I’ve already referenced (via my essay on Want One) just how much music I was listening to in 2003—truly the era of Peak CD for me. Between a major move across town and commencing a short-lived website reviewing gig, it was a busy, heady time, with music remaining one of my few constants (the other being movies.) On that note, some of the more obscure tracks here are from records I was assigned to review: A Northern Chorus’ Smiths-worthy jangle/pastoral instrumental, Troll’s demented, inexplicable noir rock en Espanol (I think), singer/songwriter Rosie Thomas (kind of an indie Shawn Colvin), Egyptian-Belgian diva Natasha Atlas, the inimitable Arab Strap (immortalized in a Belle and Sebastian album title five years before) and the generally forgotten Oranger, whom managed to pull off the neat trick of sounding like XTC, Jellyfish and The Banana Splits all at once.
The three dozen tracks below are but the cream of a bounty of songs that received many spins on my navy blue Sony Discman at the time; I could have easily included another dozen (yes, subsequent playlists will be at least this long.) Thumbing through the below tracks, there’s only a few I didn’t hear until more than a year later, most notably The Radio Dept. when “Pulling Our Weight” resurfaced on the Marie Antoinette soundtrack in 2006. The rest predominantly represent the very best of that era’s indie pop, from relative veterans like the Nick Rhodes-produced Dandy Warhols and the magnificently cursed Wrens (they would never complete a follow-up) to next-big-things TV On The Radio (their Young Liars EP also a discovery via assigned review-writing), Sufjan Stevens and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
In 2003, I was over the moon for both Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service, even if Ben Gibbard’s twee voice now feels a little too earnest for middle-aged me (although Death Cab has produced enough songs for a killer Greatest Hits album since then.) Fortunately, this year also happens to have two tunes I’d happily bring along to a desert island: The Shins’ Nilsson-esque chamber pop wonder “Saint Simon” and Canadian outfit Stars’ immortal, resplendent “Elevator Love Letter”, which saved my life more than The Shins or even The Smiths ever did.
2003: My Office Glows All Night Long
- The New Pornographers, “The Laws Have Changed”
- The Radio Dept., “Pulling Our Weight”
- Calexico, “Quattro (World Drifts In)”
- Rosie Thomas, “I Play Music”
- Basement Jaxx with Lisa Kekaula, “Good Luck”
- Arab Strap, “The Shy Retirer”
- Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3, “The Ambassador of Soul”
- The Postal Service, “Such Great Heights”
- Nelly Furtado, “Explode”
- Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man, “Tom The Model”
- Natacha Atlas, “Eye of the Duck”
- Black Box Recorder, “The New Diana”
- The Hidden Cameras, “A Miracle”
- Ted Leo and The Pharmacists, “Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone”
- Thea Gilmore, “Mainstream”
- Fountains of Wayne, “Mexican Wine”
- A Northern Chorus, “Red Carpet Blues”
- Sufjan Stevens, “Romulus”
- Pernice Brothers, “The Weakest Shade Of Blue”
- Annie Lennox, “Pavement Cracks”
- The Shins, “Saint Simon”
- Stars, “Elevator Love Letter”
- The Dandy Warhols, “The Last High”
- The Wrens, “This Boy Is Exhausted”
- The Weakerthans, “One Great City!”
- Death Cab For Cutie, “Transatlanticism”
- Moloko, “Forever More”
- Oranger, “Bluest Glass Eye Sea”
- Stew, “LA Arteest Café”
- TV On The Radio, “Young Liars”
- Troll, “Western”
- Junior Senior, “Chicks and Dicks”
- Belle and Sebastian, “Stay Loose”
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Maps”
- Rufus Wainwright, “11:11”
- Super Furry Animals, “Slow Life”
Haunted Jukebox 