Stocki's Top 40 Albums of 2004
1. U2 – How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
Maybe a little bit predictable but this was big on sound and mammoth in depth. As Green Day copycat the Clash, The Darkness exploit a manufactured hybrid of glam rock and heavy metal and The Strokes bring back the spirit of New York’s CBGBs, so U2 have ripped off another seventies band – U2! And they do it so well. Every song is vital. We cannot wait to see it live. Music that is not just good but good for the soul, culture and the world.
2. BUDDY MILLER – Universal United House Of Prayer
He made his first album in his forties but he is by now late into those forties when he co-writes with his wife Julie the album of his life. Deeply spiritual and set against the political fragility of America at war within and without – prophetic cover of Dylan’s God On Our Side – Miller proves what Steve Earle has said for years that he is the most vital voice in country music. After this you can add Gospel and blues too!
3. THE FINN BROTHERS – Everyone Is Here
What Neil and Tim Finn have done collectively and apart has never matched the jangly guitar genius of Crowded House’s Woodface. Until now. Here the New Zealand brothers write mature songs that are every bit as immediate while all the time leaving a lingering wisdom and insight. If there was a better single in sound and sentiment than Won’t Give In I surely didn’t hear it.
4. THE KILLERS – Hot Stuff
Less new Romantic than Franz Ferdinand, less hairy than Kings Of leon, more sophisticated than The Strokes, The Killers leap frog the opposition with great riffs and hooks underneath lyrics that are seriously funny and funnily serious all at the same time. All These Things That I’ve Done is great – “I got a soul but I’m not a soldier” - but then most everything else is too.
5. IAIN ARCHER - Flood The Tanks
Once a session guitarist with Snow Patrol Archer shows what he brought to the party in co-writing their top 5 hit Run. Everything this Bangor boy touches has accessibility but here he strips it all back and rebuilds it with the deft touch of a tasteful songwriter and musical wizard. Like the sun it gently undoes you instead of blowing you away like the wind. With a bit of a push from the record company his RTE and BBC Radio record of the Week Summer Jets would have been a big hit too. Gary Lightbody dreams…
6. NICK CAVE – Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus
Not one but two albums from Cave with the usual smattering of God and murder. These recordings are among his most organic and therefore most accessible. There is also a rather surptsiing amount of joy and celebration as when the The London Community Gospel Choir join him on Get Ready For Love. Nature Boy is also spritely and among his very best songs. The Lyre Of Orpheus is a little more downbeat but just as bright and positive – relatively of course! Babe You Turn Me On is spoken word Cohen. As he sings on Spell – “full of love, full of wonder.” His masterpiece.
7. REM – Around The Sun
This album was so downbeat and sweet that it took a long time to settle. Revisiting it over the Christmas season was a revelation. The tunes are gentle and seep into the skull. The dealing with America in post 9/11 was pastoral and prophetic, neither too harsh like Steve Earle nor does he ignore the critique like Springtseen.
8. JOHNNY CASH – Unearthed
Alongside the most unlikely cohort of Rick Ruben Johnny Cash’s last decade on earth saw him make some of his most crucial music. The man who started out with Elvis ended up covering Nine Inch Nails. This posthoumous box set is no cash in (excuse the pun!). Johnny has written meticulous notes about all the songs which include every era of songwriting from the contemporary Nick Cave back through to his Mother Hymn book which takes up a whole CD. Cash’s voice is a rich seam and he mines some deep spiritual and emotional terrain right here.
9. 46664 Parts 1, 2 & 3
Bizarrely released on three separate CDs though one DVD this recording of the Aids Benefit gig in cape Town in 2003 is full of songs worth buying it for. Bono says they didn’t want to just sing the same old bullocks so he sings Joe Strummer’s last song, a collaboration with Dave Stewart and Bono himself which carries Mandela’s prison number as it’s title and the title for the concert and the charity it is all for. Elsewhere we have a rich array of artists from Queen to Geldof to Jimmy Cliff to Africa’s current finest. Emotionally Peter Gabriel singing Biko for the first time in South Africa is hard to beat. Good cause, good reason to give to it.
10. KEANE Hope and Fears
No guitars. Come on. And not as whacky as Ben Folds Five. Following closely in the steps of Coldplay south of England chaps Keane brought the piano back to the heart of rock n roll and even influenced U2 in the process (listen to City Of Blinding Lights). Good songs, strong vocals and let me say it again no guitars.
