Top Albums of 2005 - #25 - #16

By: Music Staff

Tuesday December 27, 2005

As a respite from reality, music was our savior. Whatever you were into had a banner year this year and music helped to soothe the pains of a harsh world circling ever closer to intruding on each of our lives.
2005 - It's amazing we're all still alive in my opinion. No matter how hard I try I can't escape the overwhelming volume of reality banging at my door.The Bush administration finally got their just desserts after years of subjugating the nation, the seemingly endless war in Iraq, the after-effects of Hurrican Katrina revealing our nation to be no more safe now than we were before the terrorist attacks in 2001, were just a few of the reality checks for 2005.

But as a respite from reality, music was our savior. Whatever you were into had a banner year this year (pop-Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, hip-hop-50 Cent, Young Jeezy, rock-The Killers, Coldplay, punk-Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, country-Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney) and music helped to soothe the pains of a harsh world circling ever closer to intruding on each of our lives.

Unlike the dismal year for film, music transcended reality to help us cope. To make us joyful, to make us cry, or just to make us dance. Digital downloading (legally) was up, even while sales of CDs were down. Music was everywhere, energizing the populace, even while polarizing critics.

At the end of the year I look back and realize that, for the first time since 2002, I had difficulty in making a Top 25 albums list. Not for lack of great music, but rather for too much of it. For 2003 and 2004 my trouble was reversed and I padded my Top 25 with what I now realize to be filler. Not so this year.

And, even though few of my top picks for the year are on Static Multimedia's first-ever year end countdown (today albums #25-16, Tuesday, December 26th #15-6, Wednesday, December 27th #5-1, with Top 20 singles over the 28th and 29th), I am proud to see each and every album make this list.

I am even more proud of our many great writers and their tireless efforts to make Static Multimedia a shining example of what honest, opinionated writing can and should be. I hope you enjoy the site, the writing, and this, our inaugural countdown for 2005. Join us in the New Year for a fresh batch of features, interviews, album, live and video reviews, as well as daily updated news, audio and video streams and special columns. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Brett Hickman
Managing Editor
Static Multimedia.com



25. Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers - Drag City
The overall themes here seem to be as follows: (1) drugs are bad, (2) love can be pretty fabulous once you've kicked drugs, and (3) building a solid Rolodex over time will pay huge dividends eventually. Rather than ask who played on David Berman's post-substance abuse romp, ask who didn't? The Drag City roster en masse, ex-Zwannites, old pals Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich - every available indie hand turned out to help Berman rock hard and bone-marrow personal for the first time ever. And Numbers is genuinely unsettled in spots - "Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed" in particular - country rock n' roll kicking an addiction to a droll, lit-soaked mellow. - Raymond Cummings


24. The Decemberists - Picaresque - Kill Rock Stars
Ten years ago if you told someone that a band was seriously going to release an album about castaways, mariner's, and bagmen, they probably would have laughed at you. But now, in the year 2005, The Decemberists have done just that. Actually, Picaresque is a wonderful follow up to 2003's Her Majesty the Decemberists which was pretty much about the same things. Picaresque however, is much cleaner and more confident in it's subject matter. Like a good raconteur, Colin Meloy sings his tales in anthem folk fashion changing the world around him into his own magical creation. It is undoubtedly one of the most unique yet widely accepted albums of the year, a must have for all music fans. - David Fox


23. Billy Corgan - The Future Embrace - Martha's Music / Reprise
Lost in the peripheral smoke -- the brutally honest, silence-breaking blog posts about ex-bandmates, the freewheeling interviews, the press shots that made him look like an emaciated vampire, and that infamous "Smashing-Pumpkins-come-home-to-baldy" full-page newspaper ad - was the fact that Billy Corgan topped himself sonically this year with synth-pop blithely direct and halcyon ashen as the Zero CD5's cover sleeve. Just when he didn't seem likely to reach Adore's zeniths again, Corgan bested them by making his guitar woooooo indistinguishable from his keyboard drone, reining in his cracking, inimitable voice, and remaking the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" as a downer dirge. - Raymond Cummings


22. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy - Jagjaguwar
Fittingly enough for a band named after a Russian short story, Okkervil River's fourth album, Black Sheep Boy, is drenched in melancholy. Picking up the stitch Will Oldham dropped, Okkervil River play a beguiling, sepia-toned country variant-here's the thing though-without irony. The album's statement of intent, "For Real," says it all. Will Robison Sheff sings, "If you really want to see/what really matters most to me/just take a real short drive." This album is a drive through the memories and events that we cannot forget, and the real emotion in Sheff's voice is a constant reminder of that. - Donna Brown


