Decade postmortem: 2006

My original list:

1. Cat Power, The Greatest
2. Joanna Newsom, Ys
3. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
4. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
5. Ali Farka Touré, Savane
6. Camille, Le Fil
7. Beyoncé, B’Day
8. Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
9. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House
10. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

There wasn’t a huge amount to choose from in 2006, at least if you were looking in the usual places. The top sellers were High School Musical, Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Nickelback, Justin Timerlake and James Blunt. The Pazz and Jop winners were Dylan, TV on the Radio, Ghostface Killah, the Hold Steady and Gnarls Barkley, followed by Arctic Monkeys, Clipse, Neko Case, Joanna Newsom and a Tom Waits miscellany.

I liked some of those, but not all, and looking back I’m not overwhelmed with feeling for the music of 2006. I stand by The Greatest; never been a huge Cat Power fan but this one really got under my skin, and despite my initial ambivalence it remains very powerful. Beyond that there are a lot of decent records but not many killers. Joanna Newsom only came alive for me in concert, and anyway The Milk-Eyed Mender is more convincing. So I’m moving that down. Arctic Monkeys feels like a blip now, and aside from “Crazy,” Gnarls Barkley is more silly than great.

Other than The Greatest, the ones that hold up the best, in my view, are Camille, Ali Farka Touré and Grizzly Bear, so they’re all getting bumped up. I’m adding Justin Timberlake, which I’m not sure why I omitted three years ago, since I liked it then, too; it’s still dazzling, and while it doesn’t take itself seriously enough to really be called “visionary,” it certainly is futuristic. The other addition is Beirut, which now looks like a harbinger of the kitchen-sink multi-culti direction that indie rock was starting to go in, and Gulag Orkestar sums up the aesthetic with grace.

More comments: Camille’s Le Fil is an unrecognized masterpiece, a set of amazingly inventive vocal variations, Savane is spellbinding as Ali Farke Touré’s swan song (he died in early 2006), and Regina Spektor sounds pretty darn near perfection; Beyoncé is less strong but still fun enough to include.

Interesting that my original top 5 didn’t fare as well as the bottom 5. Why? No idea. Theories/challenges/rebuttals welcome.

So, here’s 2006 revised:

1. Cat Power, The Greatest
2. Camille, Le Fil
3. Ali Farka Touré, Savane
4. Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds
5. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House
6. Beirut, Gulag Orkestar
7. Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
8. Joanna Newsom, Ys
9. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
10. Beyoncé, B’Day

Buncha ladies. That’s good.

❧

My postmortems of 2007 and 2008 are coming next. I expect there will be less revision there since they’re more recent, but who knows. You can see my previous entries below, or, for those who are really lazy, here: 2000 and 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 and 2005.

(And 2009 is on its way, eventually.)

Decade postmortem: 2004 and 2005

My original list for 2004:

1. Arcade Fire, Funeral
2. Franz Ferdinand, s/t
3. TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
4. Kanye West, The College Dropout
5. Regina Spektor, Soviet Kitsch
6. Wolf Eyes, Burned Mind
7. Vietnam, The Concrete’s Always Grayer on the Other Side of the Street
8. Usher, Confessions
9. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Like Bad News
10. William Shatner, Has Been

In terms of how music is made and distributed, the early 2000s weren’t hugely different from the late ’90s. There were still megaplatinum albums (7.4 million for The Eminem Show in 2002, 6.5 million for Get Rich or Die Tryin’ in 2003), MTV still wielded the hitmaking wand, and the Internet was still more of a nuisance/question mark than the Third Horseman. (The iTunes store opened in 2003, to no small amount of skepticism.) But 2004 was the year things started to look truly transitional.

It was actually a good year for album sales. They went up 2 percent in 2004, after slipping the previous three years. Usher’s Confessions was tops with a remarkable 7.9 million. After sweeping the Grammys and moving 5.1 million copies of Come Away With Me in 2003, Norah Jones continued to sell by the truckload: another 3.8 million in 2004. What could be wrong, right?

