Tom Waits, Elliott Smith and Nick Cave all make the Pop Matters best of 2004 list.
1. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Anti-) Nick Cave's magnum opus, a thrilling pasticcio of magnanimous rock, pastoral folk, and wicked church music, covers more ground in two discs than most artists can in an entire career. God, cannibals, deception, nature, divine inspiration, slaughterhouses, …