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of worriers, fixations, and mezmerizing hypnotists: 2005 in review (d&d write-off).Dec 16 '05 (Updated Dec 22 '06) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line 2005.
I'm not really sure how I want to start this. Well, I know how I want to start it, of course - with a brief look back at the year that was, followed by a smooth transition into a discussion of musical trends, and how musical trends in 2005 compared to musical trends in, say, 2004; which would then flow directly into the list, naturally - but I just don't know what tone to take. Should I be wistful? "As 2005 draws to a close, I look into the metaphorical rearview mirror of my mind, where hazy but fond memories are reflected, dancing in the breeze like so many fireflies in the summer..." Clinical? "This was one of the newsworthiest years in memory, what with the death of the Pope, the devastation of hurricane Katrina, the break-up of Brad and Jen.." Grouchy, maybe? "This year was shit. Here are a few albums that stunk less than the rest." I dunno. I really don't. Things I do know: 1. My writing ability has greatly decreased. Compare this editorial to last year's; it's probably not going to be as good. Having a life is _really_ taking a toll on my writing; and I mean that completely un-ironically, I really do wish I had a little bit less of a life. Then again, I suppose if I didn't have a life, I'd be writing forty reviews a month, wondering why the only people who love me just love me for my clever prose, sharp recommendations, and witty commenting; whereas now, at least the people who love me do so for my car, magnetic personality, good looks, and ability to get them chicks. New Year's Resolution for '06: find someone who, y'know, actually wants _me_. 2. 2005 really hasn't sucked. While nothing on this list, I'm gonna tell y'all right now, really matches the durability of an album like last year's number one, Green Day's American Idiot, there are twenty albums here for you to look into, and they're all well worth the effort. More people are trying more things, I suppose - things like releasing two albums in one year! (Three artists in the top twenty are repeated twice - how the hell often does that happen? And still another artist represented here released two albums on the same day. The other one kind of sucked, but, you know, you're not gonna get heads every time you flip the coin.) With those two points in mind, the transition has been made much simpler; by simply pointing out how my writing has decreased in both quality and quantity, but that I have several albums from 2005 that I want to pimp out to you regardless, I have pretty much (poorly) written the segue from intro to actual music talk. And I've managed to point out the charming self-deprecation mixed with plain-spoken egotism that still manages to resound no matter how infrequently I write (the looks, which round out the package, can be scoped out in the relatively-new profile pic directly to your right; I'll now pause for several seconds while you look and admire ....enough? cool). It's good to know that some things never change. Before we get to the real list, here's a brief pre-list. THE TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2005 (THAT I'VE NEVER HEARD) 10. "Guero," Beck. 9. "Aerial," Kate Bush. 8. "You Could Have It So Much Better," Franz Ferdinand. 7. "The Further Adventures of Lord Quas," Quasimoto. 6. "LCD Soundsystem," LCD Soundsystem. 5. "In the Reins," Iron & Wine + Calexico. 4. "Z," My Morning Jacket. 3. "Thunder, Lightning, Strike," The Go! Team. 2. "Illinoise," Sufjan Stevens. 1. "Arular," M.I.A. And now for the real meat and potatoes! .... And, after you're done with that, some list about freakin' albums or something. THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2005 THAT I HAVE HEARD! 20. The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions, Seu Jorge. Straight from one of the best movies of last year comes this remarkable find: a collection of pleasant, plaintive, and Portuguese chill-out tunes, performed by a lone troubador armed with acoustic guitar. Oh! And they're all David Bowie covers. Right, so that means that all these songs were recorded in 2004, and written a long time before that; which means that I'm cheating, but it's my damn list. None of that is as important, of course, as the fact that The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions is a remarkably pretty album, accessible, entertaining, and as natural-sounding as if the talented Jorge had written these songs. He _does_ write songs, of course, and they're fantastic; but it speaks to his ability that there was a demand for an album of Bowie tunes a minor character in a Wes Anderson movie kept singing in the background. The idea is novelty; the execution, something else entirely. Look out for "Life on Mars?" and "Ziggy Stardust". 