One of the almighty perils of mp3 blogging (it’s a perilous business I tell you – fraught with danger…. now where was I? Ah yes, forgot to even close my brackets didn’t I. What a muppet… here you go:) So erm, anyway, one of the side-effects of mp3 blogging is that you get so utterly swamped with new music, by zealous promoters, eager bands and your own enthusiasm, that it can be hard to actually remember to listen to old stuff. Not so much the old classics, just the really excellent albums from about two or three years ago which you still love, but which are neither new enough to warrant urgent attention nor legendary enough to have indelibly permeated into your consciousness.
So today I am going to have a little look at my first ever internet Best Of list. I started regularly writing about music back in 2004, long before I even knew what blogs were, and 2004 was my first ever Official List. That was the year Wilco released their masterpiece A Ghost is Born, which was narrowly pipped to the top spot by Nick Cave’s equally stupendous double album The Lyre of Orpheus and Abbatoir Blues. Even Tom Waits released one that year. Real Gone may not have captured me at the time, but it’s one that has a surprising number of excellent songs on it when I take the time to look back.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Cannibal’s Hymn
Wilco – The Late Greats
Tom Waits – Trampled Rose
Looking back at the reviews themselves from that year, I am actually surprised by how steadfast my opinions have been. I can’t say I seriously disagree with anything much I said about those 2004 releases. The Walkmen is still a storming album of fuzzy, guitar and chiming piano-driven brilliance. That Killers album is still an indie-pop classic which, despite whatever failings they might have, caught the mood of the nation perfectly that Summer. And The Dears were one of the first in a new wave of superb Canadian music who, in the track I have chosen, married indie with cabaret, somewhat oddly.
Marianne Faithfull released a record in 2004 too. It wasn’t great, largely because most of it was penned by the dismal PJ Harvey, but Nick Cave wrote a couple of decent tracks for her. The best of the lot though was Last Song, which was written by Damon Albarn who himself recorded a version for last year’s The Good, the Bad & the Queen record. I think I might prefer Marianne’s version, actually. So yes, that’s how I started. It all shifted over to Song, by Toad a year and a bit ago, then I migrated to WordPress in about May and here we are. Let no more albums get lost in the avalanche of newness! I sometimes need to remind myself that I am a fan, not a machine.
The Walkmen – Little House of Savages
The Dears – The Death of All the Romance
Marianne Faithfull – Last Song
 The baubles in question would be twofold:
