List some of your favorite records that turn 20 this year

10 that haven't been mentioned yet:

Harold Budd - La Bella Vista
Brian Eno - January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now
Jeff Hanson - Son
McLusky - My Pain and Sadness Is More Sad and Painful Than Yours
New Pornographers - The Electric Version (favorite album of 2003)
Puffy AmiYumi - Nice
Lou Reed - The Raven (overstuffed, but I like it)
Josh Rouse - 1972
Matthew Sweet - Kimi Ga Suki Raifu (his last great album?)
Various - Wig in a Box: Songs from and Inspired by Hedwig and the Angry Inch

And because I looked up the wrong year by mistake, 10 lesser-known choices from 2002:

Damien Jurado & Gathered in Song - I Break Chairs (his loud album)
1 Giant Leap - 1 Giant Leap
Mull Historical Society - Loss
Twinemen - Twinemen (surviving members of Morphine plus Laurie Sargent from Face to Face)
Wondermints - Mind If We Make Love to You
Jason Loewenstein - At Sixes and Sevens (first solo album from my favorite Sebadoh member)
Cato Salsa Experience - A Good Tip for a Good Time
Gem - Sunglare Serenade (Doug Gillard and Tim Tobias)
Canyon - Empty Rooms (alt-country with a distinct 'Dark Side of the Moon' feel)
J Mascis & The Fog - Free So Free

listened to a lot of records 20 years ago, broke it down like so -

god tier

* Three 6 Mafia - Da Unbreakables
* Kevin Drumm - Land of Lurches
* Perfume - Sweet Donuts
* Nav Katze - Never Mind The Distortions
* John Fahey - Red Cross Disciple Of Christ Today

solid

* Pharaoh Overlord - #2
* Ricardo Villalobos - Alcachofa
* Annea Lockwood - A Sound Map of the Hudson River
* Enslaved - Below the Lights
* Skullflower - Exquisite Fucking Boredom
* Eliane Radigue - Geelriandre / Arthesis
* Circle - Guillotine
* Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
* SORA - Re.sort

pretty good

* Luomo - The Present Lover
* Mu-Ziq - Bilious Paths
* Bardo Pond - On The Ellipse

haven't listened in a while but probably holds up

* Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye
* Darkspace - I
* Wolf Eyes - Dead Hills
* Nasum - Helvete
* Cymbals - Love You
* Hoahio - Peek-Ara-Boo
* Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
* Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground

haven't listened in quite a while, feeling less confident but were played a lot at the time

* Ashanti - Chapter II
* Black Dice - Beaches and Canyons
* Venetian Snares - Badminton

The Police - Synchronicity

what? That wasn’t 20 years ago?

Ok, then In Utero.

Horsepower Productions - In Fine Style

The three albums of 2003 that I still play the most are: Pig Lib, Electric Version, and Ghosts of the Great Highway.

Vital Remains - Dechristianize

^^^ That's a good one. I listened to that a lot back then.

I played it every day for a month on the way to college.

some other genre favorites

T.I. - Trap Muzik
Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance
50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Trying
Lil Kim - La Bella Mafia
Bonecrusher - Atten CHUN!
Britney Spears - In the Zone
Michigan - Sufjan Stevens

Adult - Anxiety Always
Aphex Twin - 26 Mixes For Cash
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Broadcast - Haha Sound
Camera Obscura - Underachievers Please Try Harder
Clearlake - Cedars
Dave Clarke - Devil's Advocate
Dizee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
Dopplereffect - Linear Accelerator
Fat Truckers - For Sale
Goldfrapp - Black Cherry
HALCALI - Halcali Bacon
Hell - NY Muscle
LFO - Sheath
Melt-Banana - Cell-scape
OutKast - Speakerboxxx
Plaid - Dial P / Spokes
Raiden (mixed by) - Paranoia LP
Relaxed Muscle - A Heavy Nite With...
Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland
The Locust - Plague Soundscapes
The Rapture - Echoes

I forgot to include Pluramon's Dreams Top Rock, which still sounds fantastic

Welcome to the club:

Last Exit
The Disintegration Loops
Seven Swans
Coming On Strong

Meanwhile, dubnobasswithmyheadman now thirty years old 😱

The Blue Notebooks
Body Language
Margerine Eclipse
Madvillainy
Milk Man
Mm...Food
The Tigers Have Spoken

Still adore, and listen to regularly

Casual Dots s/t
Reigning Sound - Too Much Guitar
The Real New Fall Album

Iron & Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days
The Blue Nile, High
Tom Waits, Real Gone
Ray LaMontagne, Trouble

154 - strike

boredoms - seadrum/house of sun
Black Leotard Front - "Casual Friday"

There are some good jazz/modern composition albums from 2004 that I still like to listen to:

Jenny Scheinman - Shalagaster
Mihaly Dresch Quartet - Egyenes Zene
Jewels and Binoculars (Michael Moore trio) - Floater

! I don't think I have heard Jewels and Binoculars, despite having named an actual human child after that song

154 - strike

― brimstead, Monday, 29 January 2024 22:14 (nineteen minutes ago) link

Great album

so great. hypnotic blurry ambient with a kick drum, like if the protagonist in the Gas albums went to outer space or an abandoned factory on the moon instead of the forest

Came here to say The Knife - Deep Cuts but that ship has actually sailed now!