19. The Mouse and the Mask, Danger Doom. Speaking of novelty, two beloved hip-hoppers (in this case, rapper MF Doom and producer Danger Mouse) collaborating on an album that serves as a tie-in with the wet-dream animated show worshipped by college freshmen eager for acceptance everywhere (in this case, Adult Swim's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force") could be classified .. could be mistaken as .. okay, so it's a freakin' novelty album. Put Talib and Ghostface on it? It's still a novelty album. But The Mouse and the Mask serves as my introduction to two out of three of its hipster-approved collaborators; The Grey Album and Ghetto Pop Life had tipped me off that I liked Danger Mouse, so D.M. alone made the album worth the look, but I was relatively new to MF Doom (except for Eric throwing a track from Doom on a mix for me) and totally new to "ATHF". And I like it - it's funny in all the right places, features some crazy animated character warbling out "Turn the Beat Around," and I've decided that I like MF Doom and want to hear more of him, and the beats and audio clips are totally fruit loops. Do I get it? Not entirely. But I like it. Speaking of Eric, though, he's right when he says the best thing about this album is "Old School," featuring Talib Kweli. "We'll be right back after these messages/ guys grab your nutsacks, girls squeeze your breasteses." 18. Extraordinary Machine, Fiona Apple. Damn it, Fiona, it's about time. To be fair, of course, everyone knows that the long-delayed release of Extraordinary Machine wasn't Fiona Apple's fault, and fair be it from me to recount the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-esque saga from the initial Jon Brion sessions to the internet leak to the record company bullshit to the fan petitions to the re-working and eventual release of the album. We're here, of course, for the music, and Extraordinary Machine pretty much continues down the path of Apple's second album (six years ago!), When the Pawn; and i say, good. It's still moody, quirky, baroque piano pop from America's favorite sunken-eyed waif/ junkie/ wrenchingly honest female singer-songwriter. You'll realize that you like the album somewhere in the middle of "Get Him Back" when you start thinking back fondly on "Limp"; and I predict that you'll love it somewhere around the groovy "tymps". Let me know if I'm right, k? 17. Devils and Dust, Bruce Springsteen. And speaking of artists that can do no wrong in Andrew-land, Bruce Springsteen released a new album this year. You could've colored me disappointed at first that he went at Devils and Dust sans E Street Band - with whom he reunited for his last album, the outstanding The Rising - but one listen to Devils and Dust and you don't care. What's immediately apparent is that Devils plays like the third installment in Springsteen's series of sparse, acoustically based affairs, documenting a series of downtrodden societal bummers; and what follows next is the realization that Devils is also a lot better than Nebraska or the Ghost of Tom Joad. Springsteen's voice is becoming creakier with age, lending these songs newfound gravity in some cases, and a strange new vitality in others, as when he sings about childbirth in "Long Time Comin'," or when he dons a wheezy falsetto in the gorgeous "All I'm Thinkin' About". Between this and The Rising, i'm damn-near convinced that Springsteen will always retain his startling artistic relevance, long after his commercial peak has passed him by. He's certainly kicking Aerosmith's and the Stones's asses in that regard, anyhow. 16. Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, the Eels. I hadn't heard a note of an Eels song before picking up Blinking Lights, but their reputation preceded them this time. Okay, okay, their reputation _and_ my inability to pass up a ten-dollar two-disc set from a reputed artist that I had a mild interest in. Luckily, after Blinking Lights, my interest has gone beyond mild; the music of these Eels genuinely intrigues me. It's gorgeous, first of all, and often just as devestating as it is beautiful; and it totally shows all those little emo shits a thing or two about heartbreak. It starts early on with "Son of a Bitch," uncoiling song after song - a prolificness that suggests that songwriter Mark Everett is like the Ryan Adams that I actually give a shit about. 15. Late Registration, Kanye West. It may not prove as durable as Kanye's rappin' debut, the pop-rap masterstroke College Dropout, as far as hit single potential goes, but Kanye doesn't just prove his commercial mettle with Late Registration - he throws everything into the pot to create something remarkably soulful, consistently entertaining, and remarkably enthralling. So, save for misguided collabos with Nas (the incongruously bad "We Major") and The Game (the ugly "Crack Music"), much of Late Registration is spent reinforcing 'Ye's status as a _real_ artist. "Roses" is as darkly poignant as Dropout's "Family Business" was heartfelt and uplifting, "My Way Home" featuring Common is a logical extension of their fantastic album-length collab Be, and, best of all, Jay-Z swoops by on "Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)" to pass the Roc-A-Fella bar off to Kanye. Fitting. I mean, until Jay un-retires, Kanye's albums will hold us over nicely. 14. