No sooner do I rid myself of one cold than another one starts. Dang.

In alphabetical order only, these are 20 of the best songs that came out in 2004.

• Ambulance Ltd – “Primitive (The Way I Treat You)”
• The Arcade Fire – “The Crown Of Love” (although, really, “Neighbourhood #1” or “Rebellion(Lies)” could just as easily make the list
• DJ Danger Mouse – “99 Problems”
• Falconhawk – “Olympia”
• The Fiery Furnaces – “Single Again”
• The Hidden Cameras – “Mississauga Goddam”
• Mark Lanegan – “Sideways In Reverse”
• Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – “Me And Mia”
• Les Savy Fav – “The Sweat Descends”
• Marah – “Freedom Park”
• Modest Mouse – “Float On”
• Alanis Morissette – “Eight Easy Steps”
• A.C. Newman – “On The Table”
• Raising The Fawn – “Drownded”
• Sahara Hotnights – “Stupid Tricks”
• Stars – “Ageless Beauty”
• The Streets – “Fit But You Know It”
• Thermals – “How We Know”
• The Von Bondies – “C’mon C’mon”
• The Walkmen – “The Rat”

No doubt I’ll change my mind on some of these, or add new albums to the list, but for now these are my 10 favourites of 2004.

1. The Arcade Fire – Funeral
2. The Walkmen – Bows And Arrows
3. A.C. Newman – The Slow Wonder
4. Neko Case – The Tigers Have Spoken
5. The Von Bondies – Pawn Shoppe Heart
6. Ted Leo – Shake The Streets
7. Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
8. Division Of Laura Lee – Das Not Compute
9. Jolie Holland – Escondida
10. Mark Lanegan – Bubblegum

Also worth mentioning: Friday Night Lights – Soundtrack, Jimmy Eat World – Futures, Kasabian – Kasabian, Thee Silver Mountain Reveries – Pretty Little Lightning Paw

Blueberry Boat by The Fiery Furnaces and PJ Harvey‘s Uh Huh Her would likely have made my top ten list had they not been so disappointing. Viewed objectively they’re probably great albums, but I just can’t get into them.

So we came home to find 4(!) Zip DVDs waiting for us (to go with the one already sitting on our TV stand), most of which we’ve watched already.

• We watched the last 5 episodes of The Wire, and we’re every bit as addicted to it as we were to Six Feet Under or The Sopranos. I love how it makes you work to understand it, how it doesn’t slow anything down for you, how it makes you keep up just the way the cops and criminals have to. In the final episode they made little references to things that had happened in the first one or two episodes, references that would make no sense to someone who hadn’t watched the series from the beginning. I loved it.
• Luther was a pretty good movie as well, one that I’ve been waiting to see for a long time but had trouble finding. I knew very little about Martin Luther, so it was interesting to watch…a litte skewed obviously, as it was partially funded by a Lutheran bank, but well worth a watch.
• More episodes from season 4 of South Park. That show just kills me.

Happy new year, everybody.

OK, going back to the couch now.