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Post by Samface on Jan 3, 2005 13:27:15 GMT
Oh yes. I have time to waste. (Actually I don't, but this is way more fun than exams n' essays.) I humbly present my ten choice albums of 2004. Which came from a short list, 'cos I've only bought about 13 from this rather vintage year for music. Anyway, here's 10-8. Enjoy.
10: Start Something by Lostprophets. 13 tracks, produced by Eric Valentine
It’s cool to hate Lostprophets. Fact. Even I hate them a little bit – Ian Watkins always seems a bit full of himself. However, they really can write a tune or two, as “Last Train Home” proved ably by hijacking the airwaves for a good couple of months. This is pretty basic melodic rock at heart, but suitably mixed up with a slightly peculiar edge (mainly down to keyboardist/turntablist Jamie Oliver, it must be said). The samples and piano loops really add something to their sound, and you can’t deny their sheer energy – just listen to “To Hell We Ride”. So an unashamedly mainstream record that knows what it’s doing and does it with professionalism and verve. Best Track: “Burn, Burn”. An irresistible, basic riff with a shouty, loose song cobbled on to it – its slightly shambolic nature is the key to its brilliance. And would you listen to that bass around the one-minute mark?
9: Talkie Walkie by Air. 10 tracks, produced by ?
Sometimes you get albums which are a few really freaking good songs and a few songs that you felt were cobbled together in five minutes to make up time. Killer and Filler, in other words. This is definitely one of those albums. “Venus”, “Surfing On A Rocket”, “Alone In Kyoto” and the like are drop-dead stunning, but then there’s rubbish like “Run” (which sounds like Radiohead gone horribly wrong, or Radiohead during most of Amnesiac if you like) and “Alpha Beta Gaga” (which sounds just rubbish). Anyway, this sees Air on a largely laid-back note, doing what they feel like and concentrating on the instruments rather than the voices – “Universal Traveler” is based around a few notes on guitar and “Alone In Kyoto”, which was written for my movie of the year, Lost In Translation, meanders round a guitar/keyboard combination beautifully. Best Track: “Cherry Blossom Girl”. The first 27 seconds are pure bliss, soft beats working with what I think is an acoustic guitar wonderfully, then the trademark sighing female vocals come in. This is what heaven sounds like.
8: [censored]terproof Is Not A Challenge by Hundred Reasons. 12 tracks, produced by Dave Sardy
Aah, that difficult second album. Made all the more difficult by the fact that the first was one of the rock albums of the past decade. How do you top Ideas Above Our Station? The answer, slightly sadly, is that you don’t. This album, finished in 2003 but held over for various reasons, is still highly accomplished, though. You get the feeling that the band decided to see how they could change their own style, and went with slowing down and beefing the sound up in general. Unfortunately, while this does offer some stormers like opener “Savanna”, it also spawns the likes of “Stories With Unhappy Endings”, which is frankly a bit dull. It’s also slightly ironic that despite the fact they’re trying to distance themselves from the last album, you’ve got boring ender “Makeshift”, which was clearly written when someone said “Hey, we ended the last album with a slow, reflective acoustic number and that was really good! Let’s do it again!” “Avalanche” was indeed really good, but its equivalent here just isn’t worth the hassle. Nonetheless, the majority of the album is excellent, with “What You Get” and “The Great Test” showing HR still know when it’s a good time to speed it up, and “Lullaby” and the unutterably wonderful “Harmony” demonstrating their knack for emotional torch songs. Best Track: “Pop”. Boasting the single most infectious guitar riff in years, this high-energy number leaps out of your speakers and demands that you jump around your room like a fool.
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Post by Hevs on Jan 3, 2005 14:14:56 GMT
Come On Keane! Keane should be first
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Post by Samface on Jan 3, 2005 14:35:01 GMT
I [censored]ing hate Keane. Sorry.
No.'s 7-5!