In hindsight there were probably a million indicators of what would come, but here are two obvious ones: First, Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, a big flaming copyright violation released online with no label. It proved that this crazy new distribution model could actually work, and while the labels were used to challenges from the consumer/pirate side, this one came from an artist. Second, the Arcade Fire. They scaled the peaks of blog hype, but their sales were still peanuts by biz standards. Lesson: the days of plucking a Kurt Cobain out of indie-rock are over. Consequence: the indies dry up as a farm league and spin totally out of orbit.

❧

I think I was pretty dead-on with my list. Aside from a few position changes, the only change I want to make is to cut Vietnam, which made an impression on me at the time but hasn’t held; Joanna Newsom replaces it. Notes: Nix on The Grey Album, a curiosity that I never got much out of musically, although I recognize DM’s ingenuity. I’m also omitting U2, the Killers, Gwen Stefani, Interpol and Wilco for various reasons, the biggest that I don’t love the albums. And yes, the Shatner record is good!

What does all that biz analysis have to do with my favorites? Nothing. It’s just interesting.

So, 2004 revised:

1. Arcade Fire, Funeral
2. TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
3. Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender
4. Kanye West, The College Dropout
5. Usher, Confessions
6. Franz Ferdinand, s/t
7. Regina Spektor, Soviet Kitsch
8. Wolf Eyes, Burned Mind
9. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Like Bad News
10. William Shatner, Has Been

❧

And now for 2005. I don’t have much more to say about the biz or the larger culture. It was the year in which, despite everything, George W. Bush was sworn in for a second term, having won a decisive majority. Maybe it’s appropriate, then, that the best album of the year was an uncompromising, politicized cry from the third world.

My original list:

1. M.I.A., Arular
2. The Frames, Burn the Maps
3. Sons and Daughters, The Repulsion Box
4. High on Fire, Blessed Black Wings
5. Kanye West, Late Registration
6. Decemberists, Picaresque
7. White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
8. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine
9. Keyshia Cole, The Way It Is
10. The Go! Team, Thunder, Lightning, Strike

I’m going to give myself the groupthink test on these — i.e., looking back after four years, which ones am I certain I was voting for out of love, and which might be the result of that invisible consensus peer pressure we were talking about earlier?

1. Not a chance. Loved it, listened over and over.
2. Nope. It didn’t even make Pazz and Jop.
3. Ditto.
4. Ditto, not that metal would make that list anyway.
5. Some groupthink is inevitable, but to my 2009 ears it still sounds completely solid. And it’s amazing just how much of a fully-formed star Kanye was right from the get-go. He had years of practice with Jay-Z, Twista, Jadakiss et al., but none of those guys had the gumption to look into a live network TV camera and say, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
6. Probably some, but it’s easy to forget how fresh the Decemberists sounded in the first half of the 2000s. Picaresque is what their major-label debut should have sounded like; as I’ve said elsewhere, it got stale pretty fast after this point.
   
7. Nah, check my other lists.
8. Probably. It is an excellent album, though, and I have no regrets about including it.
9. Nah, I fell for it all on my own. This one also didn’t make Pazz and Jop.
10. Yeah, makes me wince. What can I say, sometimes you make a bad call.

So that’s pretty good, I think, overall. I’m cutting the Go! Team, as you might guess, but otherwise leaving my list pretty much intact.

For me, the big contenders I had originally excluded are: My Morning Jacket’s Z, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, Feist’s Let It Die, Spoon’s Gimme Fiction, Teenage Fanclub’s Man-Made, Amadou & Mariam’s Dimanche à Bamako, Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary, Van Morrison’s Magic Time, Lee Ann Womack’s There’s More Where That Came From, Teddy Thompson’s Separate Ways and Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy.

