Interpol was probably the most impactful. I had just met my future wife at the end of 2003 and we moved in together in 2004. We had just become aware of Interpol after seeing them as part of the Cure's touring festival. Interpol was a constant in the music rotation while we repainted and moved into what would be our home for the next decade, so there are very fond memories wrapped up in their music. Modest Mouse was maybe the other big one, but my prefernece from them will always be the Moon and Antartica.
Hi Darren! Another year where there wasn't much new music that appealed to me. Hot Snakes nearly topped my chart again, but Heart Ache by Jesu wins by a nose. It's described as an EP but both tracks are around twenty minutes long so I consider it to be an album, it's probably longer than most of the albums in my collection! I've been a fan of pretty much everything Justin Broadrick-related since I first saw Godflesh back in the dark ages, and I think Heart Ache's second track Ruined is one of the best things he's done. The combination of heaviosity and melody is just fantastic.
Honourable mentions to: American Idiot; Franz Ferdinand; Hot Fuss (another for the One and Done category); and from left field Scissor Sisters. Another 2 horse race. Interpol’s Antics is there. Another discovery from a Q mag CD, and having bought the album I was surprised to hear Evil being played in the opening sequence of an episode of The O.C. 😀 But it doesn’t win… 2 albums in, for me they haven’t yet hit their peak. So 2004 winner for me is a marmite choice - Up All Night by Razorlight. Reflects one of my musical happy places - albums to sing along to in the car on the way home from a hellish day at work.
Late to the party but for me 2004’s standout is Bubblgum by Mark Lanegan. Liked it at the time but it’s a grower and still gets a lot of play. A tired, broken, lovely album.
Another No.1 I dont know and will listen to- thanks. I was definitely searching around in 2004 and fell into Prog and loved it, I fell out later but have returned to these and still love them and feel my falling out might have had more to do with being self concious of others tastes - the stand out is Karnivool and their album Themata, more main stream The Butterfly Effect - Begins Here both wild live. Speaking of live for those indifferent to Midnight Oil, the follwing is your best chance of liking them - their Best of Both Worlds - Oils On the Water - is a double live recording and gets as close to capturing their real appeal as any live recordings I've seen of other bands - the Live at the Capitol is the better one imo, it covers some of their earlier material- this isnt easy to find on streaming because they were recorded and released by the ABC - again if you are ever going to like the Oils its through these. Try and find video not just audio if you can. Otherwise 78 Saab - Crossed Lines is a ripper. All the above are Australian. I really liked Ambulance and their album LP and Kanye - The College Dropout
The struggle continued for me. 'Last Exit' by The Junior Boys had its moments, and had probably my favouite track of the decade which was 'Teach me How To Fight; which is the great lost synthpop tune of the eighties. 'Madvilliany' by Madvillian is for many people the greatest hip hop album ever...I wouldnt agree , but its decent. The DFA label compilation had its moments
Dear friends the Futureheads debut was the winner for me. This lot, Field Music and This Aint Vegas (as well as a whole load of other Sunderland bands) were propping up the bills we were putting on in Newcastle. Heady times. Other bangers - Hot Snakes ‘Audit In Progress’, Probot ‘Probot’, The Blood Brothers ‘Crimes’, Converge ‘You Fail Me’,
Still love that Futureheads album. Was going to mention "Audit", but I'm really trying to make these videos more manageable so I can fit work on other ideas outside this series. A notch down on "Suicide Invoice" for me, but given the level they were operating at, a Hot Snakes "notch" barely registers! Cheers, D
I missed Mogwai's 'Happy songs for happy people' and 'A song to ruin' by Million Dead last year, right? Dammit!! The Futureheads are a damn good choice. Didn't find Arcade Fire til 'Black mirror'. Much loved and missed? 'Our endless numbered days' by Iron & Wine, which took me back to 'The creek drank the cradle which is frankly magnificent and historically heartbreaking in equal measures. Probably why I ended up with Converge's 'You fail me' on almost constant repeat later. Also listened to the Cure's S/T an awful lot this year which in retrospect feels a bit off somehow. Interpol's second. Would love to say Richter's 'The Blue Notebooks' or Basinkski's 'Disintegration loops' but those discoveries were some way into the future (Yes, cheating, i know 😉
Whatcha see is pretty much what you get for '04. Would have called out Hot Snakes "Audit", but mentioned it last time out, and am trying to tighten these videos up. Pickings definitely slimmer over the next few years at least. Futureheads are the clear pick of that gen of UK post-punk revivalists for me. Franz Ferdinand always came across like pervy slightly-older dudes hanging around Uni indie discos, and Bloc Party had a few good tunes, and that was it. Cheers, D
Franz Ferdinand was a very good album. Joanna Newsom also very good. With the perspective of 20 more years, I’d say Madvillainy was the standout album.
