(This post is part of Frequency’s coverage of the best music of the past decade. You can see all of that coverage in one place by clicking here. And be sure to tune in Dec. 18, when I’ll post “Near/Far,” our annual, downloadable MP3 compilation of the best music of 2009, to go along with our year-in-review package in that day’s GO! Magazine.)
If you’re looking for a pivotal year in the development of music in the 2000s, look no further than 2004. I don’t believe this is the decade’s strongest group of albums, but I do think there are a lot of records on this list that significantly shifted the musical landscape, or at least portended a coming shift. To wit:
-This was the year Kanye West took over the decade. He has not yet let go.
-The success of the Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” — released by the independent Merge Records label — opened a door to the mainstreaming of indie music and indie culture that would dominate the second half of the decade.
-DJ Danger Mouse, who blended Jay-Z with the Beatles, and DJ Diplo, who reconstituted what would soon become M.I.A.’s stunning debut album, introduced a wider world to mashups and mixtapes. It was a harbinger of things to come as the Internet evolved, first in hip-hop and then spreading to other genres.
Oh, and Brian Wilson got a 38-year-old monkey off his back by finally releasing “Smile,” Franz Ferdinand helped usher in a dance-rock revival, Arthur Magazine‘s “The Golden Apples of the Sun” comp shined a light on the freak-folk scene, and everyone liked Snow Patrol but no one could figure out why.
Arcade Fire, “Funeral”
Aveo, “Battery”
Danger Mouse, “The Grey Album”
Eluvium, “An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death”
Franz Ferdinand, “Franz Ferdinand”
Helio Sequence, “Love and Distance”
Iron & Wine, “Our Endless Numbered Days”
Kings of Convenience, “Riot On An Empty Street”
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, “Shake the Sheets”
Ben Kweller, “On My Way”
M.I.A. and Diplo, “Piracy Funds Terrorism”
The Mountain Goats, “We Shall All Be Healed”
Rogue Wave, “Out of the Shadow”
Josh Rouse, “Rarities”
Snow Patrol, “Final Straw”
Sufjan Stevens, “Seven Swans”
The Thermals, “F–kin A”
Various Artists, “The Golden Apples of the Sun”
Kanye West, “The College Dropout”
Brian Wilson, “Smile”
Tags: Best of the 2000s
Loved the Grey Album. LOVE Helio Sequence in general, so that’s a great pick. Franz Ferdinand is a great and they put a on a fantastic live show if you ever get the chance.
As far as stuff you missed, I’d mention “Good News For People Who Love Bad News” though I’m not a huge Modest Mouse guy. Maybe “Rubber Factory” by The Black Keys but since I just heard them for the first time last year I’m not 100% that it’s one of the years best.
I’m too lazy to figure out what albums I have came out in 2004, but I did notice that Einsturzende Neubauten’s Perpetuum Mobile came out in that year. As anybody who has been in my company for at least 5 minutes knows, this one of my favorite albums to push on people.
The title translates to Perpetual Motion and that is very much the theme of the album. I don’t really know how to describe it. If you had to classify it, you’d call it industrial as the band is one of the defining acts, but this sounds nothing like Ministry, Skinny Puppy or NIN (not that I don’t enjoy Ministry and Skinny Puppy; NIN, meh.) but they’ve veered pretty far off from where they started. This album really, really upset a lot of long time fans by being too mellow For those of us who came to the band throug Halber Mensch and the Strategies Against Architecture comps, yeah, this is pretty mellow, but I’d imagine it’s still quite weird and dense to anyone else. Personally, I love the early noisy stuff as much as anyone else, but I love the mature, melodic E.N. as well. I’d even go so far as to call this my favorite album of the 2000s. I understand the knee-jerk reaction a lot of people have against anything labeled industrial, but I can absolutely see this appealing to anyone interested in good experimental/alternative/whathaveyou music.
Count me as convinced, Scott. I will add “Perpetuum Mobile” to my list of stuff to get. As you can probably guess, my CD collection is a bit lacking in industrial music … maybe moreso than any other genre.
Ben; cool, I’m interested in hearing what you think, let me know how you end up liking it. Re; your lack of industrial music; completely understandable. I’m a geek, I know quite a lot about the genre, some of my favorite music is classified as industrial, but I still have to say; while every genre has its share of bad, the bad/good ratio in industrial is among the worst music genre ratios out there.
Ug, Brian Wilson. I don’t know why I can’t stand him. I think it’s a result of overexposure as a child. I feel like I saw the beach boys at every state fair ever, plus a minor-league baseball game or two.
I know I’m in the minority here, and I know they’ve pretty much tanked since, but Hot Fuss by the Killers is epic. I could listen to it over and over. Dark, seedy Vegas at its finest.
And Camera Obscura’s Underachievers Please Try Harder is one of my favorites.
And as much as I love Kanye, I think The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come For Free is right up there with the finest albums of the decade.
Also:
A.C. Newman – The Slow Wonder
Feist – Let It Die
Jolie Holland – Escondida
Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
Modest Mouse – Good News
The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows
Obviously, a great year for music.