Mammal’s 21-Year Hit Parade: 2004 / #3 – #1

Finland is the most remote country on Earth. Even if you’re standing on the Finnish border, Finland is farther away than anywhere in the world and maybe on the Moon too. Finland has a small population. All they manufacture is snow, swamps, champion racing drivers and metal music.

In Finland the emphasis is clearly on quality, not quantity. How else would one explain how Finland produced my top three songs of 2004?

Mammal’s 21-Year Hit Parade: 2004 / #6 – #4

This is a good day for nothing more energetic than listening to music. The combination of temperature and humidity here in Zululand gives us a humiture, or heat index, of an effective 41 degrees C. That’s on the boundary between “Dangerous” and “Extremely Dangerous” for outdoor activity that requires any exertion.

The Zulu kids on the lawn in front of my office are playing football. I’ll stay here with cool music.

 

Mammal’s 21-Year Hit Parade: 2004 / #9 – #7

Today’s selections are all songs about coffee. “What Drives the Weak” – coffee works for me. “Night of the Living Dead” – that’s what it would feel like without caffeine. “The Essence” – Jamaica blue mountain, percolator ground, please.

Dark Metal Cat says the answers to those three song titles are: a dark cat chasing them; what they are when he spots them; what they taste like unless they’re smelly cicadas.

Mammal’s 21-Year Hit Parade: 2004 / #12 – #10

Arjen Lucassen’s Ayreon kicks off today’s selection. I really look up to him. So does almost everyone. He is 2.03 metres tall (6 feet 8 inches). In nautical terms, he is more than a fathom deep. In astronomical terms, a beam of light that started at his toes would take approximately 0.0000000077 seconds to reach the top of his head.

Collectively, the members of Isis and Dark Moor have many more arms and legs than Arjen.

Mammal’s 21-Year Hit Parade: 2004 / #15 – #13

History, technology and fantasy make up today’s three listings. Those sound like the ingredients for a modern religion.

Dark Metal Cat agrees. He say’s it’s high time humans started worshipping cats again. I gently reminded him that I already do.