Michele's Top Ten Music List of 2005

Here is Michele's annual list of new music that she loved and admired for the past year.
Please feel free to add your own Top 10 List in the Comments section:


Despite transferring my entire CD collection into iTunes, I still like to buy CDs—it makes you feel like you really “own” the music. I like to read the liner notes (while I’m driving, frighteningly) and sing along with the lyrics. I like to see who produced it and whom they thank. I like to think I know the bands I love just a little bit. I buy a lot of CDs. Some might say I have a problem, I say I have a social responsibility—so as always, here they are in no specific order. In a market increasingly driven by singles and downloads, it's nice to be reminded how exciting an album can be—where the sum is greater than the parts. Here is the music that made this a special year.

1.Sometimes It Takes A While to Perfect Ones Art

Low—The Great Destroyer For over a decade, Low’s Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker have unapologetically encompassed everything rock ’n’ roll ain’t: they’re married, they’re Mormon, they’re parents (they’re proud) and they play slow with minimal percussion, sublty coloring a larger picture. On their 7th album they pick up the pace, where the songs almost sound like rock, with a fuller sound, lots of reverb and the ever present emotional turmoil of life.

My Morning Jacket—Z My Morning Jacket is a band I always wanted to like more than I did. On their 4th album, they found that missing ingredient which could or could not be the new guitarist and keyboardist. These Kentucky natives abandon any vestige of hayseed naiveté on lustrous seven-minute epics and beguiling stabs at pop.

2. A Little Sunshine Pop to Brighten Your Day

Aberfeldy—Young Forever
Ridiculously pop, but undeniably likable, a guilty pleasure, a cure for a bad traffic day. The Magic Numbers They’re not pretty, but boy their music is. Drifting out the door of every GAP store in the country is this debut CD from two pairs of brothers and sisters. Pop the color of sunshine, as if each song is the TV theme song for a 60’s hapless comedy. The familial ties shine through in the wholesome, harmonious nature of it all, The Magic Numbers offer conclusive proof that math isn't boring.

3. As if the Last Election Wasn’t Reason Enough to Move to Canada

Broken Social Scene
You might listen to this CD and think, “wow, how do they get such a BIG sound?” Well, it helps when you have 2 drummers, 5 guitars, 4 trumpets and 4 people changing vocal leads. This Toronto-based band doesn’t know the meaning of subtle. By the time they get to the climax of the closing 10-minute explosion “It’s All Gonna Break,” they’ve airlifted in the string section, the horn brigade and the “Bolero” rhythm. Monumental, hypnotic, melodic cacophony.
Stars—Set Yourself on Fire With a little less chaos and little more heart, two of the Broken Social Scenesters create one of the best pop records of the year—the kind where after a few listens you think every song is a radio hit you’ve heard before. Great pop music is not about "originality" (nor has it ever much been); it’s a passionate marriage of idea and conviction. Love and loss, drink and sex—what more is there really in this world?

Wolf Parade—Apologies to the Queen Mary
A fantastic debut. Out of control, a bit like a teenager with raging hormones with fiery keyboards that are in competition with the guitars and both singers for the lead. Reminiscent of Modest Mouse, their producer’s (Isaac Brock) band, perhaps this CD won’t rewrite your life, but it will enhance it.

Feist—Let It Die Leslie
Feist, a sometimes singer for BSS, has a voice like an angel. From the delightful originals like “Mushaboom” (a small town in Canada) to the delicious cover of the Bee Gees “Inside and Out”, this CD makes you want to curl up on the couch in front of the fire with a bottle of wine and that special someone. Fuck Barry White, let Feist sing me torch songs all night long.

4. When Irish Eyes are Smiling
Frames—Burn the Maps The Frames fill stadiums in their native Ireland, but have yet to break the charts in the US. Their songs dwell on love and death and rejection, but vary their dynamic underpinnings, offering whisper-quiet verses that swell into raging, fervent choruses—combining heart-wrenching despair with nihilistic fury—making your spirit swell with each crescendo.
Bell X1—Music in Mouth I heard about this band because they’re friends with the Frames. Their most recent album shot immediately to number one in Ireland, but despite getting a single on an OC soundtrack, this fantastic Irish Quartet can’t seem to get a US recording label (although you can buy it on iTunes). It lures you in with melodic sincerity; then when you’re there, indulges you in furious, passionate rock encaging you, so that you don’t want to escape. They do epic balladeering, quirky pop and manic rock with equal aplomb. One of the best shows I saw at SXSW this year.
5. Franz Ferdinand—You Could Have It So Much Better
As if to prove they are not just a flash-in-the-pan, FF was able to put out simply the most rockingest CD of the year, despite seemingly constant touring. Catchy, driving, fun—long live rock! If this band doesn’t make you smile, you are in need of medication.
6. Beck—Guero
Back to what he does best, which is a little bit of everything. Sampling, disco, groove beats, overlays---he explores territories uncharted by even the most innovative artists. His overindulgence comes off as munificence, so varied it never gets boring.
7. Aqueduct—I Sold Gold
Catchy beats and melodies crammed with blown out drum sounds, blip pop synths, and campfire pianos.
8. Crooked Fingers—Dignity and Shame
Crooked Finger’s driving force Erich Bachman adds just enough touches, including flamenco guitar and a female backing vocalist to bring a joyful abandon to his confessional songs to create a extravagant and delicate melancholy.
9. Chris Stamey Experience—A Question of Temperature
For us old-timers, a CD by jangle-pop legend and onetime dB Chris Stamey teaming with Yo la Tengo and produced by Mitch Easter is like an indie rock wet dream. This inspired collection of original songs and covers of everyone from Television to the Yardbirds does not disappoint. Combining commentary on our current political environment without forgetting the pure joy of finding just the right overdriven, stick-to-your-ribs guitar sounds.
10. The White Stripes—Get Behind Me Satan
The power of the TWS previous albums resided in Jack’s screaming blues guitar, which is almost entirely absent from this CD—although he’s still inexplicably brilliant. Strangely sprawling and obliquely ass-kicking at the same time, Jack uses the piano like a percussive instrument and the marimba like foreplay moving his voice from a plaintive whisper to air-raid-siren wails. Once again, I bow down at the altar.