Filed under: design of a decade, lists, music | Tags: 2004, design of a decade, the streets
10. The Streets, Fit But You Know It
After Mike Skinner set Anglophile hearts ablaze with his 2002 debut, the man known as The Streets followed the commercial and critical success up with A Grand Don’t Come For Free, a darkly funny concept album about desperation and boredom. It’s bleak and miserable and not especially fun to listen to. The tracks on Original Pirate Material proved their point by sounding really awkward; it was the sound of a frantic Englishman trying to make rap songs and producing something giddier and more immediate; but that style can’t quite convey the levels of drama that Skinner’s trying to channel on A Grand Don’t Come For Free. The songs are still funny, but the album’s concept seems simultaneously glossed-over and never ending.
Well, except for track seven.
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Filed under: Uncategorized
I thought about just jumping ahead and recapping my top 10 singles of 2009, just to be timely, but then I decided not to be a quitter and push on with 2004 instead. (Also, I asked people on Twitter, and someone actually responded with an opinion.)
I made a top 50 list of my favorite songs of ’04, which was probably the worst year of the decade in terms of pop singles overall. At the time I was pretty torn between hipster dance music and mainstream hip-hop, as you can probably tell by the inclusion of such classics as Pardon My Freedom and Learn Chinese. My album of the year was the Blood Brothers’ Crimes which, while very good, shouldn’t really ever be called the best album of any year.
50. The Sounds, Living In America
49. Gwen Stefani, What You Waiting For?
48. Modest Mouse, Float On
47. Jin, Learn Chinese
46. !!!, Pardon My Freedom
45. Dogs Die In Hot Cars, Godhopping
44. Kelis, Trick Me
43. Pitch Black, It’s All Real
42. The Darkness, Growing On Me
41. Dilated Peoples, This Way
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