Best of 2004

I always begin this list with an apology since I know lots of people are offended by my glaring omissions. I’m a total indie-mindy (I know, I know) and I love sad, depressing music. Deal with it.  So, I’m just listing the records I listened to the most last year. For example, I know everyone loves The Killers…but I probably only listened to that record twice.  Same with Franz Ferdinand.  Great records, to be sure, but they didn’t exactly burn up my stereo in the way the following records did…

BEST RECORDS OF 2004

1. Low – A Lifetime of Temporary Relief (box set)
2. Elliott Smith – From a Basement on the Hill
3. Luna - Rendevouz
4. Blonde Redhead – Misery is a Butterfly
5. Secret Machines – Now Here is Nowhere
6. Rogue Wave – Out of the Shadow
7. Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans
8. Kings of Convenience – Riot on an Empty Street
9. White Magic – Through the Sun Door
10. Earlimart – Treble & Tremble
11. The Futureheads – Futureheads
12. My Morning Jacket – Accoustic Citsuoca e.p.
13. Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing in the Hands
14. Dios – Dios
15. Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
16. Bloc Party – Bloc Party e.p.
17. Slowdive – Catch the Breeze (compilation)
18. Camera Obscura – Underachievers Please Try Harder
19. The Cure – The Cure
20. The Walkmen – Bows & Arrows

BEST LIVE SHOWS OF 2004

I see a lot of rock shows, which means that no matter how much I love seeing live music, I can still get a little bit jaded about the whole thing.  Here are the shows that totally knocked my socks off in 2004.

1. Pixies @ Coachella Festival.  (totally thrilling high school nostalgia moment #1)
2. Broken Social Scene @ Bowery Ballroom.  (for my money, this band basically has no equal.  beautiful, beautiful, beautiful)
3. The Cure @ Curiosa Festival (totally thrilling high school nostalgia moment #2)
4. Secret Machines @ Bowery Ballroom (fucking awesome psychedelic freakout, like nothing else)
5. Blonde Redhead @ Bowery Ballroom (gorgeous art-school bullshit.  totally made me want to fall in love with something)
6. The Only Children @ Siberia Bar (old friends, good times, ridiculous all-night dancing to follow…)
7. Green Day @ Irving Plaza (shockingly, shockingly good)
8. The Von Bondies @ Bowery Ballroom (caused Heather Sperber to dance so hard she actually broke her bra)
9. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead @ Siren Festival (any show that involves an entire case of bottled water being thrown at a fan is a guaranteed good time.)
10. My Morning Jacket @ Asbury Park (watching this band play while standing on the boardwalk in front of the ocean—in the misty rain, no less—was one of the most gorgeously surreal moments of my year.  I couldn’t possibly love this band any more)

BEST MOVIES OF 2004

I know plenty of people might argue to the contrary, but 2004 really seemed a particularly dreadful year for movies.  Scraping together a list of 10 movies that I was generally inspired by in the past year was tougher than it should have been. These were pretty good though…

1. Bad Education
2. Tarnation
3. Dig!
4. Control Room
5. Napolean Dynamite
6. Outfoxed
7. Dawn of the Dead
8. Sideways
9. The Woodsman
10. A Letter from True

BEST BOOKS OF 2004

I tend to read at least one book a week, if not more, but I rarely ever manage to read books that are actually new.  It was hard to make this list and exclude any books that weren’t published in 2004, but that’s what I did….because I love you.

