2004, The Year In Music

Each year, instead of Christmas cards, I make two compilations, one with Christmas music and another with music that was released during the year. Here's the track listing and commentary for the 2004 edition:

Music From 2004
The Dropkick Murphys - Tessie. They're from Boston, and the song is about the Royal Rooters, the craziest legion of Sox fans from the early 1900s. It's all about the rawk, brother.
Rockets Over Sweden - So In Love With You And Me. A great Chicago band with 2/3 of the members of the sadly defunct Verbow. This song'll kick you in the shins, slam you against the wall, and not let up.
The Von Bondies - Tell Me What You See. Another ass-kicking garage band from Detroit, in the tradition of the MC5.
Modest Mouse - Satin in a Coffin. So their single "Float On" was the "Hey Ya" of 2004., but this song gets under your skin in a rather delightful way, especially the frighteningly sincere way they scream "I sure hope you are dead!" Angst, baby.
Mark Lanegan Band - Methamphetamine Blues. The former Screaming Trees frontman put out his best solo work in 2004, and I'll put it up against any of the old Trees stuff. It's like Tom Waits on steroids.
Michael McDermott - Dance With Me. Another delightfully disturbing song, whose musical tension builds in perfect unison with the lyrical tension. I particularly enjoy the line, "Would you kill me if I asked you to? Do you know me yet?"
Franz Ferdinand - Auf Asche. Like Modest Mouse, in '04 these guys went from obscure indie band to being adored by teenage girls in suburbia. I love the disco element to this Scottish rock.
Felix Da Housecat - What She Wants. All this great Chicago hip hop DJ does is find the pocket and rock it. If your body isn't moving to this song, I'd like to check your pulse.
Air - Alpha Beta Gaga. The strings on this soothing instrumental are mesmerizing.
The Helio Sequence - Harmonica Song. I saw these guys - a guy on drums, a girl on guitar and vocals, and a sample box - play a street fest in August. It was my first cool social event in Seattle when I first moved here.
Loretta Lynn & Jack White - Portland, Oregon. I'm generally not a Loretta Lynn fan, but Jack White's wall of guitars and production make this one impossible not to like. A great lyric, "Portland, Oregon, and sloe gin fizz, if that ain't livin' then tell me what is," is rivaled only by, "Well, sloe gin fizz works mighty fast when you drink it by the pitcher and not by the glass, uh-huh."
The Walkmen - The Rat. A great young rock band. They made the record that Bono & Co. didn't have the stones to make in '04.
Jesse Malin - Hotel Columbia. There are so many candy-ass singer-songwriters on the radio these days, and then there's Jesse Malin. This guy is a ballsy songwriter.
The Thrills - The Irish Keep Gate-Crashing. Kinda like the Waterboys, without the dated 80s production sheen and the cheesy saxophone.
Death Cab For Cutie - Tiny Vessels. After putting the CD together and making 50 copies, I learned that this record actually came out in October '03. Oops. This song puts a chill down my spine.
Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter - Troubled Soul. The melancholy of this song is sad, dark, disturbing, and its sincerity slices right through me. I like that.
Social Distortion - Angel's Wings. Social D's best record since Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell.
Tom Waits - Day After Tomorrow. Best anti-war song I've heard in a long time, a letter written from a soldier in Iraq waiting to come home to Rockford, Illinois.