Top 25 Albums of 2005: #5 - #1
By: Music Staff |
Wednesday December 28, 2005 |
| And with a bang our inaugural year-end countdown of the best albums of 2005 ends. These five albums made a lot of lists this year and were widely loved by the staff here at Static Multimedia. |
| And with a bang our inaugural year-end countdown of the best albums of 2005
ends. These five albums made a lot of lists this year and were widely loved by
the staff here at Static Multimedia. Our number one in particular is a really
terrific album, perfect for all occasions and a true testament to the winning
combination of rock and dance. Again, just so much great music was available
to fans in 2005 that it was really hard to exclude a lot of fantastic albums.
Here's hoping to an even better year in 2006! Be sure to join us tomorrow,
Thursday, December 29th and Friday, December 30th for the Top 20 singles of
2005.
Brett Hickman Managing Editor Static Multimedia 05. The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan - V2 Sure, it's sloppy and sounds hastily recorded. Yeah, many of the tracks are rather sleep-inducing when stacked up against "Fell in Love with a Girl" or "The Hardest Button To Button." Yet Get Behind Me Satan serves as just another testament to the genius of Jack White. Simultaneously playing the roles of both Page and Plant, he and partner Meg (who plays a more primordial, simplistic Bonham) deliver their III. The record stands as the first White Stripes release that must be heard from start to finish to be fully appreciated. The alternative radio staples once buried in the middle of their records are gone, and instead replaced with wildly eclectic piano tunes with panned vocals or straight-up bluegrass. The transition from the melancholy of "White Moon" to the slow-building ferocity of "Instinct Blues" screams for a flip from Side A to B. Likewise, the segue from the abrasion of "Red Rain" to Jack's gorgeous Elton John evocation "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)" stands up as arguably the best album-closing sequence of the year. Now that it's clear White can toss off great singles and complete albums at such a prolific level, there is little doubt that heads and doorbells will be left ringing for a long time. - Graham Golbuff 04. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois - Asthmatic Kitty With Illinois Sufjan Stevens treads a fine line between jaw dropping ambition and awkward kitsch. Say what you will about the artist's 50 States project, there is no question that Stevens will have a hard time topping himself whenever he decides to elaborate on another geographical region of the U.S. Illinois is loaded with quality song craft, ranging from the gorgeously arranged chamber pop of "Chicago" to the eyebrow raising lament of "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." A truly outstanding record, Stevens solidifies his role as one of the most exciting and vibrant American musicians of recent years with his aural take on the Land of Lincoln. - Graham Golbuff 03. Spoon - Gimme Fiction - Merge The low-key surprise of the year came from Britt Daniel's crew in May of 2005. Gimme Fiction was a brilliant concept album disguised as innocuous indie rock - the wolf in sheep's clothing, to reference the album's fairy-tale vibe. Though Gimme Fiction's Irving Penn-esque Fifties Vogue-homage cover was pretty and deceptively sweet, its teeth were sharp. Daniel and main cohort Jim Eno busted out eleven perfect pop tunes whose lyrical and musical bite was noticeable even beneath the exquisite arrangements. They flipped the script with an epic opening tune ("The Beast and Dragon, Adored"), inserted enigmatic lyrics into the album's most uncomplicated rock song, "Sister Jack," and imagined a bedridden invalid auditioning for a Grand Guignol musical, The Stranger Dance, in "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine." There was even a bonus for the dancefloor-minded among us - a pleasant surprise in the seductive sendoff "I Turn My Camera On." For those keeping track of the Chicago influences in Austin-based Daniel's world, "Camera" even came complete with a remix by Tortoise's John McEntire, as on of the B-sides of the "Sister Jack" single. Proving that you don't need a major-label budget to create major-league music, Gimme Fiction won over fans both old and new with its bounty of musical riches, and Daniel's good looks didn't hurt them a bit. - Donna Brown 02. M.I.A. - Arular - Interscope M.I.A. Arular (XL) Village Voice music scribe and published author Frank Kogan claimed recently that one of his aims in writing was to "inspire a great conversation," or words to that effect. If we deem this an exceedingly worthy byproduct of art and/or art criticism, then Sri Lankan-turned-Londoner Maya Arulpragasam's (legal) debut takes home this year's top honors; it was well nigh impossible to talk about her hotly anticipated Arular without parsing the Tamil Tigers, the diminutive MC's rating on the crush scale (sky high, by the way), whether she was actively promoting terrorism or merely commenting on it, the use of a neutered version of "Galang" to hawk Hondas, making Missy Elliott comparisons, or wondering how well her politics would mesh with U.S. hip-hop misogyny. These talking points and others remain undecided, but the tropical, reggae-derived beats and acidic, sing-song taunts are undeniable, from "10$"'s sex-slave-in-turning-tricks-and-table-shocka Kelis' "Milkshake" bite to "Amazon," where Stockholme Syndrome is taken to new extremes. - Raymond Cummings 01. LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem - DFA/EMI LCD Soundsystem dropped a series of exciting singles over the past three years that titillated and tantalized critics, connoisseurs, and collectors, making their debut full-length one of 2005's most anticipated releases. DFA honchos James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy delivered a playful, considered record that wears its influences on its sleeve, channeling Mark E Smith through a post-punk filter on "Movement," catching John Lennon after a dream with "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up," and uncorking a tune every Eno-phile will enjoy in "Great Release." The goofy fantasy "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" was largely responsible for any appearance of the words "daft punk" in 2005 best-of-the-year lists. The album is a triumph of economy, and even if you thought it didn't quite deliver on the promise of those singles, you're still in luck because they're collected with their b-sides on the album's second disc: "Losing My Edge," and "Beat Connection," both mixes of "Yeah," the perfect "Yr City's A Sucker." Forget all those other Brooklyn bands: with its myriad influences and unabashed genre-hopping, LCD Soundsystem represents the best summation of the state of music in post-millenium New York, where everyone's a music expert and everyone can say "I was there!" - William Bert Check back tomorrow, Thursday, December 29th for the first ten in Static Mutlimedia's countdown of the Top 20 singles of 2005... |
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