List some of your favorite records that turn 20 this year

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love

Polvo - Celebrate The New Dark Age

Would have included this but it's yet another I thought came out in 94.

Hah!!!! I am still living in 2014. Crap, scratch both of my suggestions.

Will have to go with:

Polvo - This Eclipse

Damn, where does the time go.

Ha! As long as there is a Polvo record to list, it will be listed.

None of the records in my list aged a bit to me (except arguably Poole- kinda has a Polaris version 90s jangle vibe at times).

Such a fantasic year, and super influential for me.

Royal Trux - Thank You
Secret Square - S/T
Juliana Hatfield - Only Everything (a serious grower that I didn't properly love back in the day)
GBV - Alien Lanes
Oval - 94 Diskont
Aphex Twin - I Care Because You Do
Pavement - Wowee Zowee
The Amps - Pacer
Elastica - S/T
Kids OST
Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura
Bjork - Post
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Foo Fighters - S/T
Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie
The Softies - It's Love

Oh darn... Alien Lanes WAS 95, wasn't it? I was mindlessly checking dates against discogs and that's one they had wrong.

Archers of Loaf--Vee Vee

Swans - The Great Annihilator
Slowdive - Pygmalion
Scott Walker - Tilt
Tindersticks - 2
Pulp - Different Class
Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost of Tom Joad

Liquid Swords
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Return to the 36 Chambers

Oh shit, yeah Different Class is an amazing record

Forgot the Wu follow-ups. Good call.

urge overkill - exit the dragon

still love this.

Soul Food
Dah Shinin'

Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie

First album I ever bought. Bloody hell 20 years

Good year for roots rock

Son Volt - Trace
Wilco - AM
Jayhawks - Tomorrow the Green Grass
Vulgar Boatmen - The Opposite Sex

I used to make top ten lists and kept copies. Here's what I wrote in 1995:

Blue Aeroplanes, Rough Music
Throwing Muses, University
Sleeper, Smart
del Amitri, Twisted
Drywall, Work the Dumb Oracle
The The, Hanky Panky
Radiohead, The Bends
Ivy, Realistic
The Bats, Couchmaster
Sidi Bou Said, Bodies

Misc:
Robyn Hitchcock, You & Oblivion
Microdisney, Big Sleeping House
Laurie Anderson, The Ugly One With the Jewels
The Wonderstuff, Live In Manchester

Scarce - Deadsexy
Spain - The Blue Moods Of

Has your opinion changed since 1995?

Yeah, I should've qualified that list. I'd rather listen to those early Sleeper singles than the rerecorded version on the album. That Del Amitri album has it's moments but, meh. I don't ever need to listen to "The Bends" again, it's well played out for me. I listened to a track from Sidi Bou Said yesterday and can't understand my enthusiasm. Otherwise I still rate the rest very highly.

The Bats never ever get old for me I'm with you on that one.

Of stuff already mentioned, I own:

Ropers - All The Time
Versus - Dead Leaves
Scott Walker - Tilt
Son Volt - Trace
Wilco - AM

And rate them all as well but probably didn't get them until after 1995. Of these I'd have to add "Tilt" to my all-time-1995 list.

Part of why I started this thread was because I was listening to Poole - Alaska Days again. Such a great record. So I just want to emphasize that one since it's one of the least talked about.

Method Man - Tical
Redman - Dare Iz A Darkside
Scarface - The Diary
Hard 2 Obtain - Ism & Blues
Mouse On Mars ‎– Iaora Tahiti
Palace Music - Viva Last Blues
Felix da Housecat - Metropolis Present Day? Thee Album!

these are the last group of albums I bought on vinyl

It's threads like these that make me want to go through my digital library and make sure the correct year is attached to each album. But, ugh, what a chore...

Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante

Not to mention Faith No More King For A Day...

Too $hort - Cocktails

great year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJaKr3qMaqc

oh shit its 95 now

i mean 2015

20 years for this miscreant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX7n7bJJw10

Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt

this thread is depressing

have there been any '20 years since Romo' pieces yet?

this thread is depressing

― they TRY to look like GOOD people (soref),

Next year is even worse, will be 20 years since the last Taylor Swift record

I listened to a track from Sidi Bou Said yesterday and can't understand my enthusiasm.

