I still might be able to make a few suggestions for 2004 myself. As I think of more cds I listened to from around that time and look them up individually I find that some of them were in fact 2004 releases even though they aren't listed on wiki's 2004 in Music page. But my cds are in such a jumble that I haven't been able to find all the ones I'd like to play again before trying to talk about why I like them.

Favorite albums of 2004

#1(A) - Old Crow Medicine Show – O.C.M.S. aka Old Crow Medicine Show

No. It's not just "Wagon Wheel." And don't get me wrong...that's still a great song. But DAMN it was played too much. And anyone who brings up Hootie will be beaten with in an inch of their life. 

This was Old Crow's first full-length studio album. I suppose there were people who knew them from their earlier EPs, but really this was where they became known. And it's a great album. An interesting blend of jug band, folk, traditional, newgrass, etc. And that's the thing...Old Crow doesn't fit in a neat box. They tend to be lumped in with bluegrass groups, and that's maybe a bit more fair since Willie Watson left the group (they haven't been the same since) but at this point they were really closer to an old-school folk jug band.

The songs are a nice cross-section of traditional tunes and new song written by the band members. And they had the luxury of having three pretty solid songwriters and singers in Ketch Secor, Willie Watson and Critter Fuqua (I love that name). They do equally great jobs on traditional songs like "Tell it to Me" or new songs like "Take 'Em Away," which they manage to make sound like they're old. And there is "Wagon Wheel." And, yeah, it's that good.

Finishing up my list of Top 10 albums from 2004...



#1 - Hot Fuss by the Killers




Indie rock band the Killers might be from Las Vegas, but musically their debut album steadfastly homages British '80s new wave and '90s Britpop. Singer Brandon Flowers even goes so far as to sing in a cod-British accent, which is an interesting twist on the usual pop and rock convention of British singers trying to sound American.

Hot Fuss spawned several hit singles, such as "Somebody Told Me", "All These Things That I've Done", "Smile Like You Mean It", and the perennial (even 20 years later!) "Mr. Brightside". There's a youthful and artsy energy to the album that is infectious, with the songs all couched in glitzy, new wave sounds (often recalling early Duran Duran) and guitar-driven, mid-90s Britpop swagger. But beneath these new romantic and indie rock trappings, there are some great pop melodies – and there's nothing wrong with that!

For me, subsequent Killers' albums have all been subject to the law of diminishing returns, to the point where Hot Fuss is really the only album of theirs that I have any time for anymore. But this is a remarkably assured debut album, chock full of arena-ready sing-along anthems, and is a record that I just couldn't get enough of back in 2004.

I won't subject you to the ubiquitous "Mr. Brightside" or "Somebody Told Me", so take a listen instead to another of the album's hit singles, "Smile Like You Mean It"…

Sadly, I won't be joining in with 2014. I had a look in my record collection, and I only own 3 then-current albums from that year. There are about another 15 or so albums that I own from 2014, but they are all either compilations or archival releases of much older music, so are not eligible.

Bill Nelson's Chimera... this was an outstanding new romantic synthpop record. May be one of my favorite records of the year, EP or otherwise. Yukihiro Takahashi of Yellow Magic Orchestra collaborated with Nelson on several of the tracks and at times this feels like an extension of the Naughty Boys record I loved so much. Great record.

The Human League's Fascination!  -- speaking of New Romantics, it's The Human League. The Human League were under immense pressure from their record label to produce a follow up to their Dare album and released this EP as a stop gap measure. It's a credible effort. I prefer the tracks where Phil Oakey sings lead vocals and the girls do backup vocals, but I can see how the alternating vocalists may be appealing to others.

Fall of Saigon's Fall of Saigon... I have mixed feelings about minimal synth. I can enjoy it as background music if I'm in a relaxed enough mood, but if I want to put on a record and get a hit of something, it doesn't really do the trick. This was another group with alternating male and female vocalists. The pair produced quite different sounding tracks. I preferred the female vocalist, whose tracks were built around haunting melodies. The male vocalist's tracks were closer to art pop. 

Children's Hour's Flesh... this was a Kiwi post-punk and whose members went on to form The Headless Chickens, a band I'm much more familiar with having watched a lot of Kiwi music TV in the 90s. Not a bad record this. Outside of the Dunedin sound, this was one of the most interesting records to come out in NZ in 1983. 

Mecht Mensch's Acceptance... low fi hardcore record. Some pretty intense thrashing. They slow things down at times before lashing out again. I quite liked the vocals on this. 

Been meaning to say, I picked up a copy of Stereolab's Mars Audiac Quintet on CD a couple of weeks back (the vinyl was prohibitively expensive, unfortunately). I've been really enjoying revisiting the album, I must say. It's spinning as I write this. Thanks for reminding me how good this album is berkley.