Thursday, January 01, 2004
EVIL BRIAN'S TOP 20+1 ALBUMS OF 2003
Totally based on my personal preference, and probably not indicitive of anybody or anything except for my personal taste (or lack thereof, if you happen to disagree with me). But I still feel like posting it to feel important. So here you go, starting from the +1, and working all the way down to number 1.
Special Notariety +1): Lewis Black – Rules of Enragement (the very funniest comedy album to come out this year, period.)
20.) Panjabi MC – Beware (Nothing if not interesting, the first and only album of Indian music in my collection, it seamlessly mixes traditional Bhangra and American hip-hop…and it rocks)
19.) NOFX – War On Errorism (a punk band that put out a PUNK ALBUM. Anytime an American band puts a picture of the President dressed up as a clown on their album that openly criticizes him, THAT, my friends, is punk rock. Suck on that, New Found Glory!)
18.) Opeth – Damnation (The most beautiful and quiet album I think I’ve ever heard to come from a black metal band. The Gods of Black Metal get all proggy on our asses…and it’s just AMAZING.)
17.) Postal Service – Give Up (all the indie kids creamed over this album, but with good reason. They can call it electro-indie-whatever; it’s new wave and it kicks ass. Good lyrics, catchy beats, gimmie more!)
16.) Longwave – the Strangest Things (Another one of those indie albums, and again, it is completely deserving of the praise. Taking vocals that are a mixture of Coldplay and John McCrea minus the funk, these guys just blew me away.)
15.) Audioslave – Audioslave (I had little to no hope that this band would be anywhere near as good as it turned out to be. The name’s gotta go (Civilian was SO much better) but everything else is PERFECT. Chris Cornell’s voice, though it sounds a little gravelly sometimes, is SPOT ON and can still soar over everything in front of it. Definitely recommended)
14.) Rooney – Rooney (Pop never sounded so….POPPY. A really solid album with really well-written songs. Worth a listen or two)
13.) The Black Keys – thickfreakness (I don’t care if it IS just another example of the white man stealing the black man’s music, these guys are the REAL Blues Brothers. One of the most soulful recordings I’ve heard in years.)
12.) Zwan – Mary Star Of The Sea (Billy Corgan just kinda pulls back a little on the whole crazed artist persona and puts out the most beautiful record since Mellon Collie. The title track is just stunning. I actually almost forgot this came out in 2003.)
11.) Lamb of God – As The Palaces Burn (here’s how good this album is: my brother is a rabid REM/They Might Be Giants fan who dabbles with Metallica and Iron Maiden sometimes. He LOVES this album, he’s been listening to it almost non-stop since I gave him a copy of it. If that isn’t a testament to these American Metal heroes, I dunno what is.)
10.) Eels – Shootenanny! (Without a doubt, the best and most complete Eels album since Electro-shock Blues. Emotional, funny, laid-back, AWESOME.)
9.) Foo Fighters – One By One (Dave Grohl completes the best year and a half in his professional life since Nirvana broke up with the best Foo Fighters album EVER. Every song is memorable and it all ROCKS HARD. The closing song is just about as perfect as a Foos song can get.)
EDIT: I realized right after I included this one that the album came out towards the end of 2002, NOT 2003. Guess what? I'm too lazy to replace it, so it's staying here. It's a kickass album anyways.
8.) Chimaira – The Impossibility of Reason (Chimaira took every shitty metal band like Trapt, Smile Empty Soul, Korn, Linkin Park, etc. and bites their motherfucking heads off! THIS is what metal should sound like: a group of extremely pissed off guys with an amazing amount of technical talent venting all their rage into their music, and coming out with a head-bangin’ ass-kickin’ metal album to end all metal albums. The revolution is here, folks.)
7.) Dream Theater – Train Of Thought (One of the finest metal albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. I know, they aren’t straight ahead metal, but still, just simply amazing. All I Am is a classic in the making.)
6.) Radiohead – Hail to the Thief (Radiohead takes the experimentation of Amnesiac and mixes it with the pop/rock sensibilities of The Bends to produce the third best album of their careers. Now the weird songs have listenable parts in them, and it honestly DOESN’T sound like an overly pretentious art record. On the contrary, there are quite a few beautiful tracks in here along with some rockers.)
