Best 15 Albums of 2005
Posted on | February 7, 2006 at 8:25 pm | 2 Comments
It’s that time of the year again, when I’m “forced” to come up with my list of the top 15 albums of the year for the LoudFans poll. To refresh your memory, the voter votes for the top 15 albums on a point system (top album gets 5 points, bottom five get 1 point each, etc.). Overall, I don’t think it was as good a year as last year, but there was a lot of good stuff. I don’t think I bought as many CDs as last year. Actually, I’m still buying 2005 CDs and finding stuff that maybe should’ve gone on this list (like Calla’s Collisions, which really reminds me of Starflyer 59, who had a pretty lackluster album this year, Talking Voice Vs Singing Voice, and didn’t make the list). Anyway, here’s the rankings at the time I submitted the list (last Thursday):
5 points:
1) Maximo Park: A Certain Trigger
4 points:
2) The New Pornographers: Twin Cinema
3) Kaiser Chiefs: Employment
3 points:
4) Immaculate Machine: Ones And Zeros
5) Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better
6) Caesars: Paper Tigers
2 points:
7) Spinto Band: Nice And Nicely Done *
The Go-Betweens: Oceans Apart
9) The 88: Over and Over *
10) The Information: Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
1 point:
11) Garbage: Bleed Like Me
12) Pernice Brothers: Discover A Lovelier You *
13) OK GO: Oh No
14) The Church: El Momento Descuidado *
15) Soundtrack Of Our Lives: Origin Vol. 1
* – As opposed to previous years, I’ve listed some albums that I purchased/downloaded from eMusic instead of bought “hardcopies” of. I’ll probably get around to buying them eventually, since I still like the increased fidelity and having the physical materials to fondle.
It was pretty difficult for me to not put Twin Cinema as number one. As I’ve probably said before, the highs on Twin Cinema are higher than the highs on A Certain Trigger, but A Certain Trigger is more consistently good.
Note there’s a lot of BritPop on this list. It was a good year for that genre. The Caesars album was a really late purchase (Jan 2006), but got itself on the list almost immediately. It’s so much more than the ubiquitous song from the iPod commercial (Jerk It Out). The Church album is mostly acoustic versions of songs from their catalog, with five new ones thrown in. I feel a little guilty including it since it’s mostly old songs, but I enjoyed it more than anything they’ve done in awhile.
Here are the remainder of the physical CDs I bought (the ones that were released in 2005), divided into two categories and in alphabetical order.
Bubbling just under the Top 15 – any of these could’ve gone in the 1 point category above:
Ad Frank: The World’s Best Ex-Boyfriend (pretty depressing)
Al Stewart: A Beach Full Of Shells (rockingest thing he’s done in awhile).
Ash: Meltdown (suddenly they’re Heavy Metal?)
Beck: Guero
The Bravery: The Bravery
Calla: Collisions
The Capes: Hello
Rob Dickinson: Fresh Wine For The Horses (too many slow numbers)
Espers: The Weed Tree
Hot Hot Heat: Elevator
The Magic Numbers: The Magic Numbers (too many slow numbers)
Porcupine Tree: Deadwing (especially the DVD-Audio version)
Should’ve Liked But Kinda Bored Me:
Brendan Benson: The Alternative To Love
Kate Bush: Aerial
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Ben Folds: Songs For Silverman
Foo Fighters: In Your Honor
Nada Surf: The Weight Is A Gift
New Order: Waiting For The Sirens’ Call
Nine Inch Nails : With Teeth
Queens Of The Stone Age: Lullabies To Paralyze
Shout Out Louds: Howl Howl Gaff Gaff
Starflyer 59: Talking Voice vs. Singing Voice
Supergrass: Road To Rouen
See? I really didn’t buy that many CDs last year. There were also a few compilations and reissues, but not many.
2005 MP3 albums I downloaded that I thought were better than average, but not good enough for the Top 15:
Alkaline Trio: Crimson
Audible: Sky Signal
Big In Japan: Who Really Needs A Heart Anyway?
Decemberists: Picaresque
Decemberists: The Tain (EP)
Eels: Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
Even In Blackouts: Zeitgeist’s Echo
Harvey Danger: Little by Little
Bob Mould: Body Of Song
Of Montreal: The Sunlandic Twins
Orange Peels: Circling The Sun
Posies: Every Kind Of Light
Reggie and the Full Effect: Songs Not To Get Married To
Spoon: Gimme Fiction
Album that everybody really seemed to love and which every indication says I should love also, but which totally bored me to tears even though I’ve listened to it more than almost any other album this year in an effort to maybe force my brain into liking it or at least trying to understand why everyone else liked it and I didn’t: Bloc Party: Silent Alarm
I have yet to make my Best of 2005 Mix CD, but I pretty much know what’s going to be on it at this point. Just need to put it together and type up some notes. So it could be March before it sees the light of day. Anyway, that will give everyone some idea of my favorite songs from the year, which doesn’t exactly match up with the favorite albums. So stayed tuned for that.
Latre.
Comments
2 Responses to “Best 15 Albums of 2005”
February 8th, 2006 @ 9:03 am
Note there’s a lot of BritPop on this list
I did notice! And you’re right, the UK was having a banner year–even our bands were sounding like them (The Killers, Spoon).
Thanks for the list, Rog.
February 8th, 2006 @ 1:17 pm
P: You think Spoon sounds Brit-Poppy? More evidence that I just have no idea what Brit-Pop is…since they sound rilly American to me (except for the clear early Beatles influence…but that by now is lingua franca).