What are your top five albums of the last year?

Mine are:
01) The Rasmus - Dead Letters
02) Distillers - Coral Fang
03) Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death
04) Capa Rezza - Verità Supposte
05) Metallica - St.Anger

I'll tell you in a few years.

No, seriously, I rarely buy CDs soon after release. I often buy CDs several months or even a few years after release. So there may be albums that will become "one of my favorite 2003 albums" in the future.

Having said that, this is my current list:

1. Killing Joke - Killing Joke
2. Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
3. Dimmu Borgir - Death Cult Armageddon
4. Metallica - St. Anger
5. The White Stripes - Elephant

Here are some other albums that have been released this year and have sparked my interest, but which I haven't listened to yet:

David Bowie - Reality
The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
Led Zeppelin - How The West Was Won
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - Streetcore
Outkast - Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

no order.

The Coral - Magic and Medecine
The National - Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers
Josh Rouse - 1972
Mojave 3 - Spoon and Rafter
Lady and Bird - Lady and Bird

Evanescence - Fallen (the best album of the 2000s)
Liz Phair - Liz Phair
Three Days Grace - Three Days Grace
Carla Werner - Departure
The Thorns - The Thorns

out of all of them I have purchased this year
1) Christina Aguilera - Stripped
hmmm....no other CDs purchased last year, but I have found many wonderful vinyls from the 1938-late 1980's range at various locations.

very bad year again (9th in row since 1995 in fact)

Superjoint Ritual, Type O Negative and Godsmack saved it from being totally meaningless

KoRn - Take A Look At The Mirror
Sevendust - Seasons
Spineshank - Self Destructive Pattern
Staind - 14 Shades Of Grey
40 Below Summer - The Morning After

so far...

katatonia - viva emptiness

the only album i was looking forward to in 2k3 that was not a disappointment.

When someone claims that "this was a bad year" it actually means that:

a) He hasn't had the chance to actually listen to many albums.

or/and

b) He's interested mostly in a limited, specific aspect of the musical spectrum, where it's obvious that things can have been worse than past years.

But honestly I don't think that a year can be "bad" in general.

So here's my Top-5 (which could easily include various other albums as well):

1. Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
2. Matt Elliott - The Mess We Made
3. Cat Power - You Are Free
4. Sigmatropic - Sixteen Haiku And Other Stories
5. Myslovitz - Korova Milky Bar

Honourable Mentions:

Stellastarr* - Stellastarr*
Rachel's - Systems/Layers
Mogwai - Happy Songs For Happy People
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts
A Silver Mt. Zion - This Is Our Punk Rock
Calexico - Feast Of Wire
Sylvain Chauveau - Un Autre Decembre
Four Tet - Rounds
Giardini Di Miro - Punk... Not Diet!
Trespassers William - Different Stars (Re-Issue)
Arca - Angles
Raining Pleasure - Forwards & Backwards

My 2003 favorites in no particular order...

Opeth - Damnation
A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step
I Mother Earth - The Quicksilver Meat Dream
Gordian Knot - Emergent
OSI - Office of Strategic Influence

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Damien Rice - O
The White Stripes - Elephant (although I do think they are overhyped)
The Bad Plus - These are the Vistas

I can't think of a fifth one offhand.

Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
Travis - 12 Memories
Sara K. - Water Falls
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells 2003
E.S.T. - Seven Days of Falling

(in no particular order)

The Shins - Shutes Too Narrow
The Postal Service - Give Up
Josh Rouse - 1972
The Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
New Pornographers - Electric Version

and I know this is cheating but:
5 More Best Albums Of 2003
(well, it was a good year!)

Pernice Brothers - Yours, Mine and Ours
The Minus 5 - Down With Wilco
Calexico - Feast of Wire
The Belles - Omerta
Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears

Explosions in the Sky - The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
Matthew Good - Avalanche
There were some other good albums but nothing I would call "top". I did find piles of music that was not released in 2003 that I find to be "top".

In no particular order:

ZWAN - Mary Star Of The Sea
The Juliana Theory - Love
Placebo - Sleeping with Ghosts
The All-American Rejects - The All-American Rejects
Kill Hannah - For Never And Ever
Blink 182 - Blink 182

Yeah, I know that is 6. I could not knock one out though.