5.) AFI – Sing The Sorrow (This album just came out of NOWHERE to blow me away. Take some of The Cure, strain it through some NOFX, turn up the ambiguity and make the lead singer more girly than mid-80’s Robert Smith and, somehow, EVERYTHING works PERFECTLY. They’ve crafted some of the best pop AND rock songs I’ve heard in a LONG time. Light enough for the girls, dark enough for the guys, it’s just about PERFECT.)
4.) The Blood Brothers – Burn, Piano Island, Burn (Upon my very first listening of this album, I was hooked. I wrote this, and I still hold it to be true: “What would happen if the Sex Pistols and Glassjaw took acid and ecstasy and had an orgy with Mike Patton serving as Ringmaster? THIS ALBUM.” This album forgives Ross Robinson of all his work with Limp Bizkit. Almost the strangest album of 2003, but also one of the most energetic and gorgeous.)
3.) The White Stripes – Elephant (a classic in every sense of the word. Just an awesome all-out rock record. Hard rockin', bluesy, just artsy enough without being annoying, and CATCHY AS FUCK. Believe the hype.)
2.) Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (Following up your best and most critically acclaimed album ever with 2 discs of solo work from each member sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Outkast not only made it work, they overclocked the whole thing and made it their bitch. Big Boi is one of the best rappers in the business today and Andre 3000….well, he’s just a fucking batshit insane GENIUS. The funkiest, freshest, coolest and all-out ballsiest release of the entire year. It actually almost pains me to put it in 2nd place, but I gotta be fair and give number one to the one album I had on repeat for about 6 months straight. I gotta give it to…
1.) The Mars Volta – De-Loused In The Comatorium (Where do I even begin? EVERYTHING about this album is insane, borderline-demented and psychedelically bloated, psychotic and FLAWLESS. Very rarely can I find an album where I HAVE to listen to it all the way through. Every song seeps seamlessly into the next, the story unfolds song to song, and every single sound resonates with meaning. Possibly the most original piece of music I have ever listened to in my life, and more than deserving of every single word of praise it is given. Everyone who is a fan of rock music should listen to it at least once, to know what true creativity, originality, talent and insanity sounds like. Praise be to the Volta!)
So there you go, the Very Best Albums of 2003. If you disagree, then you are wrong. Period. There will be more lists, probably. Just give me time to post them.
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Totally based on my personal preference, and probably not indicitive of anybody or anything except for my personal taste (or lack thereof, if you happen to disagree with me). But I still feel like posting it to feel important. So here you go, starting from the +1, and working all the way down to number 1.
Special Notariety +1): Lewis Black – Rules of Enragement (the very funniest comedy album to come out this year, period.)
20.) Panjabi MC – Beware (Nothing if not interesting, the first and only album of Indian music in my collection, it seamlessly mixes traditional Bhangra and American hip-hop…and it rocks)
19.) NOFX – War On Errorism (a punk band that put out a PUNK ALBUM. Anytime an American band puts a picture of the President dressed up as a clown on their album that openly criticizes him, THAT, my friends, is punk rock. Suck on that, New Found Glory!)
18.) Opeth – Damnation (The most beautiful and quiet album I think I’ve ever heard to come from a black metal band. The Gods of Black Metal get all proggy on our asses…and it’s just AMAZING.)
17.) Postal Service – Give Up (all the indie kids creamed over this album, but with good reason. They can call it electro-indie-whatever; it’s new wave and it kicks ass. Good lyrics, catchy beats, gimmie more!)
16.) Longwave – the Strangest Things (Another one of those indie albums, and again, it is completely deserving of the praise. Taking vocals that are a mixture of Coldplay and John McCrea minus the funk, these guys just blew me away.)
15.) Audioslave – Audioslave (I had little to no hope that this band would be anywhere near as good as it turned out to be. The name’s gotta go (Civilian was SO much better) but everything else is PERFECT. Chris Cornell’s voice, though it sounds a little gravelly sometimes, is SPOT ON and can still soar over everything in front of it. Definitely recommended)
14.) Rooney – Rooney (Pop never sounded so….POPPY. A really solid album with really well-written songs. Worth a listen or two)
13.) The Black Keys – thickfreakness (I don’t care if it IS just another example of the white man stealing the black man’s music, these guys are the REAL Blues Brothers. One of the most soulful recordings I’ve heard in years.)
