2008年 06月 10日 火曜日 14:15
The following are the top 10 albums of 2003 that I currently own. I probably own more than 10 albums from that year, but these are my favourites.
Note 1: I will be including compilations, live albums, ep's, re-issues etc, but no singles.
Note 2: If I do only own 10 from this year, the releases towards the end of the list may not be favourites of mine at all, but the best I do have from that year.
Note 3: If you think my list sucks, or needs improvements, please feel free to RECOMMEND me albums from 2003 and I will certaintly try to listen to them and give my opinions.
All comments welcome.
I was initially slightly dissapointed with this album. At first I thought Radiohead had lost it. The reason for this was because I thought they were, for the first time repeating themselves. At the end of 'Sit Down Stand Up' (the raindrops) and the end of 'Where I End And You Begin' (we will eat you alive, there'll be no more lies'). You know the sections where they repeat themselves over and over. It worked perfect on Idioteque from Kid A (the first of the children part), but initially thought the two mentioned from HTTT were copied because they couldnt think how to end those particular songs, hence repeating the same line over and over. I was wrong. I saw a music video on YouTube that someone made for 'Sit Down Stand Up'. It basically was a video of America and George Bush and the wars they have been involved in. ''The Raindrops'' section played over the images of bombs being dropped from the sky. Every part of that song fell right into place from that moment.
There is so much variation in this album, more so than any other Radiohead album. This may be why I cant stop listening to it. My favourite song from this album must be 'Myxomatosis', I just love the beat to that, it makes me jump around. 'I Will' is a beautiful slow, soft song. 'The Gloaming' is a superb, scary song. I don't know why, but it reminds me of Halloween. It's probably because of a live performance I saw of it, where there was green lights surrounding the stage, and the way Thom Yorke moved whilst singing it brought a spooky side to the performance. Great stuff. It took me the longest time, but I love the rap at the end in 'A Wolf At The Door'. Everything on this album is fantastic, and there is such incredible variation from song to song that it is very hard to get bored. Bring on the next album, I can't wait for it. 5/5
2. Avril Lavigne - My World
This is awesome.
The DVD consists of an entire live concert, which was great to watch her perform material from her best album (in my opinion) Let Go as well as cover songs and 'new' songs which never saw the light of day in the end. Her voice is perfect throughout and the performance is energetic and entertaining. Other than the concert are a 'behind the scenes' look at Avril's life. My favourite part showing her and her crew performing on a train before she was signed, to make a few dollars. Its all really good.
The CD which is included is also brilliant. It contains 6 songs, 3 of which are cover songs performed live, 2 are her own songs live, and theres a b-side. The best of the live songs are the Metallica cover Fuel which rocks, however Avril's live performance of Unwanted proves she can write and perform her own rock song and is by far the best thing about this CD. The b-side Why is also very good, proving to me that she was at her peak with her first album. I think 'Why' is better than anything on The Best Damn Thing.
Recommended to any Avril fan. 5/5
3. Number Ones
I hate how Michael Jackson has so many compilations. I hate how they all are virtually the same. Still, how can I not give this 5 stars, when its 18 number one's from the best pop artist ever?? I now have numourous Jacko compilations (don't ask me why), and strongly recommend that anyone only needs any one of them as an introduction to this man's music.
I got this one christmas along with the DVD of the same name. While this album is awesome, the DVD is a real let down, with most of the videos cut in half. 5/5
4. Absolution
The first thing I ever heard from Muse was, maybe not suprisingly Time Is Running Out. When that was first released it was on the music channels a lot, and my sister wanted me to burn a mixed CD for her, and that was one of the songs she wanted to be on it. I liked that song quite a lot and remember even putting it on my walkman at the time. This was a time before I was that in to music, and to me it was just a catchy pop song, that I forgot about before long. Anyway, fast forward to the end of 2006, and my girlfriend loaned me a copy of this, and I was slightly interested because of my memory of liking 'Time Is Running Out'. To my delight that was not the only catchy pop/rock song on this album. This album is extremely entertaining.
It is very plain to see that lead vocalist Matt Bellamy was clearly influenced by Thom Yorke and Radiohead. Now, this is not me comparing the bands work, but you can hear it in Bellamy's vocals, how much he seems to be trying to sound like Yorke. This is not a bad thing, and I do very much like Bellamy's vocals (though not as much as Yorke's).
The music on Absolution is not as emotionally connecting, and not as experimental and perhaps not as meaningful as anything by Radiohead. However Muse do know how to make a catchy song that gets lodged in the brain. But it is more than that. I feel it would be unfair to say Muse are another Radiohead copycat rip off, when thay are clearly better than a lot (heck most) of the mainstream 'rock' bands. Musically this album is top notch, and the vocals are brilliant throughout. I've read a lot of bad things about their lyrics, but I disagree. What is so bad about them? They are not nonsence, they are just as good as most bands.
