THE BEST RECORDS OF 2004
This, being 2004, was one of the finest years for pop music I’ve
ever witnessed, is the truth of the matter. The amount of solid-
gold masterpieces popping up in the shelves of the CD emporiums
was baffling. A year that sees not only the return of Morrissey
and Prince, not only the hitherto unthinkable development that
sees Har-Mar Superstar become as brilliant as he always assumed he
was, but also the arrival of SMiLE by Brian Motherfucking Wilson.
Also, dig this; Commercial pop raised it’s game so high that if
you squint on a cloudless night you still can’t see it, so far has
it gone into the stratosphere. Natasha Bedingfield produced one of
the most sublime pieces of three-minute gorgeousity of all ever in
the truly outstanding These Words, and then Girls Aloud, a band
created by a TV fucking talent show, managed to be as filthily
infectious as Christina Aguilera.
Or, indeed, some virus of some kind.
What this all amounts to is that I have slept about two and a half
hours in the last fortnight, so daunting was the prospect of
assuming what might be “the best”.
I still can’t decide, so these here are in alphabetical order.
Enjoy them, friends. They rule like motherfuckers. Also, click the
titles for to grab them at Amazon.co.uk.
Ryan Adams – Love Is Hell
Love Is Hell was released as two mini-albums in 2003, a couple
weeks after the brilliant, bafflingly under-rated Rock N’ Roll. It
was given a proper release this year, though, and is therefore
eligible as a motherfucker.
What happened was the record company hated it. Where’s the tunes,
they asked? Right there, Ryan probably said, pointing at the
tunes. It was too little, too late, though. Depressing they said.
Miserable. Suicide music, is what you expect us to give to the
kids, with their Limping Biscuits and Slippity Nots.
As if the whole Yankee Hotel Foxtrot debacle hadn’t convinced the
world that record companies didn’t know their arseholes from
someone else’s elbow, this was just about all the proof we needed.
What Love Is Hell amounts to, is Adams’ Blood On The Tracks, a
melancholic, deeply pained series of dignified musings on lost
love, and how hellish it all is. I just felt like pointing that
out in case maybe you missed the title of the record.
In fact, it’s Adams’ second Gosh My Baby Done Me Bad album, and
it's possibly even better than the first one, his mainly-acoustic
debut, Heartbreaker.
I See Monsters is also the most beautiful fucking song I believe I
have ever heard. “Baby I know you cannot hear me now, cause you’re
fast asleep, but I love you now”, supposedly sung to a very close
female acquaintance in the last stages of terminal illness. It
makes me wanna beat him senseless with jealousy one minute, then
have some kind of homosexual encounter the next. It’s beyond shit
like “good” or “brilliant” or “masterful”. To paraphrase somebody
or other, if the damn thing could be described with text on a damn
screen, then the motherfucker wouldn’t have needed to go singing
it.
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Lyre Of Orpheus / Abattoir Blues
When I put this in the player, it knocked me half-way across the
damn room. What The Duke would suggest, is to start with Abattoir
Blues. The deranged evangelical zeal of Get Ready For Love smacks
the listener upside the face the second it starts, and proceeds to
jump up and down on said individual, smacking the head with the
force of twenty-seven tonnes of granite. Although, granted, twenty-
seven tonnes of anything would do the same trick.
Granite just seems that bit more appropriate.
These two-albums-as-one have not one solitary below-par track
between them, lurching from ecstatic delirium to swampy, croaking,
sinister threats with nary a thought for one’s emotions.
Two masterpieces, man. That’s more than, say, John Lennon managed
this year. For shame, John Lennon.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Dizzee Rascal – Showtime
Let The Duke be the first to admit this shit right here; If you
were to tell me, say five years ago, that five years in the future-
time, not only would there be no terminators yet, but also, the
three best hip-hop records of the year would be UK in origin, I
would’ve laughed in your face, phoned the police, and hid under a
shed until you were locked up with both feet tied behind your head.
No motherfucker could’ve seen this coming. Not even Nostradamus,
although, granted, he figured the world would’ve ended by now, if
those web-sites are to be trusted.
Maybe he just concocted that shit on account of it was more
believable than the three best hip-hop records of the year being
British.
“Go screw yourself Nostradamus. Fire and death and Nazi’s we can
accept, but British hip-hop that’s worth a damn? What kind of
prophet are you, anyhow? Some demented fucking variant, that’s
what I’m starting to assume. Why can’t you be more like Joseph?”
And so on and so forth.
