2003 Pitchfork 'Best New Albums' - which of these is the best?

I dunno. For me, it was more like, that period just had all these pop juggernauts in the form of Sugababes' Third, Sound of the Underground, Britney Spears' Toxic (think that might be early 2004), all this mind-blowing production from Xenomania and Richard X...

...and ye olde indie bastions thought I should be listening to - Cat Power? The Postal Service? Get outta town!

Yeah, I think I was definitely much more into pop at that point than P4K approved indie.

tbf, that Cat Power album stands up.

i don't know, at this point i feel about the same way about going back and giving the sugababes album another listen as i do the microphones one: which is to say, i guess i could, but ...

i actually can't think of a worse cat power record - early, slightly improvised-feeling stuff, moon pix, covers record, muscle shoals band record, is there one i'm forgetting

lol i do not mean muscle shoals

Didn't mean to pick on Cat Power, but I was looking down that list trying to even find an artist I *should* have liked.

You Are Free is where I got off the Catbus

Oh I voted Xiu Xiu of course

where I got off the Catbus

slow_clap.gif

Always meant to give that Giddy Motors album a go, it's kind of new wave of burly pigfuck right?

tired zing, p4k thread, good morning everyone

I should listen to that M83 album sometime, considering how much I like the last two

also Ellen Allien

I like the Blood Brothers record a lot too, but I wore myself out on it when it came out so now when I see it I'm all kinda, "ehhh, not sure I need to hear that now".

Giddy Motors was more no wavey iirc, I think there was sax and little of the blokishness that I think of wrt 'pigfuck'

ailing memory-based disclaimers again apply

oh damn, why had I never heard Berlinette before now

voting for sufjan. don't judge me.

i think this was the year i started reading pfork so i pretty much listened to all of these. most of them are good! none are personal favorites though

voting for sufjan. don't judge me.

too late *judges hardcore*

lol @ p4k giving a "best new music" to a Polysics album that came out three years prior

I'm guessing it came out in the States in 2003.

Used to be things ran in 20 year cycles, implying ten years after was the centre of the fallow period before reappraisal slowly started. I think this has sped up slightly, so 2003 is pretty much at the bottom of the cycle right now

Really loved this whole post/explanation, ecuador.

One thing I'm struck by is how small most of these records are. We've got pre-Illinois Sufjan; pre-prog Decemberists; a half hour Shins album; lots of tiny works by The Books, The Unicorns, Cyann & Ben, ect. This was the year before Arcade Fire hit and anthemized a lot of indie rock, and it really shows

This list is funny to me because it was around this time that I sort of started falling out of the habit of keeping close tabs on new music, so I look at this and go, "Oh yeah, I've been meaning to check that one out!" as in, I've been "meaning to" for a decade. Thanks to Spotify, I am now working through an age-old listening checklist and feeling really hip and current with...really old music. Oops. This Viktor Vaughn album is sounding pretty good I gotta say.

like/love all of these:

Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
Cat Power - You Are Free
The Blood Brothers - ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn
Four Tet - Rounds
Prefuse 73 - One Word Extinguisher
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Singel Frame - Wetheads Come Running
WHY? - Oaklandazulasylum
Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State
Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash
Menomena - I Am the Fun Blame Monster
Jay-Z - The Black Album

voted Cat Power, because I'm still in love with her.

anyway. the Polysics album is clearly the best. but i would venture to say i'm the only one here who's heard it.

lol no, I saw them at SxSW in 2000

And again in 2003 (or 2004)

but yeah Neu is a cool album

There were a lot of writers stanning for Polysics in 2003 iirc. Asian Man records gave them a big push but I don't think it turned into a US tour. Also I apologize for firstiness but "I must be the only one to have heard this record" is a wild claim!

Well I just used the search function and found out that I'm the only one who's posted about them in two and a half years. I realize that its dumb to claim that but out of the fifty or so people posting on this thread, I would say it's not that wild!

Voted Sumday.

I have warm feelings towards 'Polysics Or Die' but am not familiar w/ the one here

yeah "Polysics or Die" is the one that I thought got the big push. Their greatest hits-type albums seem to go over well in America but their actual studio albums not so much. Anyway I think Neu! is the best of them. It's their most over-the-top and psychotic, and also engages in a lot of creative plagiarism

unicorns

I liked then and still like now (this is a surprisingly short list):

Out Hud - S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.
Clearlake - Cedars
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash

Voting for Out Hud which still sounds fresh somehow. At this point I think of it as half GBYE-style post rock which has completely faded from consciousness, half 'indie electronica' which it seems will never go away.

Kornrulez pull up any rolling punk thread and find dozens, there are probably at least 50 a year

Plus the metal &indie threads would have more

Also full disclosure I never really got the fuss about meadowlands which seemed pretty dull to me

^^^ otm

It had a couple decent songs but man, there was a lot of people that were all "OMG AMAZING ALBUM BEST EVER SO WONDERFUL" over that.

I dunno. For me, it was more like, that period just had all these pop juggernauts in the form of Sugababes' Third, Sound of the Underground, Britney Spears' Toxic (think that might be early 2004), all this mind-blowing production from Xenomania and Richard X...

...and ye olde indie bastions thought I should be listening to - Cat Power? The Postal Service? Get outta town!

otm. Rachel Stevens on the horizon as well.

but anyway, Rapture v Basement Jaxx v Broken Social Scene

The perennial Wrens defence was "oh but you have to see them live"

anyway. the Polysics album is clearly the best. but i would venture to say i'm the only one here who's heard it.

haha i d/l it because of the p4k review. i think ive heard all but 6 of these many because of their respective reviews

i still like a lot of these even if i dont really listen to any of them but supersilent and the angels of light records, i guess sometimes englabörn cuz its still on my ipod as well, not really ashamed of how much i was into like non-prophets albums when i was a teenager, everybody has feelings

so much garbage. goin with Deerhoof.

Amazing how little impact most of these albums actually had. Almost like it was a load of nerdy dudes picking their bedroom favourites rather than anything with any actual societal impact or cultural context outside American universities.

I suppose the US and UK in particular drift musically closer and then further away from one another as the years go by (they were MILES apart in 2000 for example) but they felt pretty close together at this stage and that's barely reflected in the list at all.

angels of light album is outstanding.

love these dudes, r.i.p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mebv10VTyQ

The perennial Wrens defence was "oh but you have to see them live"

Haha I did and they were terrible.

i bought that wrens album, wasn't feeling it at all

Amazing how little impact most of these albums actually had. Almost like it was a load of nerdy dudes picking their bedroom favourites rather than anything with any actual societal impact or cultural context outside American universities.

which albums past 2001 really had an impact? I mean I think the Pitchfork list is kind of indicitive of any "best of" since, I dunno, Daft Punk's <i>Discovery</i>? I'm sure there were a few...what were they?

Amazing how little impact most of these albums actually had. Almost like it was a load of nerdy dudes picking their bedroom favourites rather than anything with any actual societal impact or cultural context outside American universities.

you should continue having opinions