Best albums of 2003 - My Morning Jacket's "It Still Moves"

From Philadelphia Inquirer article "Pop's seamy side didn't obscure the creativity" BY TOM MOON on a Year 2003 review:

"While the labels worried about their shrinking market share, new music-delivery models slid from the beta phase into action. Apple Computer's iTunes service instantly showed up the restrictive label-sponsored outposts, such as MusicNet, because it is efficient, easy to use, and actually encourages exploration - something radio has virtually abandoned in the Clear Channel age.

As bleak as all that is, the great leveling power of the Internet has given many hope that music - peddled by fat cats or a lone artist with a Web site - can thrive. The tumult of 2003 hasn't blunted the appetite for artists with vision: Tribes still coalesce around those who make defiantly uncommercial and challenging stuff, be it the White Stripes or England's low-profile post-folkie Thea Gilmore."

And in the rundown of best albums of 2003, one of our favorites - My Morning Jacket's "It Still Moves". Inquirer Music Critic Moon continues:

"A challenge for aspiring rock bands is how to handle their obvious influences without seeming irreverent (see the brash UK hair-metal band the Darkness) or opportunistic (Southern snarlers the Kings of Leon). The band that walked the line most convincingly this year was My Morning Jacket, a hell-raising Kentucky five-piece led by the angelic-sounding Jim James. In MMJ's sprawling songs, it was possible to detect the Band's sawdust shuffles and the dejection Neil Young brought to After the Gold Rush. But on the entrancing It Still Moves, such legends are never merely appropriated: They function as spirit guides, enriching ever so slightly what was already a potent, bracingly original sound."

Another Best of 2003 list for My Morning Jacket from The Salt Lake Tribune By Dan Nailen :

"This Louisville quintet's major-label debut opens with 'Mahgeetah' and the lines, 'Sittin' here with me and mine, all wrapped up in a bottle of wine/little we can do, we gon' see it through somehow/So, now are you ready to go?' You better be, because the journey through this album's 12 songs is one of the most joyful to be had this year, mixing rustic vibes with raunchy guitar rock in a style often compared to Neil Young. That does My Morning Jacket a disservice because Young hasn't produced anything this good in years, and leader Jim James has a voice that's crystal-clear and wise beyond his 24 years. In fact, it's timeless, and so are these songs. "

From largehearted boy, a boy, a girl, and his radio some links for My Morning Jacket mp3's:

"Heartbreakin Man," "The Dark," "One Big Holiday".

The mp3 clip comes with this comment: "This Kentucky group fuses the lonesome moan of Neil Young with walls of guitars and reverb, beards and bare feet." You gotta love it.

More of the best albums and music of 2003.

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