Anthony's
Five Favorite Records of 2004
Well, 2004 is drawing to a close, the holidays are approaching,
and many music publications are making their end-of-the-year
lists. Now, as regular readers of the column know, I love
these lists. The prospect of writing my own was very enticing,
to say the least. So it is with great pleasure that I
present “Anthony’s Favorite Five Albums of
the Year 2004.”
The title should be self-explanatory. The criteria for
the list are the following: the album had to purchased
by me between December 1st, 2003 and December 1st 2004.
The album had to be reasonably current -- an album released
in the latter part of 2003 is acceptable, but nothing
too old (or Harvest by Neil Young would be number
one). No live albums or greatest hits packages. And I
am the sole judge of what makes the list -- the albums
are my personal favorites. I make no claim that they were
influential, popular or even notable to anyone else, although
I do think listening to them will enrich your life in
many ways. Anyway, without further ado…
5. Good News For People Who Love Bad News
(Modest Mouse)
One of the big stories in music this year was the resurgence
of Alt-Rock, featuring bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,
the Killers, Interpol and Modest Mouse. There were many
theories for this neo-college rock explosion: the groundwork
being laid by garage bands like the Strokes and the White
Stripes getting the kids interested in something other
than Limp Bizkit; the influence of music savvy television
shows like The O.C. and Gilmore Girls;
the Blink 182 crowd outgrowing songs about boners; all
things of the like. I’m not gonna try to give anyone
a concrete reason why a band that has been around for
such a pretty good amount of time, like Modest Mouse,
is suddenly enjoying commercial success (or why new bands
like Franz Ferdinand shot from obscurity to magazine covers,
for that matter), but Good News For People Who Love
Bad News is a remarkable album. Much more Island-era
Tom Waits than the New Wave influences of the other members
of the hipster class of 2004, the album earnestly deals
with questions of mortality and spirituality. The central
question of this album seems to me: If there is no God
and nothing after this life, then is the pain of life
worth anything? Singer and Lyricist Isaac Brock chronicles
many angles of this search for meaning, from the role
of God (Bukowski), the effect the faith of those has on
those who do not (Ocean Breathes Salty), erasing the doubt
with partying (The Good Life is Killing Me, Bukowski),
and alternates from optimism (Float On) to pessimism (One
Chance). What I like about this album is that, to me,
it doesn’t give answers… just questions.
4. In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
(Coheed and Cambria)
Uh, yeah… couldn’t be more different than
the last choice. Honestly, I have no idea what this album
is about. Best I can tell, it’s a science-fiction
concept album about the end of the world. And girls. Really,
the lyrics are not why I’m into on this one; it’s
the music. The most common description of Coheed and Cambria
-- for those of you that have not heard them -- is a mix
of At the Drive In and Rush. Being one of the only two
people I know whose record collection includes both ATDI
and Rush (the other being my brother Joey), I bought this
album purely on word of mouth. I think the Rush/ATDI comparison
is pretty accurate, and although it’s downright
poppy in places, the biggest influence I hear is Iron
Maiden. And I love Iron Maiden. Now, I don’t know
if these guys would cite them as an influence, but I really
hear it -- the intricate guitar parts, complex time signatures,
rhythmic “whoa-oh-oh-oh” chanting, lyrics
that include “man your battle stations” and
“this comlink’s lost its frequency”
-- all of this could only be done by the 21st century
Iron Maiden. Through all of the sci-fi grandness, however,
it seems to me this is really an album about not being
able to relate to girls, and therefore to not get laid,
which again, goes back to Iron Maiden. When I was in high
school, the people that liked Iron Maiden did not get
laid (which I guess tell you about my love life in high
school…), but women and sex were subjects that were
not broached in any of their songs. What C&C are doing
(hypothetically) is incorporating this difficulty with
the fairer sex into their songs, which could very well
create the greatest album ever for awkward adolescents.
I know if I was 14, this would be my favorite album ever.
But since I’m 27, I like it because it reminds me
of being 14. Which, looking back on it, wasn’t so
bad.
3. The Delivery Man (Elvis Costello and
the Imposters)
The Delivery Man continues Elvis Costello’s
ambitious career of jumping from genre to genre; here
revisiting the music of the American south. The album
was originally intended as a conceptual work dealing with
three women in a small southern town and Abel, a deliveryman
who enters into each woman’s life. A southern gothic
story of desperation and tragic love, it would be Costello’s
most ambitious work, which is saying something considering
all of the different projects he has undertaken. Unfortunately,
it didn’t work out that way, but he resurrected
some of the songs to fill out about half of this album,
continuing a strong streak going back to 2002’s
When I was Cruel. While the story he intended
to tell is understandably obscured, the tone of the work
is intact, thanks to the layers of pedal steel and honky-tonk
piano, as well as guest vocals from Lucinda Williams and
Emmylou Harris. This country feel extends through to the
other half of the songs, which are unrelated to his story.