Truth be told, like a few of the records on this list, Showtime
didn’t strike me upside the teeth like I had expected on first
listening. It was fantastic, of that much we could be sure, but it
didn’t seem just as fantastic as the stunning predecessor, Boy In
Da Corner. The more it span round in the old CD player, though,
the more alive the thing became, and what had initially seemed a
somewhat dour affair ascended hitherto undetected heights.
And that voice, man. That piercing yelp penetrating even the
densest of Rascal’s self-produced soundscapes. It's enough to make
a man boil with rage. I mean come the hell on, the fella’s only 20
years old!
Drive By Truckers – The Dirty South
I’ve loved these maniacs since back when they sang about The night
GG Allin Came To Town, but with this here they truly out-did
themselves. A series of vignettes dealing with numerous aspects of
life in Tha South, this was the alt. country equivalent of 2003’s
stunning Deliverance by Bubba Sparxxx.
If there’s a more beautiful song about tornadoes than Tornadoes,
then I’ve yet to hear the allusive motherfucker.
Green Day – American Idiot
For some reason everybody got all surprised when Green Day shoved
yet another masterpiece into their ungrateful fists. The Duke
experienced not shock, however, but relief. I knew these
motherfuckers were capable of this kinda wonder. Anybody who’s
trailed them from Smoothed Out knows full well that the derision
utilised by the press when discussing them was always woefully off-
the-mark.
9 minutes of Jesus Of Suburbia later, however, and the world wakes
up. Now go get your filthy hides in the direction of Insomniac,
would you ever?
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Har Mar Superstar – The Handler
Who’d a thought a fella who bears such resemblance to both Frodo
Baggins and Ron Jeremy would be producing the funkiest record of
the year? A record that out-Princes even Prince. What the hell has
the world come to? Har Mar Superstar looks like he should be
flinging jewellery into volcanoes, not producing solid gold
wonders like this right here. Who the hell does he think he is?
The God of all funk, is who he thinks he is, and the worrying
thing is that, pretty much, he’s right. Bow down to him and fling
your underwear at his balding skull, is what The Duke suggests.
Step out my damn way, James Brown, is what Har Mar has to say
about the funk hierarchy. Y’all better be getting me a
motherfucking throne, is what. Get up off that thing is right. Get
off it and fuck off. It’s the Har-Mar buttocks that’ll be gracing
that plateau from now the hell on.
The tunes on this thing are enough to level those council estates
Skinnyman’s so damn obsessed with. D.U.I, Transit, Alone Again
(Naturally), the damn thing never pauses for to even think about
maybe taking a breath one day. It sounds alive, dripping with the
oils of sun-kissed drunkards.
Enough to make a man tear his hair out and gain four stone, is
what, in the hope that maybe an ounce of that genius is cosmetic.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Kasabian – Kasabian
So what happened was The Beta Band broke everybody’s blood-pump
into messy, gore-strewn tatters when they announced that sorry,
folks, we’re a bunch a hippies and we can’t be bothered making no
more records. In addition, Oasis seem to have been recording the
same damn album for the past two years, going through producers
like nobody’s business.
Imagine the hurrahs emanating from Mondo Towers, then, when these
bunch a motherfuckers by the name of Kasabian release a record
that sounds like nothing less than Oasis jamming with The Beta
Band, with maybe a few of those Stone Roses wandering in and out
the studio for to lay down some phat shit now and again.
Psychedelic without resorting to prog-rock wank, Kasabian also
managed to invoke the spirit of the much-missed Verve, except
without the more obscenely “trippy” dalliances. Shit like
Processed Beats and Club Foot sounded phenomenal, and merged dance
music with rock as seamlessly as those Happy Mondays cats back in
the day.
Libertines – Libertines
As if The Duke hasn’t waxed enough about how these fellas are just
about the finest thing since sliced bread plugged in a Strat way
back when, here they are again, producing a fragile, raw, achingly
tender masterpiece. Some folks wanna yack about “It isn’t as good
as the first one… it doesn’t have any tunes… fucking blah blah
blah”. It’s a bit like comparing In Utero to Nevermind, is what,
and just like Nirvana’s last “proper” release, The Libertines is a
seriously misunderstood piece of work.
Also, it’s a masterpiece. That right there’s another link we can
draw, another parallel. Something else for to join up with chalk.
“It’s all about drugs and about how the one who sings sometimes
hates the bollocks off of the one who sings the other times and so
on and so forth.”
