2004 Music Awards

Top 5 Non-2004 Albums (Heard first in '04)
5. Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers (2003). If all you know is "Stacy's Mom," you're missing out on one of the best power-pop bands out there.
4. Jeff Buckley, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (1998). He drowned before he could finish his second album, and still he leaves us with a powerful, eclectic, passionate album. Oh, what could have been.
3. Dave Attell, Skanks for the Memories (2003). I'll never look at egg nog the same way ever again.
2. The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow (2003). I need to ramble a little bit about The Shins. My new favorite band. Got better on their second album. Natalie Portman says in the movie Garden State that listening to The Shins "will change your life." Best live show of 2004. Anyone who likes them automatically gets 1,000 cool points in my book, with a 100-point bonus for knowing more than "New Slang." James Mercer (lead singer and songwriter) stood off to the side and never said a word for the entire concert, letting the other band members speak and then just started strumming when it was time for the next song. Ok, I'm done. Ah, The Shins...
1. Mos Def, Black on Both Sides (1999). An amazing mind who looks skeptically but optimistically at social reform and pays tribute to jazz, soul, and rock in his beats. This is my idea of what hip hop should be.

Top 3 Surprise Albums of 2004
3. Jamie Cullum, Twentysomething. His choice of jazz-pop covers goes all across the board, but his original material fits in and measures comparably to the old classics.
2. The Vines, Winning Days. Their 1960s psychadelic side shows surprising depth to a band known mostly for Craig Nichols' disturbing, angry, violent antics.
1. Green Day, American Idiot. Ten years ago they played 3-chord riffs about masturbation on an album named after shit. Now they write rock operettas that could potentially translate to the stage. And somehow they still sound like the same band.

Top 3 Letdown Albums of 2004
3. The Thrills, Let's Bottle Bohemia. What starts out so promising erodes into repetitious filler that's little more than the rejected material from their previous album.
2. Wilco, A Ghost is Born. Sorry folks, I just don't get all the hype. The instruments, the vocals, the musical progressions... they all sound sterile to me. This album got tons of "takes a couple of listens" reviews, which I translate to mean " we demand you listen to this until you accept our overblown hype. One of us! One of us!"
1. Incubus, A Crow Left of the Murder. Suckfest alert! Band in identity crisis takes two steps backward alert! Abort! Abort!

Top 10 Songs of 2004
10. Sondre Lerche, "Two Way Monologue". One time I stayed in my bathroom for a solid ten minutes until I had mastered the air guitar version of the ending. I guess now's the time to mention that I have a cd player in the bathroom so I can listen to music while I do the 3 sh's: -it, -ower, and -ave.
9. William Hung, "I Believe I Can Fly". Great comedy albums make you pull off to the side of the road because you're laughing too hard to drive. It takes a special song to do the same thing. William Hung is special.
8. Kasey Chambers, "Paper Aeroplane". I better die before my wife does because if I ever heard this song as a widow, I'd cry too much for anyone to bear.
7. Rufus Wainwright, "The Art Teacher". Gorgeous, sophisticated, honest song about a "girl" recalling a crush on her former art teacher. Finding out at the end that the recording is live makes the performance all the more remarkable.
6. Jamie Cullum, "All at Sea". That is one sexy piano opening for a pop song.
5. Green Day, "Jesus of Suburbia". All nine minutes are infectious, flow marvelously, rock solidly, and end too soon.
4. A.C. Newman, "Miracle Drug". He was TIED to the bed with a miracle drug in one hand! In the OTHER, a great lost novel that, I understand... was returned... with a sta-a-a-amp... that said "Thank you for your in-ter-est, young man."
3. Mos Def, "Sex, Love & Money". Holy shit how I love that beat! Top rap track with a yazz flute background of all time.
2. Jimmy Eat World, "Drugs or Me". This band's even-softer side is seriously overlooked. One of those songs that's tragic and real enough to elicit a physical reaction from the listener.
1. Sam Roberts, "Don't Walk Away Eileen". I could listen to that rockin chorus blasting through my car speakers all day! Actually, I have. Many times. Many.

