Albums I'm Thinking About Getting from the Year 2003 (part 4 of a proposed 10-part series)

Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground
Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain
King Geedorah - Take Me to Your Leader
The Dirtbombs - Dangerous Magical Noise
OOIOO - Kila Kila Kila
Campfire Songs
Animal Collective - Here Comes the Indian
Melt-Banana - Cell-scape
Paik - The Orson Fader
Boris - Feedbacker
Supersilent - 6
Fiery Furnaces - Gallowsbird's Bark
Broadcast - Ha Ha Sound
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts
The Mars Volta - DeLoused in the Comatorium
Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People
Excepter - KA
Surferosa - Shanghai My Heart
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
Cat Power - You Are Free
The Strokes - Room On Fire
Deerhoof - AppleO
The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic
The Rapture - Echoes
Manitoba - Up In Flames

viktor, feedbacker, m83, yyy's, exp hearts, manitoba

probably Mogwai's best album fwiw (it's either that or Rock Action)

why not just download all of these and save us the tedium?

happy songs is not mogwai's best album, christ

and other dude just get the fuck off the thread

yes it is! first two albums had greatness on them but also desperately required an editor

eh happy songs is the beginning of their comfortably mediocre period

which continues to this day

I can't help but think that there's a better 2003 list to be put together. Just a hunch. Viktor is pretty great.

btw what do you mean first two albums? young team, cody, rock action, ep+4/6, my father my king, and ten rapid all predate happy songs and are all better

Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground
Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain
King Geedorah - Take Me to Your Leader
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
Cat Power - You Are Free
Broadcast - Ha Ha Sound

^^^^dope.

The Erykah is her loosest, groove-based record, so it depends how tight you like your funky breaks. There isn't really any direction to it like the New Amerykah series but its definitely an obvious link between that mellow calm of the first two albums and the craziness of the next two.

VV is Doom's best record imo. Geedorah has jams and is a strong 8/10 record but some of it is just lol pushing hiphop to its limits for the sake of it.

YYYs have had enough written about them already. Same with Cat Power. Broadcast is just a big warm hug and a cup of tea of a record imo.

NO, Happy Songs is a very tight and sonically-compelling record that doesn't play to formula and incorporates electronics in a way Mogwai never matched elsewhere - Mr Beast was OTOH a crashing letdown

First two studio LPs, dude. The other stuff was also dotted with good music, but Rock Action and Happy Songs produced 40-minute bursts of sustained and varied excellence.

young team, cody, and rock action are all studio lps sez the pedant in me

yeah, and I was talking about young team and cody :D

oh, gotcha. i do agree rock action might be their peak, but it also might be young team so we disagree there.

need to reiterate for d.a.m. tho--ten rapid, ep+4, mfmk may not be studio albs but they are vital

Am compiling my historical rewrite on a Mogwai thread fwiw

those other recordings are great, not gonna deny that

m83, manitoba, and the exploding hearts are all aces.

I can't help but think that there's a better 2003 list to be put together. Just a hunch. Viktor is pretty great.

― dlp9001, Sunday, July 25, 2010 6:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

feel free to make one, man. i haven't spent as much time on these ones because of various time-constraint reasons, but none of these lists are supposed to be anywhere near definitive...

if these threads are starting to get a little tiresome, just say the word. i've been getting what I've thought are decent responses to these so far, but I don't want to slip into overkill...

nah dude they're cool keep makin them

First thought is US Maple's 2nd worst album "Purple On Time" which is still better than like 90% of everything. Have to add their (possibly best) album "Acre Thrills" to the 2001 list...

stuff I've heard and liked from 2003

the real new fall lp formerly known as country on the click
hail to the thief
michigan
akuma no uta (somewhat)

first two of those are boominger than anything on this list IMO

yeah I kind of figured those two would be tough to beat...

would recommend at least listening to Cell-Scape and then imagining quite how intense it would be to hear them live - it's a pretty consistently great album, second track is all-time

um you should probably at least hear that Mars Volta record - it's got some cracking songs - but tbh I wouldn't spend money on it (their second one's better anyway)

Manitoba record is very good. Buy that one. Also get the Boris one because it's completely freaking weird in an interesting, drawn-out way.

faves:
Supersilent - 6
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
Cat Power - You Are Free
Deerhoof - AppleO

don't like:
Fiery Furnaces - Gallowsbird's Bark

more faves:
DFA Compilation #1
Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
New Pornos - Electric Version
Ricardo Villalobos - Alcachofa

Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place

― Mosquepanik at Ground Zero (abanana)

if I've ever badmouthed you in the past, I take that back WITH BELLS ON

ASIP is (much) boominger than any other album named in this thread, IMO

lj have you listened to any mf doom (/madvillain/viktor vaughn/king geedorah)?

its way better than the lol anticon/def jux stuff you are using to ease yourself into hiphop

I have Madvillainy on my computer, and am yet to give it a proper listen. Maybe I should just plunge in...

