GPC Best of 2003

If you like this, you'll love the Conspiracy's favorite albums of 2003.

#1 Junior Senior - Move Your Feet

Jesper and Jeppe have the beat beat beat that can move your feet and the rock rock rock that keeps rocking the house. Dance floor or bedroom floor, if Move Your Feet didn't make your hips want to get shaking in 2003, you were a dead robot Vulcan fuelled by sadness. GPC's song of the year was a perfect fun-ass tune that was total boner for everyone, every time: Your parents dug it, your kid sister dug it, even your asshole hipster friends got jig and dropped the heard-it-all-before face. Trying to find something wrong with Move Your Feet was like trying to diss candy — not even Noheart could do it without coming off like a big liar. I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as heaven, but if I'm wrong, it's a place where Cinnamon Brown Sugar Pop Tarts grow around Yoo-Hoo fountains while the cast of Jem (Rio included) have sexy limbo parties to an eternal MYF soundtrack. In closing: If Move Your Feet were a racehorse it would be named Gangbuster Bananas and it would win, like, six Triple Crowns. (p.s. No glue in its future, only ice-cold filly macking.)

OMG, the GPC top 25 and Entertainment Today!

Cousin Itt is sexy

Spread it like fluff 'n' nutter

Fond memories of the 8th grade semi-formal

Can't do a little cause he can't do enough

As if!

Rowr

Are they or aren't they?

Where the pink bunnies at?

Uh oh uh oh uh oh nonono

Ich bin superfantastich!

There must be something wrong with you

Year's sexiest cross-dresser

Of course

Aging hipster, moi?

Rocks the theramin

Sorry about the personal stylist

Kind of like Fran Drescher

Yeah I'm wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt

Is there anything they can't do?

Laying fresh jams on Jose's brother since 2003

Couldn't afford an Aeron chair

OK, just one more

Long years of research have finally paid off

#2. Hot Hot Heat - Bandages

A confident nugget of catchy goodness that notoriously spooked the BBC into removing it from their radio playlists during the war in Iraq. The youthful nu wave energy made you wish that you did more than just talk about forming a band with your friends that one October weekend when you were fifteen, the vocals called out for karaoke in the shower (ban-da-ge-ee-es!) and those keyboard hooks made you secretly regret quitting piano.

#3. The Kills - Cat Claw

If there's such a thing as an aural atomic wedgie, this was it. Oops, there go your underoos, up over your head, then before you could even turn around you were hanging from the coat rack. Forget about calling mommie — they took all your money, including the quarter you stashed in your Roos. The crazy thing is they did it with only a guitar, a drum machine, and a-hootin' and a-hollerin' (eat your heart out, Jack White). Amazingly, they can pull it off live too. On a side note, we thought Cousin Itt was sexy even before we found out she was the lead singer for The Kills.

#4. Fannypack - Cameltoe

Junior Senior may have namechecked J.J. Fad, but Fannypack ransacked homegirls' graves and left only the hair extensions. Capitalizing on the year's most improbably pervasive catchphrase (even your mom's saying, "Did you catch Jessica Alba's cameltoe in Honey? Girl needs to get some no-cling") and spreading it like fluff 'n' nutter over some humpy booty beats, Fannypack made this year's Supersonic: a tuff b-girl novelty hit that everybody got down to. Incidentally, if you're wondering about the album, So Stylistic, it's more of the same — which is to say, awesome.

#5. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights

Who knew longing could sound so exuberant? Wriggling into your heart and butt simultaneously, Such Great Heights alchemised Death Cab's pining croons with Dntel's precious glitches, threw four on the floor and seduced us like it was the 8th grade semi-formal all over again. Appropriately, I fell hard for it cruising along the Shenandoah mountain range thinking about a girl. And, hey, if it sounds a little like A-ha, that's not hurting anybody.

#6. Outkast - Hey Ya!

Who knows what Andre 3000 was listening to — Shuggie Otis? Magnetic Fields? HR Pufnstuf? — but Hey Ya was the most infectiously inventive chart pop since Missy's Work It. Riding an old school rave-up beat, handclaps, grunts and a bridge that climaxes into a delirium of "alright alright alright alright alright alright," Hey Ya faced down the inevitable grocery store ubiquity and then told us, You're going to hear this a thousand more times and you're going to like it. And did we ever.

