Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 2003 poll

we are finally back, hope everyone (at least in the states) had a great 4th.

The Meadowlands, no contest

Yeah Yeah Yeah album had the benefit of being fairly short

I like Hail to the Thief more but voted for De-Loused because I'm not sure that anyone else will.

Decoration Day, narrowly over Meadowlands

Meadowlands, in a landslide. The Shins, Drive-By Truckers and MMJ albums are great too

Speakerboxxx / The Love Below vs. Give Up vs. World Without Tears

Might go with the latter since its so unloved and its actually my fave Lucinda record.

i don't think lex is going to like this list either ;_;

the meadowlands is my favorite indie rock record

i own a few of these but, wow, not seeing anything i'm excited to vote for.

Heard Meadowlands once and thought it was fucking dreadful.

i'd encourage giving it a second chance because it's a record that managed to capture going from your 20s to your 30s in way that's painfully on the nose.

Another vote for Meadowlands

Total duffer for me. Rounds , Dizzee and Sufjan the only ones I ever really listen to,

this was another weird year for me in which I wasn't terribly invested in current music. I bought HTTT when it came out - a bit of a roller coaster that one. I love the Outkast album, but again it's not perfect. Think I was mostly listening to reggae and buying up as many Trojan box sets as I could. Old skool electro and 80s hip hop were very much in vogue around then and I caught the bug. I'd just discovered Tom Waits too.

My write-in vote is for Stephen Malkmus' Pig Lib, which I pretty much played to death.

I think this was also the year I properly accepted dance music into my life. Started reading Jockey Slut and reading about DFA. Went raving a whole lot of times and met Andrew Weatherall and A Guy Called Gerald.

argh! didn't see Dear Catastrophe Waitress on the list. I love that album. Too late!

Last wednesday I saw the Syrian National Orchestra with Damon Albarn and friends open Roskilde. They played Out of Time, with two musicians from Mali, and ending it with the whole orchestra and choir joining in. It was one of the most sublime moments of the festival. And to honor that I voted for Think Tank, though it's probably not the best on the list. I love it, though. Or most of it.

The Meadowlands, no contest

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, donderdag 7 juli 2016 3:36 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was peak-Stylus era, I think. I reviewed a bunch of these records, and listened to most of them loads (apart from Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers, and Wrens, as already noted).

What's missing here is singles, and therefore pop; Sugababes, Girls Aloud, Ignition (Remix), Crazy In Love, that Evanescence single everyone liked, Cry Me A River, Work It, Gossip Folks, Lumidee, The Jump Off, Clocks, plus big singles off the albums listed here.

2003 was a great year, but the albums tell about 30% of the story, if that.

Voted Manitoba, because I still remember listening to it for the first time.

Boy In Da Corner. Album of the century so far

voted welcome interstate managers

Unispiring. Outkast, Radiohead or Dizzee I guess.

this is so rubbish that 'radiohead' might be the correct answer, i will do a listen-off with dizzee and the mars volta to check

some of my absolute favorites from this year didn't make the cut here: Ted Leo, Broken Social Scene, Fiery Furnaces. voted Drive-By Truckers.

Yeah, a lot of my 2003 favourites aren't here either. I came on here looking to vote for Black Cherry by Goldfrapp which is easily my favourite 2003 release.

I voted for Rufus Wainwright but I would have gone for most of these over it.

Ted Leo - Hearts of Oak
Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash
The Clientele - The Violet Hour
The Cardigans - Long Gone Before Daylight
Broadcast - Haha Sound
Moloko - Statues
The Hidden Cameras - The Smell of Our Own
Ellen Alien - Berlinette
Kelis - Tasty
T.I. - Trap Muzik
Sugababes - Three

this is so rubbish that 'radiohead' might be the correct answer, i will do a listen-off with dizzee and the mars volta to check

― imago, donderdag 7 juli 2016 13:48 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You do know the Wrens though, right?

i do not

This is easily Hail To The Thief for me but big shout outs to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and Boy in da Corner

Think you should try it LJ

have now listened to all of it. not bad, but i can't join the voting hordes here. the first song after the intro is the best one (with a few good late flourishes)

i'd encourage giving it a second chance because it's a record that managed to capture going from your 20s to your 30s in way that's painfully on the nose.

this is otm but it also worked pretty well on me as a high school/college transitional record

A lot of stuff I liked a lot then and that I kinda like now. Electric Version is the only one of the lot that I can get at all excited about these days.

Actually, it's a serious overexaggeration to say that there's a lot of stuff I liked back then.

the albums here i prob listen to the most are electric version and room on fire

boy in da corner deserves it ofc

this was the year i got really into indie

i think the meadowlands has held up the best of these, though i still also listen to the sufjan, calexico, and belle&sebastian records here

lol looking at the expanded list, my favourite two things in the top 50 are ulrich schnauss and grandaddy (and then radiohead) :D

I've never heard of the Wrens

i really, really want to vote for It Still Moves but don't think it's going to win my vote. also stuff like Transatlanticism, Chutes Too Narrow, Fever to Tell and Dear Catastrophe Waitress will also miss.

It Still Moves is fantastic, but to my mind the best MMJ album is the live album Okonokos

A year of overhyped disappointments. Of the things that were on my radar. . .

The White Stripes - Elephant
Total and absolute garbage. Emperor's new clothes in action.

OutKast - Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
Okay, but way overrated.

Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
What the hell is the appeal of this?!

The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Boring.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
When people were starting to trash indie rock across the board at the beginning of the 2000's, this is the type of shit they were mad about. Awful.

