was safe at home). After the stunning Yoshimi I stepped back in their catalog to The Soft Bulletin, which turns out to be a similarly beautiful album. Psychadelic and epic in most every song, it’s the kind of album that you put on and know almost immediately that the band has achieved greatness. Stand-out lyric in this album for me: “Asked you a question / I didn’t need you to reply / Is it getting heavy? / But then I realized / Is it getting heavy? / Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be.” Soft isn’t as finely produced as Yoshimi, but it’s telling that it’s every bit as rich - if not in some ways more heartfelt - as/than its successor.
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003): Finally, a B&S album that I can listen to from start to finish without skipping around to the good bits. Light and poppy almost throughout, it’s as if they finally let go of that burdeon of being a highly visible independant act (e.g., quit feeling so sorry for themselves on acetone) and got down to work creating great, fun throwback material that truly suits them. “I’m A Cuckoo” has perhaps the most familiar lyric for this year (for me): “I’d like to see you, but really I should stay away and let you settle down.” Waitress is the pop radio hit of an alternate universe - one where talented songcrafting - not hit-crafting - makes it to the top of the chart.
The Shins - Chutes too Narrow (2003): Chutes kicks off with a set of rambunctious pop-rockers. On my first listen I thought I’d made a mistake and that the friend who recommended this had mis-judged me. The depth of these speedy rock dittys sinks in on repeated listens (15 each, thanks iTunes, plus who knows how many times in the car). The second half slows for some nice ballads, but it’s the pedal steele twang of “Gone for Good” that really endears this album to me: “I found a fatal flaw in the logic of love,” sings Mercer. I don’t know what the hell he’s actually talking about through most of the album, but it sounds pretty good anyway.
Okay, that’s five great rock albums. For an extra bonus, here’s my favorite jazz album from the past year:
Brian Bromberg - Wood (2002): Brian Bromberg is a master of the upright bass, and he’s also perhaps the second artist I’ve picked up because of WREK (the first being Kid Koala): while driving in one morning I heard his solo rendition of “All Blues.” While probably not blazing any trails at all - a lot of this album is your standard trio gig - it’s one of those albums that’s just really good… if safe. His solo pieces are the stand-outs here, and they really serve as a beautiful example of what a brilliant musician can do with his instrument. Even when he’s straying from the melodies inscribed in our heads he’s still in the groove, and rarely comes across as self-indulgent.
Huh-huh, I said Wood.
January 3rd, 2005 at 2:04 pm
Perhaps you can suggest a list of “Mediocre 5 Albums: 2004″ for the less musically snobbish?? You know–something to go along with your 3 star collection. ;-)