#7. The Strokes - 12:51

As if you didn't like it. It's The Cars meets Experimental Jet Set-era Sonic Youth with an insane hook masquerading as a guitar line masquerading as a keytar on delay. But the thing I liked most was its moxie. You'd think with all the critical pressure to perform, Julian and the gang would have been tempted to mix things up a bit on Room On Fire. But they didn't. You could almost hear 'em taunting: "What's that, Rock Backlash? You don't like the taste of our signature flava? How about another spoonful of medicine to help that medicine go down?"

#8. New Pornographers - The Laws Have Changed

Vancouver's favorite (only?) indie supergroup returned with an infectious pop opus that set hyper boy-girl harmonies to a bouncy backing track. Consider it the soundtrack for daydreams about jumping in your car (daydream a car if you don't have one) and pointing it towards a beach. And then once at the daydream beach you can daydream Neko Case (Playboy's Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock) in a daydream bikini. Rowr.

#9. The Darkness - I Believe In A Thing Called Love

Forget about all that are-they-aren't-they talk (ironic, not gay). Forget the fresh proof that chest-baring spandex and a balls-out guitar solo apparently still trump British teeth and a receding hairline (and that a wicked falsetto still moistens the panties). Forget even that this was one choice jingle, nouveau hair metal be damned. Mostly we're just thankful that this got the kids off that Andrew W.K. shiat.

#10. The Unicorns - Tuff Ghost

The first time I saw The Unicorns, they were playing in the back room of a seedy Toronto bar to about ten enthusiastic friends. They kicked off the set with Tuff Ghost, introducing the song, and themselves, only by saying "Sit down! Sit down! Sit down!" Those Unicorns are precious and outrageous all at once, just like this song. And just when you think its scattershot melodies are winding down, in gallops a lead lightning bolt of a bass solo that kicks it up into dance-punk-for-pink-bunnies territory. It's song two on the album, which gives me a frowny because it makes me skip the first tune (which is also very fine) every time.

#11. Beyoncé - Crazy In Love

Uh oh - uh oh - uh oh - nonono. Employing an infectious horn sample (via The Chi-Lites) and shimmering production from Rich Harrison, Crazy In Love signalled the rise of your new pop Queen B. The guest appearance by her beau, Jay-Z, gave the surging love song an added level of gravitas, but the song was built for strutting around the room. Just try and deny it — this song makes you wish you were a diva.

#12. Franz Ferdinand - Darts of Pleasure

The promising debut single from the hotly-tipped Glaswegian four piece combined a deliciously fun slice of art punk disco stomp, some skinny guitar band swagger and a gibberishy German extro that translates as "I am super-fantastic! I drink champagne with salmon!" Even if you didn't know quite what they were getting at, it was easy to dig the vibe. Pass that salmon.

#13. The Raveonettes - That Great Love Sound

What's that, you say? A Danish guy-girl duo re-inventing the Jesus and Mary Chain? Yes, please! From the opening bars you knew what you were about to get and once you got to the chorus you no longer cared — this was three-and-a-half minutes of pure rock 'n' roll for the kids. If listening to That Great Love Sound at maximum volume didn't make you hop on a motorcycle and take a ride on the sidewalk, there must be something wrong with you.

#14. Common - New Wave (Playgroup remix)

The story goes that when Common heard the nascent track, he thought, "Oh snap, Stereolab!" So he approached Laetitia backstage after a show and after getting the who-dat (this from somebody who could probably name every Neu song? Pretty lame, Milhouse), he convinced her to rock the mic with him anyway. The result was the year's sexiest cross-dresser, improbably bridging the chromosonal gap between serious hip hop and serious pop. Upping the tranny even more, Playgroup stripped away ?uestlove's original production, replaced it with the Tom Tom Club's Wordy Rappinghood and sparked a revolution for the dance floor, not just between your ears. It's a new wave, come on!

#15. Broadcast - Man Is Not A Bird

This was pretty well what we've come to expect from Broadcast — tinkles and shimmers, a haunting organ line and Trish's disconnected lullabies floating above it all — but like some art house Houdini, they keep sneaking in new tricks. Here, it was a moebius strip of drum fills masquerading as a beat, propelling their typical kid-in-the-well symphonics to something altogether more affecting. Beautiful doesn't do justice — this is song of the year material on the minute-long echoey percussion denouement alone. Incidentally, it was named after a '60s socio-political sex satire by Serbian director Dusan Makavejev. Of course.

#16. LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge

Sticklers will point out that this was actually released in mid-2002, but in the supposed year of disco punk, it remained the one document that mattered. Vocally slack but rhythmically Botox-tight, Losing My Edge skewered the aging hipster malaise like a year's worth of The Onion. And yet, as the final minutes play out to a roll call of every name ever dropped by a record store clerk ("The Bar Kays, The Human League, The Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagara, Joy Division!"), it never fails to transform from indictment to celebration, despite its bad self.

