"There's just one thing that you should know, I still live at home." - Spymob, I Still Live At Home (Sitting Around Keeping Score)
"Raise that money, son, we raising these kids."
1. De La Soul, The Grind Date (Sanctuary Records)
Is it so wrong that I absolutely love hip hop that grows up as I do? That with each successive album, I've found plugs won, two and three to continue to speak to my particular point in life as well? The Grind Date is absolutely dad rap. It's bumpin' and hard and clever and on point but De La understands that there are those of us that can remember 20 years of hip hop. There are those of us who need a little more from our hip hop. And De La responded by saying, you know what, "we give you much more." And this isn't harkening back to times and sounds long since past, this album is fresh. Fresh as in clean, crisp and now and fresh as in FRESH make me wanna walk the streets with my boom box blasting joints. FRESH like head nodding hard on the bus or the subway or in your car at stop lights. FRESH like put that shit on repeat fresh.
"I keep talking trash but I never say anything."
2. Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous (Brute/Beaute)
Tracks Magazine and Amazon.com have both put this on their best of 2004 lists but I haven't seen it getting much play elsewhere. This is a travesty. I know a lot of old Rilo Kiley fans don't necessarily appreciate the more polished and lush sound and I also know that it's hard for this band to pull serious indie cred when so many hipster boys in geometric shaped glasses are drooling over the music nerd wet dream known as Jenny Lewis but, come on, several of the songs on More Adventurous are perfect. Hooks, choruses, and willfully poetic lyricism from the red haired songstress are sung with the right emotion and skill (something that can't be said about previous albums) and the music itself is just, just pretty. The So. Cal. kids wanted to make a big record and they did and I love it a little more every time I hear it. Well, except for Blake's odd ditty early on but, come on, he was on Salute Your Shorts. He gets a pass.
"When I'm feeling alone, you feel like home. You feel like home."
3. Zero 7, When It Falls (Elektra)
There are valid criticisms for this album. Binns and Hardaker are overly in love with their arrangements often letting them ride two and three minutes too long just for the sake of hearing a xylophone or some pretty chord played by string instruments. True. They take no risks on this album not even taking the Simple Things formula to it's next progression. It's a safe record that panders to their most die hard fans. Also true. Thankfully, I'm a die hard fan. I think Sia, Tina Dico, Sophie Barker, and Mozez are the bee's knees and I could hear them sing translations of Osama Bin Laden tapes and still love them. The story of my romantic life this year is hidden in the grooves of this album. If you are happy, sad, resolute, and cut raw at all the right moments on When it Falls then you totally get me. Let's not talk about it, though. I have this firm belief that Zero 7's only purpose in the world is to make me happy and I don't want you to ruin it.
"In my head, in my heart, in my soul."
4. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Like Bad News (Sony)
I knew very little about Modest Mouse when I bought this and, in truth, I still don't know much. Float On sucked me in and the rest of the album haunts me. Isaac Brock, all my instincts suggest, is just thisclose to bat-shit crazy but it's that off-kilter energy permeating every song that sticks with me. I found myself regularly singing parts of Bukowski and Ocean Breathes Salty and Blame it on the Tetons and The Good Times Are Killing Me whenever my mind idled. And the horns. An album with horns just randomly blaring must get recognition. Fuck more cowbell. Find me a brass section.
"The pain that you've known, evil you've seen, I've got a feeling that we're gonna be alright"
5. The Foreign Exchange, Connected (BBE)
This was originally slotted at #6 on this list but this had to move up. Nicolay's beats are luxurious. I recline into them the same way Phonte does when he's rhyming over them. Every time I play Connected it's like sliding into leather bucket seats. Seats that conture to your frame and get more comfortable with each ride. Yeah, that's what this is like. And, like every BBE release, this is woefully underbought and underappreciated. You need The Foreign Exchange in your life.
The rest of my list after the jump.
6. The Faint, Wet From Birth (Saddlecreek)
Really, this could have tied with Connected as my #5 pick. No other 2004 album got me more amped with each song than this one. It builds, baby.
7. Spymob, Sitting Around Keeping Score (Ruthless)
Always a pleasant surprise on N*E*R*D tracks, Pharrell's backup band shines in their first major release. I contend that this is the band Maroon 5 would be if, you know, they were actually cool.
8. Zap Mama, Ancestry in Progress (V2)
"Like bandy bandy. Wave your body." That's really all you need to know. Zap Mama is the Erykah Badu of the world music stage and with E. Badu lending a helping hand to one of my absolute favorite songs of the year, it's just good good goodness. Like a bandy snake.
9. RjD2, Since We last Spoke (Definitive Jux)
I imagine a world where we'd only speak through music. D2, Prefuse, Shadow, and Madlib would lead us. And, I don't care what anyone says, I like when Rj sings.
10. Van Hunt, Van Hunt (Capitol)
Woefully missing on most Best of lists this year, Van Hunt's debut album is hot to death. Dust is my favorite song of the year. It blew my mind, oh, the first 20 or so times I heard it and continues to delight the ears nearly a year later.
11. Madvillain, Madvillainy (Stones Throw)
Maybe the most fun hip hop album of the year. MF Doom cannot be contained. Unlike last year's Jay-Dee/Madlib collabo, Champion Sound, which felt like a true melding of the minds, Madvillainy is a Zeb Love X record. Doom, Vaughn and all his other characters invaded Madlib's studio and went buckwild. Love it.
12. Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters (Universal)
Dance party in your underwear music for real. The most intriguing band of the year in my opinion. I can only expect big things in the future when they actually know what they are doing.
Notes:
Albums that should probably be on this list but aren't - Wale Oyejide, One Day Everything Changed; Kanye West, The College Dropout; TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.
Artists who I expect to release my absolute favorite albums in coming years that started to make noise this year - Tilly and the Wall; The Arcade Fire; Jean Grae; Bing Ji Ling.
I decided to exclude compilations and remix albums and dumped Sia's Colour the Small One because I didn't want y'all to think I was obsessed with the woman (even though I totally am). I decided not to call it a best of list because I didn't want to have to think about technical merit. I used the desert island. I can only take 12 CDs from 2004 on the island? I want these ones.
Other Year-End Music Lists I Enjoyed:
EJ's Essential CDs of 2004
Todd's Top 10 (+2)
Honey's Top 10 CDs of 2004 (plus two)
KB's Essential CDs of 2004
Stereogum's Top Catorce of 2004
Danceblogga Top 10
Salon.com's Top 25 Free Music Downloads
Fimoculous' Year in Music
The comments of Rox Populi's Poll: Best of 2004