Didn't pick up on Newsom until the next album myself, but a good shout! Find FF a tough listen nowadays due to the airplay saturation it got at the time. Cheers, D
Arcade Fire, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand sounded very cool to me in 2004 and have held up quite well. Although admittedly, at the time I also liked Keane... erm... oh well. Pleasure Club's second album The Fugitive Kind is one I'd rather go back to now though. Nick Cave's double set felt like a refreshing new start, awesome stuff, despite Blixa leaving. Also glad to have a last Blue Nile album, Brian Wilson finally being able to finish Smile. Bittersweet to get a final posthumous album from Elliott Smith. Even Morrissey was back! Yay! How would he look on the cover of a new album, if he ever "is allowed" to make another one? Would he be cheekily dressed in a stylized black uniform?... Joanna Newsom, Sam Philips and Of Montreal had great albums this year. The Knife was getting there.
Smile! Yes! I'd completely forgot that Bri finally got it over the finish line this year. Conflicted admission! I once spent a very happy 15 minutes "relocating" all the copies of Morrissey's latest album (I forget which) to random alphabetic locations in the CD racks of A Large Music Retaiiler (TM) after what were his then-recent public comments in support of Britain First. A puny act of sabotage, I'll admit, but if he wants to keep on cancelling himself, then I'm fine and dandy with that. It saves me the bother. Cheers, D
@@discellany He, he :) Mozotage! Well, his opinions and the way he expresses them outside his music do sometimes work like the smell of bacon on a barbecue to a vegetarian's appetite. Or something like that.
I also considered Arcade Fire for the top spot, but ultimately chose against it. Likewise, I contemplated giving this year to my then regular customer Ray LaMontagne with Trouble (oops, sorry, let me pick up that name I just dropped). But, for me 2004 goes to Mark Knopfler with Shangri-La. Easily my most listened to new release that year, and a masterclass in songwriting as storytelling. The way he embodies the characters in his songs is astounding; he even makes Ray Krock, founder of McDonald's, seem interesting and sympathetic. Per usual, I have some homework to do. I'm especially excited about The Futureheads, as I am very fond of early Wire and XTC. But mostly, I've got a certain archive of a 7" single to go listen to....
You'll enjoy Futureheads then. Some of the obliqueness of Wire, with the pop hooks and melodic cut of XTC. Still find it hard to listen to the 7". That bit where I hear the bass drop out, the fact that my guitar needed more of a push in the mix...even 20 years on, it's the studio goofs that jump out over everything else. Cheers, D
@@discellany it sounds a thousand times better than the homemade recordings I made 30 years ago! I always view past recordings like a photograph; they're a slice of time. A mistake on a record is the same as a bad grade school haircut. It might be an embarrassment in hindsight, but at the time it was pretty good. I, too, occasionally cringe at my old tracks, but I remind myself that it was literally the best I could do with what I had at the moment.