Anticon stuff isn't rly hip-hop and doesn't count in my 'hip-hop voyage of discovery', Def Jux definitely, definitely does. Although the hip-hop that's blown my mind the most of late has been Immortal Technique

I'm so lucky Ethan doesn't post any more

oh yeah, missed that: supersilent 6 is also aces.

while you're in 2003, get yourself a copy of Human Amusement At Hourly Rates if you don't know Guided By Voices by now

and if you'll have a few bucks left, Echoes isn't a bad choice, a very uneven album but when it peaks, it rules pretty hard

That Ulrich Schnauss is excellent, agreed. Love both the Manitoba and the Cat Power records, too.

Also Kathleen Edwards' Failer is worth a look, even if you're not all that keen on country -- it's that good.

What else? Really randomly, and going from memory without checking, so a couple of these might not be 2003:

Aphex - 26 Mixes For Cash
Beyoncé - Dangerously In Love
Patrick Wolf - Lycanthropy
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

I always remember 2003 as more of a singles year, but one of my favourite albums -- which seems to find few champions anywhere -- is Trickboxes On The Pony Line by Sin Ropas (sort of a Califone offshoot). Worth checking, like damaged Americana simultaneously beamed in from the past and the future.

I'd like to get Feedbacker as well.

Since we are allowed to add recommendations, I have to mention Shiina Ringo's Karuki Zamen Kuri No Hana, her solo masterpiece, and still probably my pick for favorite album of last decade. (And you have been listing a lot of Japanese things.) My other favorites from 2003 (though they probably won't be of as much interest to you):

Matthew Shipp - Equilibrium
Cooper-Moore & Assif Tsahar - America
John Fahey - Red Cross

The Wrens - Meadowlands
Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day

faves

Broadcast - Ha Ha Sound
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
The Strokes - Room On Fire
The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic
The Rapture - Echoes
Manitoba - Up In Flames

2nd the Dizzee Rascal rec.

Ha Ha Sound by Broadcast is the best album on that list. Erykah Badu, M83 and The Strokes are all worth owning too.

Other great albums from that year.

Ted leo & the Pharmacists-Heart of oak
Goldfrapp-Black Cherry
The Fall-The Real New Fall LP
Hidden Cameras-The Smell of our own
Sleepy Jackson-Lovers
Bsement Jaxx-Kish Kash
The Cardiagans-Long Gone Before Daylight
Kelis-Tasty

lj that madvillainy album is like top 5 album of all-time for me...give it a listen!!!

i like that madvillainy album, too, but i wish i better understood why so many people are crazy about it (e.g., "top 5 album of all-time").

madvillainy is crazy good--it's one of my fav getting lost in headphones records ever

daniel if you haven't heard it in that setting it might not have clicked...

i'll reload it onto my ipod and give it another listen. so that's why the disc appeals so strongy to you, CAD -- the nuances that get picked-up while listening on headphones?

yeah doom is fun and all but it's totally madlib's album--the beats, the found sound and dialogue samples, the little connecting bits--those are what the record is all about.

like the beats may seem innocuous at first but then one day i realized that no one else could have possibly made them

sequencing is 100% perfect as well

hm. i'm always fascinated by what makes beats interesting (because i have a really poor understanding of tempo and syncopation). you find madlib's beats on the madvillainy disc as compelling as, say, timbaland's beats for various artists (rihanna; m.i.a.; missy elliot)?

i mean, hard to compare because all the stuff on madvillainy sounds like it was sampled from the world's dustiest pile of $1 vinyl, but that's sort of a point--the beats are highly evocative of music you know, but good luck pinpointing something specific.

okay; you've made me want to revisit this disc.

