What music did you really like in 2003?

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One thing I can't really understand about end of year round-ups is, why do they just include music released in a certain year? It just feels like something is missing, like the great new thing you like has to be omitted because it was over 10 years ago. So, what did you like listening to in 2003, new or old, lists or in-depth?

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

all of it.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Quite a bit of silence, actually.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I quite enjoyed the bootleg MP3-only release The Sounds of Ned Raggett Enjoying A Rare Moment of Silence. I wouldn't have put it in my top ten, but it's a sentimental favourite that I'll probably wind up putting on every mixtape for the next 13 years.

― Luigi Vampa (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Woo!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

i got into Stereolab a little bit. that was new.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

*sigh* I didn't think this question was so bad.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I got into the Fall and the Durutti Column this year.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

*sigh* I didn't think this question was so bad.

It's not a bad question at all, Jel! My answer was actually pretty serious.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Did you not like a lot of music this year Ned, or were you just taking a break?

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

"Noel Coward At Las Vegas" is making my end of year list when I get around to doing it. Most entertaining record I've heard in yonks.

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Besides the new stuff I liked, which is documented here, some other things I got into in 2003 (with a representative album choice) were:

Muddy Waters - Anthology
Kompakt (the label, not a band) - Total 4
Steely Dan - Countdown to Ecstasy
Duke Ellington - Blanton-Webster Years
Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
Van Halen - Van Halen
Willie Nelson - Stardust

I'll try to think of some more.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Stardust is wicked.

― Luigi Vampa (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:17 (twenty-two years ago)

in no particular order:
harry nilsson
hidden cameras
au pairs
girls at our best
television
luigi tenco
dalida
lemonheads
beyonce
outkast

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Other than stuff released this year:

De La Soul: 'De La Soul Is Dead'
Vincent Gallo: 'When'
Soundtrack: 'Once Upon A Time In The West'
Neu!: 'Neu!
Neil Young: 'Harvest' (as always)

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and I discovered Dexy's Midnight Runners!

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Did you not like a lot of music this year Ned, or were you just taking a break?

Mostly a break. As a number of past posts from this year on the board can tell you, I was (and to a large extent remain) burnt out from the sheer acceleration of music appreciation/investigation these days, at least when it comes from a feeling of always having to write about it -- it reminded me unpleasantly of what grad school was making me feel about writing and talking about literature, in that there was a similar 'publish or perish' vibe. If I had ever had a blog, I would have completely shut it down and put a hex on it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm glad I don't write about music for a living I guess....it seems like it would be a fun hobby, but I'd hate to dimish my enjoyment of it by making it work.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:30 (twenty-two years ago)

The Black League
Cow Cow Davenport
Luomo
Fatback
Nile
KMD
Destroyer 666
Ying Yang Twins
Virgin Black
So So Def Bass All-Stars
Katatonia
Wonwons
Groovski
Subarachnoid Space
The Sound
Assemblage 23
Android Lust
Andrew Hill
Ulver
Mr.Oizo
Big Pokey
Entombed
Junior Senior
Wimple Winch ( and both rubble box-sets )
Pentagram
The Gathering
Liftr Pllr
Bunnybrains
Bohannon
Kyuss
The Group Image
Mandrill
Acrostichon
Agony Column
Stretch Marks
Michael Franks (his debut from 72? is great. like country-rock belle and sebastian.)
Ram Jam
Moondog
Judas Priest
Henry Cow
Minor Threat (demos&dvd)
John Renbourn
Mandrake Memorial (everyone should own their 3 albums. collectables put them on cd for cheap. there is no excuse for not having them)
Necros
Blurt
Sandy Denny
Damnation of Adam Blessing (everyone should own those first 2 albums)
Groundhogs
Mississippi Fred McDowell
Wipers
Esther Phillips
Meic Stevens
Charles Mingus
Budgie

a lot of this was re-listening, but this is some of the stuff that i kept going back to for some reason.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I properly got into The Smiths (I'd had TQID for 2 or 3 years but I got the rest this year) as well as Joy Division, Frank Black's first couple of solo albums, McLusky and, at the very end of the year/start of this year, Talking Heads.

― Chris Jones (Crackity Jones), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I finally got round to Prince. Seems everyone in my fam thinks he's gay, which may explain why he was rarely played on a radio near me or bought by Mum and Dad. Last month, Mumtold me 'Purple Rain' was one of the best songs of all time, neatly avoiding the question of why she doesn't have it.

Also, disco-punk and grime were pretty interesting, though I'm not deep inside of either yet. My pop (and chart) appreciation was off the ends too.

― Barima (Barima), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 19:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Prince, Steely Dan and R. Kelly

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 19:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I love how jel doesn't get that a year round-up focuses on music released that year. Dude, this doesn't preclude people talking about resurgent trends and retro-assimilation. Just look at post/disco/not-disco/punk.