I ripped all my CDs over the last year or so and make randomised playlists for commuting/listening at work etc and some songs from that album came up recently and I had the opposite reaction - haven't listened to that album in years but I thought it held up pretty well (or at least the songs I listened to, maybe I just got lucky)

Its 20 years this year since the last socially conscious rappers walked the earth, nowadays they just take to twitter and drink fine wines

Neil Young & Pearl Jam - Mirror Ball

kornrulez I was thinking the same thing, that it seems like 1995 was the peak of the No Depression-era (which was the year the magazine launched as well). Certainly not the beginning of country rock, but I love how pop constantly recycles the canon.

Freakwater - Old Paint

Cardiacs - Sing to God
Echolyn - As the World..
The Orb - Orbus Terrarum
P-Model - Fune
The Sea and Cake - The Biz
Susumu Hirasawa - Sim City
Ruins - Hyderomastigronigem
Daler Mehndi - Bolo Ta Ra Ra
Autechre - Tri Repeatae
Aphex Twin - I Care Because You Do...

LOTS OF GREAT STUFF THAT YEAR!

two Momus albums - The Philosophy Of Momus and Slender Sherbet

My retrospective 1995 EOY ballot would likely be:

Basic Channel - BCD
Cocteau Twins - Otherness ep
Coil - orship the Glitch
Vanessa Daou - Zipless
Arnold Dreyblatt - Animal Magnetism
Elastica - Elastica
Elysium - Glysten
FSOL - ISDN
Hallucinogen - Twisted
Higher Intelligence Agency - Freefloater
Shelly Hirsch - O Little Town of East New York
Alan Lamb - Archival Recordings: Primal Image / Beauty
Lech Jankowski - Intitute Benjamenta
Mojave 3 - Ask Me Tomorrow
Mouse on Mars - Iaora Tahiti
Robert Rich & Lustmord - Stalker
Tricky - Maxinequaye
Scott Walker - Tilt
Woob - Emit4495

Regarding Sidi Bou Said, Col. Poo said:
I ripped all my CDs over the last year or so and make randomised playlists for commuting/listening at work etc and some songs from that album came up recently and I had the opposite reaction - haven't listened to that album in years but I thought it held up pretty well (or at least the songs I listened to, maybe I just got lucky)

In 1995 I was deeply into Throwing Muses - it helped that I live in Boston and got to see Kristin with and without the band a number of times. Sidi Bou Said shared a similar sound and I went gaga for them at the time but haven't revisited them in yonks, I will rectify that shortly.

Regarding 1995 being the peak of No Depression, I'd argue 1998 was the peak when the Billy Bragg/Wilco collaboration came out - that's certainly what grabbed my attention and brought the scene significant notice.

Tomorrow the Green Grass, the Jayhawks
Trace, Son Volt
One Track Mind, Railroad Jerk
Faithless Street, Whiskeytown
Wreck Your Life, the Old 97's

Basically, 1995 was the year I discovered roots music.

The Infamous
Dah Shinin'
Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous

Belly - King
Roy Montgomery - Scenes from the South Island
ST37 - Glare
Gravitar - Gravitar
Polara - Polara
Boredoms - Super Roots 5
King Black Acid - Womb Star Sessions

Polara!

Source of Light is still one of my favorite pop songs.

A Guy Called Gerald - Black Secret Technology
Ani DiFranco - Not A Pretty Girl
Omni Trio - The Deepest Cut Vol. 1

Thought of another:

Lida Husik - Joyride

Gallowsbird's Bark
Fever to Tell

ya I'm sure this has been said a lot but HTTT is a really great record if you delete like a third of it

M. Ward, The Transfiguration of Vincent
Cat Power, You Are Free
My Morning Jacket, It Still Moves
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Hearts of Oak
Songs:Ohia, Magnolia Electric Company
Radiohead, Hail to the Thief
The Books, The Lemon of Pink
The White Stripes, Elephant
Steely Dan, Everything Must Go
Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, Streetcore

Paddy McAloon - I Trawl the MEGAHERTZ

Oooh, yeah, missed that one. That record is just pure heartbreak.

Some that haven't been mentioned yet:

Lilys - Precollection
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Pig Lib
Ween - Quebec
Guided by Voices - Earthquake Glue
Momus - Oskar Tennis Champion
Broadcast - Haha Sound
Blur - Think Tank

It's hard to believe "Crazy in Love" turns 20 this year but maybe that's because it was 2010-11 when I had a neighbor who played it nonstop.

