Another one down!

2003 was picked somewhat randomly with middling expectations - how did it do?

Generally OK, I'd say - a lot of it felt quite new because there were a lot of albums I either didn't remember or were quite the big thing but I somehow never caught up with. The ownership ratio was surprisingly low at 10%, which is considerably lower than the 48% of 1999 and 29% of 2005. This could be bumped up a bit for previous visits, but not by much - I'm not quite sure why it's so low because I was definitely buying quite a bit of music around this time, but I guess not so much from the top of the album charts.

Looking at the best selling albums of the year, we met it a long time ago now but the runaway winner was Dido which sold 2.2 million units, which is comfortably ahead of the 1.4 million that Justin Timberlake sold at #2, with the top five being completed by Christina Aguilera, Daniel Bedingfield and Norah Jones. Other albums of particular interest are The Darkness (#6 - love it or loathe it, it's certainly different), Busted (#9 - a fine effort), Blue (#29 - this really was rubbish), Good Charlotte (#47 - interesting because it never got any higher than #15 all year) and finally, the amusingly monochrome elephantine combination of The Black Eyes Peas' Elephunk (#14) and The White Stripes' Elephant (#22). 

Their albums might not be of too much interest, but it's at least of interest that the top 50 features Elton John (#33), Rod Stewart (#34), Tom Jones (#49) and Cliff Richard (#49) - those guys really have been around for AGES! We also have multiple entries for Red Hot Chili Peppers (#18, #20) and Robbie Williams (#27, #30). 

Looking at the albums I reviewed, I'm going to start with the women this year because it feels like it was a good year for the ladies with 22 albums from a solo female or featuring a strong female presence in a band. Looking at the solo artists, it was the youngsters that shone for me with the offerings from Christina Aguilera, P!nk (both of them) and Avril Lavigne standing out from the pack. Most of the rest were decent enough, but there were a number of albums that were surprisingly successful considering how average or dull they were - Dido, Madonna, Norah Jones, Delta Goodrem, Kelly Rowland and Annie Lennox all fall into that category. I'm also going to call out Alex Parks for wasting her chance with too many covers and Dannii Minogue for producing easily the worst album from the solo ladies.

Looking at the all female groups, everyone did well with one obvious exception - Girls Aloud and Sugababes (both of them) were really very decent and even Appleton was considerably better than I was expecting but t.A.T.u was remarkably poor. And finally for the ladies, the mixed groups were also pretty decent with Evanescence putting out an interesting album I was pleased I caught up with and The Black Eyed Peas surprising me with something that, for a change, didn't make my ears bleed.

Considering the solo men, it's quite an interesting year in how uninteresting it was, with all the offerings from Will Young, Sting, Sean Paul, Daniel Bedingfield, Justin Timeberlake, Meat Loaf and David Gray being exactly what you'd expect them to come out with - Will and Dave took the plaudits out of that lot for me. The groups did manage to spring a few surprises, with quite a few of them producing albums from a position of reasonably low expectations that were surprisingly bearable - The Darkness, Iron Maiden, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Metallica, Simply Red, Foo Fighters and even Blue (their second one because their first one was probably the worst album of the year) were all remarkably listenable. In terms of albums I actually liked, I'd go for The Coral, Kings Of Leon, The Thrills and Massive Attack - they were nice to be reminded of or to meet for the first time. I'm also going to mention Starsailor and Turin Brakes because I really wanted to like their offerings and they had all the right ingredients, but just didn't click for me.

Looking at the other statistics of interest, the number of different albums we saw at #1 this year was 25 with 14 debuts, compared with 17 and 9 for 1999 and 32 and 24 for 2004 (which are the closest years we have to look at) and they fit with the general upward trend. The albums with the most weeks at the top were (unsurprisingly) Dido with eight weeks, Justin Timberlake (6), Beyoncé (5) and The Darkness and Norah Jones (4) - I'm also going to mention The White Stripes here because how that managed two weeks at the top I have no idea (but well done to them!). The most popular blog post of the year was Metallica (word obviously spread that I didn't hate it) and the least popular was Danii Minogue (which is fair enough).

The generally accepted (by the internet or me) best albums from the year that we never got to see were The Black Album by Jay-Z (peaked at #34), Deloused In The Comatorium by Mars Volta (never charted - but what a great title), Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins (#82 - it was robbed, I loved this album), Speakerboxxx/The Love Below by Outkast (#8 - but not until '04), Boy In Da Corner by Dizzee Rascal (#23), Fever To Tell by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (#13), Her Majesty The Decemberists by The Decemberists (never charted), It Still Moves by My Morning Jacket (never charted), The Decline Of British Sea Power by British Sea Power (#54), Echoes by The Rapture (#32), Cast Of Thousands by Elbow (#7 - this is a very decent album), Phantom Power by Super Furry Animals (#4 - they were unlucky), The Meadowlands by The Wrens (never charted), Sleeping With Ghosts by Placebo (#11), Fire by Electric Six (#7), Frank by Amy Winehouse (#3, but not until '11) and Give Up by The Postal Service (never charted).

So - did I like '03? There were very few horrors, but there were also very few superb offerings. We saw quite a few "big" albums this year and a lot of them turned out to be at best perfectly fine and sometimes surprisingly dull - Dido and Norah Jones in particular offered little evidence as to why they were quite so popular. Picking a top four for the year I think I'd go for the slightly odd selection of Massive Attack, The Thrills, Evanescence and Avril Lavigne - I can't say I'm likely to ever listen to either of the last two again but they're very decent albums for what they are. Picking the worst three albums of the year is pretty easy because Blue, Dannii Minogue and t.A.T.u. all jump out at me - but I have to admit that none of them are atrociious (but Blue come close). Which I think is pretty much the theme for the year - most of it was listenable, but very little of it was essential.

So where do we go next? I'm feeling quite brave, so I think I might head back to '59 and finish off the 50s - hopefully it will get ticked off pretty quickly (this is likely) and not feature too much Elvis or Frank (this is not so likely).

27/12/59 - Pretty inessential
05/01/03 - Fine, yet perplexing