Best Album on My Favourite Albums of......2003!!

I wasn't hip to them at the time, but in recent (past five-ish?) years have come to love early Clientele, so The Violet Hour it is for me.

Of these albums the one I've probably listened to the most and have also listened to fairly recently and enjoyed is "Wonderful Rainbow" by Lightning Bolt, so voting for that.

Broadcast for me, my favorite by them

the title track to "i trawl the megahertz" has stayed with me... i wrote this (pretty good) long autobio piece a couple of months ago that was inspired by it. so that one.

Pig Lib, though Guitar Romantic, very very close.

There's only one option on this list that I purchased day of release on CD (at Best Buy) and that I listened to and enjoyed in the past month so Quebec it is.

every time I put on Quebec I'm stunned by how good it is, not just the music itself but also how real it is - its two middle school friends who started this band primarily to make each other laugh, who got good enough to land a deal and grow as real musicians, and then found themselves suddenly dealing with some real shit with no one but each other to lean on...there's something really endearing about that. I think it's their best album and the one where they match a lot of their big influences.

either paddy mcaloon or exploding hearts

i trawl the megahertz vs deep cuts vs alcachofa vs wonderful rainbow

Voted, to my own surprise, Sparxxx

These were all momentous releases for me:

Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
Jay Z - The Black Album
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash
Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Manitoba - Up in Flames
Four Tet - Rounds

I probably spent even more hours listening to the Black Album than the others though (Radiohead & Dizzee close seconds).

Its got to be Dizzee Rascal for me. I still listen to that one regularly. Hearing "I Luv U" for the first time was a genuinely wtf? moment

the one i voted for is the one i have likely listened to the most over those 20 and still love— but it seems so not the most “important” or “best” of this fantastic list! Perhaps not even top 5! huh. (welcome interstate mgrs). electric version would be another example of this and of the same genre. i feel very basic now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnolia_Electric_Co.#/media/File:SongsMagnoliaSC76big.jpg

Magnolia Electric Co

don't think my picture worked, but I voted MEC, too

uhhhh idk!!! might vote for kish kash, i listen to it every few years and it still sounds fresh 2 me

haha sound or berlinette

kish kash out of these but i would absolutely vote for the meadowlands if it were here

The Fall just barely over Dopesmoker

All this talk about The Fiery Furnaces over the past couple months and no mention, til now, of Gallowsbird Bark, my favourite album of theirs! I voted for it

Loved "Ghosts of the Great Highway" but can't vote that way these days.

By play count for me, 'A Strangely Isolated Place' but many others are up there too.

I Trawl the Megahertz is quietly devastating.

I was thinking earlier about how there's something transient or transitional about this year in my mind. Like, to me it feels like the year the 2000s properly kicked in, or rather that music and general pop culture shifted in quite significant and subtle ways.

I'm not sure quite what it was. Perhaps it was something to do with the spotlight on UK music seemed to dim quite a bit? The music press was by now deeply into terrible indie landfill bands, while US indie and alternative stuff was really booming. Europe too, was leading the charge in dance music. And it reflects in Michael's list where only a handful of British acts feature. Think about what a list from 1993 would have looked like by comparison.

It was also a fantastic year for stuff like dancehall, which was making a huge impact in the charts. It was the year I learned how a "riddim" worked. Again, this was kind of mirrored in 1993 with the big pop-reggae boom of that year.

Peak ILM, yes, also the year I got proper broadband access and could just download shitloads of stuff off Soulseek which opened my mind to allsorts.

I've gone for Pig Lib here but could have voted for many of these. I still think Pig Lib sounds brilliant, and is to my mind Malkmus at the peak of his powers.

