Favorite Songs of 2004

As I go back further in time in examining my favorite songs from the past, I run across some songs, in increasing frequency, that actually were hits in earlier years. Sometimes the gap between a song’s popularity and my choice of it as a favorite can be as long as twenty years or more! And although that isn’t the case with any of the tunes for 2004, there may be a couple that had come out the previous year or two which took me a while to notice. Here are 2004’s best (to me):

Fallen (Sarah McLachlan)
My Immortal (Evanescence)
Fortunes Faded (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Almost Honest (Megadeath)
Megalomaniac (Incubus)
Lying From You (Linkin Park)
Ride (The Vines)
Float On (Modest Mouse)
Talk Shows on Mute (Incubus)
Ch-Check It Out (Beastie Boys)
Maps (The Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Followed the Waves (Melissa auf der Maur)
Here and Now (Letters to Cleo)
Take Me Out (Franz Ferdinand)
Move Ya Body (Nina Sky)
The Way You Move (OutKast)
Duality (Slipknot)
Underwear Goes Inside the Pants (Lazyboy)
Are You Gonna Be My Girl (Jet)
Mosh (Eminem)
American Idiot (Green Day)
Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day)
Counting the Days (Collective Soul)
This Fire (Franz Ferdinand)
Look What You've Done (Jet)
12:51 (The Strokes)
Coin-Operated Boy (Dresden Dolls)
Misfit (Elefant)
Nowhere Again (Secret Machines)
Primitive (Ambulance)
No Phone (Cake)

Until late summer/early fall, 2004, there weren’t very many notable songs. The big song from that time was Sarah McLachlan’s beautiful ballad Fallen. Then, sometime around September, I began to listen to 100.5-WHHZ (“The Buzz”) in earnest (I had been listening to it sporadically for about a year). The quality of music put out by this independent/alternative rock station was amazing and refreshing. There was a plethora of great songs from the last part of 2004, from Ride by the Vines, with its simple garage-band sound, to the Strokes with their enduring 12:51 (my #19 all-time favorite). Bands with female lead singers were also featured, such as Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Here and Now by Letters to Cleo. Two novelty songs, Underwear Goes Inside the Pants by Lazyboy, and Coin-Operated Boy by the Dresden Dolls, were interesting and funny. My favorite song (back then) for 2004 was Jet’s tribute to the Beatles, Look What You’ve Done, with 12:51, Ride, This Fire (by Franz Ferdinand), and Primitive (by Ambulance) following close behind. And Cake’s No Phone was a fitting, funny tribute to all of those times in my life when I’ve had quite enough of the world, wanting no more than to just shut it out for a while, spend a little quiet time in solitary contemplation, and of course, turn off the phone!