Elephant by the White Stripes. While I'm praising with faint damns, and having said mean things about their last record, I feel obliged to note that this record doesn't contain any songs that are throw-it-across-the-room awful, while "Seven Nation Army" is brilliant. I'm still not sold on Jack White as a musical genius, but this is at least a good album.
Room On Fire by the Strokes. I only picked this up yesterday, so I'll withhold detailed comments, save to note that if you're going to be anointed the Saviors of Rock, you really ought to act like you give a damn about what you're doing.
Hail to the Thief by Radiohead. Another album that I can't get a good handle on. I've liked the "singles" I've heard off it (which is why I bought it), but the few times I've tried listening to the whole record, it's just noise. I really can't figure these guys out.
Reconstruction Site by the Weakerthans. OK, this wasn't on anybody else's best of, but if you put a gun to my head, and asked me to name a single favorite album from 2003, this would be it. There wasn't another record this year that got welded into the CD player the way this one did (well, OK, Too Far to Care by the Old 97's, but it's not a 2003 record). Yeah, it's ostentatiously arty in places. Yeah, the singer's voice is kind of nasal. And yeah, the lyrics are really weird. But I love it. Record of the year.
That's only nine albums, instead of the ten that tradition demands, but I have trouble coming up with another one that would be in contention. The Fire Theft's self-titled record made one list, and it's good, but not quite "Year's Best" material, and the other records that have gotten heavy play in Chateau Steelypips this year either don't quite rise to the necessary level (Ryan Adams's Rock 'n' Roll, John Hiatt's Beneath This Gruff Exterior), or weren't released in 2003 (Too Far to Care, Trouble Bound by the Blasters). So we'll leave it at nine, which also gets me a cute post title...
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
I was surprized how many of these rekkids I'd actually got this year, and liked, but given the general state of "meh" with music this past year I didn't really get excited about.
I liked these albums, but nothing really got me excited -- like "wow this is the best record I've ever heard!" excited.
And I can't imagine "Best Record by a Dying Artist" is a hotly contested category. Though I bet a couple of managers have suggested it to their suckers, I mean, clients.
2 - Chad Orzel
And I can't imagine "Best Record by a Dying Artist" is a hotly contested category.
Well, there was Johnny Cash this year, and George Harrison before that... And Joe Strummer died with an album unfinished, though he didn't see it coming.
But yeah, it's not one of the more sought-after awards.