Ye Olde Hit Parade: The Rat

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

2004: The Walkmen - The Rat

In 2004, George W. Bush was re-elected as president, the Iraq war raged on, some dork at Harvard created a social networking site called Facebook, Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake stirred up some controversy at the Super Bowl halftime show and the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years.

Our house got a lot busier in March with the birth of my second daughter Lily. I swear I spent the next year changing diapers nonstop. It was just second nature after a while. But it was fine. We vacationed on the Jersey Shore for the first time with my brother-in-law and his family. I spent a sweltering few days in Phoenix in June for a work conference.


Indie rock was booming. I finally got an iPod and was constantly downloading stuff to put on it: New bands, bootlegs, B-sides. And there was plenty of good new music: The Hold Steady, Modest Mouse, Mark Lanegan, Hot Snakes, Wilco, PJ Harvey, Mission of Burma, The Twilight Singers and on and on. I was still listening to WMBR in the mornings at work via their website, but most of my music discovery was done through MP3 blogs. Late in the year, I also discovered podcasts. For concerts, I saw Sloan, Mission of Burma, the Tragically Hip, Wilco, and the reunited Pixies (with Mission of Burma opening).




The Walkmen were another of those new bands that I discovered through the rock blogosphere in '04. They got some exposure through shows like "The O.C." but their song "The Rat" was an instant classic for me. Driven by the powerhouse drumming of Matt Barrick, the song builds in intensity and peaks with frontman Hamilton Leithauser's soaring, sneering vocals. Just a pissed off, brilliant screed of a banger. So goddamn great.

Honorable mentions: The Walkmen - "Little House of Savages"; The Hold Steady - "The Swish"; The Hold Steady - "Most People Are DJs"; Modest Mouse - "The Good Times Are Killing Me"; Modest Mouse - "Ocean Breathes Salty"; Mark Lanegan Band - "Hit the City"; Mark Lanegan Band - "One Hundred Days"; The Tragically Hip - "Vaccination Scar"; The Tragically Hip - "Heart of the Melt"; Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - "Little Dawn"; Mission of Burma - "Hunt Again"; Mission of Burma - "The Enthusiast"; Hot Snakes - "Kreative Kontrol"; Hot Snakes - "Hi-Lites"; Eagles of Death Metal - "I Only Want You"; Wilco - "At Least That's What You Said"; A.C. Newman - "Drink to Me Babe Then";  Drive-By Truckers - "Where the Devil Don't Stay"; The Twilight Singers - "Too Tough to Die"; Sonic Youth - "Unmade Bed"; Probot - "Shake Your Blood"; TV On the Radio - "The Wrong Way"; Feist - "Inside and Out"; Elliott Smith - "Don't Go Down"; William Shatner - "I Can't Get Behind That"; The Von Bondies - "C'mon C'mon"; Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"; PJ Harvey - "Who the Fuck?"; !!! - "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Karazzee"; The Black Keys - "10 A.M. Automatic"; Arcade Fire - "Wake Up"; Green Day - "American Idiot"; Death From Above 1979 - "Romantic Rights"; U2 - "Vertigo"; Jay Z - "99 Problems"; Beastie Boys - "Ch-Check It Out"