7: Meltdown by Ash. 11 tracks, produced by Nick Raskulinecz
Ash, then. They’re a slightly fey band who spend most of their time darting between indie and ultra-lightweight punk. Except for their fourth album, where they’ve suddenly turned into AC/DC. Okay, maybe that’s a bit strong, but they’re now definitely a Proper Rock Band. Apart from “Starcrossed”, which indulges Tim Wheeler’s love of ballads (and a cracking example it is too), this album consists entirely of heads-down riffing, a devil-may-care outlook and more gleeful energy than a punch-up between Rage Against The Machine and At The Drive-In. It’s a testament to how accomplished Ash have become that this very specific musical direction is still filled with variety, skipping from pitch-perfect pop (“On A Wave”) to an almost metallic stomp (“Clones”) and filthy little numbers oozing with sweat and sex (“Vampire Love”). Wheeler’s voice sounds miles more confident than the slightly reedy whine he’s been known to come out with in the past, backed up fantastically, as ever, by Charlotte Hatherley’s sighing background vocals. And of course, all four play better than ever before – just listen to the bassline Mark Hamilton throws out in the intro to opener “Meltdown”. Wonderful. Best Track: “Orpheus”. Though “Starcrossed” comes very close indeed, this single is the album’s finest moment, and possibly even the band’s. “Sunshine in the morning/Heading for the open road”, hollers Wheeler, and the irresistible soaring chorus picks you up and takes you along. The perfect soundtrack for hurtling down a desert road in the summer.
6: Once by Nightwish. 11 tracks, produced by Tuomas Holopainen and TeeCee Kinnunen
I’d never heard of Finland’s finest at the beginning of the year, along with the rest of Britain. I’m a committed fan by the end. Nightwish, for those who aren’t familiar, are at the forefront of a burgeoning sub-genre generally known as “opera metal” – melodic heavy metal spliced with classical music. Not subtle, quite brilliant. Nightwish have a better claim to professional bombast than most: lead vocalist Tarja Turunen is a classically-trained opera singer, and this album features the same orchestra that did the score to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And an 18-strong choir for good measure. And a track that collaborates with Native American musician John Two-Hawks, who provides flutes and chanting. (The track, “Creek Mary’s Blood”, is a highlight.) So this really isn’t music for the fashionastas, those who are still convinced The Darkness are being ironic. It’s big, unapologetic drama, relying just as much on the orchestra as on the guitars. As you’d expect, there’s also a track where they say “We can do acoustic, too!” “Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan” is undeniably wonderful (and the only song sung in their native language) but is clearly not the focus. The focus is on the likes of “Dark Chest Of Wonders” or “Planet Hell”, huge, soaring slabs of music. Big, bold, brilliant. Best Track: “Planet Hell”. One of the tracks that shows bassist Marco Hietala has a decent set of lungs and is worthy of duetting with Turunen, this sees the pair taking alternate verses of desolation and fear, before the orchestra hits its peak and they both cry “Save yourself a penny for the ferryman!” in a goosebump-causing moment. This is just what you need to convince people who think that bands work better with just one singer.
5: Kill The Last Romantic by Easyworld. 12 tracks, produced by David Kosten
Everyone has two or three bands that are “theirs” – bands that are unutterably brilliant but that only you seem to know. Easyworld, from dead-end seaside town Eastbourne, are one of mine. I caught them at the first music festival I ever went to – Reading Festival 2001 – and thought “Hey, they’re pretty good, I’ll check them out”. I subsequently bought their EP …Better Ways To Self-Destruct and fell completely in love with them. Anyway, back to this year and their second full album. The first offering, 2002’s This Is Where I Stand, offered an indie band with a fondness for pop-rock numbers like “Bleach” and a habit of injecting brass instruments into their more excitable moments. Last Romantic, on the other hand, shows a band that have changed their direction and gone down the piano-infused, Semisonic-style route. And it must be said they work a lot better like this. Frontman Dav Ford has a stunning choirboy voice, and he sounds in his element on tracks like “Drive” and “Tonight”. They can still make a racket if they feel like it, as the jaunty “When You Come Back, I Won’t Be Here” and cheeky “Celebritykiller” prove, and the joyous “2nd Amendment” shows that they still have those trumpets stored in the cupboard for when they need them. Overall, though, this is a considered, delicate effort filled with gentle beauty. Best Track: “‘Til The Day”. A gorgeous piano intro, that builds slowly as drums and strings are added, until the end sees Ford run out of words and put all his emotions into his voice. You’ve never heard someone go “ah-ahh” so eloquently. It also shows off his knack for a sharp satirical lyric – “this city don’t smell like it said in the brochure”, he opines.
