411 Music Ten Deep 11.06.09: Top Ten Albums From 2003

Posted by Andrew Moll on 11.06.2009

From The White Stripes' Elephant to Radiohead's Hail to the Thief to The Mars Volta's De-Loused in the Comatorium, it's the best albums of 2003 in this week's edition of 411 Music Ten Deep!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Welcome, all the loyal readers, to the sixteenth edition of 411 Music Ten Deep. It saddens me to say that we once again live in a world where the New York Yankees are champions, but I'm sure they cheated one way or another. I'll move away from this topic as quickly as humanly possible and mention Michael Melchor's series Remixing the Industry in the Music Zone all this week. And now, we get to the feedback from last week's column on the Top Ten Albums from 2002:





#1Audioslave Self-title
#2red hot chili peppers
#3pearl jam riot act
#4Chevelle wonder what's next
#5Killswitch engage alive or just breathing
Posted By: O.J Mendez (Guest) on October 29, 2009 at 11:20 PM

UHM WHERE IS Audioslave ?????
Posted By: I.C (Guest) on October 30, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Korn - Untouchables

Where was that?

Audioslave - Audioslave

Where was that?
Posted By: Big D (Guest) on October 30, 2009 at 10:12 AM

As someone who was and still is a huge fan of both Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden, the first Audioslave album had to be one of the most disappointing albums I've ever heard, at least in terms of my expectations. I wouldn't call it bad by any means, but based on what I hoped for, it just didn't measure up, unfortuntely. The worst thing is, it was probably their best work together.

while i dont disagree with any of the picks, i think you are forgetting what may be the greatest album of 2002. in fact, Up, by Peter Gabriel, may be one of the most magnificently produced, splendidly beautiful, and massively musical albums of all time. please give it a listen if you havent.
Posted By: Stephen Jackson (Registered) on November 03, 2009 at 10:34 AM

You're not the first person I've heard mention the quality of this album, so I definitely think I'll have to track it down and check it out.

Coldplay - A Rush of blood to the head

is kind of missing
Posted By: saerbarnet (Guest) on October 31, 2009 at 11:51 AM

I'm sorry, but I have an irrational hatred of Coldplay that can't be easily explained. They're a band I probably should like, but there's a mental block or something preventing me from doing so.



Top Ten Albums from 2003



I can't lie to you – 2003 wasn't the best year for music, in my opinion, which will disappoint some of the commenters from last week. Sure there are some great albums, but I'm not sure it has the depth that some other years have had. Fortunately, there are still plenty of albums to make for a great top ten list and before we get into that, we'll go over the honorable mentions.


Some Honorable Mentions: A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step; The Books - The Lemon of Pink; Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?; Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People; Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak; Thunderbirds Are Now! - Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief; Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain




10. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner


Much like fellow Brit The Streets a year before, Dizzee Rascal burst onto the scene with an impressive take on UK garage, grime and dubstep and ended up with a fascinating album of sparse beats and his easily identifiable voice. Rascal's tracks are insular and purposely minimal; the opener "Sittin' Here'" consists of little more than an electro beat and various car noises and sirens. The crazy beat and bass line on "Stop Dat" takes things in a more off-kilter direction and the result is a bizarre-world club anthem and something completely in contrast to American hip-hop. That and other visceral tracks like "Seems 2 Be" and the standout single "I Luv U" make for an occasionally abrasive listen, and much of Boy in da Corner ends up sounding like an updated and warped version of the Bomb Squad's work with Public Enemy.





How welcome it is then when the album gets a tad lighter, as with the Billy Squier-sampling "Fix Up, Look Sharp" or the thoughtful "Do It" where Rascal raps, "Sleep tight everything will be alright/By the end of the will be the day, just pray dat you see it/Strongly got to be it if you wanna get through it/Stretch your mind to the limit, you can do it." He also isn't afraid to get confessional, as he raps on the same song, "Sometimes I wake up wishing I could sleep for good/And if I had the guts to end it all believe I would." That sentiment is in contrast to his confident delivery, but it's part of what makes the album interesting. The other part is Rascal's production which was unheard of at the time and is still amazing to listen to six years later.