21. M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us - Mute U.S.
The front cover of M83's Before the Dawn Heals Us says it all. Christian Kain's photo capturing a city at night and the music within it reminds one instantly of Blade Runner. Flash forward 19 years to Antibes, France and witness Anthony Gonzalez putting together M83, with another four more years until the birth of this, a flawless diamond of an album. Before the Dawn Heals Us is a dark, tragedy-filled collection of songs infused with moments of stunning beauty. The devil chasing the mother and daughter in "Car Chase Terror" is purged by album's end on the epic "Lower Your Eyelids To Die With the Sun," the angelic choir washing away sin and enveloping the listener in a glowing, warm embrace. M83 have made the soundtrack to the greatest film never made. - Brett Hickman


20. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene - Arts & Crafts
After garnishing nearly ubiquitous critical acclaim by pushing pop dynamics and songwriting through an orchestral indie-rock filter on 2003's You Forgot It In People, Canadian collective Broken Social Scene added even more members to a group that was already bursting at the seams. With its new constituents in tow, producer Dave Newfeld buries the tunes amidst furious production and mumbled singing instead of bringing these incredible songs to the surface for their self-titled follow up. While Broken Social Scene is not as immediately satisfying a release as You Forgot It In People, the group deserves much credit for delivering an album that was intentionally different, one that clearly challenged themselves as much as their listeners, who must peel through each layer of the mix to unearth pop gold. - Graham Golbuff


19. Rachel Stevens - Come and Get It - Universal International
It might not have the indie appeal of Annie's Anniemal, nor the exuberant audacity of the last two Girls Aloud albums, but the second disc by Rachel Stevens has its sights set on something bigger: propelling the former S Club 7 member to mega-stardom, and remarkably, it just might achieve that. The finest UK pop export since Kylie Minogue's Fever four years ago, Come and Get It exudes confidence from start to finish, with nary a mis-step along the way. Whether it's the Richard X-produced brilliance of "Some Girls" and "Crazy Boys," the glam swagger of "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)," or club anthem in the making "Funny How," Stevens shows she's no empty-headed pop tart, allowing her own charisma to show through the music. It's not a groundbreaking album, and Stevens doesn't have a huge "Pop Idol" voice, but personality goes a long way, and this fresh-sounding, pulse-pounding album positively radiates it. - Adrien Begrand


18. New Pornographers - Twin Cinema - Matador
This band -- no, not a band, more like a family-- had high expectations to live up to in 2005, not only because it had released two excellent albums previously, but because a few of its talented members, including Neko Case, Dan Bejar, and AC Newman, couldn't hold themselves back and were responsible for highly-regarded releases of their own in the time since 2003's Electric Version. But when that title track roared in, shouting its joyful head off, it was obvious the Pornographers were back in fine form, singing elliptically but always gleefully (and never tweefully) about bleeding hearts, spanish techno, and (of course) Jackie. - William Bert


17. Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth - Matador
More non-Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain owners encountered Stephen Malkmus' song-stylings than ever before this year, when Sears licensed the ex-Pavement frontman's quirky, whimsical "Phantasies" for a television advertisement. But how many newbies will come to know the eclectic warmth of Face the Truth -- the Oregonite's third solo act - when the rock press at large couldn't seem to care less? Their loss, our gain: just means more tickets for the shrunken Jicks tour schedule, more standing room to tremble and bliss out during the Arabian mountaintop scale of "No More Shoes," to mug til it hurts through the electro-shock identity crisis of "Pencil Rot," to join fellow concertgoers in drunken sing-a-longs of gotta-be-a-Brighten The Corners-outtake "Post-Paint Boy." Eff the naysayers if they've got gnat-sized attention spans and NME subscriptions. - Raymond Cummings


16. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better - Sony
If the effects of You Could Have It So Much Better weren't as immediate as Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut, then more time would be required. After all, "Do You Want To's" charms were as evident as the debut's ubiquitous single "Take Me Out," and other songs ("Walk Away," Eleanor Put Your Boots On") were quite warm in their initial approach. Walking away from the album, coming back, stepping back again, and then re-approaching proved to be the key to this album's success. With the thoughts of sophomore slump washed away and these Scotsmen's place in modern rock firm, anticipation for album number three will be at a fever pitch. - Brett Hickman


Check back tomorrow, Tuesday, December 27th for albums #15 to #6 as Static Multimedia's Countdown of the Top 25 albums of 2005 continues...