1. King of The Rodeo - Kings of Leon
2. Vaccination Scar - The Tragically Hip
3. C'mon C'mon - The Von Bondies
4. #1 Summer Jam - Butch Walker
5. Me and Mia - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
6. But Julian, I'm a Little Bit Older Than You - Courtney Love
7. Can't Stand Me Now - The Libertines
8. Mr. Brightside - The Killers
9. Rebellion (Lies) - The Arcade Fire
10. Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
11. Tame the Tiger - Marah
12. (I Believe In) Travelling Light - Belle & Sebastian
13. One Evening - Feist
14. Tears All Over Town - A Girl Named Eddy
15. Portions for Foxes - Rilo Kiley
16. Carl Perkin's Cadillac - Drive-By Truckers
17. You Did (Bomp Shobby Dooby Bomb) - Chuck Prophet
18. The Good Times Are Killing Me - Modest Mouse
19. Portland Oregon - Lorretta Lynn
20. The Furnace Sun - Preston School of Industry
21. Let's Make History - The (International) Noise Conspiracy
22. Empty Heart - Sahara Hotnights
23. Blinded By the Lights - The Streets
24. Unmade Bed - Sonic Youth
25. Spiders (Kidsmoke) - Wilco
1. The day I left on the Big Road Trip of '05, saying goodbye to London and Ontario, the album I put on first was Aha Shake Heartbreak because it's a fantastic road album and one of my favourites of the decade. For this, it was either 'Rememo' with the awesome refrain "drippin' beards, cold as hell and the motherfucker's gonna go to jail, this rememo is set for home, it's personal, but they need to know" or 'King of the Rodeo'. 'Me and your cold, drivin' in the snow, let the good times roll, let the good times roll.' It was a good time to roll on.
2. The Tragically Hip have continued to put out consistently good to great albums during this decade, save for Music@Work, which I can honestly say is a dud. In Between Evolution has some dynamite tracks, and choosing them was a difficult choice as I'd rank a few of these up with my all time favourites from the band. I went with 'Vaccination Scar' by a hair over 'It Can't Be Nashville Every Night'. Both of these songs absolutely kill live, best found during their 2005 live dvd That Night in Toronto.
3. 'C'mon C'mon' may be best known as the theme song to Denis Leary's FX show Rescue Me. It's a good fit I think for the show with it's "With my teeth locked down I can see the blood/Of a thousand men who have come and gone/Now we grieve cause now is gone/Things were good when we were young..." Pawn Shoppe Heart is a decent album of modern Detroit garage worth checking out. They finally followed it up in 2009.
4. There are a handful of artists/producers I feel the need to check out nearly any project that they're associated with (e.g Jack White). Butch Walker fits this criteria, although I tend to be less than interested in his productions (lots of modern pop) and mainly in his own work with Marvelous 3 and solo albums. They all tend to be delicious pop greatness. The guy has an ear for the Big Hooks. Perfect example is '#1 Summer Jam' from Letters.
5. I was a bit of a late comer to Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. Lots of great energy, fantastic songs. This is 'Me and Mia' from Shake the Sheets. Gets dem feet a tappin.
6. Is there a better villain than Courtney Love? She's fake and a fraud (doesn't write songs has other famous men do so, i.e. Cobain and Corgan for Live Through This and Celebrity Skin), a mentally ill drug addict who fucked her way to the middle, just the way we love our villainous females. Evil, vindictive, crazy, corrupting all those around her, a black hole of mediocrity and vicodin. I sometimes wish there was quantifiable proof came out that she was, in fact, the real genius behind Nirvana and the sole songwriter of In Utero just to see what the haters would find to despise about her next. There's no doubt that she's a mentally ill, drug addict but that type has got to be a dime a dozen, I think she's just louder than the rest. I almost wish she could have bagged Julian Casablancas. That would have been sweet. Alas, this is 'But Julian I'm a Little Older Than You' from her thus far only solo album America's Sweetheart. Like the singer, it's short, loud and obnoxious.
7. From their self-titled great and final album (to date) The Libertines' 'Can't Stand Me Now' is fantastic and never fails to put a smile on my face. One of the best songs from 2004.
8. Like 'Hey Ya!' from 2003, it was hard to avoid 'Mr. Brightside' in 2004. From Hot Fuss album, it's pretty damn infectious pop music. I have to say I somewhat admire these guys for their attempts to branch out from the synthy 80s inflected pop that made them friggin' huge and take a chance on the Americana Springsteeny-U2 of Sam's Town in 2006. It hasn't largely been successful, but they're still cranking it out.
9. The Arcade Fire's Funeral is up there as well with my favourites of the 00's. I'd hadn't ranked it that high initially but came around after seeing them live in the fall of 2005. They played nearly the whole album and was hooked after that. It was a spectacular show and the songs really took off live. This is 'Rebellion (Lies)'.
10. Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut album is chock full of danceable, groovy tunes, possibly none more so than their biggest single 'Take Me Out'. Also pretty damn infectious pop music. Unlike The Killers, they're thankfully still churning this style out in 2009.
