Guardian/Observer Music Monthly Albums of the Year
http://www.observer.co.uk/
Sunday December 12, 2004
The Observer
1 The streets
A Grand Don't Come For Free (Locked On/ 679)
In one single moment his whole life turned round...
It's all too easy now to forget how dismissive many people were of the Streets' debut in 2002. Grime had yet to be coined as a genre and this embryonic sound, this Original Pirate Material, struggled to connect with the mainstream, some even dismissing it as a joke. The live shows didn't help - some of the most laddish gigs since the Beastie Boys' first UK tour.
But with his ambitious follow-up, Mike Skinner demonstrated clearly that he can change and he can grow and he can adjust. A loose concept album, this was a modern day tale of pay-as-you-go mobiles, PlayStations, cheap pills, strong lager, fights, kebab shops, one-night stands and lost love. This was the real little Britain, with a narrative in which our hero loses a grand, falls for a girl, endures a bad ecstasy trip, jets off on a lads package holiday, is unfaithful and gets dumped. Before his fortunes change ...
He may only be in his mid-20s - and look like he's in his mid-teens - but Skinner's second album draws on every influence from the past 20 years. Tipping its Burberry cap at various points to punk, hip hop, Two Tone, house, garage, even (gulp) Britpop, and all points in between.
With Skinner and Dizzee Rascal, the UK has found two important new voices with something to say. And they also have new and defiantly British ways of saying it.
On the eve of this album's release in March, we put Skinner on our cover and declared he'd made the album of the year. We haven't changed our mind.
He's good, but my gosh he doesn't really act like he - ahem - knows it.
"Wow, that's wicked ... thankfully the risk paid off"
'Wow, that's wicked. Thanks for all your support, man,' says Mike Skinner when OMM tells him that he's made our Album of the Year.
'My albums always feel a little dangerous to me, there's always an element of a risk and thankfully that risk has paid off. I really, really believe in what I do, but I do get carried away with my vision. Then it's on the shelf and there's nothing you can do to change it, you think "what am I doing?".
'Now I've been through that with two albums it makes me think, my instincts are right, so yeah, I'll probably be going out there a lot more in the future. Not for the sake of it, but just not being afraid to try stuff.
'It's been a weird year. I spent the first half getting the album away and then it was all about 'Dry Your Eyes'. The second half I was mostly in the house with a cup of tea, working on my label. And I took my mum on safari and went in a hot air balloon.'
2 Dizzee Rascal
Showtime (XL)
With such much-touted peers as Shystie and his own erstwhile Roll Deep confrere Wiley stalled on the post-UK garage forecourt, Dizzee's second album found him doing gleeful handbrake turns in the Tesco's car-park of creative advancement. Facing up to the realities of his changing situation with an acuity few of the big names in US hip hop have ever surpassed (and from multiple stab wounds in Ayia Napa to a guest spot on Band Aid 20 in 16 months certainly isn't bad going), the fearsome loquacity of the ebullient Rascal dazzled fans and haters alike. And his 'Imagine' knocks spots off John Lennon's.
3 Youssou N'dour
Egypt (Nonesuch)
This was a record that might never have seen the light of day - an album of Islamic prayer songs that the Senegalese singer recorded in Dakar and Cairo five years ago and then shelved in the aftermath of 11 September. Thank whichever god you pray to that he finally saw fit to let it into the world - this was the most beautiful album of 2004 and endlessly fascinating to boot. In magnificent voice (finally we realised why he's always hailed as one of the world's best!), Youssou pitted himself against the exquisite orchestral arrangements of Egyptian composer Fathy Salama. Despite the intimacy of the results, it was if the world opened: Youssou's voice heading west towards the blues, the strings leading us back to the Arab nations.
4 Kings Of Leon
Aha Shake Heartbreak (Handmedown/RCA)
The Tennessean sons of a preacher man swerved past the curse of the 'difficult' second album to create an almighty slab of jaded gothic Southern rock. Frontman Caleb Followill yowled about erectile dysfunction and baldness, and the aftermath of a 14-month bender never sounded so alluring or affecting.
