Best CDs of 2004

Rock/Pop/Hip-Hop Div.

1. Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand (Domino)
"Slide your nail under the top and bottom buttons of my blazer."

The best songs are the ones that make demands, don't you think?

No one makes a catchier, sexier, more convincing demand than Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos. And no one made a better album this year than he and his band of Glaswegians, who enjoyed dizzying success this year.

Maybe it's the erudite name, maybe it's the natty clothes, maybe it's the German they like to speak onstage. Whatever it is, the band oozes an intellectual European sexuality that's unmatched, as if these art school lads got lost on the way to a Berlin cabaret in 1932. Compared to Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes just look dirty.

But the album. Oh, the album. It's cripplingly addictive and solid as a rock. A very danceable rock. And while it's surely the new wave hooks that lure you in, don't try to play like the boys can't write a swell lyric. Much of the time, it's about gestures, both subtle and overt. "Tell Her Tonight" turns swung hair, shook hips and licked lips into a flirtation handbook for the ages. And thanks to "Matinee," indie rock boys everywhere will no longer cast their gaze to the ground when chatting up the girl in the B&S tee ("And I'm not to look at you in the shoe but the eyes / Find the eyes!"). Other times it's a narrative, beautifully told and visually evocative ("Michael," "Jacqueline").

After being named the next gigantic thing by every music magazine on the planet, they found themselves very much in demand: Their video seemed to be one of the few MTV played this year, they won the Mercury Prize, they did a live radio broadcast from the Tate Modern and they've been nominated for three Grammy awards.

Suddenly, it's a mad, mad Franz Ferdinand world. Deservedly so.
--Lori Hill

2. Modest Mouse
Good News For People Who Like Bad News (Epic)
For the last few years, Isaac Brock's life has been a trial by fire. Modest Mouse's enigmatic frontman had endured a string of public and private catastrophes: rape accusation, broken jaw, week in jail (for attempted murder) and the flip-out/departure of longtime friend/drummer Jeremiah Green. The band's high water mark, 2000's post-apocalyptic The Moon & Antarctica hinted at the stress points in the band's collective psyche. Then everything went to shit. Green freaked out and fled. Brock aborted work on a follow-up. Things were dark. But then Brock just let go of all of the crap. Good News For People Who Like Bad News feels like the work of someone who's finally exhaled, let out a lot of bad air and breathed in some of that good chi. From the opening strains of "The World at Large" — Brock sings "Ice age, heat wave, can't complain" — one gets the sense that the onetime enfant terrible of the Pacific Northwest has just chilled the fuck out. From the so-it-goes spirit of airy smash "Float On," to the fiery, apocalypse-dismissive "Bury Me With It" ("I just don't need none of that Mad Max bullshit!") to the oughtta-be-a-campfire-anthem "The Good Times are Killing Me," Good News is zen-like optimism from the place you'd have least expected.
--Brian Howard

3. The Arcade Fire
Funeral (Merge)
The power of the Pitchfork cannot be underestimated. Not the devil poking your left eye; we're talking pitchforkmedia.com, the de facto news and reviews homepage of indie elitists everywhere. Back in September, the site bestowed an unheard-of 9.7 rating on The Arcade Fire, a Montreal collective with a grim, death-obsessed storyline, firework finale sound and, most importantly, a percussionist who looks strangely like Napoleon Dynamite. Almost overnight, everyone was saying, "Hey, have you heard of that band The Arcade Fire?" "Yeah, they're rad!" So they bought that smooth lil' sleeve blindly, hoping it wouldn't suck as much as Wolf Eyes. Lucky for everyone, Funeral singes the senses with the grandiose approach of the last Bright Eyes album, while also rescuing the sanctity of the word "emotional" from mope rockers. No other recent record fulfills the premise of its hype as consistently as this one: not Rilo Kiley, the Killers, or those over-sexed buffoons Maroon5 and Jet. Let us spell it out for you: G-E-T I-T.
--Andrew Parks

4. Tom Waits
Real Gone (ANTI)
Tom Waits does the voice of doom better than anyone, but in recent years he's skirted close to self-parody; even his adaptation of Alice in Wonderland tapped the book's undercurrents of dread without reflecting its surface playfulness. But now, with the end times looking like a distinct possibility, Waits lightened up on Real Gone, letting a few rays of sunlight pierce his generally Stygian outlook. The album breathes, occasionally relying on Waits' voice for percussion as well as melody (unlike Björk, Waits didn't make a conceptual fetish of it). "Dead and Lovely" and "Day After Tomorrow" are as heartfelt as anything Waits has composed since his troubadour days, though the way the latter weaves together a soldier's homesickness and his doubts about fighting an enemy who "pray to the same God that we do" reveals the kind of weariness you don't pick up in nightclubs. Staring over the lip of the abyss, Real Gone throws down a rope — or at least envisions a better world on the other side.
--Sam Adams

