Albums in My Life: 2003

When 2003 ended, I became a teenager, so expect a lot of albums going forward to be pretty angsty. However, a few of these I discovered a little later on.



Dizzee Rascal- Boy in Da Corner
I first heard Dizzee Rascal on the b side of an Arctic Monkeys single that was in our college radio station. If I had been a Brit, I would have heard him right away, but he never broke in the states. I really enjoy rapping with a British accent, and the beats for Grime music were unlike anything I'd ever heard. I eventually was able to track down a yellow vinyl pressing of this record as an import, but it's a shame that an artist this good in the age of the internet can't get wider exposure. Maybe it's because I had a British grandmother, but I don't think his raps would be that hard to follow for an American audience.


Linkin Park- Meteora
I enjoyed a lot of singles from Hybrid Theory when it came out, but this is the first Linkin Park album that I really became obsessed with. They truly are a band that showed that rap rock can be done well, and apart from Rage Against the Machine, I can't think of anyone that arguably did it better. For a period of about a year or so, I had about 3 CDs that I would listen to: Meteora, Hybrid Theory, and the band's remix album, Reanimation. It took my discovering of My Chemical Romance and older bands like Queen and Pink Floyd to finally rip this CD out of my daily rotation.




Maroon 5- Songs About Jane
Remember when Maroon 5 wasn't the worst thing to happen to pop? It feels like so long ago. They actually used to make decent pop rock, and this album stands as a testament to that. I almost feel embarrassed to say it knowing what they'd later become, but Songs About Jane is actually a pretty good album. It's got a pretty mellow, somewhat funky mood, and it actually sounds like the whole band got to play on this thing. And to think, for fans of Kara's Flowers at the time, they thought THIS was Adam Levine selling out. Oh boy.




My Morning Jacket- It Still Moves
This is My Morning Jacket at probably their most jammy. They'd experiment with other genres and go a little more direct on Z and their subsequent records, but here they extend out songs and are like an Allman Brothers band or Grateful Dead lite, which when I was in college and first discovered the band, was perfect. I hope that one day the band might revisit their inner jam band, but that probably won't happen. Hey, a man can dream.





The Unicorns-Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
This was another band that I learned about through How I Met Your Mother. They made an off hand reference to this album in an episode, and years later, I see a copy on the shelf in my college radio station and had to know what it sounds like. It is one of the weirdest things ever. It's super quirky indie pop, that despite its colorful and happy tone, is obsessed with death. I ripped the album to my computer and only just last year was able to get a copy on pink and brown vinyl. Listening to it brings me right back to the late 2000s or early 2010s.



So, that's my list for 2003. I'll be back with the Albums in My Life series for 2004, but first I'll be reviewing the new self titled American Football record. My vinyl copy's in the mail, but I just got access to the included download, so let's get it!



"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."