Besides, I thought the other point of them was not to go off on a tangent about who you finally discovered from years past but whatever. Maybe if the year sucked, you can waste more time talking about them, but if this what round-ups did, it'd seem a little off-point.

― Barima (Barima), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Good question. This year I seriously got hooked on:

Leonard Cohen
Nick Drake
Belle and Sebastian
Bob Dylan
The Smiths

I guess in some ways this means I've had a quiet year. Particularly the first three.

― Colin Cooper, Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

i flogged the shit out of my Lime best-of. i'm sure i played more than anything else this year. absolutely totally amazing & brilliant from start to finish, everyone go get a copy.

― g--ff (gcannon), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I like this thread. This year, among plenty of other things, I devoted a ton of time to figuring out the straight-up techno/house side of electronic music, which I always generally disliked (I had gotten into trip-hop & other more breakbeat-based music plenty in the past).

I also married someone who loves shitty anthemic trance and top 40, so there was more of that than ever, and I found some things to like.

I found out that I like minimal techno and microhouse much more than the more traiditional music. Thanks exclusively to this board for tipping me off to much of that stuff (a lot of the stuff I like came out in 2003, actually).

I also jumped into the Blur catalog with both feet, after loving Think Tank. That was a good trip.

In '04, I feel a jazz resurgence coming on. I need to revisit most of my collection and expand it.

― southern lights (southern lights), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Listened to a lot of Scud Mountain Boys, other country-ish type music, also Thin Lizzy, lots of the Star Time artists, Outkast for a minute until it became too ubiquitous and I got tired of hearing it.

― webcrack (music=crack), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Southern lights' first para is something I forgot to say for myself.

I anticipate a hip hop focus on my part. Where I'm currently living, I can't buy much else (Ghanaian high life is very meh, hip life will be worthy one day when the backing matches the rapping).

― Barima (Barima), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 20:46 (twenty-two years ago)

canibus
notorious big
jay-z
m83
future sound of london
global communication
snoop dogg
blur

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Kilian you must let me make you an ambient type CD, with Derrick May and Carl Craig and stuff on it.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Grime

― Fat Alberet (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:45 (twenty-two years ago)

my head exploded with the range and variety of great stuff people sent me as mix tapes/cds. i didn't love it all, but overall those were my most enjoyable listening experiences.

unlike Ned, i listened to far less music "professionally", for various reasons. and that meant i had a great time.

― mullygrubber (gaz), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked everything, or at least I can't remember listening to anything right now and thinking that it was awful.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

i didn't hate anything this year, but i don't seem to get really excited about any music anymore. the range of my reaction to music goes from "this is quite good" to "i'm not really into this!"

ronan i will happily accept your offer :-)

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:03 (twenty-two years ago)

For me, this year was a year of discovering many new things; ILM had a big part on this process, as a source of knowledge and discussion. Some of my best digs this year:

Porcupine Tree
Belle & Sebastian
Bardo Pond
Wire
Lightning Bolt
Neu!
Tortoise
The Wedding Present
Seafood
Eleventh Dream Day
Cop Shoot Cop
Alchemysts
Sunny Day Real Estate
...
etc.

― JP Almeida (JP Almeida), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

i listened to large amounts of 60s psychedelia, mod and beat stuff. and quite a bit of stuff from the golden age of '89 thru '92. and everything from 2001 and 2002 i hadn't caught up with yet.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:57 (twenty-two years ago)

For me, this was the year that I seriously got into soul music. Starting in 2002, I was buying up some of the really popular stuff by Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and others, but 2003 was the year that I really started digging deeper (having a bit more money to spend on music certainly helped). Also, my girlfriend bought me the Complete Stax Singles 1959-1968, which is 9 amazing CDs!!!
So I'd say on a soul front, I bought and listened to the above mentioned, as well as Donny Hathaway, Howard Tate, William Bell, Garnet Mimms, Solomon Burke, among others.

This year also saw me getting into quite a bit of hip hop. I thought that 2003 hip hop was quite amazing, but I was also getting into older stuff as well. So I'd say that aside from all of the 2003 music I was listening to this year, hip hop and soul music were the two styles that I got into this year, and very little of either was from the past year.

Oh, I also didn't obsess over the Streets until the beginning of the year (when I finally bought the album), so I would add that to a non-2003 release that I loved in 2003.

― Jonathan (Jonathan), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:57 (twenty-two years ago)

oh also a shitload of late 70s and 80s australian pop and rock, thanks to the trilogy of fine compilations released in '02 and '03

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I was listening to a lot of '80s long raincoat/new wavey/jangley kind of bands.

