Album of the Year 2003

[belboid]

9 Rhythm & Sound - With the Artists

Second album of Jamaican dub style takes, with some of the original artists, with a bit pf technoey influence.

 

[The39thStep]

11 Richard X - Richard X Presents His X-Factor, Volume 1

What the fuck is this doing in here? Knotted. there will be hell to pay for this.

It's a compilation album. A compifuckinglation album. Disgusting. I will not listen on general principle.

Isn't the contingency in the risk assessment plan for gross errors like this that those votes are transferred to the Rachel's album?

 

[belboid]

8 Moodymann - Silence in the Secret Garden

More deep house/Detroit techno. Is it our favourite of the umpteen Detroit Techno albums out this year? It seems so.

 

[belboid]

7 The White Stripes - Elephant

Would probably have lost out to Radiohead back in the day. It took some Black Math to place it this low. There's some other notable track on there.

 

[belboid]

6 Massive Attack - 100th Window

Quite the departure, after Mezzanine, the words haunting, melancholic, angsty, fragile all spring to mind.

 

[Spandex]

It's a compilation album. A compifuckinglation album. Disgusting. I will not listen on general principle.

But then you won't find out it's not a compilation album It's Richard X with loads of guest vocalists.

 

[belboid]

5 Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland

The penultimate album from jazz rock hippy, our Robert. Just fucking great.

 

[DaveCinzano]

11 Richard X - Richard X Presents His X-Factor, Volume 1

What the fuck is this doing in here? Knotted. there will be hell to pay for this.

It's a compilation album. A compifuckinglation album. Disgusting. I will not listen on general principle.

Sorry didn't check.

The forces of good prevailed

 

[belboid]

4 The Fall - Real New Fall LP (formerly Country on the Click)

Album 258 from MES n me grannies. It's the one with that one from the footie on

 

[Mattym]

6 Massive Attack - 100th Window

Quite the departure, after Mezzanine, the words haunting, melancholic, angsty, fragile all spring to mind.

The words 'fucking amazing' spring to my mind

 

[belboid]

3 The Bug - Pressure

Dancehall grooviness, with a hefty whack of ragga flavoured onslaughts. From Weymouth.

 

[braindancer]

3 The Bug - Pressure

Dancehall grooviness, with a hefty whack of ragga flavoured onslaughts. From Weymouth.

Never knew The Bug was from Weymouth ... if that's true...

 

[DaveCinzano]

From Weymouth.

<Insert pun about crotchety old men and their seaside-salty irie vibes>

 

[belboid]

2 Goldfrapp - Black Cherry

It's the sublime return of glam rock thanks to the incomparable Alison G. And some bloke whose name no one can ever remember.

 

[braindancer]

That rascal Dizzee for no. 1 then....

 

[belboid]

At least 15 of the 33 albums mentioned here have been rerealesed in 20th Anniversary Editions you'll all be pleased to know.

Including the next one.

 

[belboid]

1 Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner

The mindblowing debut from 19 year old Dylan. Spitting out phrases with the energy and finesse of a championship boxer, highlighting the uneasy interaction between irrational youth and ultra-rational mechanized society. And the rest is grimy history.

 

[The39thStep]

Thanks Knotted, ska invita and belboid

 

[Spandex]

I think most of my favorite stuff from 03 wasn't on albums

maybe, like @nogojones said, all the best music was on other formats.

It was a great time for singles in the pop charts: Girls Aloud, Sugarbabes' Hole in the Head, Rachel Stevens' Sweet Dreams My LAX, Kylie's Slow, Britney's Toxic, Blu Cantrell's Breath, Junior Senior's Move Your Feet, Outkast's Hey Ya. After years of the charts being dominated by turgid boybands even the manufactured pop-stars were releasing interesting music. It was a time when music TV channels still played mostly music videos, and there was good reason to watch. Popworld with Simon Anstell and Miquita Oliver was at its cynical peak - perfect hazy Sunday morning hangover TV.

