2004: An Audiophile's Dream, a Critic's Nightmare (D&D W/O) Dec 31 '04 (Updated Mar 17 '05)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line 2004 is impossible to sum up in one or two sentences. Just read my lists, and then you can proceed to throw things at me if you're so inclined. 2004 is a tough year for me to summarize. As far as the music that was released this year goes, it seemed to get off to a slow start, with relatively few anticipated albums to rush to the store for on Tuesday mornings, and a lot of random stuff to wade through. As the year unfolded, though, a number of pleasant surprises appeared, both in terms of brand new releases and gems from 2003 that I somehow overlooked. (Really, I've looked back at my 2003 list, and it makes me feel pretty silly when I think about what I could have put on there if I had only known!) Anyway, I could wax poetic and try to sum up the year in some sort of a collective and definitive statement... or I could just dispense with the critic jargon and get on with the list. I'm sure you'd vote for Option B. 1. Caedmon's Call - Share the Well This was not only a comeback for a band that had been floundering after the loss of its two chief songwriters - it was a landmark recording that restored my faith in the relevance of Christian music. Built round a series of mission trips that some of the band members went on, this album finds Caedmon's Call deftly mixing Indian and South American percussion with their trademark Western folk/rock stylings, telling intriguing stories about the lives of the people they visited on these trips and how these people changed the lives of the band members in turn, and smartly incorporating new member Andrew Osenga into the lineup instead of leaving him in the background. It's rare that a veteran CCM band comes back from a slump and surprises me this pleasantly, so Caedmon's Call gets the gold medal for this year. Song highlights: "Mother India", "International Love Song", "The Innocent's Corner", "There's Only One (Holy One)", "Wings of the Morning" 2. Vienna Teng - Warm Strangers One of my favorite new singer/songwriters unleashes another mysterious set of subtle but powerful piano-driven songs. She introduces us to new characters and tries on some new stylistic hats, ranging from abstract poetry to upbeat pop (complete with mariachi trumpet) to stark and chilling acapella to a closing ballad in Mandarin Chinese. Vienna is an artist who writes songs in a way that I only wish I could, and her imaginative storytelling comes out successful in soothing and/or haunting ways nearly every time. Song highlights: "Harbor", "Mission Street", "Passage", "Shasta (Carrie's Song)" 3. Falling Up - Crashings Here's proof that bad company doesn't corrupt good musicianship. I dreaded my first taste of this band when I heard that they were good friends with the members of Kutless. As it turns out, they've got an extremely snappy, almost hyperactive blend of modern rock sounds that touches upon a lot of different genres (punk, rap, electronica, heck, even boy band!) without ripping off any artist that I can name. The result is a deliciously fast-paced musical maze worth getting lost in, with poetic lyrics flying by at warp-speed - a rare feat for Christian songwriters who try to reach a bit deeper. They may seem a bit overambitious in their genre mish-mashing at times, but that's certainly better than not being ambitious at all. Song highlights: "Ambience", "Bittersweet", "Divinity", "Arafax Deep" 4. Something Like Silas - Divine Invitation The year's most notable modern worship release comes from a San Diego band who really seeks to inject a good amount of wonder and creativity back into the genre. Equally adept at playing stadium-filling rockers and slow-burning ambient numbers, these guys know how to blend influences as diverse as U2, The Violet Burning, and Sigur Ros for a truly mesmerizing sound. The variety of decidedly non-cheesy keyboard sounds is this band's crowning touch. Song highlights: "In the Burning", "Rains Pour Down", "Divine Invitation", "Spirit Waltz" 5. Blindside - About a Burning Fire While I'm sure they've lost their hard rock cred by now due to their stylistic experimentation (and the fact that they revel in having actual melodies!), this Swedish foursome has finally managed to snag my attention and keep it with a sonic thrill ride that somehow manages to be equal parts harsh and melodious. It sounds like an absolute mess at first, but