The music, I don't even know where to begin here. 2003 was kind of the last hurrah for the emo/punk phase of my life. 2004 was mostly just dancing music at this point. A big shift. Myspace days. Hipster (not yet such a bad word, at least as far as I knew) stuff. And there was just a lot of music in my library from 2004. Bear with me.
Move My Hips To Move My Heart.
In 2004 we used to go to an 18+ or All Ages (don't remember) dance night at a place whose name escapes me right now. Downtown Denver. Kind of Five Points area. I started making dance mix CDs in these days. Once we turned 21 we started going to Lipgloss, the way-too-hip dance night every Friday night. $2 Gin & Tonics and $2 PBR. In 2004 I was overwhelmed by it, thinking I wasn't cool enough. By 2005 I was comfortable enough there to dance with strangers. That place changed my life. Or maybe it was the music. Isn't this a music blog? I'll talk more about 2005 in the 2005 entry. How about that? So anyway, 2004 I was discovering the dance music genres and picking up some confidence in it.Le Tigre's big major album This Island was very near and dear to me. I saw them live and was blown away that feminist icon Kathleen Hanna was now playing awesome dance music with the same political spirit. And the show was just so much fun...it seemed we were all going through this same transformation together. And the total protest song "New Kicks" just reminds me of the Iraq war protests and how pissed off I was about that war. I could still care about things while shifting my music focus!
!!! was the ultimate band to see live if you wanted to dance. They played at the same venue in downtown Denver mentioned above and the whole room just turned into this organic dancing thing, like it wasn't even a concert but a party. Half the time I wasn't even looking at the stage. Their album of this time Louden Up Now was a bit repetitive for my tastes but when it had the jams it really had the jams. Particularly this now-staple" I always have to stomp-stomp-clap along to that song every time I hear it.
!!! "Me and Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)
Black Black Ocean, that ol' favorite Denver band of mine, put out their final album Eaglemaniac. Did I talk about these guys? I saw them roughly 10234 times over the course of two years. Such a confrontational live show but so much fun. The singer would walk right up to your face and after I saw them a few times I started craving this. And they picked up on that. And I got so close to this band as a fan that they asked me to video tape their reunion show a year or two later. Eaglemaniac though, how about that album? It was the one that finally captured the kind of band they were. The energy, the insanity, it's all there.
And The Scissor Sisters! Their self-titled album is a dance classic that has remained awesome over time. "Take Your Mama" and "Filthy/Gorgeous" were always going to do well at Lipgloss.
Franz Ferdinand kind of changed something for me. My acceptance of "mainstream" indie rock came about because of these guys. I'd heard one or two of their songs and dug them and back then Target had some sort of BS "up and coming" endcap with cheap CDs by bands like Franz Ferdinand. I always paid it no mind because I was punk rock and knew better than Target what bands were good. I could take recommendations from local indie record shops instead, thank you very much. But anyway, I'd heard some Franz Ferdinand and their self-titled album was on said endcap and it was only $8 or so so I gave it a shot. It had everything a dance whore like myself could want. Fire! Homoeroticism! Angular guitars with a good dance beat! Sexiness! Just enough heart! I put "This Fire" on maybe my second dance mix CD.
Based on the success of me loving that Franz Ferdinand album, I also picked up Hot Fuss by The Killers under the same general circumstances. Those singles would set that dance floor on fire ("Mr. Brightside," "Somebody Told Me") but beyond that the album didn't really resonate with me like I'd hoped. "Midnight Show" was another good song though, if you want a deep cut.
There was also this thing called electroclash. It was this thing where hipsters would listen to a version of electronic music that just had a way of getting us all going crazy. It was weird listening to electroclash 11 years later because my mind was enjoying it in an ironic way but it was always an ironic thing. This stuff wasn't made to be taken seriously, it was made for a laugh and a good time on the dance floor. And while it is now ridiculously dated, I don't think it was ever intended to be timeless. So listening to it now it was probably just as fun as it was back then.
Miss Kittin's solo album I Com was one of the better albums in my opinion, and her song "Requiem For A Hit" became "our song" when Jess & I started dating. All irony lyrically. But a hell of a beat. Dirty Sanchez and Avenue D captured the pervy jokiness of the movement. I also had a mix called Xavier J: Electro Wave that I listened to on a run and it certainly kept me going.
Move My Hipster to Be Hipper.
