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

I love it; it's fuzzed-out twee Boards of Canada-influenced indie with vocodered vocals and a goofily sunny disposition

my introduction was "Lollipopsichord"; I think if you dig that, you'll dig the whole album

(here's a Spotify link to "Lollipopsichord": http://open.spotify.com/track/03GmiapZrVujkO2BwX945T)

Thank you! I will try to find time to listen to that this weekend!

oh man The Microphones are exactly my type of shit at first glance, which likely means I'm gonna have a Godspeed! reaction and be all "these guys are amazing!" *20 minutes elapse* "wtf just stop already"

hoping that doesn't happen

It's probably going to happen.

that is happening

oh yeah that happened at minute 11 of "The Sun"

stop mumbling and get back to the drumming, you big dork

Wait til Calvin Johnson starts singing

so far my faves of the albums I've been sampling that I didn't know from this list are (unsurprisingly) Ellen Allien and Lightning Bolt

lol btw the drums just kicked back in and The Microphones became interesting again; I'm sensing... a PATTERN

super glad that ppl are spending time talking about each other instead of the albums in the poll, it's always super fascinating and worthwhile

man I can't agree with you here I think it's really tiresome and horrible

was about to play Xiu Xiu but then I saw the album art... maybe not at work

going for Clearlake instead

xp: lol aero

I love The Microphones. Which of these albums have you or haven't heard before DJP?

Also if you're going for Xiu Xiu I'd recommend starting with Fabulous Muscles first. It has some of their best songs ("Crank Heart", "I Luv the Valley OH!", "Clowne Towne").

I really don't understand My Morning Jacket, like not even in the slightest

First album is the best, it's like standing alone on a still night in a huge cornfield in the American midwest while meanwhile five miles up the road a man is sitting at the bar in a roadhouse with a flickering neon sign drinking whiskey in silence.

That sentence could have done with a few more commas.

gonna be easier to list the ones I'd heard before today:

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner
The Rapture - Echoes
Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash
Jay-Z - The Black Album

So far I've played/sampled:

The Microphones - Mount Eerie
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
Clearlake - Cedars
My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
Need New Body - UFO
Menomena - I Am the Fun Blame Monster
Ellen Allien - Berlinette
The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?

Really liked Lightning Bolt and Ellen Allien, swung back and forth between hating and loving Need New Body and The Microphones, am pretty neutral on Clearlake, unmoved by Menomena, actively detested The Unicorns and My Morning Jacket

actually the Clearlake album is pretty good but it's also not really my thing, so it's sort falling into the "admire but don't really love" pile

I think I feel exactly the same about everything you listed, DJP, except Clearlake which I haven't heard. There are really good songs scattered throughout that Need New Body record, but there's lots of really annoying stuff, too.

Lightning Bolt and Ellen Allien are great ones. Get Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra of Bubbles asap, best thing they've both been involved with.

I get you don't know these 5 but they are a must listen:

Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
Manitoba - Up in Flames
Four Tet - Rounds
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State
The Books - The Lemon of Pink

already have Orchestra of Bubbles which is amazing

I am certain I will at least enjoy Manitoba and Four Tet, I've liked other things they've done but haven't really kept up with either of them

If I like Sufjan I will be shocked and amazed, I've tried listening to him a couple of times and mostly just blocked him from my memory as a Thing

know nothing about The Books

My list nowadays would be slightly different but this was pretty much my top 10 for 2003 at the time.

1. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (Arts And Crafts Records)
2. Do Make Say Think - Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn (Constellation)
3. Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan, The Great Lake State (Asthmatic Kitty)
4. Ellen Allien - Berlinette (Bpitch Control)
5. Matmos - The Civil War (Matador Records)
6. Four Tet - Rounds (Domino)
7. The Books - The Lemon Of Pink (Tomlab)
8. 1 Mile North - Minor Shadows (Ba Da Bing!)
9. Manitoba - Up In Flames (Leaf)
10. B. Fleischmann - Welcome Tourist (Morr Music)

Shakin Stevens >>> Sufjan Stevens

dude makes me want to stab

Exploding Hearts. Hasn't staled at all.

Sufjan Stevens became sort of too twee for my taste since Chicago but I'll always rep for Michigan and Seven Swans. I'd recommend Seven Swans over Michigan but the latter still has some great songs (namely: Wolverine, For the Widows in Paradise, Flint, The Upper Peninsula...)

The first Clearlake album (I think it's called Lido?) is a bit better, you might give that one a go, DJP?

I loved it when it came out, my memory is it had a good mixture of jaunty and maudlin, but I suspect it might be a bit too winsome for me these days.