given time, this is one of those albums that puts a stranglehold on your brain and doesn't let go. Song highlights: "Shekina", "Where the Sun Never Dies", "Eye of the Storm" 6. Relient K - Mmhmm This one really had to grow on me because at first, I was disappointed by the lack of silly songs. I've always appreciated Relient K for their humor, but now that I think about it, it's always made their albums seem a bit disjointed. Mmhmm turns out to be their most solid collection of songs to date, with endlessly qitty and quotable lyrics sprinkled throughout, and a good dose of piano to bring some sonic variation to the otherwise played-out pop/punk genre. I wouldn't say that it's their first "mature" album, because they've had a certain wit all along, but it's definitely the best demonstration of their talent so far. Many of the songs come in "sections", avoiding the typical verse/chorus mold when it isn't required for the song to do what it needs to do. They're also one of the few popular CCM bands who can intertwine personal experiences of thigns like dating and conflict between friends, and give their religious beliefs a natural place that informs all of that rather than forcing Jesus into a song just because they have to. Song highlights: "I So Hate Consequences", "High of 75", "The One I'm Waiting for", "Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet" 7. Five Iron Frenzy - The End Is Here This well-loved ska/punk/whatever band called it quits in 2003, but not before promising their fans a farewell package that puts most other bands' final bows to shame. It's a double album featuring their last studio recordings (several of which rank among their best ever) and a live recording of their final concert (plus as many outtakes and extras as they could fit), and while it's a bit sloppy in places, that's always been FIF's way of not taking themselves too seriously. I was never a huge fan of this band, personally, but I've got to recognize that they always gave their fans 110%. Song highlights: "So Far, So Bad", "Wizard Needs Food, Badly", "On Distant Shores", "American Kryptonite" 8. Rachael Lampa - Rachael Lampa Teenage pop diva turns in a diverse collection of well-crafted songs that just feel alive. it's a living, breathing, highly infectious album from an artist who put her foot down and decided that she didn't just want to be known as a big voice. She's written or co-written every song here, and while this is hopefully just the beginning of the maturing process in terms of lyrical depth, it's good to see her taking more control and taking risks, not to mention being surrounded by a lot more live musical talent rather than the stock session work you usually hear on CCM pop albums. Song highlights: "All This Time", "The Art", "Room" 9. Andrew Peterson - Behold the Lamb of God Well, this is a first. I've never loved a Christmas album nearly enough to put it on my year-end Top 10 list. But Andrew Peterson, a highly underrated folk singer/songwriter, has managed to surprise me one more time by taking such an unfortunate event as being let go from his record deal the previous year, and turning it into an opportunity to carefully craft his most creative album yet. Telling the story of a people in desperate need of deliverance, this album goes beyond the comfortable nativity scene we're used to and allows us to feel the longing that Israel felt for hunderds of years, and the elation of the Savior's arrival on Earth. Guest appearances from Derek Webb, Jill Phillips, Fernando Ortega, and Ron Block of Union Station, as well as the reappearance of Andrew's old buddy Gabe Scott, give this album the feeling of being lovingly crafted amidst an entire community of creative minds. Song highlights: "So Long, Moses", "Deliver Us", "Matthew's Begats" 10. Bethany Dillon - Bethany Dillon This 15-year old troubador - in some ways resembling a younger incarnation of Jennifer Knapp - proves to us that you don't have to dumb down your songwriting to be honest and relevant to a teenage audience. You just have to make the music that you love, and let it appeals to whoever it appeals to, which is what Bethany has done with this impressive folk-influenced debut. It's crisp and catchy enough for Christian radio, but also very smart, thoughtful, and personal in the songwriting department, and filled to the brim with colorful instrumentation. Song highlights: "Beautiful", "Lead Me On", "Great Big Mystery", "A Voice Calling Out" HONORABLE MENTIONS: These albums didn't quite make the cut, but they brightened a lot of days for me this year, and I couldn't go without giving them a little attention. Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans Ron Sexsmith - Retriever Delirious? - World Service Toby Mac - Welcome to Diverse City Also noteworthy are a handful of EP's which showed extreme promise for the artists' upcoming albums, but since they aren't albums in and of themselves, I can't really rank them as part of the Top 10. You should definitely check these artists out if you get a chance. Mute Math - Reset Kevin Max - Between the Fence and the Universe Macrosick - Demodisk Luna Halo - Wasting Away 2003 HOLDOVERS: This is the category for the aforementioned albums that made me smack my head and wish that I had discovered them sooner. They came in great abundance this time around! These are all excellent pieces of work that I think will retain their value long after they're considered "new". The top item on the list is actually now my favorite album of 2003, period. 1. Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State 2. Sleeping at Last - Ghosts 3. Eastmountainsouth - Eastmountainsouth 4. The Echoing Green - The Winter of Our Discontent 5. Chris Rice - Run the Earth, Watch the Sky 6. Dream Theater - Train of Thought DISHONORABLE MENTIONS: Maybe it's just the fact that I'm on the press list for two record labels now, so I get sent stuff that I wouldn't normally buy, but whatever the case, it seems like I've endured a lot more bad music this year. I take no joy in disparaging these artists, but I feel pretty strongly that we shouldn't sugarcoat bad art and pretend that it's OK just because it makes somebody feel nice and safe and comforted. I'm mostly criticizing these artists' work due to superficiality and an apparent lack of willingness to take risks. It's a heck of a lot easier to do it in brief here than to endure it all long enough to write full-length reviews... but then again, maybe I'm just lazy. So, here are the dregs of the year 2004 (out of what I was brave enough to actually listen to, anyway): 1. Building 429 - The Space in Between Us I think these guys could win a contest for the title of "Blandest Rock Band Ever". They're certainly one of the most predictable and cliche bands in Christian music, and not surprisingly, they're massively popular. Their popularity is largely due to the smash hit "Glory Defined", which is like a AC-rock-lite take on MercyMe's "I Can Only Imagine", and much like MercyMe, things just get blander from there. I can't even tell the difference between half of these songs, and while the occasional catchy chorus or guitar part might catch my interest, it's lost as soon as the lead singer (who, interestingly, wrote all of these songs with hired-gun songwriters who aren't even in the band, making the actual band seem like little more than studio players recruited for a solo album) opens his mouth. For a lesson in stock CCM Songwriting 101, you couldn't find a better group of instructors. This disc is an utter waste of space. 2. Various Artists - The Passion of the Christ: Songs A mish-mash of popular, semi-popular, and never-heard-of-em artists, both Chrsitian and mainstream, come together to record the compilation album from HELL, jumping from semi-hard rock to country to R&B to punk to diva pop at the drop of a hat with no regard for the listener's eardrums whatsoever. And just to add insult to injury, these are supposed to be heartfelt songs about Jesus. You know how it usually works with this "inspred by" stuff that comes out after the actual movies do. It's a quick way to make a buck. And I could learn to grudgingly accept that if it were your average teen romantic comedy or whatever, but when it's The Passion of the Christ and you've got a collection of vaguely spiritual love songs that, for the most part, could be about pretty much anything, that's not just bad music, it's downright offensive. This was done because someone knew that a Christian audience would snap up anything with the words Passion of the Christ on it, and because millions of closet Creed fans can finally feel OK listening to a song by Scott Stapp now that he's not "secular" any more. (Insert massive eye-rolling emoticon here.) 3. Overflow - A Better Place I'm all too familiar with the way that bands with a lack of musical talent getting signed because they have a trendy or catchy sound. But when you sign a band who doesn't even have enough talent to play their own instruments on their own record, man, that's just downright sad. Whoever did play on this record sounds like a half-hearted, albeit somewhat catchy, cross between Third Day and Everyday Sunday, but the only major contribution actually being provided by a band member appears to be the lyrics, which might possibly be even more bland and cliche that Building 429's, if you can believe that. Need I say any more? 4. 