I still go see Ted Leo every time he comes through town just to try to recapture that high of when i first got into Hearts of Oak.
(diminishing returns obviously, but still my favorite on this list by a wide margin)

Dopesmoker, Jay-Z, Darkness

Dopesmoker is cheating, come on

Voted for Decoration Day, which made my P&J, but can't find comments. Xgau's sound about right:

Decoration Day [New West, 2003]
First six songs are perfect--incest, elopement, foreclosure, and "Hell No, I Ain't Happy" from main man Patterson Hood, Stones song of a bitterness that passeth superstar understanding from second banana Mike Cooley, and young Jason Isbell hitting the road with his dad's blessing: "Have fun but stay clear of the needle/Call home on your sister's birthday/Don't tell them you're bigger than Jesus/Don't give it away." Without fussing over bridges and such, they treat their job like a calling--verses are packed with stories they need to tell and choruses ring out with why. The intensity wanes as they mull two suicides and several busted marriages, at least until a hard-rocking dirge about a feud brings the title into focus. But throughout they succeed in rendering Southern gothic as social realism. Somebody tell Charlie Watts jazz is for hobbyists. A-

Ghosts of the Great Highway, although I didn’t discover it until about 10 years later.

this was a great year for music, great year for radio

speakerboxxx/the love below was one of the first albums i bought with my own money. so was, weirdly, warren zevon's the wind.

songs ohia or lfo or american analog set or dopesmoker

Haha Sound is the only one of these I'm still jamming on the reg.

oh shit i missed lfo. that one

dopesmoker

Kish Kash easily. My actual favourite album of 2003 is Peatbog Faeries' Welcome to Dun Vegas. Followed by Think Tank.

voted Room on Fire

Boy in Da Corner.

Speakerboxxx easy, one of the few times I've gone to a store in the morning to buy an album the second it was put on the shelves. (The Love Below is still too wildly uneven for me to get through, but the high points are amazing - had they kept only those and mixed them in with Speakerboxxx, it might have been my favorite album of the '00s.

some of the songs i hated initially on the love below are my favorites now...vice versa is also true, unfortunately

I love "Prototype" from The Love Below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqAhr465EIw

Write-in vote for Luomo's The Present Lover, otherwise it's (in roughly descending order) Kish Kash, Boy In Da Corner, Alcachofa, Sheath, Mississippi, U Know How We Roll, Deliverance and Haha Sound for me.

I listened to The Present Lover for the first time in years recently and was stunned...by how much I'd clearly underrated it in the past or at least regarded it as somehow too in the shadow of Vocalcity unreasonably.

It might be Ghosts if Kozelek weren't such an awful cunt. Something from: Ulrich Schnauss, M83, Paddy McAloon & Four Tet.

I think it has to be Songs:Ohia. I assume Dopesmoker will get other votes

Yeah it would've been Koz back in 2003 but it's really hard to enjoy to his music now. Will go with Trawl the Megahertz

Gotta be Wonderful Rainbow for me, but shout out to Hearts of Oak & Rounds

So many good records from this year, but Wonderful Rainbow permanently recalibrated my ears

The Violet Hour

damn i love violet hour so much too, but my votes in, and i have to be good with it. i sorta am good with it i guess.

went for dopesmoker

My top ten of 2003 when I last put a list together (i.e. 2016):

1. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner
2. Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground
3. The Dandy Warhols - Welcome to the Monkey House
4. Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day
5. Missy Elliott - This Is Not a Test!
6. Electric Six - Fire
7. Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
8. Jay-Z - The Black Album
9. Liz Phair - Liz Phair
10. T.I. - Trap Muzik

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Missed this but would have voted I Trawl the Megahertz, and glad it placed high. Used to torture myself at work by listening to it,concentrating on hiding tears. It’s so lovely, it just feeds the sad wishes for new Prefab albums. Hopefully Martin’s shows will spur releases, and maybe that Spike and Cinque Lee collab.

Hardcore Broadcast-loving contingent here. They won the 2000 poll I did too

M83 reprazent. It's the only album of theirs I'm even remotely interested in.

how did i not notice guitar romantic on there. i would have easily voted for that