Of those, the only ones I have unequivocal feelings about are My Morning Jacket, Wolf Parade and Okkervil River. And I think MMJ wins out. Sorry, Sufjan, your big breakthrough was beautiful but a little too precious for me. Sorry, Feist, Spoon and Teenage Fanclub, I love you guys, but your albums were flawed. Sorry, Amadou & Mariam, you handed Manu Chao the keys. Sorry, Teddy, I still think you can better. Sorry, Van and Lee Ann, you made gorgeous records but they feel lost in time.

So, 2005 revised:

1. M.I.A., Arular
2. The Frames, Burn the Maps
3. Kanye West, Late Registration
4. Keyshia Cole, The Way It Is
5. Sons and Daughters, The Repulsion Box
6. Decemberists, Picaresque
7. High on Fire, Blessed Black Wings
8. White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
9. My Morning Jacket, Z
10. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

Kyp Malone on Popcast

Tooting own horn dept.:

This week on Popcast, the Times’s weekly music podcast, we have a visit from Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, who sat down for a friendly interview and played a song live from his new solo project, Rain Machine. It was pretty cool to watch his voice wake up over the five minutes or so of recording the song, “Free Ride.”

The segment also includes Jon Pareles on Gossip and Ben Ratliff on Fred Hammond. Listen to it here, and subscribe to Popcast here. Rain Machine is on tour now, coming to the Bowery Ballroom on Oct. 24 for CMJ.

Partial recovery of ‘Best of 2008’

All links, formatting and embedded clips, etc., are gone, and I really don't feel like going to all that trouble again. But here it is, at least until Google allows it to mysteriously disappear again:

ALBUMS

1. Vampire Weekend (XL). Although the role of blogs in their success might be overstated, as people who know have suggested, there’s no denying a textbook 21st-century phenomenon. Yet there’s also something comfortingly classic going on here. The album has a clear musical vision and sonic consistency — two elements endangered by “unbundling” — and, most important, tight, smart songwriting. The rampant Graceland comparisons are simplistic and inaccurate, but this does remind me of the clean minimalism of the ’80s. The Police, maybe? Anyway, fishing for antecedents is a dismal pursuit. The reason this is great is just that it is great.

2. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar). The sad-sack lo-fi album is the most pathetically overdone trend since 15-year-olds discovered black lipstick. But Justin Vernon has done it about as best as can be done, with breathy, wintry harmonies and a perfectionism that still allows for something ragged and unbalanced, making this seem at times like a very low-energy tantrum. Best of all, that perfectionism puts other boo-hoo boys on notice. The age of the trembling Conor Oberst imitation is dead; you have to actually sing now.

3. Girl Talk, Feed the Animals (Illegal Art). There’s nothing new about mashups, nor about an album made entirely of samples. What Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, has done is return the art of sampling to its origins, which were all about the thrill of familiarity. DJ’s recontextualized old sounds, yes, but they chose those sounds in part to piggyback on the memories they triggered. A typical GT track is nostalgia in hyperdrive, stitched together from dozens of samples — each of which you are happy to hear again and again, and again and again.

4. Metallica, Death Magnetic (Warner Bros.). Maybe it is compressed; so what. This is a return to the Metallica that I love, the Metallica I haven’t heard from in 20 years. Physicality = viscera = blood rush = the hunt = murder = pain. In many ways this is a simple horror film, with lyrics like “Crushing metal, ripping skin/Tossing body, mannequin.” There’s also new depth in there, though, thanks to age and the mirror of rehab. But you don’t really care about that, do you? They had you at “ripping skin.”

5. TV on the Radio, Dear Science (Interscope). I’m getting tired of putting TVOTR albums on my best-of lists. But they twisted my arm. This is maybe their best, the noise-cloud gathered into cleaner, sharper lines, the falsetto still kickin’, the caustic surrealism still kickin’ too.

