The Good the Bad and the Ugly of 2003

Hope you like the tite, took all of 10 seconds to think up.

PROS: Barbara Morgenstern’s Nichts Muss; Bubba SparKISSKISSKISS!; that last verse of Jus’ A Rascal, voice almost getting away from body; Philip Sherburne’s ‘Needledrops’ AGAIN, a marriage proposal to everyone who reads; Ricardo Villalobos’ ‘Easy Lee’ not nearly long enough at 8 mins+; Closer Musik, Sascha Funke, Phantom/Ghost, Luciano, Komeit, Kaito, “Rough” Justus Kohncke; the Blue Nile in the Junior Boys’ ‘Birthday EP’, Aspera, and Coloma’s ‘Finery’; Blemish as redux of A Lover’s Discourse’ worst (absence, waiting, demons, I-love-you, madness, flaying, drama, &c); Matthew Ryan’s Concussion released in Britain; MEGO; laziness; the most melancholy song ever finally recorded, a mystery Roll Deep White Label (“I wish I didn’t think so much”); Lumidee ‘Never Leave You’; E. Crunk’s line about how listening to lots of Sean Paul is like being prodded at by aliens try na figure out feeling; being wrong quite often but who really cares?; the Superpitcher remixes of Jim O’Rourke’s back catalogue oh so worth looking forward to!; asking ‘who are Josef K?’; Scott Walker on my telly; Animal Collective; I Luv Poney!!!; Donae’O ‘Bounce’, ‘Farmer Yardie’; M. Ward; Sharkie Major ‘This Ain’t a Game’; Eve ‘Satisfaction’; OMG where was I when Enon?; Tara Jane O’Neill; Live - KaitO (light detonating inside glass), Liars, Melt Banana (WOWs and raw joy), Scatter; most things I love I haven’t written about; More Michael Mayer More More; (early) Simple Minds re-issues; Aztec Camera’s first for £1; Sticky feat. Lady Stush ‘Dollar $ign’; Wiley, obv.; Il Casio Immunitas; Don Paterson’s The Landing Light; !!! ‘Me & Giuliani...’; Rachel Stevens ‘Sweet Dreams My LA Ex’ (the first shuffletech-inflected pop song); Avril was 2003, right?; my friend Minna Sophie Wight; playing football with Sci-fi Stephen; Charlie ‘Space Woman’; Ken Laszlo ‘Hey Hey Guy’; all the paint stripped from her throat - Catherine Irwin’s voice; Ozu, Tarkovsky & Tati retros at the GFT; Isabelle Huppert (“the ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face!”); relentless unreasonable horribleness (Haneke’s Le Temps du Loup, Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1, which I’m still undecided on &c); F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night; discovering so many great writers (Charles Portis, Lorrie Moore, Donald Barthelme, W. G. Sebald, and finally reading Roland Barthes); learning my way around a sentence; ‘Cellular Minutes’, how could I forget?!; WHAT A BUSY YEAR!

CONS: Cat Powurgh; the Ratpure record - wtf?; Luomo songs that aren’t ‘Tessio’; Oldham, Callahan & Malkmus - Dead White Males; jokes I’ve made before; John Ritter & Elliot Smith RIP; MC Shystie ‘I Luv U’; no-one should ever feel this sad; where the hell are the Avalanches?; The Exploding Hearts : ( : ( : ( :( :(; Matmos; ILM; lack of Kodwo Eshun; missing INSTAL ‘03 at the Arches (Ryoji Ikeda, AMM, Merzbow, the Boredoms, Whitehouse); [that’s enough!]