Safe As Milk

What a great year for music. So many of my favorite bands put out new albums this year: Oasis, The White Stripes, MF Dooom, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, The Wedding Present, The Warlocks, Queens of the Stone Age, Nine Inch Nails, the New Pornographers, The Kingsbury Manx, Frank Black, Foo Fighters, Doves, The Chemical Brothers, Blackalicious, Beck; that’s a murderer’s row of music.

And there’s the lengthy list of new bands and groups that I heard for the first time this year: Brendan Benson, Felt, Emiliana Torrini, Stars, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Perceptionists, The Shout Out Louds, and Bloc Party are just a handful of new names that I loved in 2005.

Paring this lot down to just a Top 10 wasn’t easy (some years it’s tough to get 7 good ones) but I did it. You knew I would. What sort of self-loathing music snob doesn’t have an annual top 10?

(click on the album cover to read what I wrote about it back when I got it; click the band name to go their site; click the album name to buy the damn thing at Amazon)

10. — Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - ‘Naturally’ — the #10 spot on my list will always be for a pet favorite band of mine that might not really be the 10th best album I heard this year but it’s by a band that deserves to be heard by more people. If you dig on soul music you have probably already heard of Sharon Jones. If you haven’t please please rush right out and buy this album. It’s worth however much time it takes you.

9. — The Shout Out Louds — ‘Howl Howl Gaff Gaff’ — This was the one huge Subterranean find for me this year. I saw the video for the single ‘Very Loud’ a dozen times and liked it more every time it came on. I was sold. Great pop songs with serious sing-a-long-ability. Plus, they’re Swedish.

8. — Bloc Party — ‘Silent Alarm’ — This was a real grower for me over the course of the year. It was maybe mid-summer when it grabbed me and it’s only loosened in the last couple of weeks. Great dance music. I even bought the remix album (it’s not very good).

7. — Felt 2 — ‘A Tribute to Lisa Bonet’ — This was a perfect Summertime jam. Great beats, great rhymes and it even came with it’s own comic book. That’s like a hip-hop trifecta!

6. — Oasis — ‘Don’t Believe the Truth’ — They had beaten me down. I’ve been a self-professed fanatic for this band since the beginning but their sad output over the last couple of albums even had me longing for the good old days and doubting if they could ever make new, good music. I was so, so wrong.

5. — Stars (careful, music at that link) — ‘Set Yourself On Fire’ — I’m a little sad at all of the time I didn’t have this to listen to this year. The first song, ‘Your Ex-Lover Is Dead’, justifies the #5 rank by itself. The rest of this great album is gravy.

4. — The Perceptionists — ‘Black Dialogue’ — What a great year for hip hop. For anyone willing to look deeper than Kanye there was a ton of worthy music. The Perceptionists should be required listening for anyone who put ‘Late Registration’ on their year-end best-of list.

3. — Dangerdoom — ‘The Mouse and the Mask’ — Seriously, another classic hip hop album. MF Dooom shines though all of the jokes and the Dangermouse beats are insane. There might be 3 or 4 songs off of this album that make the year-end mix, and it will be a tough task to get the number that low.

2. — Emiliana Torrini - ‘Fisherman’s Woman’ — What a find! I just can’t stop listening to this wonderful, fragile, and hauntingly beautiful album.

1. — Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — s/t — I tried to deny it but this was really the best album I heard all year. There isn’t a single second of this album that I would change or wish away. If you’re hating on it because of the hype (and brother, there was hype) then you need to get past that and soak up the goodness. It’s the good stuff and when we get it we need to hug it tight. If you don’t like the dude’s voice then, well, you should go get that Emiliana Torrini record. It’s awesome.

So there it is, my 2005 in music. I hope at least some of you went and checked out something based on my recommendation. If I can steer one of you away from Diddy and his evil minions then I consider all of this worthwhile. I’m going to be cleaning out the Heavy Rotation sidebar sometime after the first of the year and then we’ll start this whole thing over for 2006. I got 29 different reviews up this year. That’s not too bad. Maybe I’ll get 50 next year. Hey look! I made a resolution.