The Best Albums of 2004

The Best Albums of 2004

Looking back, it was a grand, overwhelming year for music, and the events in my personal life were as dynamic and engaging as the soundtrack I chose for it. I started off the year with an engagement, and started school that will lead to a new profession. During this year of change, I felt stretched, challenged and well supported. The music reflected all the changing events of 2004: The beginning of the student teaching process, witnessing the mudslinging, brief period of hope and eventual let down that was Election 2004, quitting the IT field and joining the ranks of the pre service high school English teachers.




1. Drive By Truckers – Dirty South

I hate to be predictable, but this album remained in my player for the longest period of time during 2004. Repeated listens only strengthened my resolve to love and respect this band. The combined talents of three singer songwriters seek to rewrite public opinion regarding the South and its people. Through songs that re-evaluate Southern history, from its history books to the bands that created all the current stereotypes, Athens Georgia’s Drive By Truckers managed to keep me entertained throughout most of the year. Long may they run.



2. Green Day – American Idiot

An unexpected treat, this album was discovered during the election year blitzkrieg (somewhere around October) at which time each and every individual citizen found themselves inundated with propaganda from both sides. While my political beliefs lie obviously grounded to the left, I needed something to stanch the aggravation I felt towards the Bush Administration. To my surprise, I heard not only their strongest material, but also a rock opera that deserves a place between the Clash’s “London Calling” and the Who’s “Tommy”. When I told friends about my discovery, they laughed, asking me when I would return to BMX racing. What changed my mind were the songs: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “The Jesus of Suburbia”, “Letterbomb” and “Holiday”. These songs not only convey the frustrations felt by citizens living in these bleak times, but how our culture overall handles growing up, receiving a public education, and the disappointment found in growing older. On “American Idiot” Green Day manage to create their best material and stretch way beyond their humble punk beginnings.


3. Arcade fire – Funeral

A word of caution to my readers: While this album has received praise from all camps, many declaring it the album of the year, I simply found it to be a fun, addictive, but ultimately disposable listen. Not that these songs don’t cover a lot of difficult emotional territory while managing to sound like they are having the times of their lives. It’s only under the scrutiny of repeated listens that the songs don’t really hold up. What is left is meticulously crafted gauze, which once removed leaves little to be desired. I found myself bored with all but a handful of tunes each time I revisited the album. This pleasure lies not in the sound of the record as a whole, but in the discovery of their formula. I liked it, but come this time next year, they will be all but forgotten. Keep those singles alive!


4. Trash Can Sinatras – Weightlifting

One of the things about maturation is discovering just how immature many of your old records sound. In replaying my life in song to my partner, I discovered how limp the Trash Can’s first album “Cake” really is. This came as much of a disappointment to me, it being the source of many dreams of adulthood and eventual contentment. It is their second album “I’ve Seen Everything” that still sounds raw and invigorating, despite the eleven years since its release. So hopes were high for their next proper album.(their third and worst album, “A Happy Pocket” wasn’t even released in the U.S.) It is on “Weightlifting” that their sound really comes together, as song after song clicks by at a pleasant speed. Through this song cycle, old wounds are healed, new relationships are created, as they drift further and further into adulthood and an album that takes great joy and care in reflecting on the past, and embracing the future. Seeing them live only reaffirmed their place in my personal cannon.


5. Wilco – A ghost is born

Hopes were high for this follow up to 2002’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”. When I first heard this record, I had to check the packaging. Was this an album of demos or a fully fledged studio recording? After the studious production on “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”, “Ghost” sounds relaxed, worn out and fresh at the same time. These are songs written in the throes of addiction and uncertainty. I remember walking in the sun this summer, sitting on the back of a TriMet bus watching the world roll around me as Jeff Tweedy unloaded the angst of doubt, comforted by the bliss of being loved. After having some time to breathe, it quickly became one of the best albums of the year. It takes time to get past many of the noisy bits, but over time will become a dependable friend. At times they sound like they did back in 1995, other songs reveal a more experimental side, as If they’ve been giving much attention to much of the Can catalogue. An intriguing yet delightful song cycle.



6. The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free

An album of surprising power or how I became entranced with Mike Skinner’s balance of street thuggery and street poet. The first few times I spun this set, I couldn’t stop laughing. “This sounds like someone I know rapping to me, and in that overblown cockney accent to boot!” But this complaint soon turns into many of its strengths, as further investigation reveals. Towards the end of the record, he starts to sound like a friend of yours, and instead of normal verse chorus verse songs, these turn into little stories about everyday life, with we the audience the dedicated friend/listener. When the judgmental side of your ear finally shuts off, we are let in on one of the years not so greatly kept secrets.



7. Richmond Fontaine – Post to Wire

“Maybe you’ll wake up, in a bar somewhere, or in some sort of sanitarium.” Willy Vlautin manages many things on “Post to Wire”, one of them is getting that last sentence to rhyme. The song, “Always on the Ride” is a tremendous highlight for me, partly because he manages to make a song so desperate into a toe tapping delight. The album chronicles the misadventures of a drifter named Walter who has his heart and torso stomped on over and over again, his dreams of winning the jackpot at gambling serving as the angel that never quite comes. Throughout the listen, you’ll feel as if you are engaged in a Denis Johnston novel, instead of a traditional rock album. Vlautin manages to paint detailed friezes of life on the desperate side of the casino. That combined with some local Portland, OR songwriting touches, and what one takes away is the experience of beautiful heartbreak.



8. The Blue Nile – High

A latecomer to the game, not having been fully discovered until December 29th, the Glasgow group pulls off an amazing feat that U2 and Peter Gabriel (Whom the lead singer has often been compared to) failed to do on their last few outings, make desperate melancholy sound outright infectious and sweet. These are songs with a fraught urban edge, pulling out pain and sorrow in the most trusted places, the audio equivalent of being wrapped in a blanket on a cold night, alone with a bottle of vodka. The songs deal with elevating oneself above pain through love, drugs and redemption. Not exactly lite subject matter, but the Blue Nile manages to tackle all of these subjects while still remaining true to themselves.



9. Modest Mouse –Good News (For People Who Love Bad News)

Here in the Great Northwest, sunshine is like a Faberge Egg, something to hold onto intently, a force to cherish and appreciate. So when the rain finally leaves us each summer for three whole months, the entire region wakes up and peers out at the world. With that in mind, “Good News” was the soundtrack to a rebirth of sorts. There I was, slaving away in the cubicles of the IT world, when I had learned about my acceptance into a teacher training Graduate Program. At the start of the spring/summer this year, “Good News” never left my reach. After years of being misunderstood, Isaac Brock and company step out with some much needed positivity, and life responded in kind.

10. Bright eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning

I’ve always had a distant respect for Connor Oberest, appreciating his songwriting skills while cringing on his immaturity, posturing and frankly, his whining. It comes then, as a great relief to report great things about this record that won’t be released until the end of January 2005. Teaming up with My Morning Jacket singer Jim James and Steve Earle regular Emmylou Harris, Bright Eyes set the bar much higher on songs reflecting the travels of a maturing songwriter. With great, hummable melodies and lyrics that refer with great subtlety to the Iraq War, Bright Eyes manages to grow up while still maintaining their edge.