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Has aged pretty well. Still, a low point for them.

The Postal Service - Give Up
Has not aged well at all. Was okay at the time, but just meh.

Jay-Z - The Black Album
Really not good.

Four Tet - Rounds
I was listening to this one day and someone at work said it sounded like what would happen if DJ Shadow went soft rock. Kind of put it in perspective for me and just. . . yeah. Completely boring.

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
I've cooled on this one a lot over the years. I loved it at the time and rated it very highly. Anymore though, I dunno.

The Rapture - Echoes
Good god, this band has always sucked. Fuck this album. Bad.

Cat Power - You Are Free
So middle of the road and boring.

The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
Offensively bad. Now and then.

Sufjan Stevens - Michigan
Ugh. Just, no thank you.

Calexico - Feast of Wire
Okay, but disappointing after Black Light and Hot Rail.

The Strokes - Room On Fire
Stupid band, stupid album, stupid me for wasting time on it.

Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood
Terrible.

Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Disappointment. Totally overproduced.

Voted for Hail to the Thief.

All OTM except Feast of Wire is better than Hot Rail and Black Light.

I respectfully disagree.

cat power, villalobos, or the strokes

American indie rock from this period is so fucking dreary. I just skim listened a bit of My Morning Jacket, Wrens and Calexico to see if I was missing anything. I wasn't.

Listened a lot to
2 282 OutKast - Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
3 298 Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
8 608 Jay-Z - The Black Album
9 794 Four Tet - Rounds
19 1377 My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves

Bought
6 512 Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
13 884 Blur - Think Tank

Think Tank is a perfect album if you remove "Crazy Beat" and "We've Got a File on You".

Voting Rounds, still amazing.

oh, christ, i don't know. caribou? man, almost all of this stuff is so, so dire.

In 2003 I would have voted De Loused. I honestly can't see a reason to switch that given the competition. Overall, a bunch of really good records, but nothing huge sticks out to me.

I think the Villalobos is only one I've heard all the way through. Sometimes hard to believe I wrote at pfork.

you did the good bit tbf

Alcachofa is just a really fun album to listen to. Mysterious vibes, sounds everywhere, a good deep adventure.

Voting for Hail to the Thief just over Dear Catastrophe Waitress.

People still pretending they're too cool for TMV eh? Better than all that barely passable indie in any case

I might vote for it still

Lol Austin's post. I'm starting to notice a pattern in these reviews...

You may be pleased to hear that a few of those albums have been censured by the Chilcot enquiry.

the meadowlands is probably my favourite indie rock album of the 00s. my other 2003 favourites are probably guitar romantic and kish kash which don't show up here unfortunately

Chutes Too Narrow

Young Liars EP tops all of these.

well, yeah, so do "Hurt" and "Crazy In Love" but they weren't albums.

Love, love, love bits of the Villalobos lp ("Dexter" is fucking magnificent) but this has to be Yeah Yeah Yeahs for me. Despite the moaning about indie rock in the thread, with this album YYY made one of the most exciting guitar albums of the decade.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress and SB/TLB are the all-time classics out of this lot. Given the choice I'd have to give the nod to B&S. I know they get no love around here but I absolutely love every last song on there.

People still pretending they're too cool for TMV eh? Better than all that barely passable indie in any case

― ultras ultros-ghali, Saturday, July 9, 2016 9:35 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K38qtuXM4gE

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Abysmal.

Going to vote for the White Stripes here for how I felt about it at the time.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

never heard of it

can't be as good as trap muzik

Damn, had I known that Lucinda was gonna grab 2 other votes I woulda thrown one towards Postal Service.

Holy fuck a guitar album won alert the press

for the six others just cool enough for TMV, just read a thing with Omar saying he'd eventually like to reunite with Cedric, Jon Theodore and Eva Gardner(!), too bad Ikey is gone but maybe they can track down Linda Good?

I don't know why they would ever reunite with Linda Good - Omar told Nardwuar a pretty funny story about why she was fired:

6:22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brdpQN3ACY8

aw poor linda good! thrown under the bus for taking notes! I could have sworn that Omar had some unkind things to say about Theodore too, but here we are. seems Omar has maybe mellowed a bit, or at least has grown more gracious about his collaborators in recent years, fwiw I quite liked what little I've seen/heard from the couple months Good was in the band

Jay-Z - The Black Album 0

otm

not complaining, just surprised

Forgot to vote, but would have split the Radiohead/TMV tie either way so it's cool

Best album from this year was Send, btw

that's a good one. my pick is "i trawl the megahertz".

Whoops, missed this one but would have voted for Welcome Interstate Managers which is one of my favorite albums ever.

Yes! I love Welcome Interstate Managers. It's a classic.

I'm one of the two people who voted for it. It's my favourite Fountains of Wayne album.

never heard of it

can't be as good as trap muzik

― brimstead, Monday, July 11, 2016 5:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

true

American indie rock from this period is so fucking dreary

Even if you disqualify Electric Version (Canadians), any year that featured Pig Lib, Gallowsbirds' Bark, and Ghosts of the Great Highway couldn't have been that bad for Amerindie.

Got about 7 minutes into the Wrens album. It sounds very much of its time.

The first four songs after the intro (Happy, She Sends Kisses, This Boy is Exhausted, especially Hopeless) on the Meadowlands are pretty flawless. The vocals take a bit to get used to, but the songs are worth it.

Thirteen Grand, Ex-Girl Collection, Everyone Choose Sides--there's only like two non-intro/outro songs that are less than 9/10

Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 2004 poll

Would have voted for The Mars Volta.