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SONG OF THE YEAR
Outkast, "Hey Ya!"
Playful meditation on the problems of monogamy? Probably.
Thoughtful metaphor for creative wanderlust? Possibly.
Irresistible, anachronistic pop from another planet?
Definitely. For the second time in three years Outkast's
mighty backbeat propped up the annum's best single.
This time there was no competition. This was our very
own "Dancing In the Street," "I Wanna
Hold Your Hand," and "Papa's Got a Brand
New Bag," all in one technicolor package. Simply
put: no song in the past 10 years recaptured the magic
of the 45 quite like "Hey
Ya!"
They also thrilled: "Pass the Dutch,"
Missy Elliot; "Coma
Girl," Joe Strummer; "Venus and Serena,"
Super Furry Animals
MOST SORELY MISSED
Where have you gone, Mighty Mos Def?
Now, there's nothing wrong with sneaking out of the
studio for a little tonsil hockey with Alicia Keys.
Who wouldn't? But the (thankfully mothballed) metal
band? The all-but-unnoticed ESPN gig? The half-assed
guest raps? Look Mos (can we call you Mos?), when
it takes Massive
Attack to drag your career down from the irrelevance
shelf, you know you're playing with fire. Kweli has
put out like 3 good albums since you graced us with
Black on Both Sides.
Bring back the Mighty Mos. One more time. For Brooklyn.
BRIGHTEST HOPE
Our Cream
of the Crop page gave us plenty of reason to hope
for great things from 2004: In among 1000 Superchunk
impersonators we discovered the suprisingly lovely sophistication
of Perry Blake, David Aaron's born-again guitar, and
DJ Frane's inelegantly
stoned cut-and-paste genius. Best of all, and by no
small margin, was a little record by The Weather
called "Western Addition."
Emotional, articulate, and perfectly realized in crisply-arranged
songs, it was the record Mercury Rev, Shack and the
Flaming Lips will never make together, and it had us
evangelizing all over again. More than just the Cream
of the Year's Crop -- it was one of the best albums
of recent memory. So why no review? It remains not just
unreleased but unsigned. Will some record executive
please cock an ear and snap it up before I have to rob
a bank to fund this thing's release?
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
Last year we wished for a new feminist
dawn. Well, night had better be over soon, because it
can't get much darker out here. Liz Phair's latest incarnation
descended on Ink Blot like the Shadows of Mordor, a
near treasonous surrender of all dignity in search of
one more hit. Those who protested that
the titillation of the new record wasn't that different
from the blowjob queen days surely missed the point
of Liz in the first place: her power to manipulate always
lay in controlled and honest expression, two things
she apparently left behind the cash register at The
Gap. Hopefully the fact that said hit never materialized
will discourage others. Spare us the embarassing turns
from Aimee Mann and Dot Allison...
The Best of 2002
The Best of 2001
The Best of 2000
The Best of 1999
The Best of the '90s
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The Shins
Chutes Too Narrow
Now that's how you do the difficult second
album. Sticking to what they did best, stripping down
the sound, letting the songwriting run a little deeper
... The Shins' second act was everything The Strokes'
should have been. But there's magic in Chutes Too
Narrow that can't be explained by any formula:
to call it a grower would be the understatement of the
year. Has any band ever been so melodic and so inscrutable?
Chutes Too Narrow is a maze of melody and rhyme,
and its paths lead deep into songwriter James Mercer's
heart and mind. Not as immediate as Oh! Inverted
World, but then that's not what second albums are
for. In the end, you'll treasure this one just as much.
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2
 Super
Furry Animals Phantom Power
Eccentricity, staying power, tunes for the whistling
milkman ... if the Super Furries were English the Queen
would be calling them a "national treasure"
by now. Of course SFA are decidedly not English.
Born in Wales but last seen orbiting Planet Furry aboard
the HMS Badfinger Boogie, Gruff, Bunto, Gymp,
Ciachlacan, and the other two have, with Phantom
Power, restaked their claim to the title of The
Most Interesting Rock Band Going. The bumpy detour of
Rings Around the World turned out to be just
that, and Phantom Power delivers all the lyrical
subversion, surroundsound futurism and power pop from
1974 that we'd come to expect from them. Closest in
spirt to their sophomore epic Radiator, Phantom
Power is a slow burn of an album that rewards repeated
-- and ever closer -- listens. |
3
Blur
Think Tank 
It's
not easy being a Blur fan. Having your band in the hands
of a frequently unlikeable, Type-A faker can seem a
cruel fate. But just when all seems lost -- and after
the railroading of the band's best player and beloved
musical conscience, Graham Coxon, it certainly felt
that way -- Damon Albarn invariably comes up with something
like this. Not just Blur's best set of songs, but some
of the most honest, heartfelt, sympathetic
music ever made. This Blur fan likes to think that "Sweet
Song" and "Ambulance" say more about
Albarn than his insecure public persona allows him to
say about himself. But in the end it doesn't matter.