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, Bright Eyes. Unimpressed by his last album-lenth critical brownnose, Lifted, and utterly uninterested in the _other_ 2005 Bright Eyes album, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, the plucky alt-country - and let's not shit ourselves, that's what it is - of I'm Wide Awake was Conor Oberst's last chance to impress me. Not that he needed to, mind you - Winona Ryder's precocious paramour has enough "new Dylan" comparisons tucked away to last a lifetime, i'm sure - but for what it's worth, he totally did. I'm Wide Awake, at a brief ten tracks, is streamlined, and yet still feels free-form and jammy. And this time around I'm totally captivated by Oberst's overly-emotive caterwauling and his knack for a charming couplet, and I couldn't be more pleased with the record. The lilting, repetitive "Lua" is an early highlight. 13. Unplugged, Alicia Keys. It's a given that greatest hits albums don't make it onto year-end best-ofs. Previously released material simply doesn't count. By that, Alicia Keys's live Unplugged album technically shouldn't be on this list. To that, I say: oh freakin' well. I'm a fan of Miss Keys, that's been documented - but when a live album of this remarkable spirit and skill makes its way to these ears, there's no denying that she's effortlessly trumped her two studio releases. Peppering spirited readings of her best tracks (a remarkably funky "Karma," a beautiful "If I Ain't Got You") with some stellar covers ("Every Little Bit Hurts," "Wild Horses"), Alicia has truly delivered on the promise suggested by her studio albums. The fantastic songs are a plus, but the crack team of background singers and a razor-sharp band don't hurt either. 12. A Healthy Distrust, Sage Francis. To say that indie rap's angry agitator has released his best album to date is doing A Healthy Distrust a hearty disservice; the album is the equivalent of an aural letterbomb, devastating not just because it's angry, but because it's angry, antiestablishment, _and_ intensely literate. Francis is an expert wordsmith, who appears to have studied intensively under spoken word performance artists, and when his sights are set on politics and social trends, he's ruthless. "Gunz Yo" ruminates on the phallocentric nature of packing heat (and of course the irony of homophobic rappers who brag about it); "Jah Didn't Kill Johnny" wittily tributizes Johnny Cash; and, most notably, the explosive "Slow Down Gandhi" barrels through its movements like a heat seeking torpedo. Luckily, it hits its target. They all do. 11. Cru, Seu Jorge. Cru, Seu Jorge's album of original Portugese-language material, differs from his collection of David Bowie covers because I don't know the English translations of any of his songs. (Except for his cover of the standard "Don't," which he performs in English; fantastically, might I add.) I haven't bothered to find out, either. It's not that I'm not interested, mind you - publications that have touted Jorge as his country's own Bob Marley have me wondering what kinds of revolutionary lyrics he's offering up here - but it's just that Jorge's rough croon and delightful samba guitar stylings have me enamored enough as is. I'm not gonna spoil that by putting it into my own comparitively un-fascinating language. 10. Songs For Silverman, Ben Folds. Initially, I'd kind of downed Songs For Silverman - not for being a bad album (it never was), but for not being as good as Ben's last solo outing, Rockin' the Suburbs. Essentially, though, Songs For Silverman is a Ben Folds Five record - not in actuality, of course, since the Five have gone the way of 5ive and the dodo bird, but in sound. Ben Folds has come into his own as a likeable and mature songwriter - Songs For Silverman is like a series of mini-anthems, and songs like "Landed," "Trusted," and "Time" finally make good on all those Elton John comparisons. If it piddles out near its last third, chalk Songs's high placement on this list up to the astonishing quality of the first eight or nine tunes. 9. Beauty and the Beat, Edan. Acid-fried hip-hop, rife with verbal workout lyricism and mind-warping psychedelic mindfunk beats. Blame it on Eric: he's the reason i own it. Why do I like it? That's a bit more difficult. Usually, I'm all about the accessible shyt, things that are catchy and easy for me to get into. Edan's album is fantastic, but that crazy abstract stuff is always hit or miss for me. Let's put it this way: much like a good drug, Edan's music makes me feel colors. COLORS, for God's sakes! 8. Oral Fixation, Vol. 2, Shakira 7. Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1, Shakira As a dude who likes the nuances of the Spanish language but also finds something comforting about listening to lyrics that he can understand, Shakira's dual releases this year were a godsend; predictably for a bilingual singer, one album was Spanish-language, the other one English. Which is cool, but more interesting is that they're two entirely different albums. It would be too easy for Shakira to simply translate Fijacion Oral into an English-language album - they'd both still be fantastic, but this way is better. Fijacion Oral is lush Spanish pop music, sensual and beguiling, with enough moments of inspired lunacy to really set it apart (i'm thinking B-52's freakout "Escondite Ingles"); Oral Fixation, brilliantly, is the reverse, an album of inspired lunacy set apart by a handful of hushed, sensual, and beguiling tracks. Forget that she makes a song like "Illegal" actually resonate (it features Carlos Santana, which used to be a cool thing); songs like "Animal City" and "Dreams For Plans" are as good as prime-era Madonna, and the fantastic "Your Embrace" is "Underneath Your Clothes" multiplied by a thousand. These are two of the most charmingly left-of-center, literate, entertaining, and seductive albums of the year. What's Laundry Service again? 6. Ain't Nobody Worrying, Anthony Hamilton. My good friend Mike can claim this: he first introduced me to Anthony Hamilton, back when he pimped out the singer's debut, Comin' From Where I'm From, to me in 2003. In retrospect, Comin' From Where I'm From was the best album of its year; luckily, I have Ain't Nobody Worrying in time to avoid making the same mistake in 2005. Unfortunately, Ain't Nobody Worrying only streeted two days ago at the time of this writing, so while I get the feeling that it might be higher given some time to stew, all I can do right now is give it a hearty - if tentatively low - #8. Hamilton's brand of soul really hits its stride here - i've lived with Comin' From Where I'm From long enough to breed familiarity, so I've got a soft spot for it, but Ain't Nobody Worrying begs favorable comparisons to Al Green, Bill Withers, Bobby Womack... and, yes, Marvin Gaye. Moreover, I'm gonna commit sacrilege, and say that Ain't Nobody Worrying could have worked as a long-lost Marvin album - it's like his very own What's Going On. I've got love for commercial r&b - there's something comforting about the Ushers and Mary J Bliges and other artists that i won't even admit to liking just yet - but whenever someone like Anthony Hamilton stops by to school us, I can't listen to the shit without thinking how poorly everything else stacks up. Early favorites include "Southern Stuff" and, oh God, "Pass Me Over". 5. I Am a Bird Now, Antony and the Johnsons. The chills set in from the first moments, and they never let up. Androgynous chamber pop in the abstract doesn't really appeal to me - but this, oh God, this is just one of the most powerfully soulful albums of the year. "Hope There's Someone" joins Anthony Hamilton's aforementioned "Pass Me Over" as the lump-throated songs of the year. It's unconventional, yes, but this album is just so heartbreakingly gorgeous that there's no denying it. In a perfect world, I Am a Bird Now would really show the emo kids who's boss. 4. Twin Cinema, the New Pornographers. Which is why we also need pleasant stuff to listen to, and the New Pornos took care of that in 2005. The very definition of indie-pop, New Pornographers have all the right cultural touchstones - Beatles, etc. - and the members have all the right pedigrees - Neko Case, A.C. Newman, etc. - for success. But more importantly, they also have better melodies than anyone else, and Twin Cinema is their most assured and richest release yet. "Use It" is just pop bliss. Who the hell are The Shins? 3. Be, Common. Of course, hip-hop in 2005 belonged to Common - as it does most years he releases a great album. Be won't wind up being as legendary as Resurrection or Like Water For Chocolate, but it's still the most soulful, streamlined, breezy, freewheeling, and fun album of the year. There's no reinventing the wheel here - just a great song cycle, the collaborative brainchild of one of our most accomplished lyricists and one of our best-loved producers (Kanye). "Testify" packs the kind of excitement into three minutes that "Law and Order" was never able to muster in forty minutes; "They Say" shows just why John Legend is so valuable. Fantastic. Hold up, waaaaaait . . . . you're at #1! . . . . . . . . . . Right now the suspense should be killing you. KILLING you - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- hey, where'd you go? Come on, don't be boring, at least let me keep you in suspense for a while long - . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Mezmerize / Hypnotize, System of a Down. There's a reason, of course, for my jumping from number 3 to number 1; System of a Down released two albums this year, and they combine to form one freaked-out masterpiece. More far-reaching than their last masterwork, Toxicity, it also falls flat more - but with more to cull from, Mezmerize/Hypnotize can't really be faulted for its ambition. Packing a ton of antithetical styles into one bizarrely tuneful, tunefully bizarre, intensely musical, musically intense, absolutely freaking batshit masterpiece, I couldn't even begin to describe the Mezmerize/Hypnotize experience to you in a mere paragraph. All I know is that it's the most brilliant thing I've heard all year. Combined, these two albums are the best album of 2005. ** More to come; stay tuned y'all!  |
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