I’ve already referenced in 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 (from Watertown to Jamaica Plain) and other new endeavors, it was a busy time, with music remaining one of my few constants (the other being movies.)

The three dozen tracks below are but the very best of a bounty of songs that received many spins on my dark blue Sony Discman back then (I’ve could’ve easily included another dozen.) Thumbing through this list, 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 most obscure tracks here (A Northern Chorus’ Smiths-worthy instrumental, Troll’s demented, inexplicable noir rock) are from records I was assigned to review; most of the rest represent the very best of that era’s indie pop, from veterans like the Nick Rhodes-produced Dandy Warhols and Arab Strap (whom fellow Scots Belle and Sebastian (also included) name-dropped a few LPs back) to next-big-things TV On The Radio and Regina Spektor.

2003 also happens to have two songs I’d take to a desert island with me: The Shins’ Nilsson-esque chamber pop wonder “Saint Simon” and Canadian band Stars’ immortal, resplendent “Elevator Love Letter”, which saved my life more than The Shins or even The Smiths ever did.

Go here to listen to my favorite tracks of 2003 on Spotify:

1. The New Pornographers, “The Laws Have Changed”
2. The Radio Dept., “Pulling Our Weight”
3. Calexico, “Quattro (World Drifts In)”
4. Rosie Thomas, “I Play Music”
5. Basement Jaxx, “Good Luck”
6. Arab Strap, “The Shy Retirer”
7. Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3, “The Ambassador of Soul”
8. The Postal Service, “Such Great Heights”
9. Nelly Furtado, “Explode”
10. Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man, “Tom The Model”
11. Natacha Atlas, “Eye of the Duck”
12. Black Box Recorder, “The New Diana”
13. Paul Brill, “Westering”
14. The Hidden Cameras, “A Miracle”
15. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists, “I’m A Ghost”
16. Thea Gilmore, “Pirate Moon”
17. Fountains of Wayne, “Mexican Wine”
18. A Northern Chorus, “Red Carpet Blues”
19. Regina Spektor, “Chemo Limo”
20. Sufjan Stevens, “Romulus”
21. Pernice Brothers, “The Weakest Shade Of Blue”
22. The Shins, “Saint Simon”
23. Stars, “Elevator Love Letter”
24. The Dandy Warhols, “The Last High”
25. The Weakerthans, “One Great City!”
26. The Wrens, “This Boy Is Exhausted”
27. Death Cab For Cutie, “Transatlanticism”
28. Moloko, “Forever More”
29. Oranger, “Bluest Glass Eye Sea”
30. Stew, “LA Arteest Café”
31. TV On The Radio, “Young Liars”
32. Troll, “Western”
33. Junior Senior, “Chicks and Dicks”
34. Belle and Sebastian, “Stay Loose”
35. Rufus Wainwright, “11:11”
36. Super Furry Animals, “Slow Life”