Seeing as this is fashionable and I've now seen this on 8 home pages... here are my top 5 for 2004.
5. Girls Aloud - What Will The Neighbours Say
Whenever you mention the word Britpop people think that it died in mid 1998. Whereas the Bedingfields took it hip-hop and Idol took it to telly, Girls Aloud's second big disc took it back to 1997.
While people in Australia won't be able to buy this album (because Sony music are crap), I sit in my room with it going a bit of the time. There are a few covers of cheesy 80's songs in there as well as the uber-phenom The Show. If you have a credit card then a trip to hmv.co.uk is the only way you're ever going to hear it. I said goodbye to £7.99 and have been blessed for it.
4. The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free
I could have ruined it, I'm such a twat. Mike Skinner's second album under the name of The Streets again reminds us what Eminem would have sounded like had he been born in Shrewsbury, driven a Ford Orion and worn a Burberry Cap.
A curious mix between hip-hop and rap, this album refuses to be played as background music. If the phrase keeping it real means anything then I have crap reception in my house holds even more reality. Who thought that the details of a life so boring as this could sell records?
3. Missy Higgins - The Sound Of White
Delta may be able to play the piano but it's Missy Higgins who can truly pull an album together and in a music landscape dominated by pre-packaged game show contestants with plastic tunes and bad hairstyles, what a relief to find a solo artist who a) actually has talent and b) writes her own music.Missy Higgins delivers a stunning debut more than a little remiscent of The Waifs. From the joyous The Scar and Ten Days to the more mellow Nightminds and All for Believing, this is a record of genuine feeling and depth. It's also undeniably Australian. Word of warning, The River sounds hopelessly simple is an utterly dark dark song.
2. Green Day - American Idiot
Rock Opera? Maybe not. The title track is the crappest thing on here and that's saying something, if that's the worst then the rest must be mind-blowing - and it is. For those of us who bought the album before the singles came out Blvd of Broken Dreams was just crying for radio airplay. Jesus of Suburbia is the first of two songs, composed of five mini-songs combined into one big song... weird & amazing. Not only that but Homecoming, the album's second five-mini-big-mish-mash-song, is even better than the first. It doesn't get much better than this.
or maybe it does...
1. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
So maybe Britrock isn't dead; maybe it was just sleeping a while; and had just passed out with a bottle of JD in it's hand and moved to Ibrox. Franz Ferdinand may have pulled other bands like Keane and Snow Patrol into the main but their own album still after 10 months is the standout of 2004.The Glasgow quartet's full-length debut rocks like a bastard and is full of stormy guitars and ominous lyrics on singles like Take Me Out. The rest of the album blends equal spikiness with a cool post-punk sheen. In short, it's the album you wish the Strokes would've made and the best thing to happen for the Scottish Tourist Council since Braveheart... except for the facepaint bit.
What's next?
In 2005 we expect an album from Geri Halliwell, Oasis, possibly Jo O'Meara and a single from the bald bloke from the Halifax adverts.
No comments:
Post a Comment