Posted on: Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Best CDs of 2004

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Oh, for the love of good music in 2004.

Long-anticipated CDs from usually reliable pros like Eminem, U2 and the Beastie Boys were disappointing. Other CDs were overpraised just for finally seeing the light of day; Brian Wilson's long-unfinished epic "Smile" bypassed vinyl, eight-tracks and cassette tapes on its quarter-century journey to record stores.

Still other CDs were good, though hardly worthy of the effusive critical praise awarded them (Kanye West, Usher).

As always, it was also a year loaded with enough musical mediocrity to make one swear off mainstream radio for good. (Please come to Hawai'i, satellite radio!)

Then along came these sung and unsung musical gems — my choices for the 10 best CDs of 2004.

1. "Franz Ferdinand" by Franz Ferdinand (Domino)

1. "Franz Ferdinand" by Franz Ferdinand (Domino)

Sometimes, the bands that make you wanna get up and get on the scene just like a sex machine warm the cockles of your music-lovin' heart most. You can't take music from bands like these all that seriously. You probably couldn't even stand hanging backstage with such self-possessed doofuses. But just try to resist hitting the air guitar whenever you cue up one of their unadulterated, frenzied (and is that disco-infused?) rockers on your iPod. Glasgow foursome Franz Ferdinand is now the new leader of that pack. Its self-titled debut was the best CD of the year mostly because its 40 minutes offer up nothing less than the sugar high, four-on-the-floor cure for the mostly foppish junk that passed for mod-garage rock this year. The irresistible "Take Me Out," with its turn-of-the-screws brooding intro and subsequent blast-off into syncopated guitar-rock heaven, was the unheralded song of the year. The rest of the tracks — "Jaqueline," "Tell Her Tonight," "The Dark Of The Matinée" and "Michael," in particular — were just as chock full of hooky, masochistic lyrical goodness. The album's charms proved so groovily infectious, even U2 was accused of cribbing from it. Scotland is now officially forgiven for the Bay City Rollers!

2. "Get Away From Me" by Nellie McKay (Columbia)

2. "Get Away From Me" by Nellie McKay (Columbia)

Here are a few of the things on Nellie McKay's mind: doggies, kitties, the kind of people who might eat them, love, hate, men, suburbanites, cloning, junkies, soy bologna. Now spin "Get Away With Me" — not all that many people did this year, so you're already ahead of the pack — and listen as this wickedly inventive 22-year-old Harlem-raised Brit gets away with the equivalent of musical grand larceny. McKay's voice is nestled somewhere between the likes of Doris Day and Peggy Lee; her way with a piano-based tune rooted in cabaret, jazz and Sondheim-esque showtunes. So why does McKay match up her tart, subversive wit and jazzy piano-tinkling with funk, disco, rap, torch songs, ragtime and baroque? Why is "Sari" and its rapid-fire flow of inspired hip-hop beats and lyrics not on Eminem's boring new CD? Why does it all work so brilliantly? Why did no one buy this album? Beats me. But if you admire relentless ambition as much as you do a Julie London/Eminem/Elvis Costello mash-up CD, Nellie's your girl.

3. "Van Lear Rose" by Loretta Lynn (Interscope)

3. "Van Lear Rose" by Loretta Lynn (Interscope)

Did it take White Stripes mastermind Jack White to free the snarly, toughened, sultry heart of Loretta Lynn's songwriting voice? Not really. Did it take Loretta Lynn to finally release the hidden country-blues stomp of Jack White's Motor City garage rock? Nah. But on "Van Lear Rose" these two geniuses of their respective genres nudged out enough surprises from each other for a just-this-side-of-perfect collection of scorchers and ballads. White produces, plays guitar and keyboards, sings back-up and — on the brilliant "Portland, Oregon" — outright matches vocal chops with Lynn. The coal miner's daughter, for her part, brings a lived-in — though always gracefully lady-like — raggedness to songs about mama and papa, rolls in the hay, home-wreckin' women, sloe gin fizz, childhood and pink limousines. A brave, rebellious career-topping work for Lynn, and confirmation of White's raging brilliance.