9. M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts


The French electronic duo M83 unveiled their second album Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts in 2003, and it was a triumph in not only electronic music, but shoegaze as well. The lush, dense sounds and textures make for a stunning listen as the band finds the beauty in keyboards and synths. Much like shoegaze bands did with guitars, M83 created a haze of keyboards that we try to navigate and eventually find vocals with lyrics that are indecipherable yet ultimately unimportant. The vocals merely serve to aid the song and fit in with the instruments and their digitized sound blend in perfectly as the synthesizers swirl around.





It's tough to make a droning electronic album and also have it be a beautiful piece of music, but that's exactly what M83 accomplished with Dead Cities. Layers upon layers of sound are grouped on top of each other and the intensity at times can build to mammoth levels, but the album thankfully never loses its beauty. Songs full of nothing but loud keyboards would be pretty unbearable; M83 make sure the songs are still actually songs and have compelling melodies that grab hold and don't easily let go. The duo would eventually become a solo act and Anthony Gonzalez would embrace the spirit of John Hughes' movies on the band's album last year, but few albums of similar sounds and influences could ever be as good and forceful as this one.





8. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief


When album like Hail to the Thief can be considered as a slight step down from your previous efforts, you must be doing something right. While this album may not have reach the same genius levels as OK Computer or Kid A, it's still a mighty fine album in which Radiohead are willing to appease older fans, and maybe even their own desire to still rock somewhat, while also pushing forward in their continuous quest to advance their sound. It's fitting that the very first thing you hear on the album is Jonny Greenwood plugging in his guitar before leading into "2+2=5" as that one sound is a concession that the record won't be all computer blips and beats. Of course, there are still plenty of experiments, from the pulsating "Backdrifts" to the moody "There There" to the frenzied "Myxomatosis."





Conventional wisdom would have said that if Kid A was their Achtung Baby, then Amnesiac was their Zooropa, and then Hail to the Thief would be their Pop, a continuing experimentation and perhaps alienation. But instead, this album is a mix of old and (mostly) new, with the band proving they could still write accessible songs like "Go to Sleep" and combine them with not-so-accessible fare like "The Gloaming." In the end the album is a little too varied and doesn't feel cohesive enough to be considered a classic, and the album's slightly too long runtime doesn't help either. With all that said, this is still a great album and would probably be one hell of a career achievement for most bands; for Radiohead, though it's just a walk in the park.





7. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow


When I put together the column for the best albums of 2001, I relegated the Shins' Oh, Inverted World to the honorable mention category and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Obviously, some album would have to be taken off but there's no doubt that that record deserved better than it got. Luckily for me, the band just about matches themselves with Chutes Too Narrow. Short but sweet, the album is a tight half hour of indie pop goodness as the band's songwriter James Mercer keeps everything simple and straightforward and trusting in his special talent for finding great melodies.





Chutes Too Narrow may not have the immediacy of its predecessor but all that really means is that it is a more involved listen, rewarding multiple listens with new finds. This type of indie pop comes so naturally to Mercer that the resulting songs sound incredibly effortless, yet there are also plenty of intricacies that reveal a smart songwriter behind them. Songs like "So Says I" and "Kissing the Lipless" turn and shift, surely surprising any Shins converts that had popped up since 2001. From here they would become the favorite band of anyone who saw Garden State and have an album debut at number two on the Billboard charts, but Chutes Too Narrow still stands as their most varied and interesting work. The Shins' debut album may have put them on the map, but this album made sure that they would stay there.





6. Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place


Some of the best moments in post-rock come when a band goes for the gusto and absolutely propels a song to the most dramatic heights possible, and I don't think there's a band that does it better than Explosions in the Sky. It's no surprise that these songs have been used to soundtrack the movie and TV show Friday Night Lights as the songs are as emotional as any rock music could ever hope to be. Compared to the chaotic nature of their 2001 debut, The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place is a studied affair, one that is reserved at times in anticipation of the grand moment. All five tracks have multiple parts to them and they wind through each part successfully, reaching an eventual destination that could very well be the definition of musical bliss. One could make the argument that Explosions in the Sky take art rock to its limits and its loudest possible volume.





The beautiful guitar lines on each song bring to life feelings of both melancholy and hope, a touch combination for a band to put together, but great, powerful moments of that combination are all over the album. It's tough to really divide it into individual tracks, as songs flow together and there isn't a stylistic difference between any of them. But the greatness of the album comes not only from the instruments use or any experimentation on the band's part, but instead from the feelings that you become immediately aware of while listening to it. Few bands have that kind of ability but Explosions in the Sky do, as they get as much drama out of their guitars as they can, and The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place sees them at the peak of their powers.





5. The Strokes - Room on Fire


When putting together a number of lists like this one, there are bound to be plenty of surprises along the way and The Strokes' sophomore album Room on Fire is probably one of them. I remembered the album as being a pretty solid effort, but ultimately not matching the quality of importance of their debut Is This It. But upon re-visiting the album, I discovered that it was more than a worthy follow-up that, despite not having the cultural cache of their debut, has a number of songs that rank among the best the band has written. Smartly, the band doesn't change their approach for this album, but it's also not a carbon copy of Is This It; instead the band used their modern day Velvet Underground image to sneak in plenty of what they do best: catchy, infectious pop music.





Julian Casablancas' distorted voice and detached delivery is perfect for the somewhat lo-fi sound that is never lo-fi enough to hide the melodies and hooks. There's also enough variety to satisfy any critic of the band, from the propulsion of "Reptilia" to the pseudo-soul of "Under Control" to the new wave cool of "12:51." Room on Fire shows a band, just two years removed from the critical hype to end all critical hype, already shifting their focus and refusing to continue being the same band. Obviously there's still no attempt to reinvent the wheel but these songs are good enough that any tinkering would be completely unnecessary. Unfortunately, the band has still yet to really capitalize on this album's quality, but when a band is this good you can't really count them out.





4. The Wrens - The Meadowlands


The making of The Wrens's The Meadowlands is an interesting story in rock music as they went seven years in between albums and dealt with a bitter end to the relationship with their record label, and four years spent working on the album itself. The whole ordeal clearly took a toll on the band as they sounded, as they put it "exhausted", a large change from the energetic indie band they had been in 1996. They were beaten but not destroyed, however and emerged with one of the most personal and emotional albums of the decade, an album full of drama and personal confessions that could put any emo band to shame. Lyrics like "A sophomore at Brown/She worked Lost and Found/I put your face on her all year" are mature and heartbreaking at the same time and a part of why the album became so revered.





Fortunately, despite their time away the band still knew how to write a great hook, and there are plenty throughout The Meadowlands on songs like "Hopeless," "Ex-Girl Collection," and "Per Second Second." Those tracks are balanced by the atmospheric, emotional songs that also serve as the standouts. "Happy," "She Sends Kisses" and "13 Months in 6 Minutes" are all epic and powerful while remaining immensely personal. It's now been six years since the last Wrens album, but they've proven before that patience can pay off. They also proved that a quality group just needs to work hard and they can make a classic record. As the band themselves put it on "This Boy is Exhausted," "every win on this record's hard won."



3. The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium


Back in 2000, At the Drive-In were supposed to be the next big thing in rock, and they album to make it happen with Relationship of Command. Of course, the band immediately imploded and splintered into two camps; the rock camp that became Sparta, and the arty camp that became the Mars Volta. Sparta's debut was a real good album, but it couldn't hold a candle to experience the Mars Volta took you on with their debut De-Loused in the Comatorium. There was nothing about the band to indicate they would become a success; they were arty, pretentious, had an odd name, an odd album cover, an odd concept for the album and made a prog rock album unlike any that had been heard before. That's not usually a formula for rock stardom, but the Mars Volta came pretty close with this album as it sold 500,000 copies and made them critical darlings.