5. Interpol
Antics (Matador)
Thumping disco bass and sexed-out guitar are the champions on the second from New York post-punkers Interpol. It's a natural evolution from their 2002 debut, Turn on the Bright Lights. Lyrically, we are still graced with mysterious tales of obsession, ocean liners and being in jail. But musically, the album is less "we love Joy Division" and more "we love the nightlife (we like to boogie)." It's a change for the better: livelier ("C'mere"), catchier ("Take You on a Cruise") and even more irresistibly danceable ("Evil"). So what if Interpol dipped their toes in the disco inferno? This shit is aces.
--James Saul

6. The Foreign Exchange
Connected (BBE)
Yes, the Foreign Exchange story is interesting: Nicolay (a producer in the Netherlands) and Phonte (MC in North Carolina hip-hop group Little Brother) met on the Okayplayer bulletin boards and pieced together an album strictly via e-mail and instant messages without ever meeting face-to-face. But you're not gonna put a story on your iPod. Instead of pimping hip-hop via R&B, Connected is a jazzy, soul-influenced CD that has been worming through underground and college circles since August. While Nicolay's production shines through on the bass-heavy "Nic's Groove," Phonte's simplistic lyricism takes over on cuts like "Brave New World" and "Be Alright." The curiously sparse but symphonic vibe may isolate intense hardcore rap fans, but Connected has all the ingredients to resurrect the independent underground movement.
--Deesha Dyer

7. Madvillain
Madvillainy (Stones Throw)
Kanye pulled heartstrings, Ghostface yelled at us, but Madvillain — the long-awaited collaboration between MF Doom and Madlib — flat-out impressed us. A fast-paced 22 tracks in 45 minutes, no other hip-hop record presented such a distinct or fully-formed worldview. Doom and Lib play rap supervillains who boast world domination like gunny gangstas, but who are too laced to get off the sofa and too nerdy to pose a threat anyway. Madvillainy has a keen sense of the rap chronology too, turning genre stereotypes on their heads and flipping rap beat kitsch for surprising effects. An instant classic.
--Nick Sylvester

8. Elliott Smith
From a Basement on the Hill(Anti)
By now, you've probably come to terms with Elliott Smith's posthumous album. From a Basement on the Hill is an unfinished, unavoidably bruised song collection; a bowl of many fruits, some rotten. Much like his 2000's Figure 8, this one requires picking and choosing. Forgive the blander moments. The sweetest finger-plucked bits ("Let's Get Lost," "Memory Lane," "The Last Hour") never lose flavor. And if some loud piece makes you sick ("Don't Go Down"), put it aside and sink your teeth into something warmer and more reminiscent of earlier albums ("Twilight"). Pick up any one of the 15 songs later, and you'll undoubtedly discover some beautiful acoustic guitar or piano part, some subtle lilt in that soft, sad voice to make you shiver and frown. Not quite a leap from Smith's songwriting slump, Basement lands well above ground.
--Tami Fertig

9. Björk
Medúlla (Elektra)
Like one of H.R. Giger's biomechanical portraits, Björk has fused organic elements to create something dark, alien and strangely beautiful. The seemingly constrictive concept of composing an entire album using only vocals and voice samples frees the Icelandic chanteuse to follow her labyrinthine melodies into their every snaking byway. Joined by fellow iconoclasts like Mike Patton and Robert Wyatt, and aided immeasurably by the bottomless groove of The Roots' Rahzel, Björk swerves from pop to hip-hop to symphonic, employing her voice like a jazz improviser, restlessly exploring the ramifications of each genre without ever settling in any of them. With Medúlla being released in the same year that Brian Wilson's Smile finally made its official debut, the human voice has never seemed so limitless.
--Shaun Brady

10. TV on the Radio
Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes (Touch and Go)
Has a band name ever been more fitting? This Brooklyn trio's mash-up of post-punk skronk, thumping bass lines, atmospheric electronics and manic vocals spill into the ears like a half-received transmission from some alien station. Given that two of the members are also visual artists, it only makes sense that Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes plays like the soundtrack to a lost video reel. On the (there's no other way to say this) very desperate "Dreams," dueling vocalists Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe wail the chorus "all your dreams are over now / and all your wings have fallen down" over a grumbling sort of Dystopian loop, throwing in lyrical gems like "oh warfaring terrapin" for fun. There's a churning anxiety that permeates the album's nine tracks, thanks in large part to David Andrew Sitek's programming, which serves as the band's sonic base. And yet even the a cappella "Ambulance" — simply Malone's and Adebimpe's crisscrossing vocals — exudes the band's extraterrestrial chill.
--Brian Howard