One more comment for 2004. Something I only stumbled on lately... in 2004 Metallica released a documentary "Some Kind of Monster". This is just over 2 hours of the most hilarious and insane music documentary footage you will ever see. My wife and I can't decide if it is perhaps the most brilliant mockumentary ever made or if these guys are the single dumbest collection of people to have played in a band. I could write an essay about how hilarious and mind blowing this thing is. A few tidbits....JH skips his daughter's first birthday to go to Russia to shoot a HIBERNATING bear. They record a song, think it will open the album and they play it to the drummer's dad and he says "delete that". How rock and roll to ask your dad and to have him tell you how rancid your music is. The scene with Dave M from Megadeath is so pathetic and hilarious, you cannot believe it. They have the dumbest most petty passive aggressive fights with each other. In almost every scene it is totally clear they have zero ideas or vision for their new album. It is like watching a dim football player write a poem for homework. And the lead guitar player is so dumb that I feel cruel laughing about him. Please, anyone reading this...watch this. It is free on RUclips. We have watched it several times and never cease to be awed by it. And when we settle down we say "and why would they choose to have filmed this and show it to the world?". Intentional or not (clearly not) this is probably the most incredible piece of music related art to have been produced in 2004. I challenge anyone who has watched it to disagree.
It's been many years since I watched it, but as I remember it, yes...as pure a depiction of (to quote the late Bill Hicks) "fevered egos" as you'll ever see committed to tape/film. The complete lack of self-awareness, of quite how far they'd got stranded up their own backsides, is quite a thing to behold. I'd love to say it was all a meta performance piece, that they were in on it all, and just playing at being Spinal Tap, having fun with the audience...but I just don't buy it. There are parts of the Ramones doc (End Of The Century) which get close, but that was The Ramones, and that level of cartoonish hyper-reality is priced in with them. And like you, I can't quite believe they looked at the final cut of this and went "yeah, OK, we're good with this". Quite timely that you'd mention this, as I'm planning on doing a film/music crossover video fairly soon. Going purely dramatic to start with, but tempted by a documentary-specific piece as well. Will just have to suck it and see, I think! Cheers, D
So 2004 wasn't an amazing year, but it did cough up Iron and Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days, an absolutely beautiful album about life, love and mortality with none of the sentimentality, hyperbole and drivel that usually ensues. That album still takes my breath away in places, with its lyricism and depth and poetry. The Woman King ep after was a marvel and then, honestly, I don't like another thing he ever recorded - also one of the most saddening gigs I've ever been to (he's welcome to have a new soft jazz radio direction, but not on songs that have moved me to tears of loss and joy). So yeah, that, for me, is 2004. Can't think of another record from the year that did me any decent beans at all, though. I think I was mostly drunk or listening to funk and soul and electronica because really, screw the noughties music scene
I think "spotty" covers the noughties pretty damn well. Some good years ('07 has some doozies) followed by straight-up stinkers (st-err-ugglin with '08). Thank Satan I'm not overly bothering with pop music, because the whole '00s talent show winner thing really did go beyond what's allowable. The alt-country/Americana thing passed me by, I must say...a little Chesnutt...a dash of Oldham, Molina...some occasional Calexico. Beyond that, I'm pretty clueless, so I will take your Iron & Wine and run with it (I'll be breathless within seconds though, no doubt). This New Year album is both desperately melancholic, and witheringly acerbic at the same time, and "18" reduces me to a watery gel. You might approve...their music, that is, not the thought of me liquifying. Dx
Weirdly, I absolutely can't abide alt country and Americana (I know, I've had people throw REM at me as progenitors but just no, it's not even remotely The Thing, even when it kind of seems like it is). So I thought I'd hate this. But even the chug of the opener hooked me in, and by the time it got to the closer, I was done. So it's the exception. But what an exception. It's the content not the style, this human, humane and unvarnished mortality. I've not been able to listen to it since my mum passed, but when I do, I suspect catharsis. A weird companion for me is Modern Nature's Island of Noise (spoiler, my album of 2021). It makes me feel alive better somehow, but not without a huge cost in honest melancholy . I have to say, when my albums of 2003 were Rounds and the New Folk Implosion, it hardly felt like the bright new dawn of music was happening at this time. But I loved the OC. Perfect Cheesecake for Hangovers. Ho hum old chum.
@@michaelsylvain2172 - you're spot on that those first couple of I&W albums and EPs are totally destroying. I bought the next few years of releases but they didn't even come close 😒
Interpol was probably the most impactful. I had just met my future wife at the end of 2003 and we moved in together in 2004. We had just become aware of Interpol after seeing them as part of the Cure's touring festival. Interpol was a constant in the music rotation while we repainted and moved into what would be our home for the next decade, so there are very fond memories wrapped up in their music.