1. Bend, Don’t Shatter – edited by T. Cole Rachel and Rita D. Costello
2. The Sleeping Father – Matthew Sharpe
3. America (the book) – edited by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, and David Javerbaum
4. Kings and Queens: Queers at the Prom – David Boyer
5. Arts and Letters – Edmund White
6. Strike Sparks: Selected Poems – Sharon Olds
7. It Disappears – Nate Powell
8. 1968: The Year that Rocked the World – Mark Kurlansky
9. Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World – Davy Rothbart
10. Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants – Robert Sullivan

I guess that’s it.  I hope you have enjoyed my yearly dose of list-making nerdery.
Much love in the new year.
COLE

Best of 2003

So, here is my annual list, the geekfest that so many of you have come to know and love.  I labored over this a little longer than usual this year and, as usual, I found it impossible to narrow down my music list down to ten records (getting it down to thirty was tough enough).  Also, before people start sending me hostile emails to remind me of everything I’ve left out, let me just say that these were the things that brought me the most pleasure in the past year.  There may have technically been better records, movies and books than the ones on this list, but these are the ones I played the most, enjoyed the most, and thought about the most.

MY FAVORITE RECORDS OF 2003

1. The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
2. Cat Power – You Are Free
3. The Clientele – The Violet Hour
4. Ride – Waves
5. Blur – Think Tank
6. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Master and Everyone
7. My Morning Jacket – It Still Moves
8. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
9. Yo La Tengo – Summer Sun
10. Palaxy Tracks – Cedarland
11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell
12. Broadcast – Ha Ha Sound
13. The Distillers – Coral Fang
14. M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts
15. Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism
16. The Kingsbury Manx – Aztec Discipline
17. Ladytron – Light & Magic
18. Britta Phillips/Dean Wareham – L’Aventura
19. Belle and Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress
20. Guided By Voices – Human Amusements at Hourly Rates
21. White Stripes – Elephant
22. The Notwist – Neon Golden
23. I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness – E.P.
24. The New Pornographers – Electric Version
25. The Rapture – Echoes
26. Stephen Malkmus – Pig Lib
27. Beulah – Yoko
28. Polyphonic Spree – The Beginning stages of…
29. Mogwai – Music for Happy People
30. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Take them on, On your own

MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2003

1. Capturing the Friedmans
2. Lost in Translation
3. Spellbound
4. The Station Agent
5. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
6. Spider
7. American Splendor
8. Thirteen
9. Winged Migration
10. The Fog of War

MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2003

1. Pieces of Payne – Albert Goldbarth
2. So80’s: Photographic Diary of a Decade – Patrick McMullan
3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
4. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
5. Before, During, and After – Hal Sirowitz
6. True Notebooks – Mark Salzman
7. The Voice at 3am: Selected Late and New Poems – Charles Simic
8. Nine Horses: Poems – Billy Collins
9. P – Andrew Lewis Conn
10. X: Poems – James Galvin

T. COLE RACHEL’S BEST MOMENTS OF 2003

1. Editing “Bend, Don’t Shatter”, a poetry anthology for teenagers about sex and sexuality.  The project was a lot of work, but I was able to work with my dear friend, Rita Costello, on a project that proved more meaningful and interesting than I ever could have anticipated.  The book arrives this April, so stay tuned. . .
2. Becoming a Sperber.  Making theleap from my solitary studio out in sunset park and coming back to the hipster hotbed of Williamsburg is just about the best thing I’ve ever done since living in NYC.  I’m a much happier and more productive person when I live with twins.  Plus, Amy and Heather cook for me and have renewed my love of small dogs. 
3. My sibling’s graduation.  I can worry about Lauren and Zachary much less now that they are no longer trapped in the horror halls of Hydro High School. They’re rocking out in college now and I’m very proud of them.
4. Freelance overload!  My career as a freelance magazine writer finally started to take off on ’03.  So, now I’m able to write lots of regular music and film features for various placesin addition to my editorial day job at the newly-revamped Budget Travel (I’m not embarrassed to show it to you now) and my continued nerdish poetry pursuits.
5. Michael Stipe’s Christmas Party.  Perhaps the only thing cooler than meeting Michael and working with him was going to his Christmas party, where Amy Farid and I danced while shaking a moss-covered reindeer over our heads, egged on by the cheers of the celebrity-heavy dance floor.  This was undoubtedly the most fun thing I did all year long.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.
LOVE
COLE