Such bantering is to ignore the fact that most of these songs
actually pre-date the debut, and whilst a buncha them (notably
Music When The Lights Go Out) are granted a certain poignancy in
light of recent events, to assume that this speaks to no-one
outside of The Libertines immediate circle of bohemian
acquaintances, is to go so far past the point that probably you’re
staring at its arse.
Mick Jones has captured a band on the brink of (hopefully short-
term) implosion, has committed to wax (or shiny stuff, in this age
of your Compact CD’s and what the hell) recordings of such
vitality, such urgency, and such motherfucking beauty, that it
almost feels wrong to be listening to it with anything so mundane
as ears.
Of course, it was wrong, if by chance you were one of those peg-
legged sons a bitches who grabbed it off of the web-net a
fortnight before release.
Shame on you, is what. Tuts in abundance, man.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
I didn’t know what to expect when Loretta Lynn announced she was
teaming up with Jack White of The Von Bondies or some “hip” band
or other. I would’ve put down a load of the green, though, for to
bet that it was gonna be a stark American Recordings-style affair.
Instead, what arrives is an unearthly, ethereal creation, a record
that sounds like pretty much nothing else this year, certainly
nothing else in Lynn’s back catalogue, and filled with the finest
songs she’s written since back when some motherfucker tried to put
her wings upon his horn.
Stand out moments include the opening title track, the stunning
debut with White, Portland Oregon and the densely atmospheric
Women’s Prison.
Jesse Malin – The Heat
Malin’s debut, The Fine Art Of Self-Destruction, was a ragged,
torn affair, with the ex-D-Generation frontman’s wailing Neil
Young-esque vocals high in the mix. Taking over from Ryan Adams,
who produced the first record, the self-produced follow-up was a
much more cinematic affair.
On first listen, it appeared somewhat of a disappointment. Couple
spins later, however, I was in love with this to such an extent
that even the hole in the CD started to look attractive.
I’m not proud of this shit, man. I just hope others can learn, is
what.
So what we get here are amazing, soaring ballads and hard-luck
narratives swamped in reverb-laden, otherworldly arrangements and
balls-out, pounding rock n’ roll.
Also, Mona Lisa name-checks Shane MacGowan, so obviously it rules.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Morrissey – You Are The Quarry
Comeback Of The Year #1
To be all the honest in Kansas, I didn’t for a second imagine that
Stephen Patrick would release a record this year. All that fucking
around with record companies and hiding in LA and doing not much
of a damn thing seemed to suggest that, flawed as Maladjusted may
have been, we may as well start assuming it’d be the last we’d
hear of Morrissey for a long, long time.
Imagine the motherfucking shock, then, when not only does this
record arrive, but it ends up being one of the finest things the
man has ever crafted. Not only this, but it sparks a full-blown
renaissance, with even the NME (who famously fell out with our
bequiffed hero back when he was busy flailing Union Jacks about
without having the decency to wait until Oasis were doing it)
getting down for to lick his boots and so on in a celibate,
platonic manner.
The tunes contained in this thing are enough to have a fella
buzzing like a telly too close to a mobile. Certainly the lyrics
are occasionally clumsy, but even the senseless nostalgia of, say,
Come Back To Camden is granted a sweeping majesty by the jaw-
dropping arrangements, the life-affirming melodies.
Too many gorgeous moments to even begin singling any out, so best
just to announce something along the lines of how I Have Forgiven
Jesus and Let Me Kiss You are two of the finest songs of the past
five years.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Prince – Musicology
Comeback Of The Year #2
There was a lot of buzz and general hoopla surrounding the release
of this record, all about how Prince had “returned to form”, i.e.,
managed to string a coherent melody together in under three
minutes for the most part. It’s the most commercial thing he’s
done in a decade, but sod that if the tunes had sucked. Thank God,
though, they’re catchy as that hospital virus everyone’s washing
their hands fleshless over, although much nicer to have around.
No doubt he just felt like showing those young pretenders like
Outkast and that Timberlake goon how a man needs to go about
shaking his ass with authority.
Selfish Cunt – No Wicked Heart Shall Prosper
With a name like that, it was pretty obvious that Ryan Adams-esque
laments were never on the cards. Who’d have guessed their version
of Bobby Brown’s My Prerogative would be so thrilling, though?
Fuck you Britney Spears, is what Selfish Cunt would like to
announce.
The original material surrounding this most left-field of covers
was equally stunning. By terms terrifying and exhilarating,
Selfish Cunt channel the spirits of The Fall and P.I.L with
nothing more than detuned guitar, a frantic drum machine and
Martin Tomlinson’s sneering, antagonistic vocals.
