It’s the 1980s all over again. If you take the best bits from Becoming X and then fiddle with ‘em in a Goldfrapp version 2 kind-of-way, this is what you’ll end up with. The dubby acid breaks are head-noddingly coooool, especially on the closing of Ideal, which follows this track on the Psychic Cat album, which is fab BTW.

Hmm.. Cold Gossip.

Number 10 of 2004 — Client: City

Client’s second album City begins to show the origins of the band. Where the first album was metronomically clinical and cold, this album is metronomically clinical and slightly warmer. On first listen it appears that Client have decided that they want to play pop. In fact it might be that they wish they were back with Dubstar or Frazier Chorus. This becomes apparent on the opener Radio. Despite “Life is cruel and then you die” and “The world’s a mess on my TV” not to mention many other bitesize chunks of despair and boredom, it’s a song that buzzes along as merrily as a Client song can do. Particularly when the extended chorus comes in, trance like, and almost outstays its welcome. Come On takes this further with it’s repetition of the title. Later in the album, we get more dancefloor posing with Theme, an instrumental which nicks Toktok’s synths and turns them into a massive grooving growling throbbing animal. As such it’s quite a shock. I must admit I wondered what had happened to the Client I knew and loved last year. The saving grace is that the synths and electronics are bigger, better and more fierce but also more lush than previously. The overall effect does end up very engaging after a few listens.

Another clue to the direction Client want to go in are in the collaborations. It’s as if they’re losing direction. What shall we do? Do we want to be commercially successful, or do we want hip retro ‘kids’ to buy our music? So there’s the rent-a-collaboration of Carl and Peter from the now defunct Libertines, someone from Sneaker Pimps and touchstone Martin Gore. In the somewhat unnerving publicity shots, Client A and Client B now show their faces, so perhaps they think it’s time to explore.

Overdrive however takes this direction back to the beginning of Client. It’s a love or lust song, built around a wandering bass riff and swirling mechanical pads, with Martin Gore providing backing vocals. Which leads nicely on to the early 80s synth pop of One Day At A Time – a ‘proper’ song. Think Depeché Mode circa 1982, with key changes and everything. “I’m alive / You’re still on my mind / That’s my life”. It’s wonderful despite a slightly out of place neo-classical break. Don’t Call Me Baby is Client for those who like SEB (as she’s occasionally known. Oh, and by the way, that Busface single Circles is the bomb.) In It For The Money provides a harsh counterpoint to Everything Counts (“Just give me love / Just give me sex / Just give me money / Work hard / Why should I?”) and it’s a far more effective than most of the Riot Girrl shenanigans we heard years back.

Pornography, with Carl Barat’s vocal, is probably a Garbage song in disguise. “It’s you and me monogamy / Just you and me pornography”. Never in the world of pop has the lack of punctuation been so important. Nor indeed has a song title been so misleading. In fact, I’m pretty sure they were just looking for something to rhyme, then built a song around it. Down to the Underground, shows that Joy Division haven’t been forgotten.

There’s room for ballads too, mind. Opening with, and backed by a melodramatic string section, the story of the end of a relationship unfolds in The Chill of October. The album closes with the 2am feel of Everything Must End.

The best track however matches the Client of old and new. Essentially version 2 of Rock and Roll Machine from Client recreated as It’s Rock and Roll. The break before the chorus and the chorus itself is blinding. It’s Tori Amos: Piece by Piece wrapped up in one song. “It’s rock and roll. It’s in my soul. It’s rock and roll. It’s never ever gonna leave me.” Probably.

City is another of these albums I’ve been listening to which only reveal their riches after you’ve listened to them for some time. I actually rejected it completely when I first heard it. “Client, what have you done?!” I cried. Now I know. So come on.

Nothing prepares you for the enormity of this if you merely hear it on the radio or television. It’s only when you hear it on a hi-fi, and headphones are no good (shock, horror!). As per the rest of their debut album Silent Alarm, Bloc Party never use just one idea in a song when three will do. Marvellous.

One of the best things about Lara Croft Tome Raider: The Cradle of Life is the soundtrack. Or rather, aside from Conjure One featuring Sinéad O’Connor Tears from the Moon in the Times Square Shopping Mall scene, if you listen carefully, the soundtrack of the end credits. Forget the film. Yes you can lose a few calories sat watching it, and yes, it’s marginally better than the first film. But it still sucks.

This Dandy Warhols track is taken from their most recent album Welcome to the Monkey House and chugs along in a blissed-out Ashes to Ashes style. Very nice.

A beast of a trance track. Imagine Pitch Black as music. Does that help? The filtered bass break, the ringing melody line. Tingly all over, me.

Taken from the 2004 album of the same name.

“Life is cruel and then you die / Can’t be bothered to try to survive / Time will stop, the hours fly / I watch my life slipping by / They call it news it’s not to me / The world’s a mess on my TV / I cannot speak I cannot feel / Everything is nothing to me / There’s no music on my radio”

When I was at university and for a few years after I always made compilation tapes over the Christmas break, covering the music of the year. One track from each artist. Typically these compilations lasted about 4 to 6 hours. I did buy an awful lot of records then. More so after I started work.

Now however, I don’t buy quite as much so compilations would be a little brief. Instead, I thought I’d list my top 50 of 2004. These are tracks I’ve heard in 2004, regardless of whether I bought them this year. Many were my Tracks of the Day at one point. Others just perked me up or grabbed my attention.

I’ve added some notes where I thought appropriate. Enjoy.