Best Music of 2004

Here it is, the obligatory ‘best of’ list for the year 2004. There are tons of albums that were released this year that I didn’t actually listen to, so this list is partial at best. Without furthur ado, here are my picks for “Best Albums of 2004″ (in no particular order).

Air Talkie Walkie

Everyones favorite group of French electro-acoustic pretty boys does it again with this catchy electro-pop masterpeice. Air’s penchant for lovable pop melodies and catchy psuedo-english hooks leads to an infectous pop album that satisfies long after the initial listen. With this album, Air creates an atmosphere of travelling romantics and interstellar love affairs gone bitterly wrong.

Bjork Medulla

Bjork’s next step into musical nirvana reveals an album stripped of all instrumentation, highlighting the amazing qualities and dynamics or her own voice. Bjork collaborates with beat box champions Rahzel and Dokkaka to make the stuttering beats and percussive noises that accompany her tracks. The Icelandic charm of Bjork’s music comes through loud and clear without the need for Matmos’s icy electronic backdrop. Another top contender for best of 2004.

Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Who would have expected an uplifting, hopeful album full of catchy guitar riffs from manic depressive super stars Modest Mouse? Good News is the album that all hardcore Modest Mouse fans wished would never be released. Propelling Modest Mouse into the mainstream stratosphere without sacrificing the essence of the Modest Mouse sounds makes this the most accessible Modest Mouse record yet.

Madvillainy - Madvillain

Witty New York underground rapper M.F. Doom collaborates with ’stoned-of-his-gourd’ turntable magician Madlib for some instant rap classics. Everything Doom touches turns to gold (except for VV2, but we won’t mention that), and this album is no exception. Doom’s drunken raps mixed over Madlib’s smoked out Jazz infused beats sound almost effortless in their execution.

The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone

The Unicorns are one of those bands that are hard to take seriously on first listen. A group of young indie-pop experimentalists churn out this strange hybrid of electronic folk rock with enough catchy hooks to keep your subconcious humming for months. The Unicorns smash any pop conceptions of song structure into an unrecognizable mess of death obssessed ideas poured over saccharine sweet harmonies. A very strange combonation indeed.

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Louden Up Now

For a band whose name is composed of three exclamation marks, an album this exlamatory seems like a given. Chk Chk Chk have created a very strange dance album with “Louden Up Now”, fusing punk lyricism with disco/dance rythms to create an intoxicating amalgam of discontent and psychosis that you can actually groove to. “Louden up Now” is an interesting mix of organic dance music mixed with blathering screams and profane exclamations.

M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

Not your standard electronic affair, M83 has created a beautiful album of synth-laden atmospherics and strings using only the banal, cheesy and most trite synthesizer sounds of our decade. The oversized synthesizer sounds that put the final layer of frosting over the most excruciating Trance epic come back to haunt us in a strange landscape of buzzed out beats and whispered vocals.

Solvent - Apples and Synthesizers

The most human dance record of the year comes from the Ghostly International camp with Solvents Apples and Synthesizers. Canadian tech-savant Solvent (Jason Amm) allows the precise mechanical backdrop behind his electro-pop to mingle with intoxicating synth hooks and vocoder laden voice tracks. Although extremely danceable, this album is just as easy to groove to while sitting on your couch with eyes closed.