Was 2003 the end of rock and roll? The genre has been killed and resurrected so many times it makes Dracula look like an amateur, but still, for me, somehow 2003 feels like the last year that I was personally invested in new rock and roll.
Part of that is simple age – entering my mid-30s, with a kid on the way, I was about to enter the demographic of Bob The Builder and Wallace and Gromit. I was following then-new music blogs and enjoying the dodgy thrills of downloading MP3s galore and burning them on oh-so-fancy mix CDs that are still in a closet somewhere, but soon I’d stop doing all that.
Rock began receding as a pop culture monolith as grunge died out, but it was in the early 2000s that it felt like it rallied for one last blast with a flurry of terrific albums from bands like The Strokes, White Stripes, TV On The Radio and more. Since then, to be honest, rock music feels like it’s less a part of the pop culture conversation.
Rock is still out there, but for me, 2003 is about when I started to sort of check out from obsessively following all the latest music. I do try to keep my hand in and listen to new stuff much as possible, but, I recognise that the best pop music now is mostly for the youth, not me, and if I happen to dig some of it, well, that’s just a bonus.
It’s hard to believe 20 years have passed since these albums came out, but I also tend to think of Taylor Swift as “new” music so I’m really well past it, I guess.
Nevertheless, two decades on, in no particular order here’s my 10 favourite albums of 2003, the year that rock died (OK, maybe just the year that rock got a nasty head cold that it’s still shaking off):
Blur, Think Tank – The Britpop stars delivered a woozy, tense album that feels like a loose response to the tension of the Iraq War (boy, we only thought we knew what global tension was in those halcyon pre-Trump, climate apocalypse and pandemic days, didn’t we?). The more optimistic groove of albums like Parklife is far behind but what emerges is a kind of gorgeous weary reverie hanging for dear life onto Damon Albarn’s achy croon in tunes like “Out Of Time” and “Battery In Your Leg.”
The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow – For about five minutes there, The Shins felt like the future of indie rock. Their second album is fragile and filled with grand harmonies, enigmatic lyrics and made for long lonesome road trips. It’s all very gentle and mannered and on the verge of being too twee for its own good, but there’s plenty here to remind you why Natalie Portman said “The Shins will change your life” the very next year in 2004’s hipster poster child of a movie Garden State.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever To Tell – A great blast of grrrl power as Karen O and company blew the roof off with this snappy debut album. Weirdly, the album’s most sedate tune, the ballad “Maps,” became its biggest hit, but the heart of this album is a boiling punk-rock hurricane led by howlingly good romps like “Black Tongue.” After this album the band’s output was middling, more “Maps” than punk, and they never quite recaptured the ferociousness Karen O blasts forth here.
Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers – Radio hit “Stacy’s Mom” alone is a gorgeous sexy/silly hunk of power pop, but the rest of the album by this late, lamented band is full of wry, jangly gems like “Hackensack” and “Hey Julie.” A good power pop album never gets old.
White Stripes, Elephant – And here we hit peak Jack White. I know he’s put out a lot of good stuff since then, but the raw, raggedy side of the Stripes sound collided with stadium rock here and face-melting anthems like “Seven Nation Army” to make it the best thing he (and the sorely missed Meg White) ever did. This one might just mark the end of rock ’n’ roll’s evolution, perhaps?
David Bowie, Reality – Reality is a fascinating time capsule – Bowie’s final release at age 56 before an unthinkably long 10-year hiatus, and his untimely death – and while it isn’t quite as original and path-breaking as his best work, it’s still a comfortable rock god doing what he did best in an album that feels playful and masterful. Highlights includes a bombastic cover of Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso” and the darkly gorgeous epic “Bring Me The Disco King”. Shame about that horrific cover art, though.
Outkast, Speakerboxx/The Love Below – Sweet and sour, sultry and silly, this double-album delight of André 3000 and Big Boi’s duelling soul, funk and rap is a treasure box that keeps giving. Yes, it was inescapable, but “Hey Ya” is one of those massive pop hit earworms that still delivers years on, and if you don’t like it I can’t help you, while the smooth groove of tunes like “The Way You Move” and askew hip-hop of “Roses” also are terrific.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nocturama – Not usually considered one of Cave’s top albums, but there’s something lovelorn and haunting to me about this set, which continued Cave’s move from rowdy rock demon to spooky apocalyptic preacher of songs. The brooding beauty of “Wonderful Life” or the wounded grace of “Bring It On” are near-top Cave, and I can’t get enough of the clattering 14-minute rambling album-closing jam of “Babe, I’m On Fire.”
Calexico, Feast of Wire – Calexico are the fuzzy warm blanket of Americana to me, fusing together elements of Tex-Mex, jazz, blues and country into music that all sounds like the soundtrack to some great lost spaghetti western. Feast of Wire is their finest, most expansive album, drifting along in a gorgeously restless haze. It’s an album I constantly return to for the journeys it takes your brain on.
Ryan Adams, Rock n Roll – Yeah, OK, I went through a big Ryan Adams phase in the mid-2000s, before his contrarian personality and troubling allegations kind of derailed his career and he put out a few too many meandering mediocre albums. Still, I’ll die on a hill for a couple of his albums of the early 2000s like Heartbreaker and Gold. Even though it got a middling reception, I still quite dig 2003’s Rock n Roll, where moody Ryan puts away the pedal steel and unleashes a pile of hooky, guitar-filled rock anthems with a heavy Replacements/U2 vibe. It’s just rock ’n’ roll, as it says on the tin, but I like it.
Other best albums lists:
Nik Dirga 
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