12 Stones - Potter's Field Okay, so Paul McCoy managed not to irritate me as much this time around with his Creed-meets-irritated zombie grunts and screams. And his band managed to diversify their sound a little. I'll modify that statement - they picked up an acoustic guitar for a few songs, learned how to play in 3/4 time, and figured out how to write nondescript ballads like their musical heroes, Three Doors Down. Message-wise, they're as depressingly non-comittal as they were the first time around. You know, if you're going to be depressing, at least be dynamic and interesting like your labelmates in Evanescence, whose song "Bring Me to Life" is the sole worthwhile contribution that Paul McCoy has made to the world thus far. 5. FFH - Still the Cross So the irritatingly perky pop vocal quartet is a band now. Or at least, they're more of a band than Overflow is! To their credit, three of the four band members went a long way to give this album more of an organic pop feel with their own contributions on piano, bass, and guitar. Jennifer Diebler, on the other hand, didn't play jack squat on the record, but you'll still see her pictured bradishing a guitar on the back cover. Chicks with guitars catch the eye, I guess. In any case, while the arrangements are a little more interesting than most of their past stuff, this actually causes their music to sound even more irritatingly perky than they did before. FFH has rarely, if ever at all, had anything of substance to say, and figuring out how to double as their own session band doesn't do anything to change that. 6. Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin Ben Moody quit Evanescence to work on THIS CRAP??!?! Alright, so I thought Avril's snotty anti-Britney stance was cute for a few milliseconds. I thought she had a few catchy songs. But there's nothing here that I can even really enjoy for its humor value. If you're going to offer bratty teenage rants over generic pop/rock songs and then try to turn all sweet and sentimental on us, at least inject a little personality into it. OK, so "Don't Tell Me" had some promise, and I was downright stunned to hear a mainstream song actually promoting abstinence, but having a good message doesn't really mean that you're good at conveying it (and besides, she only refused to do it with the guy because he was a big jerk). 7. KJ-52 - Seventh Avenue (re-release) KJ was a laughable enough Eminem clone when he first released this album in 2000. It's extremely unnecessary in 2004, and this re-release was only put out by his former label once he got popular recording songs for another label that were about - you might wanna sit down for this one - Eminem. 8. RJ Helton - Real Life Pretty boy places 4th on the first season of American Idol, and proceeds to ink a record deal and provide the world with a paint-by-numbers R&B/pop album that parties like it's 1998. And I'm supposed to care? (Alright, so "Delicate Child" was a genuinely good song. I cared about that one. But that's about it.) 9. Kutless - Sea of Faces They grew up a little and stopped imitating Creed - I'll grant them that. I still think they're running on the fumes of whatever turgid modern rock trends they can manage to cobble together, and their lyrics are generally still an embarassing mess. They've got two albums coming out next year, so maybe they'll rise above mediocrity to become truly average. But I wouldn't hold my breath. 