When I was at the height of my Rufus Wainwright mania, in the mid-2000s, my go-to answer for “favorite album ever” was Wainwright’s Want One. So it’s kind of a no-brainer as my #1 album of 2003.
Wainwright has released only two pop albums in the last 13 years, detouring into opera and piano instrumentals, so my devotion has waned. I couldn’t really get into the album he released this year, Unfollow the Rules.
I discovered Josh Rouse after the release of his 2005 album Nashville, a record I count among one of my all-time top ten. I quickly gobbled up his previous four albums, all great, and especially loved 1972.
Titled after Rouse’s birth year (and mine), 1972 blends sounds and styles of the 70s with Rouse’s alt-pop sensibility, dabbling in a little Carole King here, a little Marvin Gaye there. Though it’s a concept album in the strictest sense, it doesn’t feel fussed over. He’s too good a songwriter for it to feel anything but authentic.
I’ve agonized over the order of my top three albums of 2003, because each of the albums is wonderful and fully worthy of the top spot. I guess that’s a good problem to have.
Belle and Sebastian’s sixth studio album, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, was a sonic departure from their lo-fi indie output. The band enlisted pop producer Trevor Horn, who gave a bright polish to the music and pushed the band into more upbeat, pop-rock territory.
My #4 album of 2003 is Brad Paisley’s third studio album, Mud on the Tires. This was one of the first Paisley records I bought after discovering him through 2009’s American Saturday Night, and it remains my second favorite of his (again, after American Saturday Night).
This was the album where Paisley fully embraced his unique oddball persona. He serves up a few earnest love songs, a few traditional country ballads, a few joke songs, and a few complex instrumental tracks, and somehow makes it all fit together in one package so it makes sense.
This is the 20th John Mayer song I’ve featured on the blog, yet the first from his 2003 album Heavier Things (my #5 album from that year).
I’m actually surprised by both of those stats. Mayer has occupied a huge place in my personal listening time, in no small part because he is one of the very few artists beloved by multiple members of my family, and yet he has made up less than one half of one percent of my posts here. And among those 20 songs, I’m shocked that I didn’t find room for anything from the excellent Heavier Things.
Meet Me In Montauk 