Wherein I finally post something resembling my favorite records of 2004. I have a reputation for showing up ten minutes late for everything, so I suppose it only makes sense that I should be about a month late to the end of the year. But fuck it. As a music obsessive, I feel compelled to compile these annual best-of lists, even if I do feel a little conflicted about the whole thing, for many of these reasons. I’ve been waffling on whether or not to do it this year, but, after reading and enjoying other people’s lists (click click click click click click click + magazines + emails), it only seems right that I should “give back”, or something.

That decided, I started my list, and quickly found myself in the odd position of having only three two solid favorites for 2004. Which seems really weird to me. I heard shitloads of music last year; how can it be that so little of it left any real impression on me? I’m thinking maybe it has something do with listening to too much music (by the time I finally get around to downloading/buying that album I needed to hear there’s five more in the queue, repeat), and something to do with spending a lot of time searching out old records. So what then, a top 2? Seems kind of anticlimactic.

Also, I have a hard time assigning rankings to music I like, and I’m lazy, and I like to avoid things I have a hard time with.

All of this leads to the semi-compartmentalized, not-really- hierarchical un-list you see below. I feel this format allows me to more accurately reflect the stuff I heard and how I felt about it, and prevents me from tossing in a bunch of stuff I wish I heard and half-like into something like the traditional 10.

In the end, the point of all this is really just to turn you the reader on to some good music I think deserves attention. This is what many of the lists I’ve read these past couple weeks have done for me; I hope this one does the same for you.

The Big Two:
Brooks Red Tape (Soundslike)
The Ponys Laced With Romance (In The Red)

Wish I’d listened to More:
Joanna Newsom The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City)
Kanye West College Dropout (Roc-a-Fela)
Animal Collective Sung Tongs (Paw Tracks)
Green Day American Idiot (Reprise)
Youssou N’Dour Egypt (Nonesuch)
Viva Voce The Heat Can Melt Your Brain (Minty Fresh)

Honorable Mention:
Cut/Copy Life Like Neon (Modular People)
Juicy Panic Otarie (InPolySons)
cry.on.my.console Rum Loving Bass Pirate
Soundhog As Heard on Radio Soundhog Volumes 4 & 5
boom selection
20 Jazz Funk Greats

Portland, Oregon (recorded, albums):
Strategy Drumsolo’s Delight (Kranky)
Blitzen Trapper Field Rexx (Self Released)
Viva Voce The Heat Can Melt Your Brain (Minty Fresh)
Adelaide Adelaide EP (Self Released)

Portland, Oregon (recorded, songs):
YACHT “I Love a Computer”
YACHT “SHTML”
Blitzen Trapper “Pink Padded Slippers”
Dykeritz “The Fountain of Youth vs. Everlasting Life in Heaven”
Alan Singley “Seem To Have Forgotten” (anyone know the real name of this song?)

Portland, Oregon (live):
PDX POP NOW!
Nice Nice Alarmist CD Release Party (The Fritz)
The Snuggle Ups PORCH P*L*U*R 2004 (The Orange Room
Wet Confetti PDX POP NOW! (The Meow Meow [R.I.P.])
Portland General Electro KPSU Fundraiser (Some Dude’s House)
Menomena, The Joggers, talkdemonic (Lola’s Room)
Mirah PDX POP NOW! (The Meow Meow)
The Hunches The Triggers’ Second-to-Last Show(Jasmine Tree)
The Triggers, Electric Eye The Triggers’ Last Show (Berbati’s)
Clorox Girls Easter BBQ Party (PRA House)
Easter Beer Hunt (Laurelhurst Park)
Wet Confetti, Knock It Closer, CUM LAZER Big-Ass Halloween Party (Katie’s House)

Seattle, Washington (live):
The Girls Secret Bumbershoot Show (The Funhouse)

Killer Singles:
M.I.A. “Galang” (XL)
Air “Run” (Astralwerks)
The Thermals “How We Know” (Sub Pop)
Junior Boys “Belona” (KIN)
CASH “My My My” (BlackGround / Universal)
Mario “Let Me Love You” (3rd Street/J
Snoop Dogg “Drop It Like It’s Hot” (StarTrax)
Jammin95.5

Killer Single + Best Video Ever:
Ludacris “Get Back” (Def Jam South)

Old Stuff I Found and Loved in 2004:
Swell Maps A Trip to Marineville (Secretly Canadian)
Swell Maps Jane in Occupied Europe (Secretly Canadian)
Caetano Veloso Caetano Veloso [1968] (Philips)
King Sunny Ade Juju Music (Mango)
Au Pairs Playing With a Different Sex (RPM)
Alice Coltrane Huntington Ashram Monastery (Impulse!)
Brian Eno Discreet Music (Editions EG)
The Monks Black Monk Time (Repertoire)
Plaid Booc EP (Warp)
The Seeds “I Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”
13th Floor Elevators “You’re Gonna Miss Me”

CUM LAZER’s Fave Mid-to-Early Nineties Party Classix:
Skee-Lo “I Wish”
Montell Jordan “This Is How We Do It”
Freak Nasty “Da Dip”
Tag Team “Woomp! There It Is”
Salt n Pepa “Push It” (ok, late 80s)
Naughty By Nature “Hip Hop Hooray” / “OPP”

Steve Winwood Song That Nobody Realizes Is As Funky As It Is:
Steve Winwood “Higher Love”

NO, really. At the tail end of 2004 I performed kareoke to this song, as it is one of the few songs I know all the words too. My mom had a tape of it growing up, and I distinctly remember being left in the car, playing this song on repeat, memorizing the words, and singing my pre-adolescent heart out to it over and over again. I hadn’t heard it for quite a while, but when the backing music came up it all came rushing back. And I remembered: this song has the wickedest pseudo-Afro synthetic percussion / fake-ass orchestral synth combo going on, like, ever! People don’t realize this. I told my girlfriend as much, and now the phrase “nobody realizes how funky that song is” will live on forever as the supreme indicator of my complete and total music geekiness.

Here’s to a geeky 2005!