11. Marah are probably competing with the Drive-By Truckers, the Hip and good ol' Ryan Adams for most appearances over the decade mixes. I don't understand how anyone can not like these guys. This is 'Tame the Tiger' from 20,000 Streets Under the Sky back to form from their Oasis dalliance, but not quite back to the Springsteenian garage yet. This is a gently funky track with lots of handclaps and acoustic guitar. They also released a surprisingly awesome Christmas album in 2004 that I highly recommend.
12. I actually got the leak of Belle & Sebastian's Dear Catastrophe Waitress far before it's street release and '(I Believe In) Travelling Light' was originally on that album. Much to my chagrin, it was scrubbed from the original release and put on the I'm a Cuckoo EP. It was my favourite song on the album, but since it was released in 2004, it's on here. Good tune.
13. Feist's 'One Evening' from her debut album Let It Die. I have an insane love of this downtempo , bossa nova kind of thing. As someone with a bit of an anger problem, this is like a delightful opiate. I miss Esthero or at least the Esthero of Breath From Another. I don't listen to a lot of this music but around this time of year it sounds great.
14. In a similar vein, A Girl Called Eddy's 'Tears All Over Town' from her self-titled debut, sounds more than a bit like Feist, so what I said about her applies here too. I don't think she's released another album since this one, which is too bad. Good AM listening for late in the year.
15. Rilo Kiley's 'Portion for Foxes' from More Adventurous. I can't remember where and when I heard this tune for the first time. I must have read about it somewhere and picked it up. Not a bad record, decent indie pop with the slightest nod towards alt-country at times. Big choruses abound, especially here'. I'm actually surprised this didn't get picked up by the abstinence crowd as an antislut anthem. 'Talking leads to touching and the touching leads to sex and then there is no mystery left....and I'm badnewwwwwwws'. Sex is dirty, cover up.
16. More Drive-By Truckers for y'all. 'Carl Perkin's Cadillac' from The Dirty South. Tells us the story of Sam Philips, famous producer of Sun Records roster of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and of course, Carl Perkins. Great song and hilarious too:
'If Mr. Phillips was the only man that Jerry Lee still would call 'sir'
Then I guess Mr. Phillips did all of y'all about as good as you deserve
He did just what he said he was gonna do and the money came in sacks
New contracts and Carl Perkins' Cadillac'
17. I think I played this record about a billion damn times in 2004, so much that I haven't played it in awhile. Would I have cared as much to hear Loretta Lynn in 2004 if Jack White hadn't produced (and played) on Van Lear Rose? Probably not, although I'd still have heard it anyway just wouldn't have picked it up on the first day of release (see Wagoner, Porter: Wagonmaster). Loretta's duet with Jack White on 'Portland Oregon' is great fun, "Next day we knew last night got drunk, but we loved enough for the both of us, in the morning when the night had sobered up, it was much too late for the both of us in Oregon.'
18. "I got a letter this morning, who put the bomp" in the bomp-shooby-dooby-bomp? Who put the "ram" in the rama-lama-ding-dong?
You did...Chuck Prophet. From Age of Miracles
19. 'The Good Times Are Killing Me'. Great closer from Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Love some of the lines from this song, particularly the 'Enough hair of the dog to make myself an entire rug'. That's a lot.
20. Preston School of Industry is the new band from Scott 'Spiral Stairs' Kannberg, formerly of Pavement. I was surprised how much I liked Monsoon, the last album ever released under this moniker. Too bad because it was a hell of a lot of fun. This is 'The Furnace Sun'. Nice and loose.
21. Another entry is the Sweden Produces Great Music would be The (International) Noise Conspiracy, for this 60's garage inspired romp 'Let's Make History' from Armed Love. Produced by (and another entry in The I Always Pay Attention To This Person) Rick Rubin, it was his association that first tipped me towards these guys. These commies know how to rock & roll.
22. More great Swedish New Wave from Sahara Hotnights. This is 'Empty Heart' from Kiss & Tell. Delicious, big hooky choruses.
23. Hard to pick a single track from The Streets' A Grand Don't Come For Free as it really is a "concept" album about the day in the life of this epileptic layabout. All the songs really bleed into each other, but 'Blinded By the Lights' is as close to a standalone there is on the record. Just Mike standing alone in the club waiting for his buzz to kick in, getting impatient and swallowing more booze and drugs. We've all been there, damn no buzz yet, let's double down and push things forward. Uh oh...
24. Sonic Youth's Sonic Nurse album made me sit up and pay attention again. It doesn't make much sense, because everyone continually loves them, the critics and steady fans at least. I counted myself among them but started to find them to be not quite essential when it came to hearing new releases, pretty much since Washing Machine. I think I downloaded this for a taste and was pleasantly surprised to find how much I enjoyed it, reminding much more of their older material circa Evol, particularly this track 'Hidden Bed'.
25. See, it songs like this that should be the dividing line between those who like the old Wilco and those who do not care for their shift in sound quality. 'Spiders (Kidsmoke)' from A Ghost is Born clocks in at nearly 11 minutes and is a cross between Neu! and Crazy Horse. I've never been a huge fan of the album, but I've always liked this song a lot, probably because I do like Neu! (and Stereolab which this song sounds a bit like as well) and Crazy Horse a lot.
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