Top 10 Albums of 2004
Honorable Mention: Nellie McKay, Get Away From Me. I put this one here because I don't own it yet (it's in the mail) and have only heard it once, but what I heard was so off-the-wall in influences, so scathing, so mocking, and so enticing that I know it'll be somewhere around the Top 10. The album name is probably her way of saying, "Don't be ignorant and only compare me to Norah Jones you f****er!"
10. Sondre Lerche, Two Way Monologue. I had my mom make me a sweatshirt just like the one on this album cover because I want to be Sondre Lerche, one of those dudes who writes mature baroque pop, listens to old jazz on the side, keeps a cool online journal, and speaks with a Norwegian accent.
9. Branford Marsalis Quartet, Eternal. He's a way better jazz musician than his overrated little bro Wynton, and he proves it again with 7 tracks of subtly gorgeous soprano sax. He's also way nicer than his grumpy dad, Ellis Marsalis, whom I've played with (that's the only time I'll name drop here).
8. Keane, Hopes and Fears. I tried to think of a way to summarize Keane without the word "Coldplay," but that's like trying to describe Wilco without the word "overrated": you could do it, but it wouldn't be as fun (or accurate). Here's my best description of Keane: piano-driven rock that mixes the sounds of Coldplay with the melodies of early Rufus Wainwright. My album of 2002 was by Coldplay. My album of 2003 was by Rufus Wainwright. Was it possible for me to not like this band?
7. Mos Def, The New Danger. Ok, so it's no Black on Both Sides, and that rap-rock track #2 almost me slice a permanent scratch on that part of the disc, but Mos is still an amazing lyricist and an eclectic talent. And I had to get that yazz flute on here somewhere.
6. Jamie Cullum, Twentysomething. He's a twenty-two year old who uses his rock-trained voice to create gorgeous jazz-pop that talks about more than jumpin, jivin, n' wailin to go along with covers of everything from Broadway to Jeff Buckley to Hendrix to The Neptunes. So there goes my backup plan.
5. Rufus Wainwright, Want Two. Second straight year Rufus is on the list. Also, second straight year I have a completely pink cd on the list.
4. Sam Roberts, We Were Born in a Flame. I missed this the first time it was released in 2003, so maybe they should keep rereleasing this record until people get it that Canadians aren't all evil and that Sam Roberts is a Godsend to rock.
3. A.C. Newman, The Slow Wonder. Check out what AMG said about him: "In a better world, he would be our Elton, our Todd, our McCartney, and Slow Wonder would be on everyone's iPod, rotating on M2 hourly, and his name would be on the lips of everyone from aged Royalty to teen-aged girls." Ok, so AMG also gave Britney Federline 4.5 stars, but they got it right on Newman.
2. Kasey Chambers, Wayward Angel. My runaway favorite country singer is not from Tennessee but from Australia. Kasey writes intimate autobiographical lyrics that she releases with her gorgeous, childlike voice. Truth is, she could be singing the dictionary and I'd love it, but she supports her voice with a wide range of Americana music that covers so many emotions and colors it could never grow boring. Also gets the 2004 award for most times giving me physical chills from a lyric, chord, or note.
1. Green Day, American Idiot. If you had told me a year ago-- shoot, if you had told me 4 months ago-- that my favorite album for the whole year would come from those 3-chord-knowing punks with fake British accents, well I really don't know what I would have done, but it certainly wouldn't have been to nod in agreeance. But Billie Joe and the gang really won me over with this mix of punk-rock angst and Broadway flamboyance. It flows like one big story; you couldn't successfully argue that any track should be placed anywhere but in its existing spot. Most importantly, the gamble of having not one but two nine-minute punk-operettas on the disc is what turns the album from merely solid to undeniably spectacular, as these are far and away the best 18 minutes of the album. If there was ever an album that personified the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" theory, here it is. If black eyeliner is what it takes to make albums this bold and fun, hopefully we'll see more musicians in the cosmetics department.