11. LEONARD COHEN - Dear Heather
They say his voice isn’t what it was but it is still the best there is. This is not as wordy as The Future was and indeed the title track suffers from not having many words or any good ones but elsewhere there are songs to romance a lover or revitalise your soul. Sometimes whispered and often spoken the man was originally a poet anyway and to be making albums as sensual and spiritual as this in his seventies – flip!
12. The BLUE NILE – High
It is always a good year every seven or so when these Glaswegian recluses open their doors to commerce and release a few tracks of sublime beauty. High takes us back past their last album Peace At Last and is much more Hats in sound. Music like this never dates though and we can now look forward to another taste of lush in 2012 or 13.
13. SUFJAN STEVENS – Seven Swans
Out of Michigan to save folk music. I’d tell you he plays banjo but it would put you off and give you no idea whatever how good this album is. Sufjan (pronounced Soovyan) brings his very unique take on spirituality to Rough Trade records and the album of the year lists in Mojo, Uncut and even NME! It is the quirk of the man and the haunting melodies. This album is laced with the subtlest eccentricities of his friend avant-garde performace artist Brother Danielson from the Danielson Familie. Achingly beautiful in searching for the 12.
14. SNOW PATROL – Final Straw
As 2004 started these boys were in their tenth year on people’s floors with a distant dream of fame getting more and more distant. The Final Straw seemed like an appropriate name and then…Run. Suddenly they were all over MTV and the charts and every out door festival worth going to. Worth a top ten place for Run itself and being from N. Ireland but there is more to Final Straw than one hit. Chocolate and Wow are great too…
15.SAM PHILLIPS - A Boot and a Shoe
Somehow Sam Phillips remains under the radar even after fifteen years of quality albums. Twists and turns of poetic mystery fill her songs and the quirky melodies become intoxicating. The album is written about her break up with T-Bone Burnett music producer of Counting Crows and O Brother Where Art Thou who actually produces here too. There is a lot of hurt and a lot of redemption.
16. HORSLIPS – Roll Back
The nicest and most surprising surprise of the year. After 25 years the high kings of Irish folk rock are back re-visiting the old hits of the seventies when they could reel and jig around the entire land. S you listen to the more atmospheric, literary and cinematic arrangements here you wonder if they sorted out all their arguments and reformed simply to let Martin Scorces know that they not U2 should have been on the Gangs of New York soundtrack. Their Man Who Built America came first and their spirit is more in keeping with the historical nature of the film.
17. BRIAN HOUSTON – Thirteen Days In August
Take Dylan, Bruce and Van put them in the shipyard and take them back out and you’d have East Belfast’s best and sadly longest kept secret. Houston keeps recording albums that have star written all over them but outside of his native Belfast few seem to be listening though Bob Harris is now on the case. Thirteen Days In August is again crafted songwriting with a passionate soul.
18. JASON MOLIN – J Songs
Having heard Washington native Molin in Dublin coffee bars in 1993 when he was on a one year placement at Trinity from his New York University I wanted to keep up to date. It took ten years of world wide web investigation and a lucky break to track him down in Austin Texas about to release J Songs a collection of intelligent songs about love and life. Think Damian Rice with trumpets and jazz instead of that cello and classical air. His song Sunday Morning takes you from Trinity to Adelaide Road Church and back in the most vivid cinematic color and character. Has every city a genius like this lying around?
19. JULIE LEE – Stillhouse Road
Nashvillian Julie Lee spent a year in N. Ireland and returned Stateside to make the sweetest album of 2004. Lee is a late developer but here she is writing the most amazing songs and singing them with a staggering voice. File alongside Emmylou Harris and Patti Griffin with tinges of blue grass; Alison Krauss guests. So does Vince Gill. The packaging shows old family photos and I guess Lee is about making contemporary the traditional vision.
20. THE FRAMES – Burn The Maps
The long awaited Frames album arrived and was neither as ambiently gorgeous as For The Birds nor as incendiary as Set List. Unlike U2 who can somehow put the immediate on the top and a slow burn underneath Burn The Maps lays the two alongside each other and it doesn’t not quite work though there are great songs in here. It is The Frames after all.
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