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Monday, December 22, 2003 John Darnielle's Fave Recordings Of 2003 Neumu's Michael Goldberg writes: As 2003 draws to a close, it's time for those much-anticipated Neumu "best-of" lists. Each year we ask our contributors to consider all that they've listened to during the past year, and to come up with a list of their favorite albums (and, if they are so moved, their fave songs, concerts or whatever). Today we let Neumu Contributing Editor John Darnielle, who I'm sure you know records as the Mountain Goats, let us in on what his musical world was like in 2003. Hi Michael, I fear this list will win me few friends. As you know, I don't generally believe in top 10 lists, or in ranking albums in any way at all. There are no numbers next to the entries, and that's by design: I don't believe in "the best album of the year" any more than I believe in preferring one's right eye to one's left. There are at least 10 other albums which could replace all of the albums on this list and I'd still say "Yep, those were my favorites this year." Nevertheless — well, you asked! Here's what I found myself returning to most through the year. All warmest, John Steely Dan, Everything Must Go (Warner Bros.): Donald Fagen is the Wayne Gretzky circa '81-'87 of lyricists: he has no competition. People get all excited when they don't give the Grammy to Brash And Daring Young Men, but unfortunately, none of the Brash And Daring Young Men have the big brass ones that Becker and Fagen bring to the table. Lickgoldensky, The Beautiful Sounds of? (Escape Artist): Would be the best album of the year if it weren't for the whole Steely Dan Kills All Comers thing cited above. All other metalcore bands should retire immediately. Lickgoldensky can carry the genre all by themselves. Vital Remains, Dechristianize (Olympic): Extremely mean-spirited death metal. About 30 minutes' worth, in fact. Like riding in a car that refuses to stop accelerating, or can't. Amazing. Randy Newman, The Randy Newman Songbook (Nonesuch): All of these songs are ancient: it's just Newman alone at a piano playing them in a studio. So you'd think it'd be hard to get excited about the record. Except that no American songwriter in the whole 20th century wrote songs as good as these, and, since their author has now had plenty of time to chew on them, he's able to deliver them with a degree of nuance and insight that's breathtaking to hear. KRS-One, Kristyles (Koch): My friend Ethan will make fun of me for putting this on the list. Ethan already makes fun of me for not having sold this record back to the store I bought it from. Whatever. I love this album. It's the relentless force of KRS-One's conviction, or maybe it's his charm. The beats are like dinosaurs, yes. Know what? Dinosaurs are awesome and huge and can crush whole cities. You better recognize, Ethan. Ludacris, Chicken N Beer (Def Jam): On the subject of Ethan, whose critical opinion I respect more than almost anyone else's on the subject of above-ground hip-hop: guy says this isn't a patch on previous Ludacris albums. You couldn't prove it by me. This is a very '70s rock-critic thing to say about a record, but the fact is that I always find myself listening to this album from beginning to end and enjoying practically all of it. And I didn't hear anybody else cram wit and obscenity into such close quarters this year, at least not with such glee and apparent ease. R. Kelly, Chocolate Factory (Jive): The key point here: R. Kelly is one of the best singers of the era. His lyrics may be kind of stupid sometimes. Maybe. Or maybe they're completely, utterly wonderful. At least four times on this record, every time I hear it, I'm convinced I'm hearing the best pop music of all time. And two of those four times tend to occur during different versions of the same song. True Love Always, Torch (Teenbeat Records): This indie-rock band from the Teen Beat stable makes the case for breezy-and-light as the new weighty-and-serious. Some of these melodies refuse to leave my head for days on end, and the crackling interplay between the band's three members is wondrous to hear. There's an ideology at work, too, which True Love Always (rather surprisingly) articulate better than any of their labelmates have: it has something to do with youth and something else to do with not having it any more, but beyond that it's better if you work it out yourself. The end result is that it's quite beautiful, and often hurts in a very sweet way. Aesop Rock, Bazooka Tooth (Definitive Jux): Pop hip-hop fans hate on Aesop Rock something fierce, but if they could see past their prejudices and their distaste for his perceived audience, they'd hear a mindfuckingly great album. I could generally do without bonus discs, just because they seem to dilute the overall effect of an album, and especially so in the case of a huge sticky monstrous gloriously messy thing like this; the bonus disc here does, however, feature a new mix of Murs' "Risky Business," which features Humpty Hump, who is unquestionably America's greatest national treasure, so it manages to justify itself, I guess. Radiohead, Hail to the Thief (Capitol): Don't wanna list it; who wants to ride on a crowded bus? Gotta list it; it's too great to be left off. Watch out for the jam-rock tendencies threatening on "Where I End and You Begin" though. Two steps further and we're playing four-hour sets whose high point is "Dark Star." The InsiderOne Daily Report appears on occasion.