The opening Corporate Slut sounds like a motherfucking riot, and
if you thought shit like Fuck The Poor, Britain Is Shit and
Authority Confrontation were gonna lessen the pace any, you better
get the old brains looked at, since they’re obviously screwed to
the guts.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
William Shatner – Has Been
I still can’t believe this shit, is what. Look. It’s a Best Of
2004 list, and there’s William Motherfucking Shatner sitting
alongside the likes of Loretta Lynn and Selfish Cunt.
Incidentally, that’d be just about the best dinner-party a man
could ever hope to gate-crash.
This shit here is so far-fetched that if it was the plot of one of
the sonna bitches telly shows about space you’d fling a remote at
the screen. Distant civilisations I can buy, Shatner, but you
doing a credible Common People? Get the fuck off my television.
Funny, humane, witty, cool as all frozen Nebraska, and genuinely
unique, in an era when folks wanna complain about “I want
something different”, and then when they get it, they ignore it,
on account of I think Simon Cowell’s produced another record about
“baby”.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Skinnyman – Council Estate Of Mind
Well this was a pleasant surprise, is what. Although Skinnyman had
been doin’ the hip-hop thang for next to forever, this was as much
as The Duke had heard of him;
“……………………………….”
This right here, though, his debut record proper, was nothing
short of stunning. Inter-cutting the tracks with lengthy speeches
from Alan Clarke’s Made In Britain, Council Estate Of Mind seems
less of an album than an impassioned address to Britain’s working
class youth.
Lofty and pretentious that might seem, but it works, and works in
a way folks hadn’t heard since back when Billy Bragg first plugged
the hell in for to sing about “When one voice rules the nation…”
and so on.
He talks about other things, too, like the music business, for
example. The bile evident in Fuck The Hook is enough to have a
man's home smelling of pure orange juice for weeks.
Todd Snider – East Nashville Skyline
The Duke has been singing the praises of this fella over on The
Mondo MP3 Digest for some time now, and with good reason, is what.
East Nashivlle Skyline sounds like Another Side Of… era Bob Dylan,
a playful set of mostly acoustic based songs, dealing with both
the political and the personal.
Every damn track is a winner, from the opening Age Like Wine
(concerning a rock star whos “Too old to die young, now”) through
Alcohol And Pills (detailing the addictions of Hank Williams Snr.
And Elvis Presley, amongst others), the brilliant Conservative
Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight White American Males
(about how the folks of the title detest “tree-huggin, peace-
loving, pot-smoking, porn-watching lazy ass hippies like me”) to
the closing rendition of Enjoy Yourself, East Nashville Skyline
has a fella smiling like a goon one minute, then angry as all fuck
the next.
A startling piece of work.
The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
Just edging out Skinnyman and Dizzee, Mike Skinner offered us mere
wretches the finest hip-hop record of 2004. A concept album, would
you believe, full of the kindsa minute observations worthy of the
finest of stand-up comedians.
Chorus of the year;
“I saw this thing on ITV the other week,
Said that if she plays with her hair she’s prob’ly keen,
She’s playing with her hair well regularly,
So I reckon I could well be in.”
Not for Skinner the bling nor the bravado nor the rat-a-tat-tat.
Whilst So Solid Crew were squandering their potential by indulging
in the kinda uber-macho gang squabbling that so blighted US hip-
hop eventually, The Streets were producing records that folks
could actually relate to.
When you live in a council estate in The County Antrim, you don’t
see many drive-by’s. There ain’t many “turf-wars” going on in the
back field.
“Dry your eyes, mate. I know you want to make her see how much
this pain hurts, but you’ve got to walk away now, it’s over…” That
was shit a man could nod knowingly to, and then cry over for much
of the friggin weekend.
Brian Wilson – SMiLE
I don’t even know what to say about this, man. It’s a soul-
scarring experience. The sound of a fella going so far over the
edge that it takes him thirty years to crawl back and assess the
results.
A hymn to some mythical American landscape, a “teenage symphony to
God”, a heart-breaking masterpiece.
It’s not that often you wanna hug a record. If it gets you in the
right mood, this thing will reach into your motherfucking being
and touch your spirit.
Also, goes someway towards redressing the shameful lack of bovine
in pop music.
Well, that’s your lot folks. Between now and sometime later,
tracks from these records will be peppering The Mondo MP3 Digest,
so go have a look, have a listen, and then buy the motherfuckers.