The ballad “Either Side of the Same Town”
is right up their with his best, and the stompers “Monkey
to Man” and “Needle Time” show that
he has learned much about American roots music since his
last foray into country, Almost Blue. The album
closed with his own renditions of two songs Costello had
written for other artists: “The Judgment,”
which was originally recorded by Solomon Burke, and “The
Scarlet Tide,” recorded by Allison Krauss for the
soundtrack of Cold Mountain. Both songs fit well
thematically on this album and showcase that Costello
deserves a place among the great songwriters of our time.
2. Elk-Lake Serenade (Hayden)
Hayden is the songwriter I identify with most. This goes
back to his first LP, Everything I Long For,
which I got my freshman year in college. The majority
of Hayden’s songs deal with love, and the way he
writes about it is unique. His concept of love is often
idealized and not based in reality (I hope, anyway, or
else this guy has had a seriously hard life). The songs
are often short stories, revolving around a fantastic
situation involving a love either lost, beginning, or
never there in the first place. The first track on the
album, “Wide Eyes,” deals with a man convincing
a woman on a bus to pretend to be his girlfriend to make
his ex -- who is waiting at the next stop -- jealous,
and naturally this works and the two then fall in love.
Another song, the brilliantly poppy “Hollywood Ending”
deals with an actress showing up on the narrator’s
doorstep, pleading with him to kill her unfaithful lover
and run away with her. When the cops show up the narrator
loses his nerve and confesses, only to be laughed at and
told this was part of the movie, a story he was never
really involved in. This is genius of Hayden’s songwriting.
He has a way to make the listener react to his bad luck
protagonists in their peculiar situations because there
is a truth in them. We have all wanted to make an old
lover jealous, and we have all dreamed of running off
with a celebrity -- all while acknowledging how silly
those thoughts are. Probably the saddest instance of this
on the record is in the song “Killbear”, where
the narrator explains how his lost love has been killed
by a bear while on a camping trip, when her new boy friend
ran away and left her. The narrator states how he would
have fought the bear and saved his love, and that is something
I think we have all felt about ourselves, although probably
not in as many words. Deep down, we feel that we are noble
and would put ourselves in harm’s way for someone,
if they would just let us. Through all of these situations,
Hayden paints the picture of a decent, lonely guy who
just wants to share something with someone… if they
would just let him. And that’s probably not the
most rock ‘n roll thing you’ll here this year,
but it’s something I -- and probably a lot of us
-- can relate to.
1. from a basement on the hill (Elliott
Smith)
It is impossible to listen to this album without considering
the death of Elliott Smith. For those who do not know,
Smith died of a knife wound to the chest last year while
working on this album. (The circumstances of his death
are still undetermined, and I’m not going to speculate
about them). This record, culled from demos and incomplete
tracks for what he intended to be a double album, is so
profoundly sad; if for no other reason that it reminds
us how much more amazing music he could have made. More
so than any other artist, it amazes me that Smith is not
immensely well known and popular (not that he necessarily
would have wanted that). “Pop” is not the
right term for his songs, because pop often implies a
lightness, which they certainly aren’t. Yet these
are songs that are accessible to anyone that likes rock
music. How he managed to be both lyrically and musically
deft without sounding pandering or gimmicky was just amazing,
and the depth of his songs is astounding. On this album
he again wears his emotions and Beatles-influence on his
sleeve, creating rich sonorities and song structures despite
the fact the album was left uncompleted. For me the highlight
of the album is the explosive “king’s crossing,”
followed by the tender “twilight,” which are
separated by the sound collage “ostrich & chirping.”
“king’s crossing” is the album’s
bloodletting moment, where Smith rages at the idea of
his personal pain being commercially sold, as well as
making references to his struggles with drug and alcohol
addiction. “I can’t prepare for death anymore
than I already have,” Smith sings, which aside from
fueling the controversy surrounding his passing, conveys
the terrible pain which his songs were an attempt to unload.
“twilight,” however, is the calm after the
storm. Simple and beautiful, he calmly sings to another
troubled soul, trying to find some catharsis in companionship,
which is seemingly impossible for the two of them. The
range of emotion in these two songs is staggering, examples
of the depth and talent that was lost. It is impossible
not to feel with and for Elliott Smith upon listening
to this album, which is the most moving I have heard in
a long time.
Well, I don’t know what lists like these accomplish,
but I hope everyone enjoyed reading about these records
and maybe you’ll check some of them out. I could
go on for even longer about all of them, and I’m
sure everyone has records about which they could do the
same. I think of records on the same level I do books
and movies, that they are worth discussing and sharing,
and I would like to encourage that as much as possible.
So if any of these records find their way under your tree
this year, come and find me, and we’ll have a pint
and talk about them some more.
~~~~~
Anthony
Eldridge is the foonote's
senior music guru. He is also the guy that makes beer
runs for us all.
