two thousand and five
2005-01-12, 8:38 p.m.

What's that? It's 2005 now? Well. Happy New Year.

We're halfway through the decade - what do we call this decade in America, anyway? In Britain they call it "the naughties" and I call it the "zeroes" or "the two-thousands." What does everyone else call it? Anyone? Bueller?

Halfway through the nineties, I had a pretty good feel for what the nineties were. We already had the grunge thing at full tilt for a few years, for example. But I just don't know what this decade is all about yet. Just that it's not the nineties anymore.

Hey, are all the people who stockpiled canned goods in all those personal end-of-world millennium shelters eating that stuff or did they just transfer their doomsday belief into some new predicted upcoming Armageddon?

Over New Year's and during the week after I spent some time with Porkchop at his family's lakehouse and, as per our year-end tradition, we spent hours perusing (and reading to each other from) "best of the year" picks from all sorts of different music magazines. Which leads me to: my five favorite CDs of 2004:

Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (okay, it's an import and in the U.S. technically a 2005 release, but this is just a list of my favorites and since I owned it in 2004, I feel I can count it. Right? Okay. Oh, also while I'm at it, this doesn't purport to even be at all exhaustive since there's a lot of stuff I haven't heard but want to hear. Like the De La Soul CD. And TV on the Radio. And The Secret Machines. And Amazon keeps telling me I would like The Libertines).

The Killers - Hot Fuss - well, the A-Side (or what you post-vinyl kids might call the "first half of it") in particular.

Northern State - This is a rap trio of female Yeshiva University graduates. The idea always intrigued me and I liked their old-skool-styled clever rhymes on their debut EP, but just picked up their CD All City and am in love love love with it. It's produced a lot fancier than the EP and the sound is much more fleshed out. But their rhymes still crack me up. "The party gets more crazy as the night gets darker and I'm out with my girls like Sarah Jessica Parker." Hee. I must find a way to see these three live in 2005. A trip to NYC may be called for. Yes, yes.

Courtney Love - America's Sweetheart - like Michelle Shocked once sang - Aww, keep on rockin' girl...

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free. If I try to describe it - a concept album where each song tells part of a story - it sounds awful. But it's not awful. It's very very good.

Speaking of concept albums, I have the Green Day CD but never manage to listen to the whole thing in one go for the whole "punk rock opera" vibe. Maybe I will this weekend. Mayyyybe.

Last weekend I went to Memphis and didn't do much -- but that's my favorite thing to do in Memphis, not much of anything. I bought a new winter coat that has groovy fake fur on the neckline and cuffs. Now if it would get cold enough for me to wear the dang thing...