Particular highlights are 'Time Is Running Out', Hysteria, and Stockholme Syndrome. The only negative is Ruled By Secrecy, which ends the album with a whimper after such an explosive, in your face album.
I will definitely be looking into Muse's other work. 4.5/5
The reason I am giving this album such a high rating is because it is FUN. In comparison to some of my other 4.5 star rated albums, this is no-where near as artistic, or brilliant. What this does have though is the fun factor throughout. Black Shuck is hilarious throughout. Also half the album was so overplayed when released that the songs were hard to ignore. I Believe In A Thing Called Love is not genious but it was played everywhere when it first came out, all the time. This entire album is so catchy its unbelievable. This is a very good album to have on in the background. Superb. The only bad song is Friday Night. 4.5/5
The best Led Zeppelin live album. This version of Immigrant Song fucking blows me away. There is so much energy in this, one of the shortest songs on the entire album. Everything sounds so clear, and a lot of these live versions put a great twist on the originals, and are sometimes superior. The 'Whole Lotta Love (Medley)', although 23 minutes long keeps me interested as Led Zeppelin jump from song to song and back to Whole Lotta Love again. However the overlong Dazed And Confused and Moby Dick bring down the score of this album as they did with The Song Remains The Same.
Disc 1 is flawless though, this live version of Stairway To Heaven is stunning, as is the acoustic ending to the disc. Great live album. 4/5
7. Live 2003
Coldplay played a pretty tight show here, the sound quality is great, the vocals are spot on as are the rest of the band. There are 3 extra songs here which do not appear on any of Coldplay's studio albums which is what attracted me to this release. They are all very good, and Moses was announced by Chris Martin as a 'new' song, so who knows what happened to that? The rest of the tracklist are familiar songs from Parachutes and A Rush Of Blood To The Head, most of which are brilliant, but there are a few that I will never like and this live album is no exception (I'm talking especially about Everything's Not Lost and God Put A Smile Upon My Face - I hate those songs!!) 4/5
8. In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003
A few years back, I was asked to download this album for a friend. I did, however everytime I listened to it back, some tracks were jumping, so I continued to download and relisten to it. As a result, I listened to this compilation way to much over a short period of time, thus I began to hate it with a passion. Before this 'project', I never really heard many REM songs, only the really popular ones, ie 'Losing My Religion', and 'Everybody Hurts'. Anyway, because I hated this compilation and REM, I decided never to listen to them again.
In the meantime I became a huge Radiohead fan, and searching through YouTube and other sites, I discovered that Thom lent his voice on one particular live performance of 'E-bow The Letter'. It was just amazing. I started listening to the original version of the 'E-Bow The Letter' on the copy of this compilation that I still had locked away somewhere. Eventually I bought this compilation and discovered a lot of really great music.
Overall this is a very strong compilation. It has 18 tracks, of those there are very few weak songs, most of which come towards the end of the album. 3.5/5
Ok so this is Queen's legendary live performance at Wembley Stadium. Without a doubt this is a very, very good live performance, but far from the best I've heard. The sound quality is as good as it gets for live performances and the band seems to be on fine form.
Disc 1 is very strong, most of the songs here are Queen classics that everybody knows. Except a few solos which I dont like, disc 1 is amazing.
Disc 2 is fairly strong. I am, however bemused to hear Queen performing the string of 50's songs near the beginning. The songs themselves are very good, but performed by Queen is just weird. It sounds unnatural, and who would have thought a band like Queen would be influenced by such artists? Big Spender, now thats more Queenesque, but even that is a little camp for my taste and its nothing more than a meaningless interlude. Of course, Bohemian Rhapsody is on this disc and gets things moving in the right direction again, its a great performance of perhaps their best song. Also, I never appreciated Love Of My Life until I heard it live here.
Overall, this is a good live album, certaintly historic and a fun listen, but it has its flaws. 3.5/5
10. Greatest Hits
Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of my favourite bands even though I've only heard their albums from Californication onwards. Personally I really liked those albums but you always hear that their earlier albums were far better. This greatest hits compilation sadly does not contain much material pre-Californication, maybe because they became commercially more succesful at this time. Whatever the reason this makes this greatest hits almost redundant to me even though it is a good listen. Somebody gave me this so I'm not unhappy to have it in my collection but I think the studio albums are the way to go with this band who have too much good material to be condensed into 16 tracks. 3.5/5