This thread has started a bit of a relisten project for me over the last few years, but I just realized I never compiled my 2002 list. So, my favorites that turn twenty-one this year:

The Notwist, Neon Golden
The Mountain Goats, All Hail West Texas
The Reputation, The Reputation
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Jetplane Landing, Zero for Conduct
Dolly Parton, Halos and Horns
Stretch Princess, Fun With Humans
Emm Gryner, Asianblue
Aimee Mann, Lost in Space
Christine Fellows, The Last One Standing
Richard Buckner, Impasse
The Mountain Goats, Tallahassee

On to 2003…

This was my top 10 of 2003, as judged at the time:

1. OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
2. Radiohead, Hail to the Thief
3. Prefuse 73, One Word Extinguisher
4. Belle and Sebastian, Dear Catastrophe Waitress
5. Basement Jaxx, Kish Kash
6. M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts
7. The Postal Service, Give Up
8. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot it in People
9. The North Atlantic, Wires in the Walls
10. Schneider TM, 6 Peace EP

looking through my list, here are some that surprised me:

first two Lemon Demon albums - not that this means anything to anyone else but its kind of a reminder of how much different online culture was two decades ago

Sketch Show, Loophole - remember thinking they were old guys then, making great music pretty late in their career. in retrospect they weren't that old!!

Ween, quebec - same thing. felt like such a "late career" album when in reality they were younger than I am now

The Sea and Cake, One Bedroom - just because I actually remember buying this CD twenty years ago. still remember reading every review I could find online and wondering why people didn't like it

ooh and also The Stadium Techno Experience by Scooter. I'd never have believed you if you told me they would still be around and reasonably famous 20 years from then. and I liked that album!

I was a big Sea and Cake fan at the time and liked One Bedroom, but also probably found it somewhat inferior to their last couple of albums and thus unworthy of inclusion on a top 10. Or maybe my enjoyment of it just felt sort of predictable and comfortable, whereas most of the albums that made my list were new discoveries or surprises.

Pretty dull list from me, but Autechre Draft 7.30, Broadcast Haha Sound, Cat Power You Are Free, Gescom ISS::SA, Missy This is Not a Test, Mogwai Happy Songs for Happy People, the Outkast album, Prefuse 73 One Word Extinguisher, Sufjan Michigan, William Basinski The Disintegration Loops are all still in regular rotation. At the time I played the Radiohead, Bonnie Prince Billy, Strokes' Room on Fire and The White Stripes' Elephant a lot but not much these days.

10 that haven't been mentioned yet:

Harold Budd - La Bella Vista
Brian Eno - January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now
Jeff Hanson - Son
McLusky - My Pain and Sadness Is More Sad and Painful Than Yours
New Pornographers - The Electric Version (favorite album of 2003)
Puffy AmiYumi - Nice
Lou Reed - The Raven (overstuffed, but I like it)
Josh Rouse - 1972
Matthew Sweet - Kimi Ga Suki Raifu (his last great album?)
Various - Wig in a Box: Songs from and Inspired by Hedwig and the Angry Inch

And because I looked up the wrong year by mistake, 10 lesser-known choices from 2002:

Damien Jurado & Gathered in Song - I Break Chairs (his loud album)
1 Giant Leap - 1 Giant Leap
Mull Historical Society - Loss
Twinemen - Twinemen (surviving members of Morphine plus Laurie Sargent from Face to Face)
Wondermints - Mind If We Make Love to You
Jason Loewenstein - At Sixes and Sevens (first solo album from my favorite Sebadoh member)
Cato Salsa Experience - A Good Tip for a Good Time
Gem - Sunglare Serenade (Doug Gillard and Tim Tobias)
Canyon - Empty Rooms (alt-country with a distinct 'Dark Side of the Moon' feel)
J Mascis & The Fog - Free So Free

listened to a lot of records 20 years ago, broke it down like so -

god tier

* Three 6 Mafia - Da Unbreakables
* Kevin Drumm - Land of Lurches
* Perfume - Sweet Donuts
* Nav Katze - Never Mind The Distortions
* John Fahey - Red Cross Disciple Of Christ Today

solid

* Pharaoh Overlord - #2
* Ricardo Villalobos - Alcachofa
* Annea Lockwood - A Sound Map of the Hudson River
* Enslaved - Below the Lights
* Skullflower - Exquisite Fucking Boredom
* Eliane Radigue - Geelriandre / Arthesis
* Circle - Guillotine
* Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
* SORA - Re.sort

pretty good

* Luomo - The Present Lover
* Mu-Ziq - Bilious Paths
* Bardo Pond - On The Ellipse

haven't listened in a while but probably holds up

* Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye
* Darkspace - I
* Wolf Eyes - Dead Hills
* Nasum - Helvete
* Cymbals - Love You
* Hoahio - Peek-Ara-Boo
* Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
* Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground

haven't listened in quite a while, feeling less confident but were played a lot at the time

