Feaverish

Everyone seems to be doing it, so I figured I’d throw my hat into the cool kids’ ring and present my top albums of 2004. Maybe I’ll follow up with a movies “best of” later, but for now you’ll just have to wallow in a state of anticipatory delight.

I present to you the Very Very Best Albums of 2004

1) Blueberry Boat — The Fiery Furnaces

An easy number one. I’ve liked the Furnaces since their first album, Gallowsbird’s Bark, but Blueberry Boat “blue” me away oh ho ha. If you read Pitchfork, you probably already know about the 10–minute epics and songs–within–songs, but this album is much more than a novelty.

It takes a minute for you to catch on to exactly what’s happening in each song, and just when you finally wrap your head around a beat or melody or theme they start over from scratch with an entirely new beat/melody/theme. About halfway through the album, though, you start to hear snippets of earlier riffs or maybe an earlier melody played backwards or something, and you realize you’re listening to something that’s complex and deliberate and most of all something that works. And by the end your brain is all melted and it sploshes when you shake your head “no” as in “no please don’t stop a rockin’.”

The Rest

2) SMiLE — Brian Wilson
3) Oh Honey, We’re Ridiculous — Pas/Cal
4) Bows + Arrows — The Walkmen
5) Franz Ferdinand — Franz Ferdinand
6) Antics — Interpol
7) Satanic Panic in the Attic — Of Montreal
8) The Futureheads — The Futureheads
9) Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes — TV on the Radio
10) The Trial of the Century — The French Kicks

Honorable Mention: Funeral — The Arcade Fire, A Ghost is Born — Wilco, Two Way Monologue — Sondre Lerche, Every Night — Saturday Looks Good To Me, Out of the Shadow — Rogue Wave, I — The Magnetic Fields, The Power Out — Electrelane, Underachievers Please Try Harder — Camera Obscura, Free the Bees — The Bees, Our Endless Numbered Days — Iron & Wine, Seven Swans — Sufjan Stevens

And those don’t include bands I started listening to this year, even though their albums came out earlier. Like the Shins, Beulah, the Fruit Bats, the Long Winters, and dozens of others I’d now put among my favorite bands.

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