Best Albums 2004 (11-15)

15. Jaojoby — Malagasy Eusèbe Jaojoby is the King of Salegy, a Madagascar pop style that nudges traditional 6/8 rhythms up near a frantic 300 BPM threshold. He’s not a particularly prolific recording artist–I can’t spot any releases since 2004. And he became so much stronger a bandleader in the four-year interim between his 2000 [...]

Kanye West — “Jesus Walks”

Released: 5.25.04 Peak: #11 Atheists and agnostics had reason to be restive in 2004, and the boot stomps of “Jesus Walks,” summoning simultaneous images of Bush’s Christian soldiers and Deep South chain-gangs, with that spooky children’s chant underscoring its martial thrust, did nothing to comfort us. “We at war,” Kanye declares–against terrorism, racism, and ourselves–shortly [...]

Jay-Z — “99 Problems”

Released: 4.27.04 Peak: #30 The mystic spirits may instruct him otherwise, but Rick Rubin was not put on earth to produce Tom Petty records. And though some of us might wish otherwise, Shawn Carter was not put on earth to rhyme about anything other than his own sweet, skilled self. “99 Problems” is less a [...]

Usher — “Burn”

Released: 4.13.04 Peak: #1 Usher Raymond is the biggest black R&B star of his generation. He’s also the most self-obsessed, and that’s no coincidence. In the age of the mack, with even serial monogamy too great a challenge, a man can only be sensitive about one thing: How much of a toll fucking around takes [...]

Akon feat. Styles P — “Locked Up”

Released: 4.12.08 Peak: #8 Akon is as soulful a male R&B singer to have blown up this past decade, his thin but pure tenor distinguished by a slight choke and traces of West African keen. The fortunately named fellow (“a con,” get it?) is no full-stop virtuoso, no font of personality either–if he were as [...]

Kanye West feat. Syleena Johnson — “All Falls Down”

Released: 4.6.04 Peak: #7 In 2004, a rapper working a new twist on hip-hop anti-materialism seemed less likely even than a rapper working a new twist on hip-hop materialism itself. There are always new products to accumulate, after all, but only so many words that rhyme with “incense.” Kanye West came up with both on [...]

Best Albums 2004 (16-20)

20. Mory Kante — Sabou This overdue acoustic move from Salif Keita’s successor as lead singer for the Rail Band was less a “return to roots” than an adaptation to prevailing trends. A neo-traditional wave had swept Afropop over the past decade, and since the discofied Afro-fusion that Kante had struck gold with on “Yé [...]

Scissor Sisters — “Take Your Mama”

Released: 3.29.04 Peak: Did not chart From the jump, the Brits loved these adorably homo-sexy art-poppers, who charted eleven consecutive U.K. singles, whatever such persistent success signifies on that inscrutably poptimist isle. Back home, though, the Scissor Sisters mostly attracted friskier indie kids; even in the age of iTunes, that meant passing as album artists, [...]

Art Brut — “Formed a Band”

Released: 3.29.04 Peak: Did not chart Essential to the myth of rock and roll is a belief that anyone can do it. Still, as Robert Christgau once pointed out, that doesn’t mean just anyone can do it. (Streisand and Nixon, he stated, could not “sing rock.”) The DIY ethos, at best, battles encroaching passivity and [...]

Gretchen Wilson — “Redneck Woman”

Released: 3.23.04 Peak: #22 Wilson’s carefully crafted everygal populism made me squirmy enough with a Yalie cowpoke running the country. Once an even more synthetic embodiment of the titular heroine’s qualities ran for VP, I suspected the whole shebang as some AEI-funded plot. (It didn’t help that Wilson, predictably, stumped for McCain-Palin, rocking out on [...]