Also, SEND YOUR OWN BEST OF 2004 LISTS TO THE DUKE and we'll get a
round-up thing perhaps.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
ever witnessed, is the truth of the matter. The amount of solid-
gold masterpieces popping up in the shelves of the CD emporiums
was baffling. A year that sees not only the return of Morrissey
and Prince, not only the hitherto unthinkable development that
sees Har-Mar Superstar become as brilliant as he always assumed he
was, but also the arrival of SMiLE by Brian Motherfucking Wilson.
Also, dig this; Commercial pop raised it’s game so high that if
you squint on a cloudless night you still can’t see it, so far has
it gone into the stratosphere. Natasha Bedingfield produced one of
the most sublime pieces of three-minute gorgeousity of all ever in
the truly outstanding These Words, and then Girls Aloud, a band
created by a TV fucking talent show, managed to be as filthily
infectious as Christina Aguilera.
Or, indeed, some virus of some kind.
What this all amounts to is that I have slept about two and a half
hours in the last fortnight, so daunting was the prospect of
assuming what might be “the best”.
I still can’t decide, so these here are in alphabetical order.
Enjoy them, friends. They rule like motherfuckers. Also, click the
titles for to grab them at Amazon.co.uk.
Ryan Adams – Love Is Hell
Love Is Hell was released as two mini-albums in 2003, a couple
weeks after the brilliant, bafflingly under-rated Rock N’ Roll. It
was given a proper release this year, though, and is therefore
eligible as a motherfucker.
What happened was the record company hated it. Where’s the tunes,
they asked? Right there, Ryan probably said, pointing at the
tunes. It was too little, too late, though. Depressing they said.
Miserable. Suicide music, is what you expect us to give to the
kids, with their Limping Biscuits and Slippity Nots.
As if the whole Yankee Hotel Foxtrot debacle hadn’t convinced the
world that record companies didn’t know their arseholes from
someone else’s elbow, this was just about all the proof we needed.
What Love Is Hell amounts to, is Adams’ Blood On The Tracks, a
melancholic, deeply pained series of dignified musings on lost
love, and how hellish it all is. I just felt like pointing that
out in case maybe you missed the title of the record.
In fact, it’s Adams’ second Gosh My Baby Done Me Bad album, and
it's possibly even better than the first one, his mainly-acoustic
debut, Heartbreaker.
I See Monsters is also the most beautiful fucking song I believe I
have ever heard. “Baby I know you cannot hear me now, cause you’re
fast asleep, but I love you now”, supposedly sung to a very close
female acquaintance in the last stages of terminal illness. It
makes me wanna beat him senseless with jealousy one minute, then
have some kind of homosexual encounter the next. It’s beyond shit
like “good” or “brilliant” or “masterful”. To paraphrase somebody
or other, if the damn thing could be described with text on a damn
screen, then the motherfucker wouldn’t have needed to go singing
it.
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Lyre Of Orpheus / Abattoir Blues
When I put this in the player, it knocked me half-way across the
damn room. What The Duke would suggest, is to start with Abattoir
Blues. The deranged evangelical zeal of Get Ready For Love smacks
the listener upside the face the second it starts, and proceeds to
jump up and down on said individual, smacking the head with the
force of twenty-seven tonnes of granite. Although, granted, twenty-
seven tonnes of anything would do the same trick.
Granite just seems that bit more appropriate.
These two-albums-as-one have not one solitary below-par track
between them, lurching from ecstatic delirium to swampy, croaking,
sinister threats with nary a thought for one’s emotions.
Two masterpieces, man. That’s more than, say, John Lennon managed
this year. For shame, John Lennon.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Dizzee Rascal – Showtime
Let The Duke be the first to admit this shit right here; If you
were to tell me, say five years ago, that five years in the future-
time, not only would there be no terminators yet, but also, the
three best hip-hop records of the year would be UK in origin, I
would’ve laughed in your face, phoned the police, and hid under a
shed until you were locked up with both feet tied behind your head.
No motherfucker could’ve seen this coming. Not even Nostradamus,
although, granted, he figured the world would’ve ended by now, if
those web-sites are to be trusted.
Maybe he just concocted that shit on account of it was more
believable than the three best hip-hop records of the year being
British.
“Go screw yourself Nostradamus. Fire and death and Nazi’s we can
accept, but British hip-hop that’s worth a damn? What kind of
prophet are you, anyhow? Some demented fucking variant, that’s
what I’m starting to assume. Why can’t you be more like Joseph?”
And so on and so forth.