I also started exploring more non-dance, non-punk indie music. Pinback's Summer in Abaddon is a lovely thing, isn't it? Iron & Wine kind of reached their apex of achievement (before they started adding more instruments to the very minimalist acoustic guitar setup) with Our Endless Numbered Days. Denver's own DeVotchKa put out a bonafide classic with How It Ends (I saw them live at Red Rocks last year, I am guessing you already know how their set ends...). Battles pre-empted their amazing debut full length (coming out in 2007!) with THREE EPs put out within a month of each other. Blonde Redhead started moving comfortably into their more "comfortable" sound on Misery Is A Butterfly, which is a sound I quite like from them.Black Eyes blew my mind. I got their second album Cough when I was in Chicago visiting some friends. Because at that time it was still somewhat difficult to find stuff I wanted, the record store in Chicago was a big deal because I found this album. I played it for those friends and they were...as supportive as they could be. But it takes a very special person to really enjoy this album. Willfully abrasive and a guy with a really annoying voice sings about half the words. But beautiful post post hardcore (I think that's the term I went with when I'd try to describe them). I don't remember what I officially called the album of the year for 2004 but this is a distinct possibility. It awoke in me my punk rock spirit while calling on the adventurous nature of my musical journey at the time. I have only known a couple people in my lifetime who actually listened to Black Eyes and they have both been very special to me. And after this album they were done. One-Two-Done. For one of the most innovative bands in post hardcore or whatever you would call them.
I started really getting into The Magnetic Fields around this time. They had a dance remix of "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" that was suggested to me when I was making a dance mix, and based off of that I picked up the album i. That album was full of analog instruments and had a very melancholy feel which I loved. It was my first Magnetic Fields album. Then I saw them live and picked up 69 Love Songs and I was off to the races. But i is a very strong album with Merritt's trademark wit and sadness combination. If I hadn't picked the song I had for my wedding first dance (discussed in the 1999 entry), I might have gone with "It's Only Time," a lovely underutilized song about devotion. "I Looked All Over Town" is probably my favorite song on this album, about a sad clown. A very sad song about not fitting in, I remember being annoyed when I saw them live because people were laughing at the song when I took it very seriously, but I understand now. It is both. And we need to be able to laugh at pain. And this song does this in a very beautiful way. Like a sad clown. (the tragically ludicrous/the ludicrously tragic?)
The Magnetic Fields "I Looked All Over Town"
Jens Lekman seems like he looks at the world though a similar lens as Stephin Merritt, just a little less cynical and with more innocence. They have similar baritone delivery and both hit the perfect balance of humor and melancholy though. It took me a while to finally find and pick up When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, but it has the wonderful "You Are The Light (By Which I Travel Into This and That)."
Modest Mouse found some modest success with Good News For People Who Love Bad News. It still is, front-to-back, one of my favorite albums of theirs. Biting lyrics, painfulness, clever clever words. And as much as the song "Float On" was everywhere and inescapable to the point where I started disliking it a little, a few years later I took it as an empowering anthem after getting laid off at my job. And now when I hear it that's all I think of.
I didn't get Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens until recently even though the first song I ever heard by him was "To Be Alone With You." It was a highlight on a mix from my friend Christy. But I didn't really explore him until Illinois (story coming next entry!). My wife walked down the aisle to "The Dress Looks Nice On You" though. Because it was perfect. He is very good at the folk thing.
That same mix included a song called "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by this new band called Arcade Fire. I heard it in December of 2004. The major standout to the mix, I had to ask more questions about this band. The song was just so full of passion that it kind of reminded me of The Broadways in a weird way. So it went from obsession with this song, to checking out the album Funeral (and finding out it was a big big deal in the indie world, probably the #1 album of the year by "indie consensus" if that's a thing), to being pretty obsessed with the whole album and inserting myself into that indie rock culture. I was kind of an outsider when I approached this stuff after knowing everything about everything punk rock. It was a fun adventure.
Arcade Fire "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"
Oh and 2004 was also the year I first got into a new Sonic Youth album. Speaking of an outsider learning about indie rock. Sonic Nurse was their latest at the time and I got it and loved it a lot. Kind of had the band heading in a similar direction to Blonde Redhead mentioned above. A little less abrasive but still passionate and energetic and experimental.
My previous investments in the awesomeness of Touch & Go Records continued to pay dividends. I got the track "Good Friday" by CocoRosie for free off their website and then eventually was able to find their debut album La Maison de mon Reve somewhere in Denver. Something I looked for everywhere but was hard to find back then. A really cool mix of art and hip hop beats and melody...CocoRosie would slowly evolve over time, but not quite in the direction I'd hoped. I still love them though. This album is very cool.
