Your Best of 2004

Chris Baroner - talent booker, Metro BEST ALBUMS (in no particular order) -French Kicks - The Trial Of The Century -TV On The Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes -Spektrum - Enter The Spektrum -The Changes – S/T EP (self-released) -Lansing-Dreiden - The Invisible Triangle -DFA – Compilation #2 -Saul Williams – S/T BEST SHOWS (in no particular order) -The Walkmen & French Kicks @ Metro – March 11 -The Faint & TV On The Radio @ Metro – October 6 & 7 -2 Many DJs & James Murphy @ Smartbar – April 28 -The Decemberists @ Metro – June 4 -Ted Leo/Pharmacists & The Changes @ The Hideout – June 19 -Q and Not U & El Guapo @ Logan Sqaure Auditorium – October 10 -The Futureheads & The Changes @ Empty Bottle – November 10 -Sufjan Stevens @ Schubas – November 18 BEST SINGLES (in no particular order) -Bloc Party – Banquet -Franz Ferdinand – This Fire -The Walkmen – The Rat -LCD Soundsystem – Yeah (Pretentious Version) -The Faint – Paranoiattack -Saul Williams – List Of Demands ------------------------------- Rob Mentzer - RFC reader Best Albums 1. Dizzee Rascal -- Showtime 2. Madvillain -- Madvillainy Blazingly brilliant as a whole album without offering especially good singles, making it something of a relic. But damn it is fine. A leftfield concept album with warm Madlib beats and woozy, chorusless rhymes from MF Doom, it filters Kool Keith, De La Soul and Otis Redding. 3. Modest Mouse -- Good News for People Who Love Bad News 4. Kanye West -- The College Dropout 5. Brian Wilson -- Smile Not for the record that could have been, for the record that is: weird, high-spirited, funny, beautiful. 6. DJ /Rupture -- Special Gunpowder 7. Talib Kweli -- The Beautiful Struggle Beats the hell out of Mos Def's weak genre-straddling The New Danger; it is Kweli's slickest, most mainstream album, and also--hey hey!--his best. Sacrifices no IQ points at all, liberally tossing out literary references and political analysis in polysyllabic rhyme. My choice for Year's Most Underrated Album. 8. The Streets -- A Grand Don't Come for Free Showing novelistic attention to detail, this record is a comedy of manners, a singer-songwriter album in rap idiom, an unmopey, uncorny song cycle about trying to read other people's signals. 9. The Roots -- The Tipping Point 10. RJD2 -- Since We Last Spoke Top 11 Songs (no particular order): - "Float On," Modest Mouse Completely omnipresent and completely exhilarating, all Weltschmerz and pop perfection. The year's best song by a wide margin. Portland Oregon, Loretta Lynn (with Jack White) -"Ch-Check it Out," Beastie Boys -"Yeah," Usher featuring Lil Jon & Ludacris -"Star," The Roots This song's wonderful, enveloping Sly & the Family Stone sample ought to shut up anyone who disparages "easy" loops. -"Mosh," Eminem -"Take Me Out," Franz Ferdinand -"Through the Wire," Kanye West I could list at least four others, but this one, the album's first single, was also my favorite. -"Why," Jadakiss -"Where is the Line," Bjork with Rahzel -"Drop it Like it's Hot," Snoop Dogg Reports of the Neptunes' death have been greatly exaggerated.