Album of the Year 2003: Your Nominations

Constantines - Shine A Light
and no one’s mentioned
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
I think either of these are right up there with HTTT.

Dave Davies Transformation

The best album I’ve heard this year:

The White Stripes - Elephant

1: The Constantines - Shine A Light
“If you want to seize the sound you don’t need a reservation/ the torch is passed it’s yours to return/ lay at their feet now use it to burn” Guy Picciotto rallied on the anti music industry bitch-slap “Target.” That was back in 1995, and now finally after seven years, there is a band worthy of receiving the torch from the all mighty Fugazi. The Constantines have arrived like a pack of famished wolves tearing through a kindergarten class.

With lyrics worthy of being compared to the honest after hours gutter poetry of The Replacements, Fugazi style guitar dueling and a singer in his early twenties whose young voice is so similar to Bruce Springsteen scraggy croon, it makes you wonder if The Boss himself loafed through Guelph in Canada, sometime in the early 80’s. They truly have the potential for greatness.

“Young Lions” is the anthem of the year, with it’s low key yet inspiring chorus: "young lions/ this is your kingdom/ roll out the cradle/ climb out the window,” the song invokes a blue collar heart-on-the-sleeve sincerity, that is sorely lacking in a day and age when rock ‘n’ roll is more about fashionable mullets and trucker hats.

Shine A Light is punk rock nihilism at it’s snarling best, yet on songs like “On To You” and the harmonica fueled closer “Sub-Domestic” shards of genuine human warmth, like huddling together in dark alleyways with drunken strangers at night during sudden rainfall, shines through.

Who cares about New York, Canada is where it’s happening.

Free Mp3’s (I warmly recommend “St. You,” from their 2001 self titled debut)
Live video clips

2: Guided By Voices - Earthquake Glue
Robert Pollard can shrug of a timeless pop classic as easily as a marathon runner shakes a turd out of his shorts. He has proven this, time after time, and even his most obscure toss-off side projects, of which there are more than gold teeth and crotch grabs at The Source Awards, contains at least two or three essential gems.

Earthquake Glue on the other hand doesn’t contain a single misstep, it is hands down the best Guided By Voices album since Under The Bushes, Under The Stars from 1996. It probably won’t hook in as many new listeners as Bee Thousand did back in the days, but for a true fan it’s mana from the Gods. “The Best of Jill Hives” and “Useless Inventions” tie for the catchiest song of the year.

Free Mp3’s and music videos

3: The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
The best compliment I can give to this record is that it’s better than their first album, Oh Inverted World, and that in itself should be enough.

4: Manitoba - Up In Flames
Up In Flames almost reaches the perfect shoegaze bliss of My Bloody Valentine’s masterpiece Loveless, Gadfly’s description is spot on.

5: Cat Power - You Are Free
I think I’m in love with Chan Marshall.

Runners up:
6: TV On The Radio - Young Liars (Ep)
7: Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric Co.
8: Non Prophets - Hope
9: Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
10: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Pig Lib – better than the last two Pavement albums.

All in all, a pretty disappointing year compared to 2001 and 2002, but still there is a lot of albums I haven’t listened to yet. Next year holds great promise though, with new albums from Built to Spill, Elliott Smith (RIP), Trail of Dead and The Mountain Goats (which I already have and I can promise you it’s fucking incredible, Palmcorder Yanja and The Young Thousand slays nearly everything released this year).

Please forgive the pretentiousness of my album blurbs, I’m Norwegian.

Album of the year: OSI Office of Strategic Influence

(Disappointment of the year: Dream Theater Train of Thought)

Don’t shoot me, but I haven’t had a chance to check out Shine A Light or Chutes Too Narrow yet.

Exploding Hearts - “Guitar Romantic” Head and shoulders the best album I’ve heard all year. Also, the best album I’ve heard all decade. If there comes a point in my life when I don’t want to crank this record, please kill me.

They made a timeless record, and then they had the good rock-n-roll sense to die in a bus crash. Brilliant.

Bare - Annie Lennox.

This is one incredible album, full of real emotion. Quite possibly her best work.

The latest Do Make Say Think was really good, and Arab Strap’s new one shows promising directions for the band.

I was disappointed with The Weakerthans, New Pornographers, and The Shins. The Weakerthans just didn’t put out a strong abum, while the New Pornographers / Shins both sidestepped expectations by becoming different bands.

Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won

Was there other Albums that came out this year? I hadn’t noticed. (runs and ducks)

Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won

Was there other Albums that came out this year? I hadn’t noticed. (ducks and runs)

The best albums of the year:
Decemberists - Her Majesty
Notwist - Neon Golden (originally released '02, but US wide release in '03 w/bonus tracks, so here it is)
Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Blood Brothers - Burn, Piano Island, Burn

Out of these four albums, De-Loused is easily the best, with Piano Island coming in at a close second. While DitC is a bit overindulgent and could benefit from some tigher focus, the fact that it still manages to be the best album of the year even with these faults speaks volumes about its quality.

Some review clips that sum up my thoughts about DitC:
“An audacious, bold and provocative artistic statement, an album that raises the bar for any rock band who aspire to re-writing the rulebook.”

“As nuts as they are, The Mars Volta recall the raw potential rock held before it was castrated by radio programmers and corporate control.”

Off the top of my head:

Cursive - The Ugly Organ
Ozma - Spending Time on the Borderline
Postal Service - Give Up

More to come later.

  1. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
  2. Outkast - The Love Below/Speakerboxxx
  3. The Dandy Warhols - Welcome to the Monkey House

And Elephant and the Broken Social Scene disc are the next 2 that I plan on getting. It’s good seeing all of the love out here for some good Canadian music, which I’m ashamed I don’t own yet. Soon as I go back to Toronto, I’m picking all those CDs up.

Album of the year, as well as the century, even best pop/rock ever:

Merlin - Bard of the unseen by Kayak

My nomination is definitely “Innocent Eyes” by Delta Goodrem. Way to go girl! Luv ya. Hope you get better real soon! XOXO

From my limited listening over the past year, I’d have to go with Songs for the Deaf- Queens of the Stone Age. Love it to death. Those droning drums are absolutely hypnotic.

Outkast’s effort was bloody good as well.

Songs for the Deaf came out last year, but I agree that it was a kickass hard rock album. The radio DJ interstitials got old real fast, though.

Was Neko Case’s Blacklisted released this year? If so I nominate her. Man, what voice!

Last year, Hodge. If you like her, though, check out the New Pornographers - they include her, and use her voice to maximum potential: A good example is the song Letter From An Occupant.

I’m a big fan of the NPs. I loved Mass Romantic and bought Electric Version the day it was released. The sheer joy in Neko’s voice on the track All for Swining You Around is one of my favourite musical moments of 2003.