Revisiting my "Top Albums of 2004" 20 Years Later
Part 9 of 10: The Home Stretch
Happy Thanksgiving Week,
Not to be too corny or anything, but I’m thankful for the ~100 people that take a look at this little newsletter and the handful of you, both online and real life friends, that give me feedback and show genuine excitement about the topics/albums/reviews I post. I would love to do this more regularly despite my predilection of disappearing for weeks - maybe the goal is just to start conversations with y’all?
Anyway, we are headed to Tillamook, Oregon for the Holiday this week with a few of our closest friends. Going to ride the Christmas Train with a our little guy and our other best little dude and dog and spend some time outside on a nice cool, Oregon Coast weekend. I’m stoked.
Speaking of Tillamook - this year they put out a “Sugar Cookie” ice cream in stores that is like my favorite store-bought ice cream I’ve had in forever. You should try it.
Doubtful I will get the 10th and final post in before we leave, but next week should do it! Then it will be a look at 2024 for a bit!
Hope y’all have enjoyed this prolonged trip down memory lane for as long as it’s taken. 6 today, some major ones (as usual).
Beep Beep
Business Casual (Saddle Creek)
Original Placement: 42
I don’t like the relatively new, made-up genre known as “Sass” - but this record is sassy as hell. It’s chaotic in almost every sense from the way the instruments are played, the lyrical subject matter and most notably the vocals. It sounds pretty dated in a mid-00’s way, like a edgelordy 4Chan-y way, but man - it’s a ton of fun. The vocals are really all over the place, to the point where you can imagine this being an EXPERIENCE (either rotten or divine depending on the night) to see live (I THINK I did see them live opening for maybe TV on the Radio and The Faint, but I can’t fully confirm). Regardless, this fits alongside the dance-punk scene of the early 00’s that morphed into the more chaotic punk movement that wasn’t QUITE hardcore. Basically, cool looking kids incorporated dance grooves and synths into their super loud and stuttering instruments. I remember back in 2004 this was a record I wanted to dislike and keep off my list and kept listening to it and kept listening to it and wound up really loving it, a fact I was embarrassed by. I haven’t listened to it more than once or twice since, but it still has a very strong nostalgia attached to it, to the point where almost every song sounded familiar and caused similar dance moves from me as it did way back when. It’s childish and A LOT but it’s a perfect remedy of a record to just get your manic energy out.
MF DOOM
MM…FOOD (Rhymesayers)
Original Placement: 34
8 months after the monumental Madvillain (more on that next time), DOOM released his first proper solo album since 1999’s Operation: Doomsday. MM…FOOOD is a record that many DOOM fans consider to be his best with imagery that has showed up in all kinds of official AND bootleg products, but it’s never been one I could FULLY get behind. Hear me out - it is pretty great because DOOM is great, and he was on a real hot streak that continued through this record as both a rapper AND producer, but there is something about this record that has always caused me to LIKE it and not LOVE it. Truthfully, I don’t LOVE any DOOM post-Madvillain, though I obviously like everything. This could be me as a stubborn old-head. It could be me as someone who just didn’t want to expand outwards to the millions of releases, official and unofficial. It could be me just getting annoyed at the sheer AMOUNT of skits, cartoon and radio drama samples that line his work - I’m not sure. This is a record broken into 3 distinct parts and it does feature some of his most well known productions from the Special Herbs series and some of his most fun and playful rapping, but despite the SOUND cohesion, it has always struck me as a record that doesn’t quite sound complete but is carried by the charisma of a weirdo genius (RIP). The back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back skits/instrumentals have always been a bore to me, and though they only amount to a little over 6 minutes, kill the flow of the record. But the actual tracks herein are great. “Potholderz”, “One Beer”, “Kon Queso”, “Rap Snitch Knishes” - there are a lot of classic tracks here that can be highlights of any playlist but as an album, I just want it TIGHTER. Who knows. I’m complaining and negating an album that is very good mainly to not get blowback, but while it’s VERY GOOD - it’s not a classic.
Delays
Faded Seaside Glamour (Rough Trade)
Original Placement: 48
Back in 2004 and even prior to the release of this album, I must have played the second song from this record “Nearer Than Heaven” like a million times. It easily could have ranked amongst my favorite songs of that year and even one of my favorite pop songs of the 2000s. It’s still GREAT, though there are little moments in it that make me cringe in the way that other 2000s post-Britpop music does, but it’s still a delightful, too-catchy gem that has been stuck in my head all week as I reintroduced myself to this record. And that’s the ONLY part of this record that has been in my head. Honestly, that song probably carried the record to being on my original list in the first place. Faded Seaside Glamour is not a bad record, and fills an interesting little niche in the soft British rock scene of the era, with steel drums, higher pitched vocals and a breeziness in place of the whining that dominated the time, but listening to the record now, it’s just…not that interesting. Look, if you’ve never heard of them and you have a certain fondness for the Coldplay, Keane, Doves, James, Supergrass era of bands, then you can certainly do worse than this record - it’s pretty good.
