The year’s most popular album — until Adele, what looked like the last of the diamond-certified cultural behemoths — was also one of its best, but we expect great artists to offend, which no one ever excused Usher Raymond IV of being or doing. Kanye West offended no one in 2004: his first album was his straightest, familiar to admirers of stories for boys from A Tribe Called Quest, but the stories given the hues and filigrees of William Blake’s illuminated books. Cavils about his rapping strike me as irrelevant, reminiscent of dismissing Bernard Sumner as a guitarist or lyricist: he knows what he wants in the studio, does just enough to serve the song, so what are you complaining about?
The rest is almost sound solid. Clarity suited Modest Mouse; I remember the shock when “Float On” blasted in my student union building that summer. Wilco released the only album I’ve ever given a damn about. Other breakthroughs depended on expert proselytizing: David Moore for Funeral, Chuck Eddy for Horse of a Different Name. Arcade Fire and Big & Rich would disappoint fans eventually, but give them this: they envisaged an audience besotted with mass singalongs and the high of a communal experience. The difference between this experience and when a band assumes it has tapped into mass discord has to do with what you do with a Whitesnake echo, as Green Day proved. I suppose we could’ve predicted the fifth-rate MAGA terror John Rich would become, but this news doesn’t dampen the impact of the music, which connects the Bellamy Brothers through fellow MAGAphile Kid Rock and ending with results not far removed from Jay-z’s “99 Problems,” also beloved of voters.
My favorite record of the year, though, acted as if 2004 — hell, 1994 — didn’t exist, although I can’t think Sonic Youth could’ve recorded Sonic Nurse without twenty years of noise experiments and bemused dips into intelligibility.
The Hague
Green Day – American Idiot
Meh
Danger Mouse – The Grey Album
TV on the Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
Scissor Sisters – Scissor Sisters
Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing in the Hands
Animal Collective – Sung Tongs
Tom Waits – Real Gone
Sound, Solid
The Libertines – The Libertines
Nellie McKay – Get Away From Me
Wilco – A Ghost Is Born
Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
A.C. Newman – The Slow Wonder
Killers – Hot Fuss
Morrissey – You Are the Quarry
Arcade Fire – Funeral
Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous
Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat
Interpol – Antics
Björk – Medulla
Joanna Newsom – The Milk-Eyed Mender
Good to Great
Sonic Youth – Sonic Nurse
Kanye West – The College Dropout
Usher – Confessions
Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Dizzee Rascal – Showtime
Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South
Big & Rich – Horse of a Different Color
Ghostface – The Pretty Toney Album
Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
PJ Harvey – Uh Huh Her
Madvillain – Madvillainy
Youssou N’Dour – Egypt
M.I.A./Diplo – Piracy Funds Terrorism Volume 1
The Jury’s Out
Black Keys – Rubber Factory
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
Humanizing The Vacuum 
I would save the title track from “American Idiot” from the hague. I remember in 2004 how the melodic rush and sustained rhythm would put a smile on my face everytime I heard in on radio. Nevermind the suspect rhyme pattern or how effective/ineffective could be in describing an era of mass brainwashing through TV escapism (the last time that could happen before the era of social media took over) and how many musicals and Glee performances would ruin the concept. As a power pop fan, this was the shit back on the day. Because not many power pop songs had crossover on mainstream radio. Like, ever. Not even where I live.