6. Randy Newman, Harps and Angels (Nonesuch). Perhaps the best piece of political satire all year. Newman did a beautiful thing by taking a step away from partisan rancor and arrogance, and then using lighthearted entertainment to brutally lambaste them. How better to frame a theme of post-Katrina shame than with avuncular New Orleans showmanship?

7. My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges (ATO). Jim James may make a great album some day. This isn’t it — disqualified for sexy librarians and “the Interweb” — but it’s one of the most ambitious records by a major band in 2008. (I contend that only Coldplay and Axl Rose took bolder risks. Discuss.) It’s a tug-of-war about paranoia and alienation, and goes through a lot of itchy electronic stuff before getting anywhere close to the Southern-rock pastorals they are known for. And when they do get there (“Thank You Too!”) it’s absolutely gorgeous.

8. Black Kids, Partie Traumatic (Columbia). The Black Kids suffered a bit from the industry-not-moving-as-fast-as-the-Web thing. (Not too bad, though; I still heard them every time I walked into an Urban Outfitters.) But any backlash reflected badly on the blogosphere itself. This is smartass indie dance-pop at its best, and the lyrical wit (“Hello, this is your body/What do you want, my body?/I wanna feel somebody on me”) is the cherry on top.

9. Jonas Brothers, A Little Bit Longer (Hollywood). Perfect rocklegum. How long do we have to wait until Nick Jonas hits his Brian Wilson period?

10. Beach House, Devotion (Car Park). Victoria Legrand has a suppler, deeper alto than Chan Marshall, although she doesn’t reach the same expressive heights. But on Devotion, she wins. Her voice is like a hormonal beacon through clouds of organ and slide guitar (by the other member of Beach House, Alex Scalley), whereas Cat Power’s aimless Jukebox just gets lost. My worry: There’s not much else but texture here. I hope Legrand (and Scalley) develop further and don’t end up simply treading pretty water.


SINGLES

1. Katy Perry, “Hot N Cold”
2. Jonas Brothers, “Lovebug”
3. Coldplay, “Viva la Vida”
4. Black Kids, “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You”
5. She & Him, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”
6. Fall Out Boy, “I Don’t Care”
7. Leona Lewis, “Bleeding Love”
8. Lucinda Williams, “If Wishes Were Horses”
9. Jazmine Sullivan, “Bust Your Windows”
10. Kid Rock, “All Summer Long”


30 MORE RECOMMENDED ALBUMS

Al Green, Lay It Down (Blue Note)
Jamey Johnson, That Lonesome Song (Mercury Nashville)
Coldplay, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (Capitol)
Jay Reatard, Matador Singles 08 (Matador)
Jay Reatard, Singles 06-07 (In the Red)
She & Him, Volume One (Merge)
Nick Cave, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! (Anti-)
Lykke Li, Youth Novels (LL/Atlantic)
Portishead, Third (Island)
School of Seven Bells, Alpinisms (Ghostly)
Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely (Warner Brothers)
Jazmine Sullivan, Fearless (J)
Nine Inch Nails, Ghosts I-IV (Null Corporation)
Fall Out Boy, Folie à Deux (Island)
Joe Jackson, Rain (Ryko)
Liam Finn, I’ll Be Lightning (Yep Roc)
Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop)
Sons & Daughters, This Gift (Domino)
Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs (Atlantic)
Hercules and Love Affair (DFA/EMI)
Shearwater, Rook (Matador)
Magnetic Fields, Distortion (Nonesuch)
Jealous Girlfriends (Good Fences)
Tokyo Police Club, Elephant Shell (Saddle Creek)
Hot Chip, Made in the Dark (DFA/EMI)
MGMT, Oracular Spectacular (Columbia)
Wye Oak, If Children (Merge)
Death Vessel, Nothing Is Precious Enough for Us (Sub Pop)
Jolie Holland, The Living and the Dead (Anti-)
Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer (Sub Pop)

REISSUES

Nick Lowe, Jesus of Cool (Yep Roc)
Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue (Legacy)
Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia (Legacy)