Truth be told, like a few of the records on this list, Showtime
didn’t strike me upside the teeth like I had expected on first
listening. It was fantastic, of that much we could be sure, but it
didn’t seem just as fantastic as the stunning predecessor, Boy In
Da Corner. The more it span round in the old CD player, though,
the more alive the thing became, and what had initially seemed a
somewhat dour affair ascended hitherto undetected heights.
And that voice, man. That piercing yelp penetrating even the
densest of Rascal’s self-produced soundscapes. It's enough to make
a man boil with rage. I mean come the hell on, the fella’s only 20
years old!
Drive By Truckers – The Dirty South
I’ve loved these maniacs since back when they sang about The night
GG Allin Came To Town, but with this here they truly out-did
themselves. A series of vignettes dealing with numerous aspects of
life in Tha South, this was the alt. country equivalent of 2003’s
stunning Deliverance by Bubba Sparxxx.
If there’s a more beautiful song about tornadoes than Tornadoes,
then I’ve yet to hear the allusive motherfucker.
Green Day – American Idiot
For some reason everybody got all surprised when Green Day shoved
yet another masterpiece into their ungrateful fists. The Duke
experienced not shock, however, but relief. I knew these
motherfuckers were capable of this kinda wonder. Anybody who’s
trailed them from Smoothed Out knows full well that the derision
utilised by the press when discussing them was always woefully off-
the-mark.
9 minutes of Jesus Of Suburbia later, however, and the world wakes
up. Now go get your filthy hides in the direction of Insomniac,
would you ever?
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Har Mar Superstar – The Handler
Who’d a thought a fella who bears such resemblance to both Frodo
Baggins and Ron Jeremy would be producing the funkiest record of
the year? A record that out-Princes even Prince. What the hell has
the world come to? Har Mar Superstar looks like he should be
flinging jewellery into volcanoes, not producing solid gold
wonders like this right here. Who the hell does he think he is?
The God of all funk, is who he thinks he is, and the worrying
thing is that, pretty much, he’s right. Bow down to him and fling
your underwear at his balding skull, is what The Duke suggests.
Step out my damn way, James Brown, is what Har Mar has to say
about the funk hierarchy. Y’all better be getting me a
motherfucking throne, is what. Get up off that thing is right. Get
off it and fuck off. It’s the Har-Mar buttocks that’ll be gracing
that plateau from now the hell on.
The tunes on this thing are enough to level those council estates
Skinnyman’s so damn obsessed with. D.U.I, Transit, Alone Again
(Naturally), the damn thing never pauses for to even think about
maybe taking a breath one day. It sounds alive, dripping with the
oils of sun-kissed drunkards.
Enough to make a man tear his hair out and gain four stone, is
what, in the hope that maybe an ounce of that genius is cosmetic.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Kasabian – Kasabian
So what happened was The Beta Band broke everybody’s blood-pump
into messy, gore-strewn tatters when they announced that sorry,
folks, we’re a bunch a hippies and we can’t be bothered making no
more records. In addition, Oasis seem to have been recording the
same damn album for the past two years, going through producers
like nobody’s business.
Imagine the hurrahs emanating from Mondo Towers, then, when these
bunch a motherfuckers by the name of Kasabian release a record
that sounds like nothing less than Oasis jamming with The Beta
Band, with maybe a few of those Stone Roses wandering in and out
the studio for to lay down some phat shit now and again.
Psychedelic without resorting to prog-rock wank, Kasabian also
managed to invoke the spirit of the much-missed Verve, except
without the more obscenely “trippy” dalliances. Shit like
Processed Beats and Club Foot sounded phenomenal, and merged dance
music with rock as seamlessly as those Happy Mondays cats back in
the day.
Libertines – Libertines
As if The Duke hasn’t waxed enough about how these fellas are just
about the finest thing since sliced bread plugged in a Strat way
back when, here they are again, producing a fragile, raw, achingly
tender masterpiece. Some folks wanna yack about “It isn’t as good
as the first one… it doesn’t have any tunes… fucking blah blah
blah”. It’s a bit like comparing In Utero to Nevermind, is what,
and just like Nirvana’s last “proper” release, The Libertines is a
seriously misunderstood piece of work.
Also, it’s a masterpiece. That right there’s another link we can
draw, another parallel. Something else for to join up with chalk.
“It’s all about drugs and about how the one who sings sometimes
hates the bollocks off of the one who sings the other times and so
on and so forth.”
Such bantering is to ignore the fact that most of these songs
actually pre-date the debut, and whilst a buncha them (notably
Music When The Lights Go Out) are granted a certain poignancy in
light of recent events, to assume that this speaks to no-one
outside of The Libertines immediate circle of bohemian
acquaintances, is to go so far past the point that probably you’re
staring at its arse.