11. Rilo Kiley
More Adventurous (Brute/Beaute)
This was not the Rilo Kiley album you wanted, but your motives were suspect. You hoped for another dozen psychoanalytic rock songs to tell you it's OK that things are not OK. While you were making out sweaty at the show, Jenny Lewis was up onstage with her arms outstretched, making you feel good about your failures. Man, did you ever stop to think about her needs? More Adventurous shines with glossy pop polish: repeatable choruses, grand guitar hooks, parts for the drums to build up to something. But listen close and you find dirt under the fingernails: loveless sex and surprise death, dwindling youth and baby mama drama. Even when she's railing about the state of the world, there's no mistaking how personal this record is. And all those stringy flourishes and embellished arrangements aren't attempts at marketability, they're satisfied smirks from a band finally doing things their way. So when Lewis starts belting out "baby I'm bad news!" you better believe it. Everything is not OK.
--Patrick Rapa

12. Kimya Dawson
Hidden Vagenda (K)
Past hurts and more recent calamities surface amid the incongruously chirpy 3/4 time and lullaby breath of Dawson's fourth solo effort. "It's Been Raining" and "Lullaby for the Taken" attempt to outdo each other with insouciant expressions of loss — the first of departed friends, the second of her young nephew, whose mother abducted him and disappeared. Elsewhere, "Anthrax" tries to capture the scale of Manhattanites' experience of 9/11, but such gloom is more than balanced by the raucous delight of effed-up New York in "Parade." So deceptively varied for an ostensibly simple record, the album will have you straining forward in your seat to hear its emotional diminuendos.
--Juliet Fletcher

13. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Shake the Sheets (Lookout)
You can have your stinkin' Michael Moore — what's it gonna take to get Ted Leo and the Pharmacists on CNN? Shake the Sheets is a street fighting man's broadside and a worried patriot's lament all at once, and there's righteous sentiment that everyone from Jon Stewart to John McCain can get behind. Though released shortly before this year's election, the album is already shaping up as a handy users' guide for the zeitgeist. Musically, it's arguably Leo and the Pharmacists' tautest, fiercest work. Their Strummer jones is in full flower here, and Chris Shaw's widescreen production leans in to the band and says, "You too, yes, can be The Who."
--Michael Pelusi

14. The Streets
A Grand Don't Come For Free (Vice)
Do I know anyone who liked this album on first listen? Nope. But this 11-part song cycle of love and cash lost and found in East London was never about a breakout single or even about providing a conventionally accessible listening experience. In a story that travels from smoky living rooms to crowded clubs, following the narrator through run-ins with a television repairman, a cagey best mate and a girl named Simone, each song nails a different lyrical style and musical tone. Mike Skinner leaves off trying to be an MC and uses his super-simple rhyming style to capture a bit of the boredom, a bit of the wisdom you might catch in casual conversation. The more you listen, the more you'll hear. Just do yourself a favor: Turn off the shuffle function.
--Juliet Fletcher

15. Loretta Lynn
Van Lear Rose (Interscope)
The formula — aging songstress short on new material hooks up with hot young producer eager to pay his respects — has become standard, but it's never turned out a better album than Loretta Lynn's, perhaps because few fans are as devoted as Jack White. White, whom Lynn pricelessly refers to as "the kid," spurred Lynn to write her first album of original songs in her 40-year career and assembled a band that prodded Lynn forward without trampling on her past. Like the song says, if that ain't love, then tell me what is.
--Sam Adams

16. Annie
Anniemal (679)
In the Clear Channel-free world of music-blog tastemaking, 2004 was the year of "fluxpop" — frothy, flirty glitch that reached its mainstream apotheosis with Britney Spears' Bond theme gone wrong, "Toxic." But the best album-length example came from a Norwegian indie-rock veteran born Annie Lilia Berge Strand. Yes, the rockists among us might protest that the triumphs of Anniemal don't belong entirely to its namesake: Annie's team of electro-experts, including Richard X and Royksopp, gives her breathy coos a color-drenched room of their own in which to groove and sigh. But Anniemal wouldn't be as good as it is without the sidelong glances and self-assured playfulness that its lead singer brings to its champagne-drenched party.
--Maura Johnston