Modest Mouse was maybe the other big one, but my prefernece from them will always be the Moon and Antartica.
Hi Darren! Another year where there wasn't much new music that appealed to me. Hot Snakes nearly topped my chart again, but Heart Ache by Jesu wins by a nose. It's described as an EP but both tracks are around twenty minutes long so I consider it to be an album, it's probably longer than most of the albums in my collection! I've been a fan of pretty much everything Justin Broadrick-related since I first saw Godflesh back in the dark ages, and I think Heart Ache's second track Ruined is one of the best things he's done. The combination of heaviosity and melody is just fantastic.
Honourable mentions to: American Idiot; Franz Ferdinand; Hot Fuss (another for the One and Done category); and from left field Scissor Sisters.
Another 2 horse race. Interpol’s Antics is there. Another discovery from a Q mag CD, and having bought the album I was surprised to hear Evil being played in the opening sequence of an episode of The O.C. 😀
But it doesn’t win… 2 albums in, for me they haven’t yet hit their peak.
So 2004 winner for me is a marmite choice - Up All Night by Razorlight. Reflects one of my musical happy places - albums to sing along to in the car on the way home from a hellish day at work.
Late to the party but for me 2004’s standout is Bubblgum by Mark Lanegan. Liked it at the time but it’s a grower and still gets a lot of play. A tired, broken, lovely album.
Another No.1 I dont know and will listen to- thanks. I was definitely searching around in 2004 and fell into Prog and loved it, I fell out later but have returned to these and still love them and feel my falling out might have had more to do with being self concious of others tastes - the stand out is Karnivool and their album Themata, more main stream The Butterfly Effect - Begins Here both wild live. Speaking of live for those indifferent to Midnight Oil, the follwing is your best chance of liking them - their Best of Both Worlds - Oils On the Water - is a double live recording and gets as close to capturing their real appeal as any live recordings I've seen of other bands - the Live at the Capitol is the better one imo, it covers some of their earlier material- this isnt easy to find on streaming because they were recorded and released by the ABC - again if you are ever going to like the Oils its through these. Try and find video not just audio if you can. Otherwise 78 Saab - Crossed Lines is a ripper. All the above are Australian. I really liked Ambulance and their album LP and Kanye - The College Dropout
Hell yes!!!! Love that The New Year album!!!!
I knew I could rely on you, Mike! Cheers, D
Gosh it's been 20 years since he passed away !! RIP
The struggle continued for me. 'Last Exit' by The Junior Boys had its moments, and had probably my favouite track of the decade which was 'Teach me How To Fight; which is the great lost synthpop tune of the eighties. 'Madvilliany' by Madvillian is for many people the greatest hip hop album ever...I wouldnt agree , but its decent. The DFA label compilation had its moments
Dear friends the Futureheads debut was the winner for me. This lot, Field Music and This Aint Vegas (as well as a whole load of other Sunderland bands) were propping up the bills we were putting on in Newcastle. Heady times.
Other bangers - Hot Snakes ‘Audit In Progress’, Probot ‘Probot’, The Blood Brothers ‘Crimes’, Converge ‘You Fail Me’,
Still love that Futureheads album. Was going to mention "Audit", but I'm really trying to make these videos more manageable so I can fit work on other ideas outside this series. A notch down on "Suicide Invoice" for me, but given the level they were operating at, a Hot Snakes "notch" barely registers! Cheers, D
I missed Mogwai's 'Happy songs for happy people' and 'A song to ruin' by Million Dead last year, right? Dammit!! The Futureheads are a damn good choice. Didn't find Arcade Fire til 'Black mirror'. Much loved and missed? 'Our endless numbered days' by Iron & Wine, which took me back to 'The creek drank the cradle which is frankly magnificent and historically heartbreaking in equal measures. Probably why I ended up with Converge's 'You fail me' on almost constant repeat later. Also listened to the Cure's S/T an awful lot this year which in retrospect feels a bit off somehow. Interpol's second. Would love to say Richter's 'The Blue Notebooks' or Basinkski's 'Disintegration loops' but those discoveries were some way into the future (Yes, cheating, i know 😉
Whatcha see is pretty much what you get for '04. Would have called out Hot Snakes "Audit", but mentioned it last time out, and am trying to tighten these videos up. Pickings definitely slimmer over the next few years at least.