And all this had an impact on music criticism. Since the 60s music writing had been dominated by Rockists, for whom The Beatles were the benchmark against which all music was judged - the further music strayed from four blokes with guitars, vocals, bass, drums who wrote their own songs for albums, the less merit music was considered to have. But then around 2003(ish) a new generation of critics came along who started treating pop music as equally worth thinking and writing about rather than being sneeringly dismissed. And that was a good thing.

 

[stavros]

My list in full below. I ummed and ahhed for ages over whether to pick Basement Jaxx or Girls Aloud for number one, just as I remember doing twenty years ago. I went with Kish Kash in the end because of the not-wonderful ballads on the other one.

1 Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash
2 Girls Aloud - Sound of the Underground
3 Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
4 Prefuse 73 - Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives
5 Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun
6 Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power
7 Matmos - The Civil War
8 Twilight Singers - Blackberry Belle
9 Ludacris - Chicken-N-Beer
10 Richard X - Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1
11 Zongamin - Zongamin
12 The Soft Pink Truth - Do You Party?
13 Kelis - Tasty
14 Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
15 Explosions in the Sky - The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
16 Killer Mike - Monster
17 Sugababes - Three
18 Spiritualized - Amazing Grace
19 Missy Elliott - This Is Not A Test!
20 Electric Six - Fire
21 Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance
22 Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
23 Jay-Z - The Black Album
24 Junior Senior - D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat
25 Manitoba - Up in Flames
26 Fannypack - So Stylistic
26 Aphex Twin - 26 Mixes for Cash
27 Andrew WK - The Wolf

 

[braindancer]

My list....

• The Bug – Pressure
• Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner
• Magnolia electric co. – Magnolia electric co.
• Sleep – Dopesmoker
• Tim Hecker – Radio Amor
• Four Tet – Rounds
• Yo La Tengo – Summer Sun
• Bonnie Prince Billy – Master of Everyone
• The Microphones – Mount Eerie
• Smog – Supper
• Rachel’s – Systems / Layers
• Do Make Say Think – Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn
• Sole – Selling Live Water
• Bardo Pond – On the Elipse
• Ben Frost – Steel Wound
• Broadcast – Ha Ha Sound

 

[Knotted]

2013 revisit to take us up to December? What's the feeling?

 

[Spandex]

2013 revisit to take us up to December? What's the feeling?

Seems like only yesterday.

Will Nick Cave win again? If he will, let's not bother. Though people have had a decade to realise The Asphodells released the best album of the year.

 

[ska invita]

This thread has reminded me of my life in 2003.....Invasion of Iraq in March...some heavy stuff at home too...signed up to urban!

musically this is about when i stopped listening to albums, to this day tbh, only the the odd one here and there in the last twenty years....

DnB was just about to get really shit...we still had people like Marcus Intalex, Twisted Individual and Influx Datum coming up with the goods, but Pendulum, Clipz and that whole Radio 1 DnB sound was about to ruin things for a good few years and make loads of DnB noisy and shit

I was mainly listening to reggae and dub old and new in 2003 IIRC..new it was all Beres, Anthony B, Bushman, Sizzla and the like.

i ended up voting
2003

LFO – Sheath
Moodymann – Silence In The Secret Garden
Millsart - Every Dog Has Its Day Vol 4#
Rhythm & Sound – w/ The Artists + Versions
Pablo Gad – Don't Push Jah

Meshell Ndegeocello – Comfort Woman
Erykah Badu – Worldwide Underground
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
The Detroit Experiment – The Detroit Experiment
The Quantic Soul Orchestra – Stampede

enjoyed this though, have discovered some nice records as a result

 

[ska invita]

BTW my take on Millsart every Dog series,
Vol 1 + 2 are mainly good with a couple of duds
3 + 4 are sublime
5-7 i didnt like so im quitting there, 8-13 will remain a mystery

 

[hitmouse]

Not one single solitary poxy vote for Fever to Tell? (Except mine obvs.) Absolute bunch of cloth-eared degenerates. Just as well I didn't volunteer to announce the results, I'd have been constantly slagging all the winners off.