MORE SINGLES I LIKED

Lykke Li, “Little Bit”
Ting Tings, “That’s Not My Name”
Beach House, “Gila”
Kanye West, “Love Lockdown”
John Legend, “Green Light”
Weezer, “Pork and Beans”
Pussycat Dolls, “When I Grow Up”

BLANK STARE

Guns N’ Roses, Chinese Democracy (Geffen)

MOST INTERESTING FAILURE

Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak (Def Jam)

BEST TITLES (ALSO HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

Marnie Stern, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That (Kill Rock Stars)
Kasai Allstars, In The 7th Moon, the Chief Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of His Enemy by Magic (Crammed Discs)

FAVORITE COVER

[Crystal Castles]


YES BUT 2007

Flo Rida, “Low”
M.I.A., “Paper Planes”

HONORARY MENTION

Bruce Springsteen’s powerful reading of Suicide’s life-affirming “Dream Baby Dream,” on a purposely obscure 10-inch (cover, right) that kicked off a series of singles on Blast First Petite in honor of Alan Vega’s 70th birthday (yes, 70th!). It was limited to 4,000 copies, one of which I snagged with an advance order on Amazon. Supposedly it’s sold out, although the last time I was at Kim’s on St. Marks they had three of them, and it’s on eMusic.

MOST OVERRATED INDIE BANDS

No Age
Fleet Foxes

WHITE CRITIC’S OBLIGATORY LIL WAYNE REFERENCE

Lil Wayne

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Shelby Lynne, Just a Little Lovin’ (Lost Highway)
Ray Davies, Working Man’s Cafe (New West)
Cat Power, Jukebox (Matador)
Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple (Atlantic)

CAN’T BE A DISAPPOINTMENT IF YOU DON’T CARE

Beck, Modern Guilt (Interscope)

WORST ALBUM OF 2008

Scarlett Johnansson, Anywhere I Lay My Head (Atco)

Best of 2006

ALBUMS

1. Cat Power, The Greatest
2. Joanna Newsom, Ys
3. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
4. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
5. Ali Farka Touré, Savane
6. Camille, Le Fil
7. Beyoncé, B’Day
8. Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
9. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House
10. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

THE NEXT 10

Johnny Cash, Personal File
Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
Brand New, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
Tom Zé, Estudando o Pagode
Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar
M. Ward, Post-War
Psychic Ills, Early Violence
Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury
Smokey Robinson, Timeless Love
Wolf Eyes, Human Animal

ALSO RECOMMENDED

The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
The Grates, Gravity Won’t Get You High
Beirut, Gulag Orkestar
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Ballad of the Broken Seas
Karen Dalton, In My Own Time
Nellie McKay, Pretty Little Head
Liars, Drum’s Not Dead
Howe Gelb, ’Sno Angel Like You
Josh Ritter, The Animal Years
Man Man, Six Demon Bag
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Show Your Bones
Comets on Fire, Avatar
Camera Obscura, Let’s Get Out of This Country
Toumani Diabaté’s Symmetric Orchestra, Boulevard de l’Indépendance
Jolie Holland, Springtime Can Kill You
Beth Orton, Comfort of Strangers
Band of Horses, Everything All the Time
Little Willies, s/t
Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, The River in Reverse
Juana Molina, Son
Corinne Bailey Rae, s/t
Faun Fables, The Transit Rider
Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
Oxford Collapse, Remember the Night Parties
Susana Baca, Travesias
Bob Dylan, Modern Times
Bert Jansch, The Black Swan
Television Personalities, My Dark Places
Bound Stems, Appreciation Night
Hot Chip, The Warning
Maritime, We, the Vehicles
Candi Staton, His Hands
Jenny Lewis, Rabbit Fur Coat
Mono, You Are There
Tool, 10,000 Days
Destroyer, Destroyer’s Rubies
Oakley Hall, Gypsum Strings

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Watts Passage, The Magnetic Demonstration

