The 40 Best Deep Cuts of 2004: Staff Picks

This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2004 Week continues here with our list of the year’s best deep cuts — our staff’s favorite ’04 album tracks that were never released as official U.S. singles.

For a long time, it seemed like 2004 was going to be the final year to have an RIAA diamond-certified album. Usher’s Confessions, released that February, sold 1.1 million copies in its first week, spawned four Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 singles (which collectively spent more than half the year atop the chart), and ultimately shipped well over 10 million copies — the last album released to do so until Adele’s titanic 2011 LP 21. It was in many ways the final true blockbuster of the CD era, the last time an album that existed primarily in physical form would dominate the culture to that level. It was also dope as hell, even beyond its many hit singles, with several of its album cuts becoming bigger and more enduring cultural staples than most of 2004’s proper radio hits.

And even though it was by far the biggest album of the year, Confessions was far from the only release to have that kind of whole-LP impact in 2004. On the rock side, veteran punks Green Day’s dropped a Who-worthy full-length narrative with world-building deep cuts, while new bands Franz Ferdinand and The Killers arrived fully formed with first albums that played like greatest hits sets. On the pop side, Kelly Clarkson and a newly solo Gwen Stefani proved their superstar bonafides with albums that spawned five major hits each — and still had plenty more potential smashes leftover that never got tabbed for single release. And in hip-hop, Ye announced his presence to the world with an album that would forever change the course of the genre — while deeper underground, rapper MF Doom and producer Madlib would team up for an equally stunning (and in its own culty way, just as celebrated) debut.

You’ll find tracks from all these albums in our list below, along with plenty more gems that were never officially released as singles, from artists ranging from Ghostface to Gretchen Wilson. Read on, and find out all about the riches that 2004 had to offer beyond the big hits.