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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 7, 2024 9:32:31 GMT -5
More favourite albums of 2004... #4 - Eye to the Telescope by KT TunstallThat name didn't really mean anything to me, but when I listened to the song you included I've heard it before. I feel like I've heard my wife play it. It's got a nice bluesy feel to it. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 7, 2024 10:02:08 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2004
#3 – Two Dollar Pistols – Hands Up!
The Two Dollar Pistols have always been John Howie, Jr. and whoever he has with him this week. And that's okay. Howie is very much the driving force. That force drove him, by and large, to the cheatin' side of the honky-tonk barroom and this album is no exception. Almost all the songs are very traditional honky tonkers from the lost love part of town. And that can be a bit of a downer if you aren't in the mood for it.
Howie does intersperse enough up-tempo stuff to keep it chugging along. "There Goes My Baby" could have worked with Don and Phil Everly singing harmonies. If you want an album to put on while you cry in your beer...this is the one for you. Nifty album cover too.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 9:16:04 GMT -5
#3 – Two Dollar Pistols – Hands Up!
Another act I've not heard of before. That song "There Goes My Baby" really sounds like a Roy Orbison cover -- I had to actually look up the album's writing credits to make sure it wasn't! This sounds like pretty good stuff overall though. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 8, 2024 9:18:45 GMT -5
#3 – Two Dollar Pistols – Hands Up!
Another act I've not heard of before. That song "There Goes My Baby" really sounds like a Roy Orbison cover -- I had to actually look up the album's writing credits to make sure it wasn't! This sounds like pretty good stuff overall though. Nope. It's all John Howie, Jr. I'm a pretty big fan. Nice retro-rockabilly/honkytonk feel. |
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 9:19:42 GMT -5
Carrying on with more favourite albums from 2004... #3 - Scissor Sisters by Scissor Sisters Subversive pop is the best pop! And the very best thing about the Scissor Sisters was that they made deliciously subversive pop. I don't believe the band had very much commercial success in their native America, but over here in the UK they were massive in the mid-to-late 2000s, scoring half a dozen hit singles (including a number 1) and two multiplatinum selling albums. Named after a lesbian sex position, the band wrote songs concerned with the seedy, sexually decadent underbelly of New York City's after dark street life. Their self-titled debut album is full of songs about sex freaks, drag queens, transvestites, and ghetto prostitutes, while covering topics like the tale of a gay man coming out to his mother in a nightclub and a couple having sex on the back seat of a taxicab, while the driver watches and masturbates. Not your usual Top 40 pop fare, to be sure! But then again, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of record buyers had no idea what the songs were about. Musically, these edgy and taboo subjects are all couched in songs that are infectiously catchy, brilliantly arranged, candy-coated slices of retro pop – any one of which could've been a single! Honestly, this whole album plays like it could've been a "greatest hits" record. Even the band's Bee Gees-style cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" is such a brilliantly irreverent cover of a song that is a staple of the chin-rubbing, "serious rock" crowd, that it's kinda subversive in itself. Scissor Sisters is a really fun album; a kitschy mash-up of '70s pop songwriting, disco grooves, new romantic guitars, and glam rock decadence. Here's the single "Take Your Mama", but honestly, every track on this album is great… |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 8, 2024 9:44:17 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2004
#1(B) - Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South
Yep. 1b. I flip-flopped one and two so many time that I said to hell with it and gave them a tie. Which album I like better is purely dependant on the day.
Decoration Day was going to be a hard album to follow, but the Truckers proved more than up to the task. This is a pretty hard-rocking album that spends most of its time on the wrong side of the tracks in the dirty south. And they take a stick to some Southern mythology including the likes of Buford Pusser, George Wallace and Ronnie Van Zandt. Along the way they give what is probably my favorite Truckers song in "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" and on of the great songs about long distance relationships in "Goddamn Lonely Love." It's a rare thing for a band to have three incredible songwriters who can also tear it up instrumentally.
Is it southern rock? Is it alt-country? Yes. Yes it is. And it's just a damn fine album that celebrates the band's roots while recognizing the problems that grew out of those same roots.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 8, 2024 10:27:38 GMT -5
Carrying on with more favourite albums from 2004... #3 - Scissor Sisters by Scissor SistersNot exactly my thing, but I didn't hate it. Good for them for having fun with their music. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 10:33:01 GMT -5
#1(B) - Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South
I know these guys. I have a couple of friends who are well into them. I even recognise the album artwork! This is good stuff, very much in the same ballpark as Steve Earle or Green On Red. Really nice crisp production on these tracks too and I love the sound of those crunchy telecasters on "Carl Perkins' Cadillac". I really should check this album out properly. |
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 10:47:44 GMT -5
Another favourite album of 2004... #2 - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE by Brian Wilson In 2004, the world's most famous unreleased album finally got released. Back in 1967, the SMiLE album was to have been the Beach Boys and their musical mastermind Brian Wilson's magnum opus. Unfortunately, a combination of Wilson's deteriorating mental state, band in-fighting, and legal problems between the group and their record label all conspired to prevent the album from ever being finished. For decades most of the songs recorded for the album remained unheard, while the legend of SMiLE and what it might've been grew and grew. In late 2003, with little warning, Wilson announced a tour in which he would perform the finished album in its entirety. The following year, a newly recorded studio version of the album was released, with Wilson's on-tour backing band the Wondermints providing vocal and musical accompaniment. Myself, I've long been a fully paid-up member of the "Church of SMiLE", ever since I first read about the "lost" album in 1990 and began collecting bootlegs of this unreleased material. So, the news that a newly recorded, modern version of the album was coming out in 2004 filled me with both excitement and trepidation. Would Wilson