2013 revisit to take us up to December? What's the feeling?

Could do, the 2012 poll didn't seem to generate much enthusiasm but I'd definitely be up for putting together a 2013 list.

My list was:

YYYs - Fever to Tell
The Fall - Real New Fall LP
Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
The Weakerthans - Reconstruction Site
British Sea Power - Decline of…
Phantom Limbs - Displacement
The Bug - Pressure
The Postal Service - Give Up
The Kills - Keep on Your Mean Side
Peaches - Fatherfucker
New Pornographers - Electric Version
Goldfrapp - Black Cherry
King Gheedorah - Take Me to Your Leader
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Jeffrey Lewis - It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That the Light Shines Through
Saturday Looks Good to Me - All Your Summer Songs
Buck 65 - Talkin’ Honky Blues
Double Dagger - Double Dagger
Xiu Xiu - A Promise
The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
Four Tet - Rounds
Laibach - WAT
Nasum - Helvete
Martyrdod - Martyrdod
The Weathermen - The Conspiracy
From Ashes Rise - Nightmares
Distillers - Coral Fang
The Knife - Deep Cuts
Chicks on Speed - 99 Cents
Intro5pect - Intro5pect
The Rapture - Echoes

 

[nogojones]

Ramiro Musotto's - Sudaka

Remarc - Sound Murderer

Zed Bias + Injekta Present Phuturistix – Feel It Out

Dizzy Rascal - Boy in Da Corner

Knifehandchop - Rockstopper

Electric - Life's A Struggle

King Geedorah - Take Me To Your Leader

Maddslinky - Make a Change

Jehst - Falling Down

Jaylib - Champion Sound

Venetian Snares - Chocolate Wheelchair

Goldie Lookin’ Chain - The Manifesto

Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Seven Days of Falling

Ty -Upwards

Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain

Antipop Consortium – Antipop Vs. Matthew Shipp

Triosk Meets Jan Jelinek – 1+3+1

Foreign Beggars – Asylum Speakers

The Quantic Soul Orchestra‎ - Stampede

The Rip Off Artist – Pet Sounds

Radioactive Man – Booby Trap

Jan Jelinek Avec The Exposures – La Nouvelle Pauvreté

Ugly Duckling - Taste the Secret

Si Begg – Director's Cut

Matthew Dear – Leave Luck To Heaven

Hecker – Sun Pandämonium

Soundmurderer & SK-1 - Rewind Records

Babbletron - Mechanical Royalty

Headhunters ‎– Evolution Revolution

DJ Mutamassik & Morgan Craft – Rough Americana

 

[Indeliblelink]

The Bug - Pressure
LFO - Sheath
London Elektricity - Billion Dollar Gravy
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
Riovolt - Digital Audio Bossa
Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
Four Tet - Rounds
Easy Star All-Stars - Dub Side of the Moon
Syntax - Meccano Mind
Fluke - Puppy
I Monster - Neveroddoreven
Electric Six - Fire
50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Meshell Ndegeocello - Comfort Woman
King Geedorah - Take Me to Your Leader
Autechre - Draft 7.30
Chris Liebing - Evolution
Ott - Blumenkraft
1200 Micrograms - Heroes of the Imagination
BK – Klub Kollaborations

couldn't be bothered to submit it though.

 

[chilango]

Here's mine. Was rushed. Could've padded it to a Top 10 probably. But, yeah, new music for me by this point was a new artist discovery every couple of years.

I was only 30

 

[stavros]

Autechre - Draft 7.30

Oh bollocks, how did I forget that? I usually look up Autechre, the Fall and HMHB in all these polls, as they are, or were, so prolific.