Mick Jones has captured a band on the brink of (hopefully short-
term) implosion, has committed to wax (or shiny stuff, in this age
of your Compact CD’s and what the hell) recordings of such
vitality, such urgency, and such motherfucking beauty, that it
almost feels wrong to be listening to it with anything so mundane
as ears.
Of course, it was wrong, if by chance you were one of those peg-
legged sons a bitches who grabbed it off of the web-net a
fortnight before release.
Shame on you, is what. Tuts in abundance, man.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
I didn’t know what to expect when Loretta Lynn announced she was
teaming up with Jack White of The Von Bondies or some “hip” band
or other. I would’ve put down a load of the green, though, for to
bet that it was gonna be a stark American Recordings-style affair.
Instead, what arrives is an unearthly, ethereal creation, a record
that sounds like pretty much nothing else this year, certainly
nothing else in Lynn’s back catalogue, and filled with the finest
songs she’s written since back when some motherfucker tried to put
her wings upon his horn.
Stand out moments include the opening title track, the stunning
debut with White, Portland Oregon and the densely atmospheric
Women’s Prison.
Jesse Malin – The Heat
Malin’s debut, The Fine Art Of Self-Destruction, was a ragged,
torn affair, with the ex-D-Generation frontman’s wailing Neil
Young-esque vocals high in the mix. Taking over from Ryan Adams,
who produced the first record, the self-produced follow-up was a
much more cinematic affair.
On first listen, it appeared somewhat of a disappointment. Couple
spins later, however, I was in love with this to such an extent
that even the hole in the CD started to look attractive.
I’m not proud of this shit, man. I just hope others can learn, is
what.
So what we get here are amazing, soaring ballads and hard-luck
narratives swamped in reverb-laden, otherworldly arrangements and
balls-out, pounding rock n’ roll.
Also, Mona Lisa name-checks Shane MacGowan, so obviously it rules.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Morrissey – You Are The Quarry
Comeback Of The Year #1
To be all the honest in Kansas, I didn’t for a second imagine that
Stephen Patrick would release a record this year. All that fucking
around with record companies and hiding in LA and doing not much
of a damn thing seemed to suggest that, flawed as Maladjusted may
have been, we may as well start assuming it’d be the last we’d
hear of Morrissey for a long, long time.
Imagine the motherfucking shock, then, when not only does this
record arrive, but it ends up being one of the finest things the
man has ever crafted. Not only this, but it sparks a full-blown
renaissance, with even the NME (who famously fell out with our
bequiffed hero back when he was busy flailing Union Jacks about
without having the decency to wait until Oasis were doing it)
getting down for to lick his boots and so on in a celibate,
platonic manner.
The tunes contained in this thing are enough to have a fella
buzzing like a telly too close to a mobile. Certainly the lyrics
are occasionally clumsy, but even the senseless nostalgia of, say,
Come Back To Camden is granted a sweeping majesty by the jaw-
dropping arrangements, the life-affirming melodies.
Too many gorgeous moments to even begin singling any out, so best
just to announce something along the lines of how I Have Forgiven
Jesus and Let Me Kiss You are two of the finest songs of the past
five years.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Prince – Musicology
Comeback Of The Year #2
There was a lot of buzz and general hoopla surrounding the release
of this record, all about how Prince had “returned to form”, i.e.,
managed to string a coherent melody together in under three
minutes for the most part. It’s the most commercial thing he’s
done in a decade, but sod that if the tunes had sucked. Thank God,
though, they’re catchy as that hospital virus everyone’s washing
their hands fleshless over, although much nicer to have around.
No doubt he just felt like showing those young pretenders like
Outkast and that Timberlake goon how a man needs to go about
shaking his ass with authority.
Selfish Cunt – No Wicked Heart Shall Prosper
With a name like that, it was pretty obvious that Ryan Adams-esque
laments were never on the cards. Who’d have guessed their version
of Bobby Brown’s My Prerogative would be so thrilling, though?
Fuck you Britney Spears, is what Selfish Cunt would like to
announce.
The original material surrounding this most left-field of covers
was equally stunning. By terms terrifying and exhilarating,
Selfish Cunt channel the spirits of The Fall and P.I.L with
nothing more than detuned guitar, a frantic drum machine and
Martin Tomlinson’s sneering, antagonistic vocals.