The album's story was inspired by a friend of the band's who committed suicide, but the lyrics themselves are ambiguous enough to allow for a number of interpretations. Most importantly, though, the music is pretty damn amazing, a mix of funk, prog, Latin, punk, rock and jazz that is certainly never boring. There are a number of ambient moments, but there's always the anticipation of what's to come next, be it a riff, a solo, a drum fill, or some of Cedric Bixler-Zavala's screams. All of this screams indulgent, and I can't really argue, but that doesn't automatically mean the album isn't any good. In fact, it's great because it embraces all the things that people would jump to criticize. There's no illusion of modesty or anything like it; De-Loused is an excessive rock album in an era when there weren't that many, which made it all the more welcome.





2. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism


In my write up of Death Cab for Cutie's 2001 record The Photo Album a couple weeks back, I made sure to make constant mention of the songwriting gifts of Ben Gibbard, the lead singer and main songwriter for the band. His work on that album was tremendous, but his work on Transatlanticism managed to be even better. It's the best and most complete Death Cab album, a collection of songs that show off Gibbard's great skills. It's those skills that set the band apart from other indie rock bands and right from the start he's able to paint a picture with words, singing, "So this is the new year/And I don't feel any different/The clanking of crystal/Explosions off in the distance." What follows is forty-four minutes of great indie pop rock by a band the developed their sound to get to this point and delivered with a great record.





Gibbard's lyrics are what brought a lot of people into the band, myself included, and Transatlanticism is full of great lines that both literary and personal, the types of lines that people instantly project onto their own lives. Lines like "The glove compartment is inaccurately named/And everybody knows it/So I'm proposing a swift orderly change/'Cause behind its door there's nothing to keep my fingers warm," and "And I'll sit and wonder/Of every love that could've been/If I'd only thought of something charming to say" don't come around very often or from just any songwriter. It takes a special talent to construct phrases like that, and Gibbard definitely qualifies. Of course, they wouldn't mean as much without the proper musical accompaniment, and the band definitely holds up their end of the bargain. Indie music can't get much more evocative than this, and it's a testament to not just Gibbard, but his band mates as well.





1. The White Stripes - Elephant


A lot of what The White Stripes are about is contradiction. From their opposing color scheme, to the genius guitarist paired with the simplistic drummer, to the duo sounding loud and heavy enough to be an army of more than just seven nations, to a Detroit garage band naming their album Elephant. Contradictions can be found in the music on the album itself, from the toss-off quality of "There's No Home for You Here" to the tenderness of "I Want to be the Boy to Warm Your Mother's Heart," and also with the aggressive cover of Burt Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself." Jack White knows that a true rock star has to have an air of mystery around them and he's not too eager to reveal any of his secrets anytime soon. The important thing about Elephant, though, is that also happens to be the best collection of songs the group has released, no small statement for a band as good as The White Stripes.





From the opening of "Seven Nation Army," you know you're in for something special, and that feeling doesn't subsist until Jack's banter with guest Holly Golightly is over at the end of "It's True that We Love One Another." Every song in between is a winner, either with a great melody, great guitar work, or just pure adrenaline and excitement. At a time when people proclaimed the rock star dead, Jack White was able to stand as the modern rock star, one with a shroud of mystery, great songs, the ability to shred on guitar, and a classic album to his name. Also, people rag on Meg a lot, but to me there's no doubt she's the perfect drummer of Jack's songs and provides each one with what is exactly needed. As a duo they are on the same page at all times, and that trust and cohesiveness helps make them such a great band; it also doesn't hurt to have a great talent leading the way. Elephant is maybe the best modern rock album of the decade, full of rock energy and surprising vulnerability that all comes together for something fresh and exciting.



That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.