Neil's top CDs of 2005

This a great list from Mr. Neil. I think it might actually be better than mine. I don't like that. so on to Neil's list. Thanks

Hey now! Another year, another list. They seem to come around faster these days. Anyways, 2005 brought us another year where our 90's rock heroes continue to tarnish their good names (Weezer, Audioslave, Billy Corgan -- Billy, you really need to talk to Rick Rubin), and new bands seem to appear out of the ether with fully formed sounds and hype. On to the music!


THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2005

46. Greg Dulli - Amber Headlights
Previously-shelved album has a couple of highlights (headlights?), but overall not up to par for the great Greg Dulli.

45. Foo Fighters - In Your Honor
Double albums are tough to pull off, and this one falls a bit flat, but still has some good rockers.

44. Annie - Anniemal
Bubbly Norwegian dance pop. Disposable fun.

43. Kanye West - Late Registration
Who doesn't love Kanye, right? Well, I think I just like him.

42. Antony & the Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
These are songs you probably never want to hear at a family gathering, because it's most likely your funeral.

41. Madonna - Confessions On A Dance Floor
There has been plenty written about Madonna's latest, and I tend to agree with the overall sentiment that she's pretty hot for an old woman.

40. Bruce Springsteen - Devils & Dust
Bruce tells some stories, strums some guitar, records some tracks, puts out an album. New Jersey weeps. I shrug and move on.

39. Low - The Great Destroyer
Any band that sings about monkeys is okay with me (even if it's going to die).

38. Marianne Faithfull - Before the Poison
Marianne Faithfull does the right thing in collaborating with currently relevant artists. The good news is that one of them is PJ Harvey. The bad news is that there are other songs without PJ Harvey. This should have been an EP.

37. Black Mountain - Black Mountain
Sort of a 70's sounding Morphine? .

36. Clor - Clor
While I like what they are trying to do on this album (Devo, anyone?), I don't think they quite know how to do it yet. Great poppy fun though.

35. Coldplay - X&Y
Certainly an easy target for critics, especially when they release singles like "Fix You", but this band has ambition (which should count for something), and they succeed more often than not.

34. Brendan Benson - The Alternative To Love
I should create a category for albums with 4 or 5 great songs, with the rest just being mediocre. Brendan Benson would probably be number 1 on that list. Insanely good power pop songs at the start of the album. (Watch for Brendan Benson in 2006 as he teams up with Jack White for the side project, the Raconteurs. Has album-of-the-year potential.)

33. Fiery Furnaces - EPYou probably already know if you like them or not, so this ranking won't change your mind much either way. For the record, I haven't heard the critically-bashed Rehearsing My Choir, which also came out this year.

32. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
A fine repeat of their debut.

31. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Another band that had eluded me up until this album. Won't happen again, okay?

30. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
A.C. Newman is on quite the roll lately. He throws out these power pop gems faster than you can absorb them.

29. Gorillaz - Demon Days
This album feels like it's from the future, when all genres music are combined into one.

28. Daft Punk - Human After All
Certain critics may have dismissed this album (hello, Pitchfork), but upon further inspection, the handful of good songs turned out to be really good.

27. Bob Mould - Body of Song
Who doesn't love Bob? The opening track, "Circles", is one of his best songs ever, and the album is solid from front to back.

26. Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze
This album couldn't help but feel like a letdown after their classics, Rated R and Songs for the Deaf, but it still is some of the heaviest, playful stuff around.

25. / 24. Kasabian - Kasabian / Razorlight - Up All Night
Two British bands with tight debuts that are enjoyable listens all the way through, but they seem to blend together in my head. Get some better P.R., will ya fellas?

23. Laura Veirs - Year of Meteors
I learned about this album on CBS Sunday Morning of all places. Lovely songs with a tension simmering just below the surface, ala Cat Power.

22. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Another British import who seem to have gone to rock school and finished near the top of their class. This was a hot album six months ago, but has lost some of it's initial luster (has that dude's voice started to get annoying, or is it just me?).

21. Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth
Keep smoking whatever you've been smoking, bro. It works. And by the way, shouldn't Stephen Malkmus be more famous than he is? His work with Pavement alone should put him in upper echelon of indie royalty, but now he's knocked out three solid solo albums on top of that. Shouldn't Rolling Stone or Spin have a cover story waiting for him?

20. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Worlds Apart
It sure is tough to follow-up something as insanely great as their last album. Do you do the same thing again and hope the magic is still there, or do you use the good will you earned to try something new? Trail of Dead took the latter track, and for the most part it worked well.

19. Beck - Guero
Do you take Beck for granted? I think I do. I shouldn't, you know, because it's certainly harder to produce these albums than he makes it look.

18. Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine (Jon Brion version)
Poor Fiona. All she does is churn out delicious emotional songs about her old boyfriends, and then her record company abandons her too. Fiona, time to stop playing the victim.

17. Iron & Wine/Calexico - In the Reins EP
Yikes. What are you supposed to do when you discover that one of your favorite current artists has teamed up with a band you haven't heard before? Well, you go back and figure out what the deal is. So I get Calexico's Feast of Wire (2003), and it turns out to be one of the best albums I listened to this year. So when In the Reins came out, I understood. A beautiful southwestern album that feels like a film.

