I've had far too many late nights lately. Day and night have become indistinguishable and I have no clue what day of the week it is. However, I damn well know what time of year it is, it's time for the
TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2003.
However, I'm far less certain of the choices on this year's list than I was in past years. I reserve the right to post something in the new year about how I got the whole thing wrong and left several deserving albums off of the list. This doesn't mean that I
churned it out in my sleep and didn't take the rankings seriously. Far from it. There are few things in life I take more seriously than compiling a Top 10 list. However, when you spend the last two months of the year working in another country and get dumped over the phone while you're there, you tend to have other things on your mind other than music. Not to mention that I've been cut off from the overwhelming bulk of my music collection -- including many of this year's releases -- therefore, this list deserved more thought and perspective than I was able to give it. But I did the best I could.
Some end-of-year thoughts regarding the list include the following:
-- The toughest decision was not the rankings themselves, but
deciding whether Broken Social Scene's "You Forgot it in People" belonged on the list. Even though it was released in October 2002, many publications didn't review it until this year, particularly those based outside of Canada. Heck, even Exclaim!, which is as Canadian as they come, ranked it on their Top 10 this year, which almost convinced me I would be justified in doing the same. But I just couldn't do it. 2002 is 2002, and 2003 is 2003. The record wasn't released this year, so it doesn't belong. If you just got the album this year, or didn't know about it last year, or didn't fully appreciate it twelve months ago, then too bad. I've always held fast to that rule. If I broke it for something from 2002, I might as well put "Loveless" and "Unknown Pleasures" in there too (at least that's always been my reasoning). I still make jokes
about CFNY ranking "Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" as the #1 album of 1995 AND 1996. But the BSS record is a jewel -- Top Five and maybe even Top Three material -- so look for it in six years when I rank the best albums of the decade.
-- The last twenty minutes of Ekkehard Ehlers' "Politik Braucht Keinen Feind" are amazing, amazing, near Album of the
Year Material. The rest of it isn't even close to that level. Maybe I need to start a sub-category of Verve Releases to cover cases like this. The same could be said of Arab Strap's "Monday at the Hug and Pint".
-- You'd have scored big money in Vegas by betting on Blur, Kraftwerk, Spiritualized and Super Furry Animals releasing albums in the same year but having none of them appear on this Top 10. It didn't quite happen, but it almost did. The Blur album is simply shite, I downloaded it and could hardly bear to listen, I was so bored. But back in the day, Blur were The Band I Liked As Much As You Could Possibly Like a Band Without Loving Them, so "Think Tank" wasn't a catastrophic letdown or anything. The SFA album is good, better than "Rings Around the World", but I just haven't gotten around to hearing it much. It's on a hard drive back in Toronto right now. The Kraftwerk album is excellent in parts ("Vitamin", most notably), but also bland and formulaic in other parts
(there was certainly no need for a three part Tour de France suite). As for SPZ, they put out a record I wasn't expecting : a Verve Release.
Two words : O Canada. Total number of Canadian releases on my Top 10 charts, 1993-1997 : 0 .... 1998-2001 : 5 ... 2002-2003 : 9 (!)
So,
TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2003.
10. V/A -- 45 SECONDS OF (A SIMBALLREC COMPILATION). Crazy, wild,
breakneck, pick your adjective. Unless someone puts out a "30
Seconds Of" compilation, this will remain the standard bearer on how to convey the most possible musical information on one disc.
9. DESORMAIS -- I AM BROKEN AND REMADE. Plucked strings buzz, groan and wail among an organic, yet unsettling sonic backdrop. And that's only the first track.
8. SPIRITUALIZED -- AMAZING GRACE. Intense, blazing rockers combined with glacial soul ballads -- that's been the SPZ way of life for over a decade now, so perhaps this album isn't such a departure after all. What else -- oh yeah, it's this year's Verve Release.
7. THE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA & TRA-LA-LA BAND WITH CHOIR -- THIS IS OUR PUNK ROCK, THEE RUSTED SATELLITES GATHER + SING. They don't always make it too easy to love: the deliberately strained vocals, the epic track lengths, maudlin interval after maudlin interval -- but the beauty is down there once the layers are peeled off.
6. DO MAKE SAY THINK -- WINTER HYMN COUNTRY HYMN SECRET HYMN. DMST have shifted from proggy noodling and dubby grooves into far more complex, nearly symphonic song structures. The title implies this tri-movement approach, and the music makes good on the promise.
5. POLMO POLPO -- LIKE HEARTS SWELLING. White noise and backporch guitar licks were underrepresented on PP's debut, but never in his live shows. Finally, he's delivered an album that captures that pulsating, trance-y, head-caving spirit. That last sentence makes it sound like a 4/4 techno album -- but it's not that at all. Totally unique.
4. MOGWAI -- HAPPY SONGS FOR HAPPY PEOPLE. Sonically, it's "Rock Action II". But the songwriting took a great leap forward. They're barely hiding their melodies behind noise anymore, they're letting them hang bare instead. Their most tuneful and anthemic album by far.
3. BARDO POND -- ON THE ELLIPSE. Mind blowing jams, crashing noise, tender melodies, and eye-crossing drone-fests are Bardo Pond staples. But usually aren't done this well. And all on the same album. And often all on the same track. Their finest blast of raw power and subtlety.
2. TINDERSTICKS -- WAITING FOR THE MOON. In which a once-great band returns to their former greatness by doing exactly what made them great in the first place. So, it's more or less the same as what they'd been doing all along, but it happened to work out perfectly this time.
1. PLASTIKMAN -- CLOSER. Hey. This is the voice inside your head
telling you to get a pair of headphones and turn out the lights, or walk down a dark street, or stare at the floor, or think unsettling thoughts, and listen to this album. Dark dark pitch black DARK. You can even dance to it if you want, but you probably won't feel like it. Album of the Year.
