Best of 2004
![[ Goodbye 2004. It's been one hell of a journey! ]](http://hooverdust.com/version2/wp-content/images//best_of_2004.jpg)
You knew theses lists were coming. So without further ado, here they are:
Top 5 Films
1. Before Sunset - You won’t find a more emotionally involving film for 2004.
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - The most original film of the year.
3. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster - One of the best fly on the wall documentaries on a band ever made. At least, from what I’ve seen.
4. Bright Leaves - A unique documentary voice that I pray gets a DVD release.
5. Hero - Featuring some of the best cinematography and fight chorography of the year. The plot isn’t highly original but sometimes style can be better than substance.
Biggest disappointment: One Perfect Day
Most overrated: Open Water
Top 5 Albums
1. Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill - Smith’s farewell is a beautifully sad reminder of the loss of an underrated musician.
2. The Streets - A Grand Don’t Come for Free - Mike Skinner’s self-confessed ‘people’s poet’ delivers a superior album to his 2002 debut. Great stuff.
3. The Arcade Fire - Funeral - Having only caught onto this band recently, they have plenty of hooks without sounding commercial. My new favourite band.
4. Interpol - Antics - I read a review in one of those trashy TV week magazines that put this album as one of the worst of the year. Explains it all doesn\rquote t it.
5. Wilco - A Ghost is Born - Lots and lots of guitars mixed in with some rockin’ and gorgeous tunes. The track ‘Less Than You Think’ is completely ironic or is it?
Biggest disappointment: The Prodigy - Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
Most overrated: Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand (Despite ‘Take Me Out’ being a solid track)
Top 5 Gigs
Survived a year without one gig at the Espy which was surprising but I guess all the best gigs were elsewhere:
1. Radiohead (Rod Laver Area, 26th April) - Magical is one way to describe it but I felt for those who missed out because it took them 5 years to return, it was worth the wait and they haven’t been back since.
2. Damien Rice (Prince of Wales, 22nd October) - The one man band in his first Australia tour was nothing short of amazing. When he rocked he rocked hard, and when he slowed it down, he did it with grace. Amen to a great gig.
3. Silver Ray (Bar Open, September 30th?) - Possibly the greatest instrumental band in Australia and the Humans EP is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Bar Open was the perfect intimate venue for their music too.
4. Little Birdy & Evermore (Corner Hotel, October 8th) - Little Birdy were pretty good but Evermore stole the show and will go onto bigger and better things.
5. The Sand Pebbles (Duke of Windsor, December 17th) - These Melbourne psychedelic muso’s delivered a solid gig at the Duke with guitarist Ben Michael X doing some excellence work to compliment an excellent band. Their LP is also worth repeat listens.
Top 5 Hooverdust Posts
These are what I consider my favourite posts over the past year. I was going to post my favourite posts from others bloggers but that was entirely too difficult.
1. Take Me On A Cruise - The photo really suited this beautiful track. Sometimes it’s what you don’t say that sticks.
2. Karaoke @ The Laundry - One of the rare occasions where I post black and white photography, video content and personal insight.
3. The Work of David Lynch - A filmmaker who opened my eyes and ears to another world. “This must be where pies go when they die”.
4. I, Robot - Calling Blade Runner ‘average’ sparked some heavy discussion.
5. The Birth of Hooverdust - Where it all began. Not even a year old yet it feels like 5!
I’ve also been redesigning the site over the past couple of days, hoping to get the new design online by New Years day but it’ll have to wait another couple of weeks. I’ve gone through about 5 designs, all of which have outstayed their welcome already. Any web designer will tell you that designing their own site is the hardest thing to do. You get through a few designs and then you come up with one that you really like. Then after designing it for hours, you take a rest, come back and think it’s a pile of crap.
I’m deciding to go for something bolder this time around, with a strong sense of colour and attention to detail. I’m completely over anything with gray too. While I still like minimalist designs, I think they’re starting to feel old fashioned, at least within the realms of the web blogging community. But hey, what the hell do I know?
Anyway, see you all in 2005, send some donations for the Tsunami appeal and have a happy and safe NYE celebration!
James - your humble Hooverdust creator
4 Responses to “Best of 2004”
Hahaha. I just added another comment to the Great Blade Runner Debate.
I am with you on Spotless Mind. It’s sad that such films are not more commonplace.
P.S. I like minimalism and neutral palettes. But for my own site I decided as a challenge to myself to use ‘bold’ colours. I am going to start painting in 2005, and years of drawing in B&W (and living in a house of black, chrome and glass furniture) has given me a mild phobia of colour. Can’t wait to see what you come up with. I have been planning a style sheet colour overhaul…that’s all I can (and want to) do in the short term.
cool lists. Yeah, I need to start thinking about that.
My website “design” is unlikely to change given that I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
Dude, The Streets album wasn’t a debut, are we forgetting Original Pirate Music? Plus, I thought that the Franz album was really solid as a whole, too, but whatever. Oh, and whoever dissed Interpol is no longer with us, they have been “removed”. Eternal sunshine is the bomb, and Em & I have come back from Bali with almost 80 DVDs between us. All of mine are good. On the “web & work” front, shit is in the pipeline my friend, so keep your eye’s peeled.