17. Animal Collective
Sung Tongs (Fat Cat)
In a year when freak-folk became the new dance-punk and dance-punk became the latest hyphenated has-been, Brooklyn's Animal Collective enjoyed its first taste of widespread indie popularity. On Sung Tongs, duo Avey Tare and Panda Bear flirt with tighter pop-song structures and lush vocal harmonies that could shame the Beach Boys. The group's penchant for toddler noisemaking, while downplayed, still remains a powerful undercurrent. Sung Tongs is pop, but it is off-kilter, unhinged and at times chaotic. Forget SMiLE -- this is 2004's teenage symphony to God.
--Nick Sylvester

18. Iron + Wine
Our Endless Numbered Days (Sub Pop)
It's like Sam Beam is surrounded by ghosts. The farmer who watched his cottage burn to the ground in "Cinder And Smoke." The father who died on Christmas day in "Sodom, South Georgia." The lynched slave in who rejoices "I will be free until they cut me down." They tell their stories through him on Our Endless Numbered Days, the indie folkie's third outing as Iron + Wine and one of the most stirring and successful thematic albums in recent years. He meditates on mortality but also seems to carry a touch of the great beyond in his jacket pocket. After all, for a burly, white Grizzly Adams-lookin' guy, Beam's intonations have an aesthetic similar to old blues singers like Robert Johnson and Billie Holiday. Soft, wispy, captivating and conveying an eternity of long-silenced voices.
--John Vettese

19. bitter, bitter weeks
Revenge (My Pal God)
Kurt Vonnegut wrote that being anti-war was as futile as being anti-glacier. On his second CD, Brian McTear sounds like he's up to the challenge. With just a treblesome voice and a plucky guitar, he takes all comers — lost friends, lost causes, just plain feeling lost, and, yes, W-A-R — and ends up luring hope out of the darkness. And damn if he doesn't know how to sting, too: "You're a wisp of exhaust on a clear blue day." Anybody who's ever seen the lone singer-songwriter give pause to a noisy bar knows what he's singing about on "Boy Takes On Tornado." Bring on that glacier.
--Patrick Rapa

20. Various Artists
DFA Compilation #2 (DFA)
In much the same way Brian Eno's 1978 No New York comp captured the essence of Manhattan's most ardent avant punks, this three-CD set comes off like a snapshot of the bass-popping punks and funky electro-futurists currently holing up in the five boroughs. DFA label producers and CEOs Tim Goldsworthy and James Murphy do justice to the ecstatic roar of The Rapture, the winking four-on-the floor disco of LCD Soundsystem and the quickly mumbling rock-jazz of Black Dice. Most importantly, they reach back to Manhattan's dance-'80s by reuniting maestros Liquid Liquid for "Bellhead" — a bell-tinkling, whistle-blowing masterpiece. By culling from Manhattan's past and present, #2 captures its slippery immediacy.
--A.D. Amorosi

Some Notes About The Above:
As always, the patented Brian G. Howard Method for Calculating The Relative Goodness Of Albums was employed in the creation of City Paper's Top 20 list. (Some will say this system resembles that which Major League Baseball uses to name its MVPs. Others will say they don't like sports much besides hockey. We empathize.) Our music critics were instructed ad nauseam to put together a list of their 10 favorite CDs from 2004. Eventually they did (save for those apparently raised with a base-8 counting system), and we started assigning points: Albums got 10 points for being somebody's No. 1, 9 points for second place, and so on. Then we gave an extra point to each No. 1 just because. One day while we were all out to lunch at Karma, somebody snuck in and added a point each time an album appeared on more than one list. The math was excruciating and unsatisfying, as we ended up with some ties. (Made us miss hockey even more.) Right there in the middle, CDs by Rilo Kiley, Kimya Dawson, Ted Leo and The Streets were all knotted up. To break the deadlock, we put each of these discs at the bottoms of four large pots, covered them over with nitrogen-rich soil and placed them on sunny windowsills. We watered. We sang to them daily. Nothing ever grew. Turns out we never put any seeds in there. Lots of swearing when we figured that out. So we just sorta put the CDs in any old order. There were also some other ties further down the list, but by the time we realized that, there was already nitrogen-rich soil everywhere. Paul Curci, our publisher, told us to wash up and put our stuff back in our cubbyholes. So we MacGyver'd the rest of the Top 20 and wrote it all down on a big yellow piece of paper with a corner torn off and it's just gone and we looked everywhere. I think the snarly intern took it when we went to Karma another time. The list you see above is an approximation, a courtroom sketch of the original list pieced together from our collective memories. We don't remember the Tom Waits record even being on there, but whatever.

Dedicated to the memory of our departed classical music critic Lou Camp.

Rounding Out the Top 51