* Ashanti - Chapter II
* Black Dice - Beaches and Canyons
* Venetian Snares - Badminton

The Police - Synchronicity

what? That wasn’t 20 years ago?

Ok, then In Utero.

Horsepower Productions - In Fine Style

The three albums of 2003 that I still play the most are: Pig Lib, Electric Version, and Ghosts of the Great Highway.

Vital Remains - Dechristianize

^^^ That's a good one. I listened to that a lot back then.

I played it every day for a month on the way to college.

some other genre favorites

T.I. - Trap Muzik
Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance
50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Trying
Lil Kim - La Bella Mafia
Bonecrusher - Atten CHUN!
Britney Spears - In the Zone
Michigan - Sufjan Stevens

Adult - Anxiety Always
Aphex Twin - 26 Mixes For Cash
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Broadcast - Haha Sound
Camera Obscura - Underachievers Please Try Harder
Clearlake - Cedars
Dave Clarke - Devil's Advocate
Dizee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
Dopplereffect - Linear Accelerator
Fat Truckers - For Sale
Goldfrapp - Black Cherry
HALCALI - Halcali Bacon
Hell - NY Muscle
LFO - Sheath
Melt-Banana - Cell-scape
OutKast - Speakerboxxx
Plaid - Dial P / Spokes
Raiden (mixed by) - Paranoia LP
Relaxed Muscle - A Heavy Nite With...
Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland
The Locust - Plague Soundscapes
The Rapture - Echoes

I forgot to include Pluramon's Dreams Top Rock, which still sounds fantastic

Welcome to the club:

Last Exit
The Disintegration Loops
Seven Swans
Coming On Strong

Meanwhile, dubnobasswithmyheadman now thirty years old 😱

The Blue Notebooks
Body Language
Margerine Eclipse
Madvillainy
Milk Man
Mm...Food
The Tigers Have Spoken

Still adore, and listen to regularly

Casual Dots s/t
Reigning Sound - Too Much Guitar
The Real New Fall Album

Iron & Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days
The Blue Nile, High
Tom Waits, Real Gone
Ray LaMontagne, Trouble

154 - strike

boredoms - seadrum/house of sun
Black Leotard Front - "Casual Friday"

There are some good jazz/modern composition albums from 2004 that I still like to listen to:

Jenny Scheinman - Shalagaster
Mihaly Dresch Quartet - Egyenes Zene
Jewels and Binoculars (Michael Moore trio) - Floater

! I don't think I have heard Jewels and Binoculars, despite having named an actual human child after that song

154 - strike

― brimstead, Monday, 29 January 2024 22:14 (nineteen minutes ago) link

Great album

so great. hypnotic blurry ambient with a kick drum, like if the protagonist in the Gas albums went to outer space or an abandoned factory on the moon instead of the forest

Came here to say The Knife - Deep Cuts but that ship has actually sailed now!

Seem to remember 2004 being a good year for music. It's very hard to believe these are all coming up to 20 years old now:

Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
Brian Wilson - Smile
The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free
Converge - You Fail Me
Joanna Newsome - The Milk Eyed Mender
Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
Neurosis - Eye Of Every Storm
Boredoms - Seadrum / House Of Sun
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing In The Hands
Bjork - Medulla
Air - Talkie Walkie

add Blueberry Boat to the list

I feel like this was a banner year for me as a music fan. The year I started paying a lot more attention to current music and also having a lot more access to music due to broadband.

I'd been on ILM a couple of years, but this was the year it really started feeling like a community and I remember going to a few FAPs and meeting fun people in Cambridge and London.

Also it was the year Sick Mouthy let me write my first ever published music articles for Stylus, so that felt like a big deal to me.

