Check Ya Later

The was a foul little filly, 2003, filled with a little right and all kinds of wrong. We were going to be noble and somber and stoic and provide a comprehensive list of the year's notable releases in every musical genre from electroclash to the native roots music of the sub-Saharan tribes. You would have nodded your head gravely at our thorough, insightful and intricately plotted litanies. But that was too much work, and year-end lists are gallons of vanilla yogurt anyway, so we said fuck it and wrote these completely arbitrary lists instead. Deal with it.

Life’s a Pitch

We had high hopes for ourselves. Out of nearly thirty Pitch employees and contributors who offered their thoughts on the best albums of 2003, we figured we could come up with something earth-shattering. We would dazzle the world by picking five utterly obscure records as the best of the year. More than twenty albums earned multiple votes. The New Pornographers, the Dandy Warhols, Belle and Sebastian, the Strokes, Joe Strummer -- they all received nominations. But like Smog's Supper, which calendar editor Gina Kaufmann insisted was the best album of the year, none of them made the cut. In the end, like the "Hey Ya!"-listening sheep we are, we followed the lead of everyone else. Baaaaaa.

Outkast: Speakerboxx/The Love Below
We're enablers. We could have been strong and resisted the universal edict that you must drool all over whatever experiment this schizophrenic Atlanta duo cooks up and serves to the world. But we couldn't do it. We ate it up. It was just so fun. Plus, we needed some hot chocolate on a list filled with dry crackers.

The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow
Wily, soul-baring indie darlings from Albuquerque, New Mexico, make a solid sophomore album. Five, four, three, two, one ... we all swoon.

White Stripes:Elephant
You think the Wu-Tang Clan is something? The White Stripes Clan really ain't nothing to fuck with. Somewhere between brooding, breaking his hand, then breaking Von Bondies singer Jason Stollsteimer's face, Jack White spearheaded the all-time best album to feature a color-coordinated ex-husband-and-wife, garage-blues tandem from Detroit. Meg White just shrugs.

Kings of Leon:Youth and Young Manhood
Marty McFly fucks something up in the DeLorean again and brings three lost Allman Brothers back to the future for more long-haired high jinks from some Tennessee sons of a preacher, man.

Radiohead:Hail to the Thief
Everyone's favorite British weirdos abandon the whole prog thing to do covers of "Cherry Pie" and "I Can't Drive 55" before embarking on a club tour of West Virginia coal-mining towns with Ratt and Warrant. Or they just eliminate some of the squeaks, scribbles and peyote to make what passes as a straightforward Radiohead rock record.

One-Night Standards
There are sappy, heart-wrenching nuggets of songwriting splendor, and then there are just songs that make you want to fornicate with a complete stranger and maybe, maybe leave some cab fare on the dresser. These tunes fall into that cleavage between love and lust as the best bumping (and grinding) tracks you probably won't remember in six months.

Lil' Kim: "Magic Stick"
Lil' Kim shrugs off her seedy image to write an allegory about an orphan who exposes the ills of materialism in a capitalistic society. Just kidding. The song is about a big cock.

50 Cent: "21 Questions"
Nine words: I love you like a fat kid love cake.

Christina Aguilera: "Dirrty"
Nothing says purity quite like a filthy, sweaty Aguilera getting freaky in chaps.

Cold: "Stupid Girl"
This is actually a breakup song, but what the hell -- chicks like mean bastards.

Limp Bizkit: "Eat You Alive"
As much as women like dickheads, they absolutely adore tattooed dudes who stalk them, kidnap them, take them to the woods and shout vaguely cannibalistic threats at them with a bullhorn.

Kelis: "Milkshake"
Mmmmm, milkshakes. No other frozen concoction could've been turned into such an ass-wagging ode to junk in the trunk. Somehow, "My iced, nonfat, triple-shot soy latte brings all the boys to the yard" isn't quite as catchy.

Paris Hilton featuring Rick Salomon: "An American in Paris"
Because "turn towards the camera so you can see how pretty you are" is the most heartfelt line on an amateur soundtrack since Tommy Lee groaned, "Oh, yeah ... baby ... I love you" to Pamela Anderson.

In Da Club

It is a rare track indeed that provokes someone with the Prairie Dogg's utter lack of coordination to bust out the White Man's Overbite and lay waste to the dance floor. With deference to 50 Cent's "In Da Club," a conscientious soliloquy on shorties, parties, Bacardi and all the hilarity therein, here are five more money-maker shakers.

Lil' Jon and the East Side Boyz: "Get Low"
To the window! To the wall! You don't need a third-grade education to write a hip-hop hit! Just some thumping beats! Infectious shouts! Lots of exclamation points! And sipping from one of those jewel-encrusted goblets doesn't hurt.

Chingy: "Right Thurr"
Slurring yurr wurrds is huge around hurre these days. Monsieur Chingy is cash money when it comes to raising the ante on Nelly's popularization of poor enunciation. Now if only somebody could make a lisp cool again.