Broken Social Scene is pretty cool actually, I have no idea what I was expecting but I just assumed I wouldn't like it and that's not turning out to be the case

Clearlake is tentatively going on an "explore further" list, I think I might really get into them in a slightly different headspace or with a different album

You ought to find at least one song you like in the Broken Social Scene record. It swaps members of Do Make Say Think, Metric, Stars and Feist throughout the record so it never follows the same formula or influence but it never feels disruptive.

That album is by far the best Clearlake ever got. xp

Dan didn't you initially dislike Black Moth Super Rainbow? Or am I confusing that w/Blue Sky Black Death?

checking out some stuff i'd never heard before. Prefuse 73 is pretty listenable for that kind of hip-hop instrumental thing, but I was finished with it a third of the way through. Enjoying the Johann Johannson thing far more than I thought I would on background, less overwrought than similar 4AD reference points.

Dan didn't you initially dislike Black Moth Super Rainbow? Or am I confusing that w/Blue Sky Black Death?

I don't remember expressing dislike for BMSR; I may have made fun of their twee tendencies but I always was into that album (actually Austerity Ponies introduced me to them and School of Seven Bells at the same time and I ended up getting into and digging BMSR first, which given my current So7B obsession is a little ridic)

There was a thread where I tried to get LJ to like that album and he was all "nope, not having it *arms crossed*"

do not remember Blue Sky Black Death

Easy: Hail to the Thief, followed by Boy in Da Corner.

oh thank god the second song on the Sufjan album is uptempo, I thought I was going to have to jump out of a window

this is really personal bias as opposed to a comment on the quality of the music but I would have much more tolerance for this type of thing with a female singer

man that constantines record seemed like a big deal at the time but now its just like 'wait, that existed?'

'young lions' is still a jam tho

That Constantines record is real good. "Soon Enough" is their best tune tho

This Exploding Hearts album is just too much of a Generation X tribute - it's not bad, I'm just not in the market for class of 77 mad libs like "I'm getting modern kicks!"

I'm surprised you haven't heard "A promise", DJP, I think you'll love it. I disagree w/moka sorry moka

hmm well, I'm not gonna play it at work due to the album art coming up on Spotify and me being in an open cubicle with zero privacy

was gonna comment on The Books but someone revived the ICP thread and now I am distracted

oh thank god the second song on the Sufjan album is uptempo, I thought I was going to have to jump out of a window

this is really personal bias as opposed to a comment on the quality of the music but I would have much more tolerance for this type of thing with a female singer

― keeping things contextual (DJP)

Upper Peninsula features a female singer.

I'm surprised you haven't heard "A promise", DJP, I think you'll love it. I disagree w/moka sorry moka

― Ówen P.

Disagree on what?

finally realized my problem with the constantines is 100% the singer, dude is like Britt Daniel thinking he's Tom Waits

@ moka I disagree that anybody should start with "Fabulous Muscles"

So I'm listening to MU and decide to check out the original review. Gotta say, I was surprised by the opener

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5561-afro-finger-and-gel/

In her broken Eng-rish, about midway through "Chair Girl", Japan's Mutsumi Kanamori, the wife half of Sheffield-based duo Mu, creeks out the maxim that "DJs awh wock band," while her husband, Baltimorean Maurice Fulton, whips Model 500 basslines around submarine alarms and a dubbed-out salsa beat. It all makes sense for a second, until I re-read the lyrics and realize that she's actually saying: "Deejays are rocked by an electric chair girl."

mostly i was surprised by "Eng-rish," to be clear

from same review

2003 might go down as a year in which some rock records learned how to dance (Electric Six, !!!, The Rapture, Ssion) and some dance records learned to rock (Basement Jaxx, T. Raumschmiere, Fat Truckers).

did it?

fucking electric six sucks so bad

I am not much a fan of Michigan, but "Sister" off of Seven Swans bowls me over every time. That's where I would point anyone trying to 'get' Sufjan.

The Microphones - Mount Eerie
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
The Blood Brothers - ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain

currently listening to that Lightning Bolt album, which I have been "meaning to listen to" forever, and ya it rocks intensely

Blood Brothers good too but I didn't hear it till waaayyy after 2003

yeah, the blood brothers got a fair amount of attention in their moment, but seem forgotten now. i associate them with the GSL/31G records art-glam-hardcore thing, which seemed to evaporate (or shift/fragment?) a few years back.

They split off into two bands, one solid (Past Lives) and one good-then-horrifically-terrible (Jaguar Love).