What he's given us, for going on 15 years, is music,
and Think Tank is heartwarming evidence of
how much he has left to give. |
4
 Outkast
Speakerboxx/The Love Below
Speaking of National Treasures, how do you think an
Andre 3000/Big Boi ticket would do in 2004? Do you know
anyone who wouldn't pull that lever? Seriously, someone
get Howard Dean on the line, I need to have a word.
Outkast may be on the way out -- this split double album
certainly intensified rumors of a breakup -- but if
they are their final term as the Executive Branch of
Funk was a glorious one. Big Boi brought the 808 madness
(don't call it Crunk) and Dre so honored Prince Rogers
Nelson's legacy that we almost forgot about that whole
Jehovah's witness thing. In a musical landscape that
can feel permanently fragmented, Outkast did the improbable:
they became the one thing everyone could agree on. |
5
Belle
& Sebastian
Dear
Catastrophe Waitress 
And you thought the title of the last one was crap!
Not to worry, though, because such dastardly abuse of
the English language was small price to pay for the
return of Stuart Murdoch's muse. Long the Owner of a
Lonely Heart, it took an alliance with that unlikeliest
of saviors -- '80s production Beelzebub Trevor Horn
-- to reassert Murdoch's control over Belle & Sebastian's
music. Horn, predictably, overegged the arrangments,
and Murdoch, equally predictably, skipped gleefully
through his Lexicon of Twee (C.F. "I'm A Cuckoo,"
"Wrapped Up In Books"). Yet all was forgiven
as B&S delivered their best set of tunes, end-to-end,
since If You're Feeling Sinister. Throw in
a song about Mike Piazza's oft-debated sexual orientation
and you've got a none-too-soon reminder that this band
truly is one of a kind. |
6
 Lyrics
Born ...Later that Day
The one-year-younger brother of Blackalicious' Blazing
Arrow (last year's No. 1, list fans), LB's long-awaited
solo statement was as personal as Arrow was
grand -- and arguably all the more universal for it.
Who among us hasn't lost his rag with a telemarketer
("Cold Call")? Who doesn't spend Monday morning
under the covers in pained internal debate ("Rise
and Shine")? Whether riffing on life's little frustruations
or rallying the troops with ferocious funk ("Callin'
Out," "Pack Up," "Hot Bizzness")
Tom Shimura worked the pen, the mic and the studio with
intelligence and a passion for his craft. The result?
For him, a personal triumph. For us? A hip-hop diary
to die for. |
7
 Goldfrapp
Black Cherry
Goldfrapp's first album, Felt Mountain, drew
inevitable comparisons to Portishead. If that was unfair
to both parties, they've certainly put such comparisons
to rest: for better or for worse, Portishead could never
have managed a follow-up as defiant, danceable and sexy
as Black Cherry. The balladry measured up,
but it was the dancefloor where Black Cherry
left its biggest footprint, delivering a handful of
grinding electro stomps that shamed the electroclash
underground for tunes, sass, and pure sonic energy.
Some will always prefer Felt Mountain. We hope
they enjoy their dinner party. We'll be at the club. |
8
The White
Stripes Elephant 
This one you may have heard of. But if the White Stripes
became something more than a band in 2003 -- a phenomenon,
perhaps? Icons, already? -- there was still no ignoring
the power of the music that got them where they are.
Elephant was the most appropriately titled
record of the year, a true behemoth of a record, the
heavy heavy monster sound of 2003 (and 1973 ... and
1933 ...). Blues? Yeah, sort of. But blues unfit for
that tightest of generic straightjackets: witness "Seven
Nation Army's" invasion of house-centric dancefloors,
or the apocalpytic Maiden metal of "There's No
Home for You Here." The White Stripes may play
the blues, but they play their blues, and that
-- more than the rumors or the image or the celebrity
semi-circus -- is what continues to fascinate. |
9
 Joe
Strummer Streetcore
Ironically, despite the outporing of love at Joe Strummer's
death last winter, we really didn't have any idea how
much we'd miss him. If almost everyone could acknowlege
something Strummer's music had given them, few guessed
how much it still had to give. Finished posthumously
by the Mescaleros, Streetcore was as fine an
epitaph as Strummer could have hoped for, a righteous
flare-up of the eternal flame that drove his music.
Rockier than anything he'd done for years, yes, but
there was no sound of retreat here. He kept the faith,
right to the end. |
10
My Morning
Jacket It Still Moves 
In many ways, the Ink Blot Reader's album of the year.
Let's face it, with no new material from the Flaming
Lips, Mercury Rev, or Doug Martsch, someone had to do
the Neil Young Voice on a great Indie Rock record this
year. Jim James and MMJ stepped up to the plate, and
delivered a record the equal of their forbears, and
one that came wrapped in its own kind of lonesome mythology
(not too mention tons of reverb). Romantic, intelligent,
and BIG, It Still Moves dug a new foothold
for a particularly American kind of rock tradition. |
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