be up to the task of reconstructing his musical masterpiece? I needn't have worried because Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE is amazing. This is simply some of the best music I have ever heard. I mean, OK, it's not quite up to the lofty standards of the '60s recordings in terms of musicianship or vocal performances, but it's much, much better than we probably had any right to expect it to be. The album is divided into three movements: the first, "Americana", deals with the mythic history of America; the second, "Circle of Life", charts man's physical and spiritual journey from birth to death; and the third, "Spiritual Rebirth/The Elements" examines the wonder of the natural and supernatural world. Like the original late '60s sessions, this album is experimental, wildly eccentric, often humorous, and catchy as all hell. The spirit of '67 and the "Summer of Love" is in this music's DNA and thank God Wilson and his lyricist Van Dyke Parks didn't try to alter that. It's pointless trying to pick out the best tracks because as far as I'm concerned, this entire album is faultless. In fact, the only reason that this isn't my number 1 album of 2004 is because, after all, the material on it was almost 40 years old at this point (even if these are new recordings). I wanted something that was more of the era...a bit more "2004" in my number 1 spot. Anyway, have a listen to the gorgeous "In Blue Hawaii" and the delicately beautiful "Wonderful" and let them do their thing to you… |
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Post by tartanphantom on May 8, 2024 11:38:10 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2004 #1(B) - Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South
Yep. 1b. I flip-flopped one and two so many time that I said to hell with it and gave them a tie. Which album I like better is purely dependant on the day. Decoration Day was going to be a hard album to follow, but the Truckers proved more than up to the task. This is a pretty hard-rocking album that spends most of its time on the wrong side of the tracks in the dirty south. And they take a stick to some Southern mythology including the likes of Buford Pusser, George Wallace and Ronnie Van Zandt. Along the way they give what is probably my favorite Truckers song in "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" and on of the great songs about long distance relationships in "Goddamn Lonely Love." It's a rare thing for a band to have three incredible songwriters who can also tear it up instrumentally. Is it southern rock? Is it alt-country? Yes. Yes it is. And it's just a damn fine album that celebrates the band's roots while recognizing the problems that grew out of those same roots.
Absolutely my favorite DBT album, and the one where I think Jason Isbell came into his own as a member of the band.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 8, 2024 12:46:14 GMT -5
Another favourite album of 2004... #2 - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE by Brian WilsonI'll be honest, I've never been a Beach Boys fan...and this does nothing to move the needle to make me like them or Brian Wilson more. I'll also cop that it's possibly a failing on my part, but I kind of hated that. |
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Post by berkley on May 8, 2024 15:09:55 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 2004 #4 – Steve Earle – The Revolution Starts Now
This is a protest album almost from snap to whistle. So, if you don't like Earle's politics, just move on...there's nothing you want to see here. This is really a more focused follow-up to his 2002 album Jerusalem where Earle began to explore his feelings about the way post-9/11 America was reacting. I say almost from snap to whistle because "I Thought You Should Know" definitely sticks out here. It's a good song, but thematically it doesn't track. But otherwise this is a focused protest against the jingoism of post 9/11 America. Who knew it would only get worse? Not all the songs work perfectly. "Condi, Condi," yeah...you know who it is about...doesn't quite work as Earle probably shouldn't plan on making a living at reggae. But the title track, "Rich Man's War," and "F the CC" absolutely hit the mark. I don't remember anyone else even coming close to this level of protest songwriting at the time. I didn't put "F the CC" on here as it's very much not family friendly. But it's my favorite track on the album. Don't think I've heard this album or either of those two songs. They both sound really good, so I might have a look for this cd. I think Earle has something a little extra as a songwriter compared to most of the people I hear doing the kind of music he plays, however you want to characterise it as a genre.
I first became aware of him through hearing the Proclaimers cover My Old Friend the Blues on their Sunshine on Leith album, not hearing Steve Earle's own version until a few years later. I've been lucky enough to see him live two or three times and he always puts on a good show.
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Post by berkley on May 8, 2024 15:31:22 GMT -5
Another favourite album of 2004... #2 - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE by Brian WilsonI'll be honest, I've never been a Beach Boys fan...and this does nothing to move the needle to make me like them or Brian Wilson more. I'll also cop that it's possibly a failing on my part, but I kind of hated that.
I have enormous respect for Wilson as a songwriter and I really love most of the Beach Boys classics, especially the slower numbers , e.g. In My Room, but I've never thought he was quite up there with the likes of Lennon and McCartney, which is where the consensus seems to rank him these days.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 15:55:24 GMT -5
Another favourite album of 2004... #2 - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE by Brian WilsonI'll be honest, I've never been a Beach Boys fan...and this does nothing to move the needle to make me like them or Brian Wilson more. I'll also cop that it's possibly a failing on my part, but I kind of hated that. Fair enough and no, it's absolutely not a failing on your part. You like what you like. Just because an artist is regarded as one of the greats, it doesn't mean it's compulsory to like their music. On the other hand... you philistine!  |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 8, 2024 15:56:44 GMT -5
I'll be honest, I've never been a Beach Boys fan...and this does nothing to move the needle to make me like them or Brian Wilson more. I'll also cop that it's possibly a failing on my part, but I kind of hated that. I have enormous respect for Wilson as a songwriter and I really love most of the Beach Boys classics, especially the slower numbers , e.g. In My Room, but I've never thought he was quite up there with the likes of Lennon and McCartney, which is where the consensus seems to rank him these days.
I absolutely love Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, but even I'll admit that the term "genius" is much too readily applied to Wilson and his music. |
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