5 are really few especially for such an excellent year in music, but if I had to pick these would be mine:

5. The Blood Brothers // Burn Piano Island, Burn
Ambulance vs. Ambulance
4. Hot Cross // Cryonics
no sample
3. Give Up The Ghost // We're Down Till We're Underground
Love American
2. Black Eyes // Black Eyes
Someone has his Fingers Broken (MP4)
1. The Saddest Landscape // The Sound of Spectacle
Wishlist for the Drowning

More good music:
Death Cab for Cutie // Transatlanticism
Fear Before the March of Flames // Odd How People Shake
The Postal Service // Give Up
Black Keys // Thickfreakness
Cursive // The Ugly Organ
Every Time I Die // Hot Damn!

whatever

i think the last couple of years HAS been a load of shit. and i download and buy more and more music every year. i've been buying a LOT of singles lately...

didn't like the new Metallica (isn't that 2004, anyways?), didn't like the new Korn, the new Godsmack didn't grab me, Garbage's new album was "whatever"...


the best i can do for a list of good 200X (2002 and beyond) music is:

Groove Coverage - 7 Years and 50 Days (well, 2 singles from the 2004 album which i LOVED came out in 2003)

Fey - Vertigo (2002 but i'm sure i got the album from .AR in 2003)

Nightwish - Century Child (and Oceanborn, but that's 1998) discovered in 2003

runner(s) up: Sita - Happy (album) like half of the tracks by this .NL popstar i discovered thru the musicvideo scene in 2003. i guess she has a track on the Wild Thornberries soundtrack, amazingly enough.

and i have a love-hate relationship with the Sasha Lazard album Myth of Red (2002 i guess, but discovered winter 2003). while i love electronica and some classical, there's a fine line between cheesy and cool. some of the songs are damn sweet, and the Mononoke Hime track chills me to the bone (in a good way), while others on the album just grate on me (The Incubus and strange Battle of Erishkigal which somedays is unbearably cheesy, other days ok)

but nothing compares to the year i fell in love with Poe's Haunted album and the christian V*Enna - Where I Wanna Be... i haven't loved a whole album in a looong time.

I bought only one album in 2003!!

Iron Maiden-Dance Of Death!! I love it!!

I tend to be a bit behind in musical trends, so I'll list my top albums of the last year or two.

1. Deepsky - In Silico
2. Linkin Park - Meteora
3. Staind - 14 Shades Of Grey
4. Hybrid - Morning Sci-Fi
5. Hoobastank - The Reason
6. Hans Zimmer - The Last Samurai (Motion Picture Score)

Okay, so that's six... Whatever.

i have to agree with AeternalTCC on one thing:

hoobastank/the reason is a good outing by a band i thought would never match there first outing. well, technically they didn't match their first, but they didn't lose themselves to the S.A.S.S. (second album sucks syndrome).

i really like incubus'ses (dang!) new outing, though many don't. they didn't match the glory that was morning view, but at the same time they bring the lyrical magic of mv and mixed it with the sound of some of there old stuff, at the same time bringing something new to the table. you can hear elements of blues and jazz fuse with just rock. yeah some songs completely stink, but the ones that are good are excellent.

i also like the shins/chutes too narrow ... it was a decent album.

evanescence was really good, but i'm not big on that goth-kinda style.

My favourites are, in no particular order:

• Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death
• Fito Paez - Naturaleza sangre
• Mago de Oz - Gaia

1. Anathema - A Natural Disaster
2. Dream Theater - Train of Thought
3. Kaipa - Notes From the Past
4. Neal Morse - Testimony
5. Anekdoten - Gravity

1,2. Muse - Absolution (This one counts for two)
3. Outkast - Speakerboxxx / The Love Below (actually, The Love Below)
4. The White Stripes - Elephant (if that's 2003)
5. Fatboy Slim - Halfway between the gutter and the stars

Can't call this "bad year".

Quick and Simple.

1. Audioslave - s/t
2. Trapt - s/t
3. Jet - Get Born
4. Foo Fighters - One By One
5. Christina Aguilera - Stripped

Just personal preferences, there are plenty I'm just not familiar enough with. But I'm always discovering new artists.