BG's Top Ten Albums of 2004 Recap

Here's my list of the best albums of the year, all together with links to my personal commentary on it. Enjoy and make some comments.

1. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
2. Madvillain - Madvillainy
3. Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News
4. Rjd2 - Since We Last Spoke
5. A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
6. TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
7. Jason Forrest - The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash
8. Rogue Wave - Out of the Shadow
9. The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows
10. Kanye West - The College Dropout

Honorable Mentions

Something I didn't talk about before is how this year was a slow one as far as music is concerned. There just weren't as many truly amazing, blow-you-away albums this year. Think about some of the records to come out last year: The Wrens – Meadowlands, Viktor Vaughn – Vaudeville Villain, The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow, Four Tet – Rounds, Broken Social Scene – You Forget it in People, Prefuse 73 – One Word Extinguisher & Extinguished Outtakes, all albums that will stand the test of time. 2004 was a different story. I love all the albums in my top ten. I think they’re all fantastic. But, to be honest, I can really only see myself picking up three or four of them five years down the road and them still sounding just as good as they do today. This shortage of amazing records isn’t because nobody tried. A lot of big names put out albums this year: REM, Bjork, Beastie Boys, Prince, The Roots. But they all sort of came up short or, even worse, appeared to be better than they were because we were so starved for quality music. There is nothing I wanted more than to love the new Bjork album, but in the end, while it’s interesting as a concept, it’s nothing I really want to listen to. The same thing goes for the new Beastie Boys. I had myself convinced that it was a really good album for a while, until I heard Madvillainy and it reminded me of what a great hip hop album really sounds like. I think this year was more about promising debuts that will pay dividends in the future. Kanye West, Rogue Wave, The Legends, The Arcade Fire (sorry, guys, still not sold on it yet); all gave us a lot of hope for the future. Anyway, all of this talk is kind of ridiculous. Let’s just enjoy the great music we have now and not worry about whether we’re still listening to Since We Last Spoke in 2009. We could all be hit by buses tomorrow and make that question moot.