Wolf Eyes - Burned Mind

This was also the year I got really into US noise, Amerindie and Freak Folk stuff. The excitement burned bright, albeit with diminishing returns after a while

2004 list I made at the time:
1. The Uncle Devil Show - A Terrible Beauty (Del Amitri incognito)
2. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus
3. Stan Ridgway - Snakebite
4. Tears For Fears - Everybody Loves A Happy Ending
5. Magnetic Fields - i
6. Hem - Eveningland
7. Interpol - Antics
8. Robyn Hitchcock - Spooked
9. Wonder Stuff - Escape From Rubbish Island
10. Nora O'Connor - Til The Dawn

Late Finds & Singles:
Boxer Rebellion - 3 singles
Killing Joke - Chaos For Breakfast (first 4 singles plus disc of demos)
Longwave - Life Of The Party EP
Lucero - That Much Further West (2003 release, found early in 2004)
Jesse Malin - The Fine Art Of Self-Destruction (2003 release, found early in 2004)

Best Compilation / Reissue / Live:
Tommy Keene - Drowning (rarities compilation)
Mekons - Punk Rock (all early material played live)
Andy Partridge - Fuzzy Warbles Vol 5+6
Weirdos - We Got The Neutron Bomb (Weird World Vol 2)
Wire - On The Box: 1979

Best CDRs:
A House - Rarities (all vinyl-only material)
Cud - Cudstock Naked
Gerard Langley - LIT Volume 2

Most Disappointing: Tanya Donelly - Whiskey Tango Ghosts
OR They Might Be Giants - The Spine

At the time, Arcade Fire's Funeral felt like an album for the ages. It's Pitchfork's number one for 2004. I haven't listened to it in years, and am not likely to now.

Max Richter – The Blue Notebooks
Sagor & Swing – Orgelplaneten
Stereolab – Margerine Eclipse
Peter Hammill – Incoherence
Hold Steady – Almost Killed Me
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
Marissa Nadler – Ballads of Living & Dying

i just looked at pitchfork's top 50 of 2004 and the only album on it that i love and own is blueberry boat. i think i was mostly listening to metal and old music back then. i did write monthly for a metal magazine at the time. i think. maybe i was just writing for the Voice. i know that ilx made me buy stuff that i never listened to back then. like junior boys.

for the record, i still listen to blueberry boat ALL the time. i'm kinda fixated on it. and their other stuff. but that one in a big way. some things just get ya.

just checked out that top 50 and there are vv few albums i still listen to or even own on there. Medulla, Madvillainy, The Blue Notebooks, Last Exit. I should probably own Blueberry Boat, that's a classic. There are some mystifying picks which probably don't make sense to anyone who wasn't there, though.

!!! - Louden Up Now
Asa-Chang & Junray - Tsu Gi Ne Pu
Electrelane - The Power Out
Halcali - Ongaku no Susume
Oneida - Secret Wars
Plumbline - Pin Points
Selfish Cunt - No Wicked Heart Shall Prosper
Stereolab - Margarine Eclipse
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - The Royal Society

Blueberry Boat is a masterpiece and only gets better with age.

Secret Machines - Now Here Is Nowhere
Languis - The Four Walls
The Dead Texan - s/t
Lali Puna - Faking The Books
Bardo Pond & Tom Carter - 4/23/03
Ana da Silva - The Lighthouse
The Muffs - Really Really Happy
Juana Molina - Tres Cosas
Jack Rose - Raag Manifestos
Fripp & Eno - The Equatorial Stars

2004 releases that I remember liking a lot back then:

David Darling and Wulu Bunun Tribe - mudanin kata
Brightblack - Ala.cali.tucky
Deathprod - morals and dogma
Joanna Newsom - the milk eyed mender
AnCo - Sung Tongs
Mylo - destroy rock n roll
Madvillainy
Fennesz - venice
Bjork - medulla
Junior boys - last exit
Arve Henriksen - chiaroscuro
Sachiko M / Toshimaru Nakamura / Otomo Yoshihide - Good Morning Good Night
Sufjan Stevens - seven swans
Susumu Yokota - symbol
Annie - anniemal
Xiu xiu - fabulous muscles
Blonde redhead - misery is a butterfly

Probably missing several others… espers, akira rabelais, max richter, deerhoof, tom waits, dungen, air, DFA1979… pretty good year

Listening to Blueberry Boat now... I know this is a total cliché, but if this album were released today, it would still sound totally "fresh" (IMO)