Taking a page out of TheFreak's book , what are some new albums that you would like to give props to? I am going to give props to "Life for Rent" by Dido. The follow-up to her hugely successful debut, "No Angel", this CD gets better and better after each listen. Best tracks are "White Flag", "Life for Rent", "Sand in my Shoes", "See the Sun", and one of my all-time favorite songs, "Don't Leave Home". It has more of an acoustic feel to it than "No Angel" but there are still plenty of electronic sounds in it along with strings to keep it similar to "No Angel", IMO. To me, no one has a smoother singing voice than Dido. I know a lot of other stuff has come out recently, so I'll be curious to see the choices of others.
For 03', I like the following: 1) Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane 2) Matchbox Twenty - More than you Think you are 3) Jason Mraz (Waiting for my Rocket to Come) and Josh Kelly (For the Ride) aren't bad either... I know this isn't 03', but Norah Jones is very good...
"Phantom Power" Super Furry Animals "Fever to Tell" Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" Belle and Sebastian "Hearts of Oak" Ted Leo & The Pharmacists "Electric Version" New Pornographers "Speakerboxx/The Love Below" Outkast "Elephant" White Stripes
Neil Young - On the Beach So what if it came out in '75. It was just released on CD for the first time. It's already one of my favorite Neil albums (and I have quite a few). Ranking of all the CD's I've bought that were released this year (that I can remember): 1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs ("Fever to Tell") 2. Stephen Malkmus ("Pig Lib") 3. Rodney Crowell ("Fate's Right Hand") 4. Drive-by Truckers ("Decoration Day") 5. Blur ("Think Tank") 6. Broken Social Scene ("You Forgot It In People") 7. Radiohead ("Hail to the Thief") 8. Fountains of Wayne ("Welcome Interstate Managers") 9. Grandaddy ("Sumday") 10. Dizzee Rascal ("Boy in Da Corner") 11. Andrew WK ("The Wolf") 12. Mars Volta ("De-Loused in the Comatorium") 13. Pretty Girls Make Graves ("The New Romance") 14. Lucinda Williams ("World Without Tears") 15. OutKast ("Speakerboxxx/The Love Below") 16. Guided By Voices ("Earthquake Glue) 17. Quasi ("Hot ****") 18. New Pornographers ("Electric Version") 19. White Stripes ("Elephant") 20. Neil Young ("Greendale") 21. Spiritualized ("Amazing Grace") 22. Zwan ("Mary star of the sea ") 23. Cat Power ("You are Free") 24. AFI ("Sing the Sorrow") 25. Yo la Tengo ("Summer Sun") On a side note. Personally, I don't know why the new Outkast album is getting so much recognition. I thought Andre3000's contributions would dominate Big Boi's, but it's completely the other way around. Andre's stuff sucks, and the little blurbs between his tracks are stupid. This can't be the same guy that made "I'll Call Before I Come." As for Big Boi, his songs easily stand up to all of Outkast's previous work. Still, half the album is garbage, so I don't see how it could be getting such good reviews.
I doubt Outkast's new stuff is going to topple 50 cent as rap album of the year. I know Andre is very talented, but he really needs to stop trippin over all these females and get back to rappin. Big Boi's stuff didn't really impress me that much either, a couple of nice tracks, but nothing like Stankonia. I've been playing Obie Trice's Cheers. I can't say its great, but it not anything worse than I expected. Eminem, Dre, and Timbo really put together some nice beats on this, but new producer Emile really stood out with some nice sounds.
Demon Hunter- Demon Hunter 36 Crazyfists- Bitterness The Star Coheed and Cambria's new albulm will probably be good, the only song I have heard from it is great.
A-Train, the drummer of this band gives lessons to the drummer of my band. I've never met him, but Julian says he's a pretty chill dude.
Phantom Power and Electric Version are the two best I've heard this year. Except for maybe Hail to the Thief, which if you haven't heard by now, you probably don't want to and never will. Got Love Below today. So far, hysterical--"At this point, I mean I'm not being picky. She doesn't even have to have a big ol' ass, you know? Just something well-proportioned to her body." Elephant's pretty lousy, I think. Belle and Sebastian ain't out yet--I'm calling the RIAA.
Dave Matthews-Some Devil There's more, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out about them.