And then there was my real actual probably #1 album of the year. If not Cough, it had to have been Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes by a certain TV On The Radio. They felt like my band, like my discovery. My secret. I also discovered them via Touch & Go Records and they filled a void for me. Something completely unique and not really like anything else I listened to at the time. I always speak in hyperbole when I speak of this band because I really do think they are the best band of this century. And it really started here. Or that EP from 2003. Maybe there. But here is where they started for me. A combination of spacey minimalist instrumentals (with maximalist portions when appropriate) and soulful vocals. I know the fact that they were on the jukebox at the hipster bar we went to means I wasn't the first/only person to know them, but I still felt pretty cool when I played them on said jukebox on a crowded Thursday night (Thursday night was the big party night in Boulder) and confused the hell out of everyone. The song was "Ambulance," their a capella love song, which may have not been the best song for partying. But I just really wanted my friends to hear it and that was the best way to do that. But that's not the song I'm going to post here because another song has eclipsed it. They opened a show back then, I think maybe election day 2004? The line was so long I couldn't get in until their last song. But I caught the last song and at that moment it was the best thing I'd ever heard live. It is everything TV On The Radio does well at its best. A perfect song that gets stuck in my head for days. (note: I am really sorry about the image below. Thanks, whoever put this on Youtube, for finding it necessary to use such an image!)
TV On The Radio "Poppy"
Old Reliable.
Elvis Costello continued to deliver with The Delivery Man. I remember being a sucker because I went and bought this album on CD at the local independent record store for something like $17.00 and then seeing it at Target or Best Buy or whatever for less than $10. But I was supporting something important, man! This album was yet another left turn from his previous (When I Was Cruel), and while I didn't love it quite as much I still have a lot of affection for it. It introduced me to the voice of Emmylou Harris, who provided some beautiful guest vocals on a couple tracks. It told a story. It was heartbreaking in places. Like here.
Elvis Costello featuring Emmylou Harris "Heart Shaped Bruise"
The best album of the year was probably technically this 40-years-in-the-making one. Brian Wilson finally finished Smile! I feel like I kind of talked about it with Smiley Smile and all that stuff back then but I have to talk about it a little bit here. But everyone knows what he did. It just turned out so damn good! It felt great to listen to even when Colorado was experiencing a ridiculously rainy May. I could feel the sunshine and the harmonies were just Wonderful.
And On and on.
- Milk Man is a great Deerhoof album that I just recently acquired and have only listened to a couple times.
- A Ghost Is Born shows Wilco going full on experimental. It's pretty great from the right mood (country Wilco just puts you in the mood).
- I got Love Everybody by The Presidents of the United States of America because I have been a long-time fan but only a few of the songs have that element I love about them. But "Some Postman" and "Jennifer's Jacket" are quite good.
- Asian Man Records got into the "indie rock" stuff outside of the usual ska and punk with a very cool rhythmic album by Colossal called Welcome the Problems.
- The Roots and Mos Def kind of put out forgettable-ish albums (compared to everything else either artist has put out!).
- The Grey Album was pretty neat, I wish it sounded a little more Beatlesy though. Not that that was super possible when mixing them with hip hop.
- The Black & Blue Album was a Weezer-Jay-Z mashup, which was also pretty neat, though messy in places. It did have a bonus track "99 Luft Problems" which is pretty much my favorite mashup ever.
- I didn't discover Feist until The Reminder a couple years later, but her debut album Let It Die was pretty neat. I love her cover of "Inside And Out" by The Beegees. I had it played at my wedding.
- That Loretta Lynn album produced by Jack White was neat!
- Madvillainy was rad too. And MM...Food. That MF Doom guy is a reasonably talented dude!
- Super xx Man is great singer songwriter stuff. I particularly recommend 2004's Vol. IV: My Usual Way.
- The Descendents came back after another 8 years off! Cool To Be You was...interesting. I liked a couple of the tracks but I'd just as easily stick with their early stuff.
- The Good Life put out Album of the Year so that was neat.
- Some kid called Kanye West released his debut album. I did not care at the time. Pretty good listen though.
- The Streets. "Fit But You Know It." Another dance floor staple.
- The Go! Team! I got into them a year or two later when they opened for The Flaming Lips at Red Rocks! Rad band!
- Hanalei saw Brian Moss from The Wunder Years and The Ghost expanding into a more personal territory.
- Annie! Anniemal! Swedish pop is the best pop.
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