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JONATHAN NOVAK'S BEST OF 2003
| Best New Releases: | | 1 |  | Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People [Arts and Crafts]
If The Wrens were the perfect version of something I already liked, then Broken Social Scene was the perfect version of something I'd never seen, never known, never heard, yet had always wanted. From start to finish, it is the most eclectic, complicated, layered, profound album I've ever owned. The track list takes you on a wild ride of hyper-accelerated electric guitars melodies, into the mellow haze of a smoke circle, bouncing off the walls with demands, into the heart and mind of the teenage girl, and floating into the profound introspection of love and practicality.
Buy This Album | | 2 |  | The Wrens - Meadowlands [Absolutely Kosher]
I had never heard the Wrens before this album. I clearly had been missing something. Its like emo if emo was actually good music. The middle-aged rockers took six years to get this album together ... and they weren't just sleeping away those years and gaining fat and money. Apparently the older you get, the more in touch you get with real emotion, real appreciation and anger, spite and remorse, true happiness and the bittersweet melancholic existential existence. This album floors me every time.
Buy This Album | | 3 |  | The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow [Sub Pop]
Just listen to it. It hits just about every musical nerve I have. Complex - check. Effective, intelligent lyrics - check. Vocal harmonies - check. Emotional ride up and down - check. Talented musicians and complicated playing - checkity check check check. I have nothing to compare it to. Just fricking buy it for yourself right now.
Buy This Album | | 4 |  | TV on the Radio - Young Liars [Touch & Go]
This is an album that I knew from first listen I had heard something new, something that would change music for me, maybe even for the scene. You know the movie The Fifth Element, where Leeloo has more complex DNA than human DNA, because whereas we have, lets say, three strands of DNA, she'll have 99 strands of DNA (more complex, more layered, getting the analogy?). This album is the Leeloo of the music scene. The only reason it wasn't higher was because it only had six songs on the disk. I want a full album, dammit!
Buy This Album | | 5 |  | The Postal Service - Give Up [Sub Pop]
Without a doubt, the album I listened to more than any other in the past year. It is ... sooooooooo good - for what it is, anyway. It's really good, shallow, simple lyrics, really simple emotion, and some of the most enjoyable electronic beats and melodies I've ever heard. Like candy. My favorite aspect of the album, inevitably, is that I can't find anyone who agrees with me about what the best songs on the album are ... and what the worst songs on the album are...
Buy This Album | | 6 |  | Grandaddy - Sumday [V2]
I don't know why I love Grandaddy so much. Funny thing is, my favorite of their albums is actually the critically panned Sophtware Slump (my winter Grandaddy CD, this being my summer Grandaddy CD). But I know this: they remain a talented mix of rock and electronic/synth/whatever, sometimes idiotically silly, sometimes deathly, soberingly serious. Often about robots. This album is their grandest yet, and here's another band whose follow-up I most certainly WILL buy.
Buy This Album
Read LOTD's Review | | 7 |  | Menomena - I Am the Fun Blame Monster [Muuuhahaha!]
Just one of the most impressive albums I think I've ever heard in my life. Reminds me of Soul Coughing, if only Soul Coughing hadn't been trying so hard to be PoMo.
Buy This Album | | 8 |  | FLCL - Official Soundtrack [Ever Anime]
The Pillows. Japanese indie rock. It's fun, funny, upbeat, complicated, and yet somehow manages to capture the adolescent angst that is at the heart of the show itself. Fooly Cooly!
Buy This Album | | 9 |  | The Strokes - Room on Fire [RCA]
It's the Strokes ... again! Follow-ups tend to blow. This one is only slightly less radiant than the original, rock-out, Is This It?. I mean, who doesn't like going out to buy forties with their friends at 12:51? I sure do. Just fun, simply put. I will definitely buy their next follow-up in two years.
Buy This Album | | 10 |  | Lost in Translation - Official Soundtrack [Emperor Norton]
Why? Simple. Because I'd never heard My Bloody Valentine before. And now I have. Both the soundtrack and the movie really changed something in me. It was my number one movie of the year, barely beating out Kill Bill.
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