To celebrate the 30th anniversary of World Cafe, we're looking back and posting playlists from each year of the show. As music has evolved over the years, so have our playlists, which have grown to reflect a much wider range of music than when we first set out.
Two decades ago at this time, we were looking back on a year punctuated with big pop hits and a ton of breakouts throughout rock, indie-rock, hip-hop and alternative music.
Those breakouts included Gorillaz, The Strokes, The White Stripes (their third record, which was a catapult for their profile), The Shins, and My Morning Jacket. We were introduced to a young Pharrell Williams, along with his Neptunes production partner Chad Hugo, via N.E.R.D. and In Search Of...On the pop side, Train and John Mayer each released massively popular records, and Jay-Z released the instant-classic Blueprint.
Sandwiched in between the pop, rock and hip-hop albums that year were excellent releases from Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Bob Dylan, Drive-By Truckers, Spoon, Ben Folds (his first solo album sans the Five), Rufus Wainwright, Pete Yorn and blues legend Buddy Guy.
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