Dammit, I need to do my annual mix, and I'm JUST. NOT. MOTIVATED.

I need to do some serious music immersion, stat.

Does Joe Boucher or anyone else have the tracklisting for his mix? The one linked to on Jon's page doesn't seem to be there any more.

Shockingly, I'm not sure I bought enough new music in 2004 to make a Best Of mix. How did that happen??

And on another note, here is the tracklisting for my previously mentioned best of '04 mix:

Staring Out the World

1. Kanye West - Jesus Walks
2. Dizzee Rascal - Graftin'
3. Junior Boys - High Come Down
4. Robag Wruhme - Hugendubel
5. The Knife - Heartbeats (Rex the Dog Remix)
6. Narcotic Syntax - Electronic Liquid
7. Dani Siciliano - Extra Ordinary
8. Björk - Oceania
9. Stina Nordenstam - I'm Staring Out the World
10. Shapeshifters - Lola's Theme (Vocal Radio Edit)
11. The Streets - Blinded By the Lights
12. Turner - After Work
13. Bloc Party - Banquet
14. Kylie Minogue - I Believe in You
15. Britney Spears - Toxic
16. Destiny's Child - Lose My Breath
17. Kanye West feat. Twista and Jamie Foxx - Slow Jamz
18. Superpitcher - Tomorrow (Kaito Remix)

I'm happy to send anyone a copy of this, as well as my Buffista mix if you don't already have it. There are more details about the mix at my blog.

Can I get a copy of that, Angus?

Angus, I'd love a copy. Insent with my address in a moment.

Shockingly, I'm not sure I bought enough new music in 2004 to make a Best Of mix.

See, my annual mixes aren't necessarily new stuff or stuff I just bought, but whatever songs strike my fancy for a new mix. The only rule is to not repeat a song I've used before in one of these.

No problems Jim and Kate, perhaps it's easiest if everyone who wants a copy just e-mails me with their postal address (and also whether you want the Buffista Mix too or just the '04 one).

my annual mixes aren't necessarily new stuff or stuff I just bought, but whatever songs strike my fancy for a new mix. The only rule is to not repeat a song I've used before in one of these.

I use anything I listened to a lot in the given year, preferably something released in the last few years. (This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma this year -- I've been obsessed with the Smithereens song "Behind the Wall of Sleep" all fall, but it's not either new or new to me.)

On listening to the draft, though, I think I'm probably dropping the Travis Morrison and adding Mary Lou Lord. I might use a different N*E*R*D song too, though I've put my favorite from the album ("Jump") on about six mixes this year.

I just need to share: if you read the above sentence quickly (and you are me), it reads as "Chuck Mangione."

Ha!

Mr. Broom: Eh, sorry, I'm predisposed to dislike Chuck K's work. His stance (which boils down to "most indie rock is a pose; Real Americans embrace radio pop and metal") just chafes me. It's a topsy-turvy, Bush-friendly celebration of mediocrity, which is why I wasn't even amused by the notion of a mean on the bell curve of music. Me Hate Him.

I thought there was a lot of good music in 2004, but you needed to keep your ear to the ground. In the two weeks or so since I posted my draft Top Ten on another board (I posted one here, too, a few days later), I've gotten copies of Panda Bear - Young Prayer, Oneida - Secret Wars, Comets on Fire - Blue Cathedral, and Cul De Sac & Damo Suzuki's Abhayamadra, all of which rocked my world.

Panda Bear's album is abstract folk (which makes sense 'cause he's a member of Animal Collective) centered around wordless vocals, acoustic guitar, and analog ambient noise. I hear it as a mournful song cycle about the death of his father. I'm sure there are other interpretations, because it's basically Abstract Expressionist indie-folk.

Oneida is krautrock-influenced drone-and-groove music with a sense of humor. I'd first heard them on a split EP they did with the Liars a few years ago, but this is the first full album of theirs I've heard. They have a great melodic sense, which plays well with the noisy krautrock-ish rhythms.

Comets on Fire play swollen guitar-heavy psychedelia, as if the 13th Floor Elevators hooked up White Light/White Heat-era VU for an echo chamber orgy.

Finally, the Cul de Sac & Damo Suzuki album sounds, very simply, like slightly more out-there live Can (with a bit of Court of the Crimson King thrown in for good measure).

My Top Ten list was:

1. Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat. This is the wildest album of the last ten years, full of mini-operas that tell Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead part-stories over the most inventive music composed by ADHD indie rockers ever. Hyperbole? I'll tell you next year.

2. Wilco - A Ghost Is Born. This is Tweedy's Sister Lovers album, as raw a view into his soul as conceivably possible. Somewhere between the direct lyrics of his first three albums and the abstract lyrics on YHF, this one is a fur coat full of hidden razor blades. Those who call it boring probably hated The Wild Bunch, too. And might kick kittens, I'm not sure.

3. Animal Collective - Sung Tongs. P-sychedelic, DAMN! What do these guys sound like? Honestly, they sound like what went on in my head when I used to do drugs. References? Lessee: a bit o' the Godz, some SMiLE-era Beach Boys, Faust, Simon & Garfunkel, Os Mutantes (also a big influence on the Fiery Furnaces, whowoulddathunkit?), Holy Modal Rounders, Flaming Lips, Spacemen 3, I give up. They wack.

4. Mike Watt – The Secondman’s Middle Stand. Post-punk's standard-bearer goes prog. Watt cuts the guitar from his trio and adds a Hammond B-3 organ, then tells the story of his illness and near-death from a burst perineum with constant allusions to the Divine Comedy. Did I mention that it's funny as hell? This guy should be on the dollar bill.

5. Liars – They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. That's right, two concept albums in a row. If you count Blueberry Boat, Milk Man, and A Grand Don't Come For Free (not to mention the extra-special category for SMiLE), 2004 was The Year Of The Prog for me. This one is a creepy, electronica-heavy concept album about Walpurgisnacht as told by both villagers and witches. And it's good! Again, bucking the odds here.

6. Mission of Burma – ONoffON. Why, yes, I do like rock music for its own sake, too. MoB deliver the goods, despite their brief (23 year) hiatus.

7. Deerhoof - Milk Man. A concept album (again!) about a dream monster, as delivered in Deerhoof's traditional avant-rock meets (continued...)