Seem to remember 2004 being a good year for music. It's very hard to believe these are all coming up to 20 years old now:

Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
Brian Wilson - Smile
The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free
Converge - You Fail Me
Joanna Newsome - The Milk Eyed Mender
Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
Neurosis - Eye Of Every Storm
Boredoms - Seadrum / House Of Sun
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing In The Hands
Bjork - Medulla
Air - Talkie Walkie

add Blueberry Boat to the list

I feel like this was a banner year for me as a music fan. The year I started paying a lot more attention to current music and also having a lot more access to music due to broadband.

I'd been on ILM a couple of years, but this was the year it really started feeling like a community and I remember going to a few FAPs and meeting fun people in Cambridge and London.

Also it was the year Sick Mouthy let me write my first ever published music articles for Stylus, so that felt like a big deal to me.

Wolf Eyes - Burned Mind

This was also the year I got really into US noise, Amerindie and Freak Folk stuff. The excitement burned bright, albeit with diminishing returns after a while

2004 list I made at the time:
1. The Uncle Devil Show - A Terrible Beauty (Del Amitri incognito)
2. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus
3. Stan Ridgway - Snakebite
4. Tears For Fears - Everybody Loves A Happy Ending
5. Magnetic Fields - i
6. Hem - Eveningland
7. Interpol - Antics
8. Robyn Hitchcock - Spooked
9. Wonder Stuff - Escape From Rubbish Island
10. Nora O'Connor - Til The Dawn

Late Finds & Singles:
Boxer Rebellion - 3 singles
Killing Joke - Chaos For Breakfast (first 4 singles plus disc of demos)
Longwave - Life Of The Party EP
Lucero - That Much Further West (2003 release, found early in 2004)
Jesse Malin - The Fine Art Of Self-Destruction (2003 release, found early in 2004)

Best Compilation / Reissue / Live:
Tommy Keene - Drowning (rarities compilation)
Mekons - Punk Rock (all early material played live)
Andy Partridge - Fuzzy Warbles Vol 5+6
Weirdos - We Got The Neutron Bomb (Weird World Vol 2)
Wire - On The Box: 1979

Best CDRs:
A House - Rarities (all vinyl-only material)
Cud - Cudstock Naked
Gerard Langley - LIT Volume 2

Most Disappointing: Tanya Donelly - Whiskey Tango Ghosts
OR They Might Be Giants - The Spine

At the time, Arcade Fire's Funeral felt like an album for the ages. It's Pitchfork's number one for 2004. I haven't listened to it in years, and am not likely to now.

Max Richter – The Blue Notebooks
Sagor & Swing – Orgelplaneten
Stereolab – Margerine Eclipse
Peter Hammill – Incoherence
Hold Steady – Almost Killed Me
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
Marissa Nadler – Ballads of Living & Dying

i just looked at pitchfork's top 50 of 2004 and the only album on it that i love and own is blueberry boat. i think i was mostly listening to metal and old music back then. i did write monthly for a metal magazine at the time. i think. maybe i was just writing for the Voice. i know that ilx made me buy stuff that i never listened to back then. like junior boys.

for the record, i still listen to blueberry boat ALL the time. i'm kinda fixated on it. and their other stuff. but that one in a big way. some things just get ya.

just checked out that top 50 and there are vv few albums i still listen to or even own on there. Medulla, Madvillainy, The Blue Notebooks, Last Exit. I should probably own Blueberry Boat, that's a classic. There are some mystifying picks which probably don't make sense to anyone who wasn't there, though.

!!! - Louden Up Now
Asa-Chang & Junray - Tsu Gi Ne Pu
Electrelane - The Power Out
Halcali - Ongaku no Susume
Oneida - Secret Wars
Plumbline - Pin Points
Selfish Cunt - No Wicked Heart Shall Prosper
Stereolab - Margarine Eclipse
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - The Royal Society

Blueberry Boat is a masterpiece and only gets better with age.

Secret Machines - Now Here Is Nowhere
Languis - The Four Walls
The Dead Texan - s/t
Lali Puna - Faking The Books
Bardo Pond & Tom Carter - 4/23/03
Ana da Silva - The Lighthouse
The Muffs - Really Really Happy
Juana Molina - Tres Cosas
Jack Rose - Raag Manifestos
Fripp & Eno - The Equatorial Stars

2004 releases that I remember liking a lot back then:

David Darling and Wulu Bunun Tribe - mudanin kata
Brightblack - Ala.cali.tucky
Deathprod - morals and dogma
Joanna Newsom - the milk eyed mender
AnCo - Sung Tongs
Mylo - destroy rock n roll
Madvillainy
Fennesz - venice
Bjork - medulla
Junior boys - last exit
Arve Henriksen - chiaroscuro
Sachiko M / Toshimaru Nakamura / Otomo Yoshihide - Good Morning Good Night
Sufjan Stevens - seven swans
Susumu Yokota - symbol
Annie - anniemal
Xiu xiu - fabulous muscles
Blonde redhead - misery is a butterfly

Probably missing several others… espers, akira rabelais, max richter, deerhoof, tom waits, dungen, air, DFA1979… pretty good year

Listening to Blueberry Boat now... I know this is a total cliché, but if this album were released today, it would still sound totally "fresh" (IMO)