#17. Goldfrapp - Strict Machine

Oh my. Talk about sexy. And I don't just mean Goldfrapp herself. Strict Machine was what happens when sex decides to take on a musical form: At first it makes like a sequel to Personal Jesus and then it morphs into a throbbing, pulsing electropop dance anthem that put everything else from the genre to shame. The perfect song for slutty dancing (go ahead, give it a try) — the synths are clean, the beats are dirty and the voice is just heavenly. And Ms. Goldrapp likes to get busy with a theremin on stage. Are you with me?

#18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

Karen O is one tough hombre. Whoever you are, odds are good she could beat you up (ok, unless you're Chrissie Hynde or something). This was the song she whispered in your ear after she'd bludgeoned you unconscious with a bottle of the hip working-class beer du jour. The relentless attack of pretty much every other YYY tune just made the sincerity and — dare we say it — sweetness of Maps that much more seductive. Maybe "they don't love you like I love you" was ambiguous — maybe you'd be dead by now if they did — but somehow, it didn't matter. All was forgiven — the bloody nose, the vomit, the throng of fickle scenesters, the personal stylist, everything.

#19. The Fiery Furnaces - Crystal Clear

We thought Jack and Meg had spoiled it for all brother/sister rock 'n' roll wannabes, but then along came the Fiery Furnaces, our new favorite modern-day back-of-a-pickup ragtime-piano rockers. There's something off about this song that we couldn't put our finger on, but the more we replayed it, the more we liked it in spite of ourselves. At first we found their weird melodies and sloppy musicianship annoying but hard to forget (kind of like Fran Drescher), but now we just love them (and Fran Drescher too).

#20. The Thrills - One Horse Town

You know how every year a song comes along that captures the sound of summer? This year, One Horse Town was that song: jangly guitars, tambourines, bells, piano, some raspy singing and a hint of a banjo — no pretensions to being slick or avant-garde or anything other than a nice thing to listen to on a warm day. (It's sweet to hear some Irish lads go all California on our ass.) I haven't road-tested it yet, but word is that this makes an outstanding driving song. If you've got a convertible, you're all set.

#21. White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

The Stripes' response to the pressure of expectation that had built up following their rapid ascent to the top of new rock revival, this was a worthy offering. The bass guitar fake-out (guitar effects! Is there any thing they can't do?) and soaring blues riffs answered all expectations with a resounding boot to the head.

#22. Metric - Combat Baby

Whenever I try to lay a fresh jam on my brother James, he gets this look on his face like I've turned into our dad telling us that we need to dress up because we're going to have dinner with one of his business associates. So I try not to push too much on him. I mean, he's got his own tastes. Pretty much exclusively Beyoncé, Kelis and Cher. No problems there. We find our common ground. But then one day it's the classic fuck you: I come home to find him singing along to Combat Baby in the shower.

#23. Trespassers William - Vapour Trail

Twelve years on, who knew that Ride could inspire such dreaminess? To suggest that it's better than the original is sheer lunacy, but California's Mazzy Star-loving Trespassers William made something that came pretty damn close. Significantly slower, this Vapour Trail was instead built around a piano, some bass and a lovely female voice, scoring major bonus points for subtle brilliance. Put this on in the bath or under the stars and you'll find it difficult not to feel something magical is going on here.

#24. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Mixed Up World

Taking an underground disco hit and splashing on some sassy Swing Out Sister brass and then finishing with a shot of some Pet Shop Boys cosmopolitan electropop cool begat a song that made you hate yourself for liking it. SEB knows how to deliver delicious pop confections that elicit the same primal response as a box of chocolates that you know you shouldn't be touching, and Mixed Up World was no exception. (OK, just one more listen.)

#25. Kelis - Milkshake

After scoring a minor but memorable hit with Caught Out There and doing some time with ODB, Kelis took a long sabbatical. Word is she's been travelling the globe searching for the lost techniques and secret ingredients behind the perfect milkshake. At last she and her giant afro have returned to show the world what they discovered: a frothy concoction of sassy Harlem boast-R&B and Neptunes production, with a bicycle bell on top. It was so sweet and smooth you gulped down the whole thing and ordered another, even though you know it goes straight to your booty. Our expert GPC taste-testers agree, her milkshake is better than yours.

5.	Foot Hockey
4.	Red Rover
3.	Throwing Snowballs At The Girls/The Boys
2.	Dodgeball
1.	Freeze Tag

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