12.) Zwan – Mary Star Of The Sea (Billy Corgan just kinda pulls back a little on the whole crazed artist persona and puts out the most beautiful record since Mellon Collie. The title track is just stunning. I actually almost forgot this came out in 2003.)
11.) Lamb of God – As The Palaces Burn (here’s how good this album is: my brother is a rabid REM/They Might Be Giants fan who dabbles with Metallica and Iron Maiden sometimes. He LOVES this album, he’s been listening to it almost non-stop since I gave him a copy of it. If that isn’t a testament to these American Metal heroes, I dunno what is.)
10.) Eels – Shootenanny! (Without a doubt, the best and most complete Eels album since Electro-shock Blues. Emotional, funny, laid-back, AWESOME.)
9.) Foo Fighters – One By One (Dave Grohl completes the best year and a half in his professional life since Nirvana broke up with the best Foo Fighters album EVER. Every song is memorable and it all ROCKS HARD. The closing song is just about as perfect as a Foos song can get.)
EDIT: I realized right after I included this one that the album came out towards the end of 2002, NOT 2003. Guess what? I'm too lazy to replace it, so it's staying here. It's a kickass album anyways.
8.) Chimaira – The Impossibility of Reason (Chimaira took every shitty metal band like Trapt, Smile Empty Soul, Korn, Linkin Park, etc. and bites their motherfucking heads off! THIS is what metal should sound like: a group of extremely pissed off guys with an amazing amount of technical talent venting all their rage into their music, and coming out with a head-bangin’ ass-kickin’ metal album to end all metal albums. The revolution is here, folks.)
7.) Dream Theater – Train Of Thought (One of the finest metal albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. I know, they aren’t straight ahead metal, but still, just simply amazing. All I Am is a classic in the making.)
6.) Radiohead – Hail to the Thief (Radiohead takes the experimentation of Amnesiac and mixes it with the pop/rock sensibilities of The Bends to produce the third best album of their careers. Now the weird songs have listenable parts in them, and it honestly DOESN’T sound like an overly pretentious art record. On the contrary, there are quite a few beautiful tracks in here along with some rockers.)
5.) AFI – Sing The Sorrow (This album just came out of NOWHERE to blow me away. Take some of The Cure, strain it through some NOFX, turn up the ambiguity and make the lead singer more girly than mid-80’s Robert Smith and, somehow, EVERYTHING works PERFECTLY. They’ve crafted some of the best pop AND rock songs I’ve heard in a LONG time. Light enough for the girls, dark enough for the guys, it’s just about PERFECT.)
4.) The Blood Brothers – Burn, Piano Island, Burn (Upon my very first listening of this album, I was hooked. I wrote this, and I still hold it to be true: “What would happen if the Sex Pistols and Glassjaw took acid and ecstasy and had an orgy with Mike Patton serving as Ringmaster? THIS ALBUM.” This album forgives Ross Robinson of all his work with Limp Bizkit. Almost the strangest album of 2003, but also one of the most energetic and gorgeous.)
3.) The White Stripes – Elephant (a classic in every sense of the word. Just an awesome all-out rock record. Hard rockin', bluesy, just artsy enough without being annoying, and CATCHY AS FUCK. Believe the hype.)
2.) Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (Following up your best and most critically acclaimed album ever with 2 discs of solo work from each member sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Outkast not only made it work, they overclocked the whole thing and made it their bitch. Big Boi is one of the best rappers in the business today and Andre 3000….well, he’s just a fucking batshit insane GENIUS. The funkiest, freshest, coolest and all-out ballsiest release of the entire year. It actually almost pains me to put it in 2nd place, but I gotta be fair and give number one to the one album I had on repeat for about 6 months straight. I gotta give it to…
1.) The Mars Volta – De-Loused In The Comatorium (Where do I even begin? EVERYTHING about this album is insane, borderline-demented and psychedelically bloated, psychotic and FLAWLESS. Very rarely can I find an album where I HAVE to listen to it all the way through. Every song seeps seamlessly into the next, the story unfolds song to song, and every single sound resonates with meaning. Possibly the most original piece of music I have ever listened to in my life, and more than deserving of every single word of praise it is given. Everyone who is a fan of rock music should listen to it at least once, to know what true creativity, originality, talent and insanity sounds like. Praise be to the Volta!)
So there you go, the Very Best Albums of 2003. If you disagree, then you are wrong. Period. There will be more lists, probably. Just give me time to post them.
