Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

Legal Album of 2004: Cut Copy's Bright Like Neon Love, which also wins best album name of 2004, and finished strong in best album cover category. (The band wins for best band name also, but they sure made it hard to search for.) The album combined house beats with New Wave attitude, the first half is as thrilling as the first half of Daft Punk's Discovery without the latter's second half letdown. The lyrics are throwaway sentimental pap, but I'm only ever interested in lyrics that tell a story anyway. I heard about Cut Copy through an MP3 blog, and I felt compelled to post an MP3 of the band earlier this year.

Honorable Mention: Björk's Medúlla. Yes, I started listening to Björk again this year, and as she usual does, she flipped it on pretty much everybody with her almost all-voice album.

Best Independent-As-Fuck Album of 2004: Bea the Playa's The Critics Call You A Genius, though to be honest, this was the only independent-as-fuck album I bought all year. (Matt Haughey has a great list of 2004 independent-as-fuck albums to check out.) It's fun accoustic-guitar folk music with swearing and drug references, and I heard about her through Flickr, as she posted many a photo of herself, and clicking through to her profile, then to her website, then to her CD Baby site, then listen to a few tracks, then a purchase.

Best Illegal Album of 2004: David Browne beat me to it, but Jay-Z's and the Beatles' The Grey Album, produced by DJ Danger Mouse. I was late to appreciate it, but it seeped deeper into my consciousness after giving The Beatles (The White Album) a sustained and thorough listen. More than just a mashup, Danger Mouse did with a whole album what most rap producers these days do: he took something from the past, chopped it up, and made it new again. Most producers borrow liberally from one song to make a new song, took liberally from two albums to make an album entirely different than the originals. I've written that Jay-Z's original album sounds like the "remix" version to me.

Those that have bought a DJ's hiphop mix tape in the last 10 years know that DJ Danger Mouse did was not without precedent: rappers have long released voice-only versions of their songs (or, Jay-Z's case, whole albums) as well as instrumental versions so that DJs can produce "blends", that is playing the vocal track of one song over the instrumental track of another, creating a whole new experience. They were mashups before the kids called them mashups.

The Grey Album is my pick for the best album of 2004 overall, legal or illegal, indie or not.

Band of 2004: Interpol, who are evidently the American Tragically Hip. They and their sound were everywhere.

Radio Station of 2004: The Internet. I only really listened to KEXP this year, but until I got a laptop, listening to great new music via the Internet (via streaming radio stations and MP3 blogs) was a good enough reason for throwing all my CD's in the trash.

Best Weblog of 2004: Half of How to Save the World by Dave Pollard. His extensive writing on alternatives to mainstream business practices emphasizing a non-hierarchical (or at least not rigidly hierarchical), self-selecting, partnership- and innovation-based, relatively small businesses staffed by people who love what they do so much the would do it for free (but find being paid for it more than acceptable) is inspiring, my never having worked for an organization larger than 20 people. His writing on love (the only healthy addiction) and sex are not to be missed, and in general he's on to something when he says the way we're doing things is probably counter to our nature as human beings. Another memorable article he wrote this year argued that violence in revenge is a learned behaviour unique to humans.

Honourable Mentions: Karl & Cow, beautiful photos and poignant writing, renewing my interest in studying the French language; Darren Barefoot filtered out the good stuff from the sites (like Boing Boing, MetaFilter, Slashdot, etc.) that were supposed to do that in the first place; Management by Baseball renewed my interest in baseball and taught me about management (not that I'll ever need the knowledge); Marginal Revolution renewed my interest in economics; Makeoutcity summarized books so I didn't have to read them.

Best New Weblog of 2004: Hanzi Smatter. There was even an academic paper written about the website and the phenomenon it traced, namely non-Chinese people and their silly Chinese tattoos or clothing with Chinese characters on them. The weblog mostly catalogued the misuse of characters, especially when they formed meaningless (or worse, offensive) phrases, or that were incorrectly drawn.

Honourable Mention: Blog Maverick, billionaire Mark Cuban's weblog. He has his own agenda—I understand what he said about his relationship with Steve Nash may not be fully accurate—but his writing about basketball from an owner's perspective is a welcome change from the usual former-player's or fan's perspective.

Worst Weblog of 2004: The other half of How to Save the World by Dave Pollard. His anti-Bush, anti-American, doom-and-gloom environmentalist screeds are not only ineffective, but counterproductive. On top of that, when he cites offline materials of which there is an online copy, he does not link to the source: on three occasions: privately for a January citation (available online), publicly in the comments for a November citation (available online). Giving credit where it is due, he does link to an external Gladwell reference at least once. He very rarely links to external sites, much less other bloggers, except on his sidebar, which barely anybody reading his site through his RSS feed will bother to even check. Most of his links to individual weblog entries are to his own, which is actually fine, since I do it as well, but for someone who uses the blogging medium fairly effectively and is a strong proponent of it, he does not provide ample evidence that he is following the conversations happening in it. Again, giving credit where it is due, , and a more rigorous analysis of his linking policy is probably necessary for me to make any final opinion on the matter. An improved "How To Save the World" does not stop talking about environmental philosophy or American politics—I ignore them anyway, and besides, not discussing those subjects is a dealbreaker for Dave—but rather has more confidence to link to the external sources it cites so that its readers can come to their own conclusions about the source.

There a contender to the throne ("Modern Flirting: Girls Find Old Ways Did Have Their Charms" by Laura Sessions Stepp), but "Caring for Your Introvert" by Jonathan Rauch was the clear victor. It's something I considered passing on to all of my friends, as it explains a lot of what they think are eccentricities, but are really just cries for inattention.