Elliot Smith got good again after lacklustre Dreamworks offering Figure Eight, unfortunately he committed suicide (probably) back in 2003 so wasn't around to witness the near universal critical acclaim heaped on From A Basement On The Hill. Sure, it could be argued that a great deal of this was a heady outpouring of Cobain Syndrome but your correspondent can vouch for the general perfectness of the album with a degree of objectivity. If you haven't already bought this, you're wrong.

Speaking of Cobain, this was the year we finally got the much argued about Nirvana boxset. And a gem it was too, though if you're new to Nirvana (and if you are then clearly you're a bit of a nutjob or not from this planet in the first place) then get the studio albums first, since it's a bit of a fanatic-only zone. You can read my extended thoughts on the package here.

That's enough talking about dead people and their posthumous releases for now. Brian Wilson never quite died, he just went a bit mad but, thankfully he got better (eventually) and this was the year we finally got to hear Smile! in the comfort of our own homes. And while it was (mostly) what everyone had hoped for, the version the globe clasped to its collective bosom was more Smile 04 than some of us would have liked. Entirely rerecorded and, for the first time, completed, the only things that prevented it from being proclaimed instantly as a work of divine genius was the passage of time and the lack of the original line-up. Sure, Smile in whatever form it was released could be nothing more than a niggling disappointment after forty-odd years of associated mythologizing but somehow it just didn't sound right. It was the sound of someone trying to recreate the sound of 1967, rather than being it. To paraphrase Roy Walker: it was good, but it wasn't right.

Success story of the year, however, has got to be Franz Ferdinand, if only because it had rock hacks everywhere struggling to remember the early 80s (Talking Heads, Gang Of Four etc etc) and using the phrase "punk-funk" without any sense of irony. Their self-titles debut hit early in the year and by the end of it the band had pretty much taken over, with Alex Kapranos crooning on the (also rather ace) second Handsome Boy Modelling School album.

Add to that the Beasties' long overdue return, Graham Coxon's mainstream effort, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' stunning double album, a blistering Von Bondies cut, and successful comebacks for both Morrissey and The Pixies and Y2K4 doesn't look too bad in retrospect.

Go see the Blogcritics Y2K4 Review Masterlist