10. Jeremy Camp - Restored Jeremy, everybody loves you for your heartbreaking testimony, but that testimony has precious little to do with your actual songwriting, which sounds like just about everyone else on Christian radio these days. Show us some personality, please. I've seen you in concert; I know you have some. And in the category of "Not awful, but still rather disappointing"... Michael W. Smith - Healing Rain Avalon - The Creed Steven Curtis Chapman - All Things New Day of Fire - Day of Fire Third Day - Wire Supertones - Revenge of the O.C. Supertones 2004's BEST SONGS This year certainly gave me its share of snappy new songs to sink my teeth into (as well as some that I overlooked from the previous year). Ordering a gargantuan list such as this gets a bit ridiculous beyond about the Top 10, but I wanted to give recognition to as many really good songs as I could, so here you go. 1. "Harbor", Vienna Teng (from Warm Strangers) 2. "Control", Mute Math (from Reset EP) 3. "Eight Easy Steps", Alanis Morissette (from So-Called Chaos) 4. "21st Century Darlings", Kevin Max (from Between the Fence and the Universe EP) 5. "Bring Me Down", Pillar (from Where Do We Go from Here?) 6. "Whatever It Takes", Ron Sexsmith (from Retriever) 7. "Collide", Skillet (from Collide) 8. "Fall Awake", The Echoing Green (from The Winter of Our Discontent) 9. "You Dance", Eastmountainsouth (from Eastmountainsouth) 10. "Ambience", Falling Up (from Crashings) 11. "Priceless", Incubus (from A Crow Left of the Murder) 12. "Bittersweet", Falling Up (from Crashings) 13. "In the Burning", Something Like Silas (from Divine Invitation) 14. "Plan B", Mute Math (from Reset EP) 15. "Rains Pour Down", Something Like Silas (from Divine Invitation) 16. "Arafax Deep", Falling Up (from Crashings) 17. "Nonny Nonny", Chris Rice (from Run the Earth, Watch the Sky) 18. "Jerkweed Inspector", Macrosick (from Demodisk EP) 19. "All the Stars", Eastmountainsouth (from Eastmountainsouth) 20. "Mother India", Caedmon's Call (from Share the Well) 21. "Passage", Vienna Teng (from Warm Strangers) 22. "Sick Sad Little World", Incubus (from A Crow Left of the Murder) 23. "On Distant Shores", Five Iron Frenzy (from The End Is Near) 24. "Pistola", Incubus (from A Crow Left of the Murder) 25. "Love Is Blindness", Sixpence None the Richer (from In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa) 26. "Shekina", Blindside (from About a Burning Fire) 27. "Trees (Hallway of Leaves)", Sleeping at Last (from Ghosts) 28. "Gotta Go Through", Christine Dente (from Becoming) 29. "All that Is Beautiful", Sleeping at Last (from Ghosts) 30. "Where the Sun Never Dies", Blindside (from About a Burning Fire) 31. "All This Time", Rachael Lampa (from Rachael Lampa) 32. "My Obsession", Skillet (from Collide) 33. "Fever Dream", Iron & Wine (from Our Endless Numbered Days) 34. "Deliver Me", David Crowder Band (from Illuminate) 35. "The Innocent's Corner", Caedmon's Call (from Share the Well) 36. "All I Need", Sara Groves (from The Other Side of Something) 37. "Mission Street", Vienna Teng (from Warm Strangers) 38. "International Love Song", Caedmon's Call (from Share the Well) 39. "Wasting Away", Luna Halo (from Wasting Away EP) 40. "Endless Sacrifice", Dream Theater (from Train of Thought) 41. "Hurry", Sleeping at Last (from Ghosts) 42. "Poor Man", Plus One (from Exodus) 43. "Summer", Christine Dente (from Becoming) 44. "The Dress Looks Nice on You", Sufjan Stevens (from Seven Swans) 45. "There's Only One (Holy One)", Caedmon's Call (from Share the Well) 46. "Ocean Breathes Salty", Modest Mouse (from Good News for People Who Love Bad News) 47. "New Gold Dream (81, 82, 83, 84)", The Echoing Green (from The Winter of Our Discontent) 48. "Out Is Through", Alanis Morissette (from So-Called Chaos) 49. "Divine Invitation", Something Like Silas (from Divine Invitation) 50. "I So Hate Consequences", Relient K (from Mmhmm) RANDOM "BESTS" Best New Artist: Falling Up (honorable mentions go to Something Like Silas, Mute Math, and Bethany Dillon) Best Album Art: Andrew Peterson, Behold the Lamb of God Best Example of Pimping the Life Out of a Song Through Advertising: "Vertigo", U2 Best Example of a Label Showing a Complete Lack of Trust in One of Its Artists: Essential Records, for demanding that Jars of Clay record an entirely innappropriate "upbeat" version of "It Is Well with My Soul" so that their upcoming hymns album (which Jars funded entirely on their own) could have a poppy radio single. Best Album of 2005 (So Far): Olivia the Band, Olivia the Band (by default because it's the only one I've heard - but these guys are fun and they're from Hawaii!) Most Anticipated Album of 2005: Either Jars of Clay's Redemption Songs, Mute Math's full-length debut, or Sufjan Stevens' Illinois album. Best Band that Called it Quits in 2004: Sixpence None the Richer And I'm out. Sorry for the half-donkeyed rush to get this done, but it's New Year's Eve and I have to go pretend I have a life! Thanks again to Demon and Drew for hosting this year-end round-up!

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