Futureheads are the clear pick of that gen of UK post-punk revivalists for me. Franz Ferdinand always came across like pervy slightly-older dudes hanging around Uni indie discos, and Bloc Party had a few good tunes, and that was it. Cheers, D
@@discellany Totally agree with your second paragraph
Franz Ferdinand was a very good album. Joanna Newsom also very good.
With the perspective of 20 more years, I’d say Madvillainy was the standout album.
Didn't pick up on Newsom until the next album myself, but a good shout! Find FF a tough listen nowadays due to the airplay saturation it got at the time. Cheers, D
Arcade Fire, Interpol and Franz Ferdinand sounded very cool to me in 2004 and have held up quite well. Although admittedly, at the time I also liked Keane... erm... oh well.
Pleasure Club's second album The Fugitive Kind is one I'd rather go back to now though. Nick Cave's double set felt like a refreshing new start, awesome stuff, despite Blixa leaving.
Also glad to have a last Blue Nile album, Brian Wilson finally being able to finish Smile. Bittersweet to get a final posthumous album from Elliott Smith.
Even Morrissey was back! Yay! How would he look on the cover of a new album, if he ever "is allowed" to make another one? Would he be cheekily dressed in a stylized black uniform?...
Joanna Newsom, Sam Philips and Of Montreal had great albums this year. The Knife was getting there.
Smile! Yes! I'd completely forgot that Bri finally got it over the finish line this year.
Conflicted admission! I once spent a very happy 15 minutes "relocating" all the copies of Morrissey's latest album (I forget which) to random alphabetic locations in the CD racks of A Large Music Retaiiler (TM) after what were his then-recent public comments in support of Britain First. A puny act of sabotage, I'll admit, but if he wants to keep on cancelling himself, then I'm fine and dandy with that. It saves me the bother. Cheers, D
@@discellany He, he :) Mozotage! Well, his opinions and the way he expresses them outside his music do sometimes work like the smell of bacon on a barbecue to a vegetarian's appetite. Or something like that.
I also considered Arcade Fire for the top spot, but ultimately chose against it.
Likewise, I contemplated giving this year to my then regular customer Ray LaMontagne with Trouble (oops, sorry, let me pick up that name I just dropped).
But, for me 2004 goes to Mark Knopfler with Shangri-La. Easily my most listened to new release that year, and a masterclass in songwriting as storytelling. The way he embodies the characters in his songs is astounding; he even makes Ray Krock, founder of McDonald's, seem interesting and sympathetic.
Per usual, I have some homework to do. I'm especially excited about The Futureheads, as I am very fond of early Wire and XTC.
But mostly, I've got a certain archive of a 7" single to go listen to....
You'll enjoy Futureheads then. Some of the obliqueness of Wire, with the pop hooks and melodic cut of XTC.
Still find it hard to listen to the 7". That bit where I hear the bass drop out, the fact that my guitar needed more of a push in the mix...even 20 years on, it's the studio goofs that jump out over everything else. Cheers, D
@@discellany it sounds a thousand times better than the homemade recordings I made 30 years ago! I always view past recordings like a photograph; they're a slice of time. A mistake on a record is the same as a bad grade school haircut. It might be an embarrassment in hindsight, but at the time it was pretty good. I, too, occasionally cringe at my old tracks, but I remind myself that it was literally the best I could do with what I had at the moment.