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Spudiator
Artist Hume
High Priest of the Religion of Football
STC-O's resident footy obsessive
Posts: 2,815
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Post by Spudiator on Jan 3, 2005 16:26:59 GMT
I'm gonna stab a guess at Franz Ferdinand. Disagree about Keane though, they rock!
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Post by archangelffx on Jan 3, 2005 16:48:08 GMT
I [censored]ing hate Keane. Sorry. Too true. SiggedGood selection it seems. I've only got Start Something, but heard music from almost all of them. I guess you haven't got Less Than Jake - B is for B Sides so that won't be number 1 (pioneering it for best album of 2004 but I sincerely hope its not Franz Ferdinand. Sorry, Spud.
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Post by Retro on Jan 3, 2005 16:48:27 GMT
As far as I know I dont think Sam likes Franz either, but thats relying on my poor memory of msn conversations. Hehe, I know your type of music Samface, and I KNEW bands like this would appear. Awesome playtrack so far. But dude, I didnt know you listened to Nightwish! Finally I have found someone else! *attempts to glomp...just as Samface logs off...sending Retro flying into the wall* I must say Im surprised, I would have thought Meltdown would have come higher for you. I am now indeed curious about your next ones
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Post by Samface on Jan 3, 2005 19:00:11 GMT
As far as I know I dont think Sam likes Franz either, but thats relying on my poor memory of msn conversations. Quite right. Franz Ferdinand and Keane should be locked in a room and forced to feed off each other. As I watch. And LAUGH. Thalia's also a fan, if I remember right. Numbers 4-1 will go up...tomorrow. Probably.
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Post by Hevs on Jan 3, 2005 19:41:18 GMT
No! *Busts Keane and Franz out of jail cell* ATTACK! Samface: Ow! My Mustache!
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Post by Shadic? on Jan 3, 2005 21:17:56 GMT
Sorry for coming in late.. But Start something has 13 songs!? Mine only has 12! Ive been jipped outta a song! I hope American Idiot is up there somewhere
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Post by Retro on Jan 3, 2005 23:47:39 GMT
Thalia's also a fan, if I remember right. . Yes but I think I glomped her into oblivion after I found out... *ripped apart from the inside by Thalia emerging again*
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Post by Samface on Jan 4, 2005 14:41:41 GMT
Sorry for coming in late.. But Start something has 13 songs!? Mine only has 12! Ive been jipped outta a song! That's peculiar...maybe one is a UK-exclusive song? But normally when they do that they note it's an extra song...hmm... Anyhow, numbers 4 to 2! 4: Catalyst by New Found Glory. 14 tracks (16 on UK version), produced by Neal AvronPreviously, you could count on two things from New Found Glory: they’d write ultra-cheery pop-punk with the emphasis on “pop”; and their albums would consist of four or five really excellent songs and a load that were perfectly good but you forgot as soon as the CD finished. A bit like Placebo. Well, they chucked those ideas here. All but 4 songs are great and memorable, and the CD kicks off with a thirty-seven-second hardcore song. Yes, hardcore. Maybe not as hard as Shai Hulud, the notoriously vicious band that guitarist Chad Gilbert used to sing for, but it’s still light years from their previous stuff. The pop-punk is still here, but it’s been enhanced by new depths – most, it must be said, comes from the vastly improved playing of guitarists Gilbert and Steve Klein. Jordan Pundik still sings like a chipmunk, but it’s hardly ever irritating. The lyrics have had a sudden kick up the backside too – rather than girls and how mean girls can be, it’s wasted youths, media critiques, insomnia and failure. And it doesn’t, remarkably, smack of a band crying “We can be ‘mature’!” It really is as simple as a good band looking at their sound, working out how to improve it, and becoming an excellent band. Best Track: “I’d Kill To Fall Asleep”. Almost indecently catchy riffing in the chorus, admirably skewed drumming in the minimalist verses, and a shouty bit at the end. Makes me think of Carmageddon 2, for some reason. 