The opening Corporate Slut sounds like a motherfucking riot, and
if you thought shit like Fuck The Poor, Britain Is Shit and
Authority Confrontation were gonna lessen the pace any, you better
get the old brains looked at, since they’re obviously screwed to
the guts.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
William Shatner – Has Been
I still can’t believe this shit, is what. Look. It’s a Best Of
2004 list, and there’s William Motherfucking Shatner sitting
alongside the likes of Loretta Lynn and Selfish Cunt.
Incidentally, that’d be just about the best dinner-party a man
could ever hope to gate-crash.
This shit here is so far-fetched that if it was the plot of one of
the sonna bitches telly shows about space you’d fling a remote at
the screen. Distant civilisations I can buy, Shatner, but you
doing a credible Common People? Get the fuck off my television.
Funny, humane, witty, cool as all frozen Nebraska, and genuinely
unique, in an era when folks wanna complain about “I want
something different”, and then when they get it, they ignore it,
on account of I think Simon Cowell’s produced another record about
“baby”.
Check Out The Full Review From Back In The Day
Skinnyman – Council Estate Of Mind
Well this was a pleasant surprise, is what. Although Skinnyman had
been doin’ the hip-hop thang for next to forever, this was as much
as The Duke had heard of him;
“……………………………….”
This right here, though, his debut record proper, was nothing
short of stunning. Inter-cutting the tracks with lengthy speeches
from Alan Clarke’s Made In Britain, Council Estate Of Mind seems
less of an album than an impassioned address to Britain’s working
class youth.
Lofty and pretentious that might seem, but it works, and works in
a way folks hadn’t heard since back when Billy Bragg first plugged
the hell in for to sing about “When one voice rules the nation…”
and so on.
He talks about other things, too, like the music business, for
example. The bile evident in Fuck The Hook is enough to have a
man's home smelling of pure orange juice for weeks.
Todd Snider – East Nashville Skyline
The Duke has been singing the praises of this fella over on The
Mondo MP3 Digest for some time now, and with good reason, is what.
East Nashivlle Skyline sounds like Another Side Of… era Bob Dylan,
a playful set of mostly acoustic based songs, dealing with both
the political and the personal.
Every damn track is a winner, from the opening Age Like Wine
(concerning a rock star whos “Too old to die young, now”) through
Alcohol And Pills (detailing the addictions of Hank Williams Snr.
And Elvis Presley, amongst others), the brilliant Conservative
Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight White American Males
(about how the folks of the title detest “tree-huggin, peace-
loving, pot-smoking, porn-watching lazy ass hippies like me”) to
the closing rendition of Enjoy Yourself, East Nashville Skyline
has a fella smiling like a goon one minute, then angry as all fuck
the next.
A startling piece of work.
The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
Just edging out Skinnyman and Dizzee, Mike Skinner offered us mere
wretches the finest hip-hop record of 2004. A concept album, would
you believe, full of the kindsa minute observations worthy of the
finest of stand-up comedians.
Chorus of the year;
“I saw this thing on ITV the other week,
Said that if she plays with her hair she’s prob’ly keen,
She’s playing with her hair well regularly,
So I reckon I could well be in.”
Not for Skinner the bling nor the bravado nor the rat-a-tat-tat.
Whilst So Solid Crew were squandering their potential by indulging
in the kinda uber-macho gang squabbling that so blighted US hip-
hop eventually, The Streets were producing records that folks
could actually relate to.
When you live in a council estate in The County Antrim, you don’t
see many drive-by’s. There ain’t many “turf-wars” going on in the
back field.
“Dry your eyes, mate. I know you want to make her see how much
this pain hurts, but you’ve got to walk away now, it’s over…” That
was shit a man could nod knowingly to, and then cry over for much
of the friggin weekend.
Brian Wilson – SMiLE
I don’t even know what to say about this, man. It’s a soul-
scarring experience. The sound of a fella going so far over the
edge that it takes him thirty years to crawl back and assess the
results.
A hymn to some mythical American landscape, a “teenage symphony to
God”, a heart-breaking masterpiece.
It’s not that often you wanna hug a record. If it gets you in the
right mood, this thing will reach into your motherfucking being
and touch your spirit.
Also, goes someway towards redressing the shameful lack of bovine
in pop music.
Well, that’s your lot folks. Between now and sometime later,
tracks from these records will be peppering The Mondo MP3 Digest,
so go have a look, have a listen, and then buy the motherfuckers.
Also, SEND YOUR OWN BEST OF 2004 LISTS TO THE DUKE and we'll get a
round-up thing perhaps.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