16. My Morning Jacket - Z
The last couple MMJ albums never quite caught my attention. This one seems to have solved that problem. The production is superb, with the swirling sounds, the lush organ, and the echoey vocals.

15. Wolf Parade - Apologies to Queen Mary
Noisy Canadians put together an indie rock album with just enough pop to win over all those new Arcade Fire / Modest Mouse fans. Indeed, it was produced by Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock, and it's not hard to hear that influence or the Talking Heads (who seem to be this year's Godfathers of Indie Rock).

14. Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
We all know these guys are nuts. It just so happens that they're pretty good at making weird music.

13. The National - Alligator
Their laid-back midwestern sound has a certain timeless feel to it.

12. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
First and foremost, Ben Gibbard is a poet. It's to his credit that when he sets it to music, you actually start to enjoy sappy poetry. The first few songs on this album are devastating and carry you through on a high for the rest of it.

11. Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth
Raise your hand if you used to love NIN. Yeah, me too. Well, what's changed? Not a whole lot, thank you very much. Trent Reznor can still put together an album that has highs and lows and gets funky in between.

10. White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
The White Stripes sewed up their future induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year with Satan. Jack White is, how shall we say, "in the zone" -- hitting home run after home run, using whatever type of bat is handed to him. It would be tough to find an artist who has been as good and as prolific as the White Stripes have been this decade.

9. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Another band that owes a portion of their profits to David Byrne. Everything you've read about them is true. Yes, it's a great album, and yes, they're dangerously overexposed. This will become the album that celebrities will name-drop to reporters while trying to look cool.

8. Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel the Illinoise
Multi-instrumentalism is the name of the game, and it provides rich, warm, complex music dialed down to 4 1/2 minute pop songs. No one seems to have mastered this better than Sufjan Stevens. There seem to be 20 different parts happening at once, but it comes together beautifully. Occasionally, he almost drifts into Polyphonic Spree territory (dangerous waters), but for the most part, this album is a classic.

7. M.I.A. - Arular
Junk-in-your-trunk rumbling beats. She's done the most for improving the sound of car commercials this year (Honda Civic, of course!). MIA isn't as innovative as Missy Elliott yet, but give her time. She sticks to a pretty strict formula, but it works well and keeps the album more consistent than any from Missy.

6. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
A couple of years ago, Broken Social Scene took indie rock to new heights with You Forgot It In People, that paved the way for fellow Canadians the Arcade Fire last year. B.S.S. is every bit as challenging, laid back, and lush as their last album. The songs fit together to create a sum greater than it's parts. There are so many instruments that fade in and fade out that each listen brings new sonic revelations.

5. John Vanderslice - Pixel Revolt
The subtitle for this album should be "Everything In Its Right Place". The nerdiest guy in rock produces immaculately-produced chilling songs that make you reach for the lyric sheet. Worthy follow-up to 2004's best album (Cellar Door). On this go-round, JV pushes the limits of his comfort zone, and misses a couple times, but when he hits ("Exodus Damage"; "Trance Manual"), there's nothing better.

4. System of a Down - Mezmerize / Hypnotize
No other album helped me get through more sleepy afternoons at work this year. Mezmerize has been in near constant rotation for me since it's release in the Spring and Hypnotize picks up where Mezmerize left off when it was released in November. These albums are surprisingly funky if you can get past the cheeseball element of the whole thing. If you saw them on SNL this year, you know what I mean. This is a band better heard than seen, so someone should just lock them back up in the studio, because this stuff is fantastic (if you like Serbian-American-left-wing-pop-metal).

3. LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
The most electrifying album of the year begat the most exhiliarating show of the year. James Murphy will draw dance moves out of you that you didn't know you had. This album collects previously released singles on a second disc, and that alone would be enough to be one of the year's best. The new material is every bit as good, and sets a new standard for dance punk.

2. Iron & Wine - Woman King EP
A perfect collection of six lovingly-crafted, sonicly-textured songs. All of the notes ring true, as the instruments fall in and out of the mix. On top of that, you get the feeling that Sam Beam is singing about stories 1000 years wide. This album was released in January and I never went more than a few days without listening to it.

1. Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
More than any other artist this year, Sleater-Kinney truly "explored the studio space". In the tradition of late-80's Metallica, Sleater-Kinney jammed as many ideas they could into each song. This is the work of a mature band that is reaching the creative peak after so many years of incredibly tight shows and intense albums. Somewhat oddly released during the summer (this is definitely a winter album; it's called The Woods, not The Beach), the three members have developed into the finest ingredients, so that anything produced with them will be incredible. Corin Tucker has one of the most amazing vocal instruments in rock and she uses every ounce of it here. Sleater-Kinney have simply put together the best album of the year, not one false note or throwaway track. A masterpiece.


2006, anyone?
Here's a sneak preview at the artists to be featured on next year's list (if history is a guide): Radiohead, The Shins, Tool, Pearl Jam, Cat Power, The Strokes, The Flaming Lips, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Built to Spill, Raconteurs.
Hey, that looks like a pretty good top 10 right there. See you next year!

© Neil Walls 2005
nwalls2000@yahoo.com