The Teardrop Explodes
Echo & the Bunnymen
Soft Boys

The Dream Syndicate
The dBs

I kind of got into Prog.

Yes (lots of Yes)
King Crimson

Also post-punk/proto-punk

Pere Ubu
Rough Trade comp.

Non-Western music

Fela Kuti
Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn
Ravi Shankar

And a bunch of other stuff I can't remember.

― Debito (Debito), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:59 (twenty-two years ago)

last year i was mostly listening to:

reggae
dancehall
jungle
gabba
mambo
northern soul
detroit techno
electro

― searchanddelete, Wednesday, 14 January 2004 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

My favorite record not from 2003 that I first heard in 2003: Bark Psychosis, Hex. Most of what I got into this past year (like pop, hip-hop, dance) was strictly contemporary, but it was quite new for me.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 15 January 2004 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

This is a good thread. I feel like most of the stuff that really really takes up my time over each year is old.

Ethiopiques
'60s Blue Note albums
Archie Shepp
Nara Leao
BYG/Actuel reissues
Young Marble Giants
Sam Rivers
Grachan Moncur III
The Clean (again)
Throwing Muses
Gal Costa

― scott m (mcd), Thursday, 15 January 2004 02:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Aside from Jaylib and the Canibus/Jedi Mind Tricks collabs, I finally got pretty burned-out on hip hop in 2003. I've been listening to Mastodon a lot of course - thats my new favorite band. The Haunted "One Kill Wonder" and Morbid Angel "Heretic" got a lot of play as well. As for older stuff I sort of went back to - Swervedriver's Raise came out quite a bit cause of all the time I spent in the car. A lot of early Lush too - I was really getting into singing myself and this is a huge inspiration for sure. Been goin' back to a lot of the late 80's hardcore-metal shit too - Nuclear Assault, SOD, Sacred Reich, Excel, Crumbsuckers, etc etc - just cause it always makes me happy to hear that stuff again. A little of the early 60's Coltrane Quartet stuff here and there too. It was a good year listening to music - great thread.

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Thursday, 15 January 2004 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Rolling Stones and AC/DC did their damndest to rescue me from post-break-up doldrums. They did a damn fine job of it too, especially Mr. Bon Scott.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 15 January 2004 02:47 (twenty-two years ago)

music from 2003 i discovered and liked in 2003:
outkast, love below disc
maroon 5, whatever their hit video is called
jay-z, the black album

music from beyond i discovered and liked in 2003:
tony williams lifetime
polly jean harvey, stories from the city, stories from the sea
beck, sea change
eminem, the eminem show
sondheim, assassins
richard ashcroft, alone with everybody
brad meldhau, places
belle and sebastian, fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant
gong
donnie, the colored section
johanssen brothers with alan holdsworth
adrian belew, lone rhino
robert fripp and the league of crafty guitarists, a show of hands
richard ashcroft
warren zevon, bad luck streak in dancing school
david lindley
dizzy gillespie, toots thielemans and pretty purdie, live @ montreux - 1980
jean-luc ponty, cosmic messenger
billy cobham

― princessofcairo, Thursday, 15 January 2004 02:57 (twenty-two years ago)

New
Kid 606
The Postal Service
Kings Of Leon
The Rapture
ummmm.....thats about it. Let's Try The Old Junk
New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies
The Flaming Lips - Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid (First EP and 3 LP's on 3 cd's)
Iterp...I Mean Joy Division
Pulp - Different Class
Blur - Leisure (How Come Us Shitty Americans Don't Get Sing?)

― Dude (The Yellow Dart), Thursday, 15 January 2004 05:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I Had To Buy The Trainspotting Soundtrack Just To Hear it

― Dude (The Yellow Dart), Thursday, 15 January 2004 05:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Heaps of Fleetwood Mac love this year, carrying over from the second half of last year.

lots of dancehall.

also revived every section of my jungle collection at one stage or another.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 15 January 2004 12:16 (twenty-two years ago)

(in response to jel's original question)

well that was why I posted two end-of-year lists on my blog; one for new stuff and one for old. Anything else I (re)discovered this year I generally wrote about on my blog at the time.

― Phoebe Dinsmore, Thursday, 15 January 2004 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I got into:

-The Zombies
-Rolling Stones (Aside from "Ruby Tuesday" I didn't know anything before!)
-Kinks
-Willie Nelson (I love his early, early stuff--Hello Walls!)

ps Fact checking cuz--I so love your userid!!!

― Robomonkey (patronus), Thursday, 15 January 2004 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Add to my list:

Kevin Ayers - Bananamour and Yes We Have No Mañanas

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 16 January 2004 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

the brunettes, boyracer and pas/cal dominated my year. pas/cal is my new new favorite band, again.

― keith m (keithmcl), Friday, 16 January 2004 04:04 (twenty-two years ago)

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