3: Futures by Jimmy Eat World. 11 tracks (13 on UK version), produced by Gil NortonJimmy Eat World’s previous album, 2001’s Bleed American (or just Jimmy Eat World if you bought it after 9/11), is my favourite record of all time. So this had a lot to live up to. And wouldn’t you know, it did it admirably? This album can be defined in a simple formula: BA+C=F, where BA is Bleed American and C is 1999’s Clarity. Basically, JEW have taken their nous for perfect pop that they developed on Bleed, and applied it to their exquisitely produced, drifting soundscapes that they came up with on Clarity. The first six tracks are insta-hit pop-rock, and the rest (with the exception of the charmingly unhinged “Nothingwrong”) pull up short and take the time to look out of the window. The result is a record where every single note and idea is precisely placed, to the point that the two bonus tracks slapped on the end are actually a bad thing, since it disrupts the album’s feeling of perfect completeness. Best Track: Any of them. Really. If I had to choose I’d probably go with “Work”, which manages to be both perky and peaceful, and has the best example of backing female vocals I’ve ever heard. But then, my choice of that one might be simply the fact that I’m listening to it at the moment. 2: Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance. 13 tracks, produced by Howard BensonLadies and gentlemen, I present The Band Of 2004. If you hadn’t heard of them before this year, you’d certainly heard of them by the end. And with good reason. My Chemical Romance, a youthful five-piece from New Jersey, take emo, a genre that has rapidly been suffocating over the past couple of years, and fire a punk-shaped rocket up its jacksie. They constantly sound like they’re going to fall apart completely, and somehow manage to wrench some glorious melodies out of the mess. Lyrically, they share the same morbidity and jet-black humour of Alkaline Trio, with brilliant couplets like “He calls the mansion not a house but a tomb/He’s always choking from the stench and the fume/The wedding party all collapsed in the room/So send my resignation to the bride and the groom!” Incidentally, those lines are delivered by singer Gerard Way in a demented whisper at the beginning of “To The End”, and it is possibly the single finest moment of the album. They also have some of the best song titles ever – “You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison”, for instance, or the fantastic “It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A [censored]ing Deathwish”. Why am I spending so much time wibbling on about their choice of words? Well, 1) I am an English student, after all, and 2) this really is a band you need to hear to truly understand their greatness. Words can’t describe the bizarrely funky opening section of the aforementioned “You Know What They Do…”, or how perfect Way’s sudden Spanish accent sounds on “The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You”. Oh, and they suddenly turn into Radiohead on “Interlude”. The bright new stars of 2004, hands down. Best Track: “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”. This track was released as a single a few months back, and if you want it now you can expect to pay an average of 20 quid. That’s how good it is. It’s a singalong that doesn’t sound like a singalong, blasting along on the greatest riff of the year, and it all falls apart wonderfully in the middle, then builds itself up again, then stops as if it hit a brick wall. Best song of the year? Probably.