Monk Hughes & The Outer Realm
A Tribute to Brother Weldon (Stones Throw)
Original Placement: 16
Madlib. I love Madlib. In 2004, I REALLY loved Madlib. I loved all of Madlib’s projects, whether it was hip hop production, weird electronic experiments, his various jazz aliases, Quasimoto, anything - he was infallible to me. That’s not how I feel about him now, though I would easily put him up in the Top 5 most important/favorite musicians of the last 25 years for me. Around this time period, Madlib was putting out a bunch of different “jazz” releases under various styles and various names - most famously Yesterday’s New Quintet. He created fake band members, of which most were just him. There were highlights and lowlights and some really complex pieces and some that were more lite than simpler elevator music. It’s a really interesting period for a genius producer, especially for one who’s whole thing is finding the most obscure samples and flipping those. Anyway, in the ensuing 20 years - Jazz has become more or less the music I listen to the most (much to the chagrin of my wife and my co-workers). Due to this, I’ve unconsciously adopted the pervasive snobby attitude of the genre at times and have rarely gone back to listen to these dozen+ Madlib releases that helped me get into the genre in the first place. Would I like them? Would I think they are overrated? Bad? I’m not sure, but they are ripe for revisiting. This release is a tribute to jazz fusion legend Weldon Irvine and it’s awesome. It doesn’t really sound anything like Weldon, nor does it necessarily sound anything like a jazz record - rather it falls somewhere in between 80s Japanese Jazz, Krautrock and hip hop - but it’s such a…vibe. It’s 74-minutes long, so it’s a bit of a daunting experience, but there is a LOT happening here, even if the songs are repetitive on the surface. A record hard to explain and likely not for many of my readers, but honestly one of the records from this list I’m most happy still holds up.
Brian Wilson
SMiLE (Nonesuch)
Original Placement: 23
It’s hard to overstate how major of an event this release was in 2004. 37 years after the original Smile record was supposed to come out under the Beach Boys name (perhaps the greatest, most sought after “lost” record?) - Brian finally completed it to his vision and released in on Nonesuch. It has aspects of the bootlegs that had floated for decades, aspects of Smiley Smile, some changed lyrics and arrangements and Brian’s now-aged voice. It was great, easily his best “solo” record, but it wasn’t the best album of all-time as we were hoping for.
Except maybe it was?
I first relistened to this record in recent times exactly a year ago as I write this. On November 25th, 2023. I listened to it back-to-back-to-back with Smiley Smile and the “definitive” release The Smile Sessions from 2011. And this was my favorite version of the 3. Not only that, but it made me nearly cry. During that listen, I finally found the reaction within myself for this record that I had been wanting to have for 20 years. It was pop perfection and I would sing it’s praises forever more.
Now today? It’s still near perfect. There are changes here and there that I don’t LOVE and there are versions of songs like “Surf’s Up” and “Good Vibrations” that are inferior to their more well-known versions, but taking this record as the vision and product of Brian Wilson, now old, it’s just…I don’t know, I don’t really have words for it. The album, the scrapped albums, the sessions, theories, it’s all been written about for decades and way better than I ever could, even finding it’s way into science fiction - but it doesn’t matter. This is a truly beautiful record, one of the absolute best of 2004 and the entire 2000s. They are weird comparisons, but I consider this a pop masterpiece on par with records like A Wizard, A True Star or My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in pairing a artist’s vision and fondness for obvious references one can pinpoint throughout but coalesced into a completely singular document and expression of a life of work. A truly amazing, life-affirming record and one that may be vying for #1 on this list.
Death From Above 1979
You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine (Vice)
Original Placement: 32
I don’t know, man. I guess this is fun in the same way that it always was. The whole gimmick was HEY NOT GUITAR and it was sort of danceable, even before all the hundreds of remixes and DJ set inclusions. It was party music for the indie kids and the studded belts and the hair displayed on the cover. We were washed, but we were greasy. We wore ironic shirts.
I don’t know, man.
This music is extremely dumb but takes it self seriously and it’s certainly not bad. I still like it, it just feels extremely hollow. A DFA1979 song comes on at a party or in a mix? Good shit. 30 minutes of the same crunchy bassline? Ok guys.
I like it, but I don’t know, man.
Next time around - our last 5. Almost there! Two of the absolute BIGGEST albums of 2004 are in that selection. And we will get final rankings. Thanks for reading!
Revisiting “Top Albums of 2004” Rankings (in progress):
Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill (4)
Junior Boys - Last Exit (N/A)
Brian Wilson - SMiLE (23)
Jesu - Jesu (N/A)
Wilco - A Ghost Is Born (7)
Ted Leo + Pharmacists - Shake The Sheets (2)
Kanye West - The College Dropout (N/A)
Drive-By Truckers - The Dirty South (11)
Cam’Ron - Purple Haze (44)
Animal Collective - Sung Tongs (14)
AIR - Talkie Walkie (8)
Feist - Let It Die (27)
Shuttle358 - Chessa (N/A)
Espers - Espers (12)
Van Hunt - Van Hunt (24)
De La Soul - The Grind Date (10)
Monk Hughes & The Outer Realm - Tribute To Brother Weldon (16)
Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans (43)
MF DOOM - MM…FOOD (34)
Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender (13)
Trick Daddy - Thug Matrimony: Married to the Streets (36)
The Futureheads - The Futureheads (22)
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands (18)
The Black Keys - Rubber Factory (25)
Beep Beep - Business Casual (42)
TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (9)
Talib Kweli - The Beautiful Struggle (37)
Interpol - Antics (6)
Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks (3)
Annie - Anniemal (5)
Morrissey - You Are The Quarry (45)
Jason Forrest - The Unrelenting Songs of a 1979 Post Disco Crash (17)
The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives (41)
Jens Lekman - When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog (35)
Ty - Upwards (19)
John Legend - Get Lifted (20)
RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke (28)
Oh No - The Disrupt (31)
k-os - Joyful Rebellion (46)
The Libertines - The Libertines (21)
Death From Above 1979 - You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine (32)
Delays - Faded Seaside Glamour (48)
Frausdots - Couture, Couture, Couture (15)
The Gift Of Gab - 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up! (47)
The Good Life - Album of the Year (38)
Nas - Street’s Disciple (33)
Gary Wilson - Mary Had Brown Hair (49)
Handsome Boy Modeling School - White People (30)
Ike Reilly Assassination - Sparkle in the Finish (39)