SONGS/SINGLES

Gnarls Barkley, “Crazy”
Nelly Furtado, “Promiscuous”
Rihanna, “SOS”
Beyoncé, “Irreplaceable”
Justin Timberlake, “My Love”
AFI, “Miss Murder”
Smokey Robinson, “I Love Your Face”
M. Ward, “Requiem”
Cat Power, “The Greatest”
Hot Chip, “And I Was a Boy From School”
Oxford Collapse, “Loser City”
Gwen Stefani, “Wind It Up”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Way Out”
Raconteurs, “Steady, As She Goes”
Corinne Bailey Rae, “Put Your Records On”

YES BUT 2005

Art Brut
Boris
Death Vessel
Dengue Fever
José González
Panic! at the Disco

YES BUT NO LP, ONLY EPs

Voxtrot

BEST LIVE ACT

Joanna Newsom

KIND OF DULL RECORD BUT GREAT LIVE

Figurines

MISUNDERESTIMATED

Ray LaMontagne
Keane

DISAPPOINTMENTS/MERELY OK

Sunn 0)))
Thom Yorke
Neko Case
Ray Davies
Grandaddy
John Legend

DON’T CARE

Christina Aguilera
Brazilian Girls
Scissor Sisters
Drive-By Truckers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Umphrey’s McGee
CSS

WORST ALBUM OF 2006

Sergio Mendes, Timeless

Best of 2004

ALBUMS

1. Arcade Fire, Funeral
2. Franz Ferdinand, s/t
3. TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
4. Kanye West, The College Dropout
5. Regina Spektor, Soviet Kitsch
6. Wolf Eyes, Burned Mind
7. Vietnam, The Concrete’s Always Grayer on the Other Side of the Street
8. Usher, Confessions
9. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Like Bad News
10. William Shatner, Has Been

THE NEXT 10

Mr. Airplane Man, C’mon DJ
Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender
Devendra Banhart, Rejoicing in the Hands
Liars, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Mosquitos, Sunshine Barato
Bang on a Can Meets Kyaw Kyaw Naing
Nick Cave, Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
Tom Waits, Real Gone
Futureheads, s/t
Hot Snakes, Audit in Progress

26 MORE

Cucumbers, All Things to You
Tilly and the Wall, Wild Like Children
Caetano Veloso, A Foreign Sound
Blonde Redhead, Misery Is a Butterfly
Comets on Fire, Blue Cathedral
Laura Veirs, Carbon Glacier
Faun Fables, Family Album
Mouthus, s/t
Elliott Smith, From a Basement on the Hill
PJ Harvey, Uh Huh Her
Walkmen, Bows + Arrows
Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova, One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels
The Divine Comedy, Absent Friends
Iron & Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days
Division of Laura Lee, Das Not Compute
On Air Library, s/t
John Cale, HoboSapiens
Black Dice, Creature Comforts
Pink Grease, This Is for Real
Blood Brothers, Crimes
Chingy, Powerballin’
Beastie Boys, To the 5 Boroughs
Danger Mouse & Jemini, Ghetto Pop Life
Sonic Youth, Sonic Nurse
Hem, Eveningland
v/a, Lif Up Yuh Leg an Trample

REISSUES

Brian Eno (8 albums)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly soundtrack
Eccentric Soul series on Numero

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Hives
Mos Def
Magnetic Fields
Sondre Lerche
Air
Destiny’s Child
Secret Machines
Wilco
Northern State
Talib Kweli
Mooney Suzuki
Le Tigre

DON’T CARE

Morrissey
Scissor Sisters
Jadakiss
Libertines
Jet
Drive-By Truckers
Courtney Love
Prince
Polyphonic Spree
Rufus Wainwright

BLANK STARE

The Streets
Velvet Revolver

WORST ALBUM OF 2004

Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart, Alfie: Music From the Motion Picture

EX POST FACTO

Apparently I didn’t make a list of singles for 2004.