4. "American Idiot" by Green Day (Reprise)

4. "American Idiot" by Green Day (Reprise)

Long live rock opera! Green Day grab a page from The Who's songbook with this sprawling — at times, blissfully messy — punk rock-against-Bush manifesto. Listen as Billie Joe Armstrong (the same guy who once wrote something called "Geek Stink Breath") offers our generation a "welcome to a new kind of tension/all across the alien nation" on the title track. Cheer as our favorite trio of former snot-nosed three-chord punks from Berkeley spin out harmonies, piano, elaborate song structures, punk guitar riffs, scathing lyricism and glockenspiel on the nine-minute, five-part suite "Jesus of Suburbia." Does the story of St. Jimmy, Jesus of Suburbia and Whatshername always make perfect sense? Heck, no. But by exposing Green Day's heretofore mostly unheard musical chutzpah, "American Idiot" is nowhere near the giant pile of dookie it could've been.

5. "From A Basement On The Hill" by Elliott Smith (Anti)

5. "From A Basement On The Hill" by Elliott Smith (Anti)

The despondent, reportedly drug addled final years of Elliott Smith's life puzzled fans of his misery-fueled music as much as it fascinated them. So the most surprising thing about this CD — assembled by Smith's family and friends posthumously from sporadic recordings made between 2000 and his 2003 death — is how elegantly radiant, coherent and, at times, even sweet and witty, his mournful compositions are. With Smith's soft, emotion-rich voice and acoustic guitar as anchors, songs like "Twilight," "Pretty (Ugly Before)" and "A Fond Farewell" could hardly be called upbeat. But alongside other songs on this CD, they serve as sad reminders of how much Smith's bittersweet chronicles of his fragile soul will be missed.

6. "A Ghost Is Born" by Wilco (Nonesuch)

6. "A Ghost Is Born" by Wilco (Nonesuch)

OK, so it took two or three additional spins of this "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" follow-up to really appreciate Wilco mastermind Jeff Tweedy's new agenda. And, yes, his new agenda is basically a more spare, organic version of his old agenda: Pained psyche + plaintive vocals + compelling guitar work + imaginative experimentation = knockout brilliance. But even Wilco on cruise control is still better than most bands hitting overdrive.

7. "A Grand Don't Come For Free" by The Streets (Vice/Atlantic)

7. "A Grand Don't Come For Free" by The Streets (Vice)

A drugging and drinking Brit slacker loses track of £1,000 and spends a week or so looking for it while we tag along. That's the woozy premise of Mike Skinner's oddly riveting 11-track low-fi hip-hop/spoken word concept opus. Before it all ends, our narrator's open wounds reveal his failings, doubts, static relationships and lowlife hangs, among other things, with the gritty cinematic clarity of a musical Alex Cox.

8. "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" by Modest Mouse (Epic)

8. "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" by Modest Mouse (Epic)

The hooky poppy guitar anthem "Float On" was the deserved hit that finally gave Modest Mouse some notice after a decade honing its cosmic misfit sound. But Isaac Brock's give-this-guy-some-Ritalin vocal howls prove just as off-kilter addictive as his band's arty/psychedelic rock on the rest of "Good News," too.

9. "Happenstance" by Rachael Yamagata (RCA)

9. "Happenstance" by Rachael Yamagata (RCA)

Yamagata's voice is an amazing instrument. Limited in range, yet capable of a stunning array of nuances, it conveys depth and emotion with hushed croons, edgy rasps and verge-of-tears moans at once familiar yet uniquely her own. A collection of slow-burn piano-based love songs that was yet another of this year's criminally ignored debuts.

10. "Hot Fuss" by The Killers (Island)

10. "Hot Fuss" by The Killers (Island)

The highlight is "Somebody Told Me," a three minute synth-fueled garage-rock attack with the year's best chorus. But if all this Las Vegas band was were brooding Duran Duran wannabes — as more than a few music critics accused — why is "Hot Fuss" something a Duran Duran CD never was: incredibly listenable from beginning to end?

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.