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Post by Samface on Jan 4, 2005 15:26:46 GMT
So, it's been a good year for music. (Or rock music, anyway. ) But one album has stood far above the others. The new album from my favourite band. An album that was hyped to the hilt before it came out. Did it live up to the piles of superlatives being thrown at it? Yup. Here then, is my choice album of 2004. 1: American Idiot by Green Day. 13 tracks, produced by Rob Cavallo and Green Day This was released on the 20th of September, 2004. I was in Woolworths within half an hour of it opening. I’d been looking forward to this album a fair old while. And God bless Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool: they’d looked at my expectations and laughed. This is an absolute stormer of an album. It’s a concept album, but the story’s pretty loose. There’s a kid from a broken home who dubs himself the Jesus of Suburbia. There’s another kid from the streets who calls himself St. Jimmy. They may or may not be the same person. There’s some drugs, a girl called Whatsername, a city gets torched, Jimmy kills himself in protest, and Jesus ends up in a dead-end office job. That’s pretty much it. What’s important here is the music (though Armstrong is still a master of good turns of phrase). There are two nine-minute songs that are five separate tracks rolled into one. The first, “Jesus of Suburbia”, rolls around from punk to acoustic to country and back again. The second, “Homecoming”, sounds like, as a writer for Kerrang! quite rightly put it, “an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with the Ramones loose in the orchestra pit”. There’s some tribal drumming. There is, in the title track, the best punk song since Rancid spat out “Ruby Soho”. There’s a gentle number, “Are We The Waiting”, that features backing football-terrace chanting to weave a gently melancholic atmosphere, before the following song, the hundred-mile-an-hour “St. Jimmy”, bursts through it like a lunatic with a chainsaw. There’s some proper old style rock n’ roll, with piano and saxophone and everything. There’s a wonderfully judged moment when the mad bombast of “Homecoming” reaches its climax, and is followed by quiet, thoughtful ender “Whatsername”. There’s political bile and personal reflection. There is Green Day, making the best album of their career. Best Track: “Letterbomb”. A kid’s song gives way to a guitar, bass and drums kick in, the track is off and soaring, then is pulled back down to earth by Armstrong sneering “Where have all the b******s gone?”. Then it gets up again and soars once more. Then just over halfway through they suddenly smack on the accelerator and Armstrong hollers “You’re not the Jesus of Suburbia!”. Then the chorus bursts out of this sudden rush in a welter of colour. It’s a bit complicated to explain (ironic, since it’s one of the few straightforward punk songs on the record…), but it’s simply a fantastic song.
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Post by Retro on Jan 4, 2005 16:08:29 GMT
Oh Samface....twas not what I expected it to be at all.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams is the only song I like on that album...
But on the other hand, despite not liking it myself, I can see why people would like this album.
Good show old boy! *slapped to remind he is indeed Scottish*
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Post by archangelffx on Jan 4, 2005 16:44:25 GMT
Love j00. An impressive top 4. Apart from possibly My Chemical Romance (who's album I haven't got yet , I'd agree with the other 3 being there. I was dead against NFG after hearing Sticks and Stones, but then I heard Catalyst and I instantly went out and bought it. One of my faves today. American Idiot's a top choice. Took me a while to get into it but the title track and Jesus of Suburbia will go down as one of my classics. Hell, I only just got Futures yesterday. Looking forward to your 2005 list. 0_o
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Post by Shadic? on Jan 4, 2005 21:36:59 GMT
My Chemical Romace cd is really that good eh? I really like "I'm not Okay" I agree with acouple of your cds.. and the rest.. I dont know who they are I also just got futures (friday I think).. very good cd.. vetty good
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Post by Dragonsteincole on Jan 4, 2005 22:15:00 GMT
Very good. Disappointed by the non-appearance of Rammstein's album, but the again pleased with American Idiot being tops. It is a fantastic album
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Post by Baxter on Jan 5, 2005 14:25:53 GMT
No Maroon 5, eh? Well, thank [censored] for that.
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Post by Samface on Jan 5, 2005 14:28:25 GMT
My Chemical Romace cd is really that good eh? Yes and thrice yes. Disappointed by the non-appearance of Rammstein's album Probably 'cos I don't own it. <_< >_> To be perfectly honest, I doubt I'm gonna bother with it. Mutter is so well-rounded I don't really feel the need to get any of their other stuff.
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