One more comment for 2004. Something I only stumbled on lately... in 2004 Metallica released a documentary "Some Kind of Monster". This is just over 2 hours of the most hilarious and insane music documentary footage you will ever see. My wife and I can't decide if it is perhaps the most brilliant mockumentary ever made or if these guys are the single dumbest collection of people to have played in a band. I could write an essay about how hilarious and mind blowing this thing is. A few tidbits....JH skips his daughter's first birthday to go to Russia to shoot a HIBERNATING bear. They record a song, think it will open the album and they play it to the drummer's dad and he says "delete that". How rock and roll to ask your dad and to have him tell you how rancid your music is. The scene with Dave M from Megadeath is so pathetic and hilarious, you cannot believe it. They have the dumbest most petty passive aggressive fights with each other. In almost every scene it is totally clear they have zero ideas or vision for their new album. It is like watching a dim football player write a poem for homework. And the lead guitar player is so dumb that I feel cruel laughing about him. Please, anyone reading this...watch this. It is free on RUclips. We have watched it several times and never cease to be awed by it. And when we settle down we say "and why would they choose to have filmed this and show it to the world?". Intentional or not (clearly not) this is probably the most incredible piece of music related art to have been produced in 2004. I challenge anyone who has watched it to disagree.
It's been many years since I watched it, but as I remember it, yes...as pure a depiction of (to quote the late Bill Hicks) "fevered egos" as you'll ever see committed to tape/film. The complete lack of self-awareness, of quite how far they'd got stranded up their own backsides, is quite a thing to behold. I'd love to say it was all a meta performance piece, that they were in on it all, and just playing at being Spinal Tap, having fun with the audience...but I just don't buy it. There are parts of the Ramones doc (End Of The Century) which get close, but that was The Ramones, and that level of cartoonish hyper-reality is priced in with them. And like you, I can't quite believe they looked at the final cut of this and went "yeah, OK, we're good with this".
Quite timely that you'd mention this, as I'm planning on doing a film/music crossover video fairly soon. Going purely dramatic to start with, but tempted by a documentary-specific piece as well. Will just have to suck it and see, I think! Cheers, D
So 2004 wasn't an amazing year, but it did cough up Iron and Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days, an absolutely beautiful album about life, love and mortality with none of the sentimentality, hyperbole and drivel that usually ensues. That album still takes my breath away in places, with its lyricism and depth and poetry. The Woman King ep after was a marvel and then, honestly, I don't like another thing he ever recorded - also one of the most saddening gigs I've ever been to (he's welcome to have a new soft jazz radio direction, but not on songs that have moved me to tears of loss and joy). So yeah, that, for me, is 2004.
Can't think of another record from the year that did me any decent beans at all, though. I think I was mostly drunk or listening to funk and soul and electronica because really, screw the noughties music scene
I think "spotty" covers the noughties pretty damn well. Some good years ('07 has some doozies) followed by straight-up stinkers (st-err-ugglin with '08). Thank Satan I'm not overly bothering with pop music, because the whole '00s talent show winner thing really did go beyond what's allowable.
The alt-country/Americana thing passed me by, I must say...a little Chesnutt...a dash of Oldham, Molina...some occasional Calexico. Beyond that, I'm pretty clueless, so I will take your Iron & Wine and run with it (I'll be breathless within seconds though, no doubt). This New Year album is both desperately melancholic, and witheringly acerbic at the same time, and "18" reduces me to a watery gel. You might approve...their music, that is, not the thought of me liquifying. Dx
Weirdly, I absolutely can't abide alt country and Americana (I know, I've had people throw REM at me as progenitors but just no, it's not even remotely The Thing, even when it kind of seems like it is). So I thought I'd hate this. But even the chug of the opener hooked me in, and by the time it got to the closer, I was done. So it's the exception. But what an exception. It's the content not the style, this human, humane and unvarnished mortality. I've not been able to listen to it since my mum passed, but when I do, I suspect catharsis. A weird companion for me is Modern Nature's Island of Noise (spoiler, my album of 2021). It makes me feel alive better somehow, but not without a huge cost in honest melancholy .
I have to say, when my albums of 2003 were Rounds and the New Folk Implosion, it hardly felt like the bright new dawn of music was happening at this time. But I loved the OC. Perfect Cheesecake for Hangovers. Ho hum old chum.
Also: we are both remotely liquefying. This is terrifying for Britain. Well done us
We are the rising tide that lifts no boats, least of all our own little dinghys. Avast ye gland lubbers! D
@@michaelsylvain2172 - you're spot on that those first couple of I&W albums and EPs are totally destroying. I bought the next few years of releases but they didn't even come close 😒