5 Scissor Sisters
Scissor Sisters (Polydor)
You didn't just fall for the music, you fell for the whole package. Here was the deal: Joan Rivers's wit, Dolly Parton's heart and a whole glut of post-Giuliani NY flamboyance set to a genre-hoppin', finger-poppin' musical pulse. An album for society's left-handers, with mum accidentally tapping a toe to those zippy choruses.
6 Loretta Lynn
Van Lear Rose (Polydor)
The Kentucky pensioner tore up Nashville's rulebook when she chose to work with Jack White, but the results vindicated her decision a thousand times over. This was a reminder of what country music should be: something primal.
7 Tinariwen
Amassakoul (Irl)
The best rock group in the world? Nobody in this gang of Touareg nomads grabbed the spotlight; they surged together, with crunchy guitars, spacious bass and ruthless percussion.
8 The Earlies
These Were The Earlies (WEA)
The debut from the Manchester-Texas quartet was the slow-burning triumph of the year. Elegant and dreamy, this was rock that, laudably, dared to walk around with its head in the clouds.
9 Kanye West
The College Dropout (Roc-a-Fella)
Gold-dust producer West's album was notable for its genre-shifting hits and his 'charismatic' singing. But also for depicting a neglected side of Black America - going to church or Ikea, working out, dropping out of college - in place of cartoonish gangsterism.
10 Tom Waits
Real Gone (Epitaph)
Waits called his album 'cubist funk', which was as good a description as any for the often insane clash of Latin rhythm and otherwordly beatboxing that dominated it. Showcased in his recent triumphant European tour, it was held together by some perfect Waitsian moments, notably the devilish foot-tapper 'Metropolitan Glide' - Strictly Come Dancing for the wasted and the wounded.
11 Enrico Rava
Easy Living (ECM)
Just when you were resigned to the idea that the classic jazz albums were all made before 1972 here was a record shaped by the tradition, but effortlessly reaching beyond it.
12 Lhasa
The Living Road (WSM)
This was a kaleidoscopic mix of French chanson, Mexican songs, and off-kilter percussion that let you into a highly personal vision where mythology merges with reality. A stunning debut.
13 Rufus Wainwright
Want One (Dreamworks)
Elton John says Rufus is the greatest songwriter alive, and while we are ones to argue with him, in this instance he might just be right.
14 Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand (Domino)
A great debut, whose art-school insouciance seemed deliberate from the off. They converted their esoteric post-punk tastes into instant pop thrills.
15 Goldie Lookin' Chain
Greatest Hits (Atlantic)
Not technically a 'greatest hits' - not yet, anyway - but this, surprisingly, was as touching a debut from Newport's smokin' sharp clarts as it was hilarious.
16 Brian Wilson
Smile (Nonesuch)
So it arrived a little late, but it was still very welcome. Wilson's luxuriant and often astonishing 1967 masterpiece sounded neither of its time nor our own but, brushed up and lovingly crafted by his band, it lived up to the hype. Should be played in the order in which it was created.
17 Girls Aloud
What Will The Neighbours Say? (Polydor)
Remember Popstars: The Rivals? No, neither do Nadine, Cheryl et al, and this was not only their second LP, it's a modern pop masterpiece, the sound of cheeky Britain, knickers twisted round ankles.
18 Badly Drawn Boy
One Plus One Is One (Twisted Nerve)
This was a welcome understated return for the nation's favourite tea-cosied troubadour, who ditched LA for a back-to-basics approach in Stockport. The boy, if you ever doubted it, is going to be around for a while.
19 The Country Soul Revue
Testifyin' (Casual)
Southern Sixties soul veterans reunited for the feel-good album of the year. This was sweet music as mature as a fine malt whiskey.
20 Gwen Stefani
Love, Angel, Music, Baby (Interscope)
Just when we thought America had forgotten how to make stars.
eter, aka 
usty 
halk