Lurve:
YYYs, White Stripes
Four Tet - Rounds
Café Tacvba - Quatro Caminos

Like and still listen to:
Prefuse 73 - One Word Extinguisher
TV On The Radio - Young Liars EP
Stars - Heart
Boris - Akuma No Uta
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
Otto - Sem Gravidade
Shack - Here's Tom With The Weather
Broadcast - Hahasound
Ed Harcourt - From Every Sphere
Colder - Again
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
The Darkness - Permission To Land
The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Traveller
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
Frog Eyes - The Golden River
A Frames - A Frames 2
The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic
Colour Haze - Los Sounds de Krauts

Lostandfound beat me to Trickboxes on the Pony Line

Jim Guthrie - Now, More Than Ever
Pinback - Offcell EP (has their best song - Grey Machine)
The Sea and Cake - Glass EP (for some of the excellent assorted tracks)
The Sea and Cake - One Bedroom (for some of the excellent assorted tracks)

I won't dismiss a cd if it has some boringish songs but also some perfect songs (hence The Sea and Cake and Pinback suggestions)

Heart was '03? Fuck, add that to my list!

And, yay, CaptainLorax, I feel suddenly less alone (re: Trickboxes). Good call on the Pinback, too.

I still have the Exploding Hearts CD, which is a fairly excellent (and, obviously, tragic) powerpop/punk record. For a long time I had some CD-R from Excepter, that I think may have included tracks from KA and then some, and it's probably still deep in a storage box or ebay pile somewhere; think there's an old 12-inch from them around here in a sell pile someplace too. Nothing else on the list, though. (Fwiw, I still have two different Rapture DJ-mix CDs I really like, though. Thought they were okay at the time on that Out Of The Races EP they put out in 2001 or so, but never really got into their own songs much after that. Good DJs, though, apparently.)

Somehow, I've heard even less music from 2003 than from other years, so I've only heard three albums on that list. Among those, I think Fever to Tell is fantastic, Room on Fire is very good, and You are Free not bad, but not really my thing.

Others albums from 2003 I like and which haven't been mentioned:

the Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love
the Go-Betweens - Bright Yellow Bright Orange
Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun
Al Green - I Can't Stop
Jay-Z - The Black Album
the Pernice Brothers - Yours, Mine & Ours
Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - Streetcore
Outrageous Cherry - Supernatural Equinox
Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears

There's also the case of the Outkast album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which is bloated and often dull at its 2CD length, but which has enough good to great material to make a fantastic one disc condensation.

LIGHTNINGBOLT-WONDERFULRAINBOW

Essentials from your list:

Deerhoof - Apple O
Boris - Feedbacker

Essential and not on your list:

Herman Dune - Mas Cambios (although they have even better albums to come in future years)

An album I loved at the time but haven't listened to since and therefore reserve the right to now declare it surplus to anyone's requirements, but included out of historical veracity:

Broken Family Band - Cold Water Songs

Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground
Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain

^^good albums by ppl with better

ppl whose best albums are two of my top 2 of the decade (though as you can plainly see, given my limited exposure, that doesn't really mean all THAT much...)

New Amerykah is #1 #1 #1 but Madvillainy is top 20 fo sho

Madvillainy is seriously one of my favorite albums, Nu Amerykah comes in at #2, but Mama's Gun is like #6 so I don't feel TOO bad...

yeah if you really like madvillainy then vaudville villain is totally worth some spins

GET: boris, lightning bolt (best album), deerhoof (best album along with the later Runner Four)

You. Are. Free.

*Great* bunch of albums, generally speaking.

TOP TEN OF DECADE MATERIAL:

Manitoba - Up In Flames

ALSO INCREDIBLE:

Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground
Animal Collective - Here Comes the Indian
Boris - Feedbacker
Broadcast - Ha Ha Sound
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts
The Rapture - Echoes

GOOD to EXTREMELY SOLID:

Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain
King Geedorah - Take Me to Your Leader
OOIOO - Kila Kila Kila
Excepter - KA
Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
Cat Power - You Are Free
Deerhoof - AppleO

I DON'T "GET" THESE ALBUMS, BUT YOU MIGHT:

Supersilent - 6
The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic

LAME/AVOID:

Campfire Songs (speaking as an AC stan... it's their most unfocused album, & not very good)
Fiery Furnaces - Gallowsbird's Bark
The Mars Volta - DeLoused in the Comatorium
The Strokes - Room On Fire

Oh, I missed the Rapture in this list. That album is awesome.

worldwide underground is my favourite badu album but i admit i dont really "get" badu

"i want you" might be my favorite badu joint but that is just crazy talk