Jim Carroll on the music business sob story that failed to materialise
There was a time when this reviewer didn't think we'd reach the end of the year. It was May and word reached us that the music industry was on its last legs. Attacked on all sides by downloading rascals, uploading scamps, free newspaper CDs and Internet pirates with eyepatches and parrots on their shoulders, the music industry moaned and groaned.
Meanwhile, in the real world, quality music was waiting to be discovered, downloaded, bought or blagged. Industry balance sheets to the contrary, there was plenty of music to enjoy and fall in love with.
There's a lesson for industry chiefs here, as they scratch their heads and try to figure out why more music will be sold in 2004 than in either of the previous two years. If you release good music, people will buy it. OK, if you release dull, dreary music by the likes of Steps, Paddy Casey and the Shapeshifters and keep pushing rubbish like Maroon 5 and the Scissor Sisters, some people will buy it, but the world would be a far better place without it.
The album of the year? Kanye West's College Dropout was so drop-dead gorgeous that you couldn't help beaming from cheek to cheek when you heard it. Finally, a hip-hop producer discovered how to make bangers by mashing underground lyricism with mainstream booming beats.
Other albums which cut the mustard, cut a rug and cut a dash include Franz Ferdinand's majestic, self-titled début; Now Here Is Nowhere from Dallas teens The Secret Machines; the spiritual odyssey that is Egypt from Youssou N'Dour (right); and Wilco's gloriously revealing A Ghost Is Born.
Further proof that Björk is light years ahead of the pack was provided with Medulla, while the new funk gospel from Amp Fiddler on Waltz of a Ghetto Fly, the sound of Malian blues as played by ex-guerrillas Tinariwen on Amassakoul, and the strange, beguiling TV on the Radio début Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes also found favour.
If you need some more albums to sum up 2004, Nellie McKay's Get Away from Me; Mylo's Destroy Rock & Roll (the only dance album displaying any signs of life); Shystie's Diamond in the Dirt; Prince Po's The Slickness; Estelle's The 18th Day; Dizzee Rascal's Showtime; Haiku D'Etat's Coup de Theatre; and Elliott Smith's From a Basement on the Hill are more than up to the job. Meanwhile, The 411's Between the Sheets and Nouvelle Vague's bossa-nova takes on post-punk classics will appeal to the pop fan in all of us.
It was the year of the singer-songwriter at home, but also the year when a string of acts showed there was life beyond Whelan's and the risible Other Voices TV series. Thumbs aloft to The Radio (Happiness is a work of considerable genius), Jape, Bell X1 (let's hope their next album matches their potential), Life After Modelling and, especially, Ten Past Seven, the Kerry kids who provided one of the coolest live shows of the year.
Dance music may have struggled to find its feet with a big commercial winner - Fatboy Slim's album didn't really change the world, did it? - but electronic releases provided moments of plugged-in splendour. Albums by Xela, Savath & Savalas, Guther, Stafraenn Hakon, The September Collective, The Album Leaf, Jimmy Behan and Rollers/Sparkers were all worth your time.
Towards the end of the year, we began to enjoy what the new folkies were doing. Albums by Sufjan Stevens, Devandra Banhart, Vetiver, Espers and, especially, Joanna Newsom made you wonder what was in the water in the United States of Weird and if you should also have a sip.
And finally, a round of applause, please, for the Discotheque tune of the year: The Crimea's Lottery Winners on Acid is the perfect end-of-the-working-day anthem. Well, it was round our way at least.
jimcarroll@irish-times.ie
