Though I already had more CDs and mp3s than most of my friends before that, 2004 is the year I really got into music, in no small part due to being in a student apartment building with high speed connection between hard drives. So 2005 is the first year I heard a decent part of the acclaim stuff as it came out, which probably helps the high ranking of the Rakes, the Subways and Vitalic, and it also when I started going to watch live shows, including the best I have ever been to : Arcade Fire at Rock en Seine. I remember vividly discovering how intense a live performance could be, watching those guys belting their hearts out (I only had listened to the album once and hadn’t liked it, I made an instant 180 on that day).
Kanye West wrote: I'ma open up a store for aspiring MCs
Won't sell 'em no dream, but the inspiration is free
With 3 albums in my top 25, this is probably one of the most top heavy years after 1997, but it also has great depth (albums ranked up to 23 would have had made the top 15 of several other years of the decade), which might just reflect the fact that it’s one of the few years where I’ve heard ¾ of the AM ranked albums.
Albums :
1) Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
2) Animal Collective - Feels
3) Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
4) LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
5) Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
6) The Rakes - Capture/Release
7) Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
8) Gorillaz - Demon Days
9) Les Fatals Picards - Picardia Independenza
10) Robyn - Robyn
11) The Decemberists - Picaresque
12) Kanye West - Late Registration
13) Vitalic - OK Cowboy
14) The Subways - Young for Eternity
15) Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic
16) Low - The Great Destroyer
17) Danger Mouse - The Mouse and the Mask
18) Out Hud - Let Us Never Speak of It Again
19) Boris - Pink
20) Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
21) Isolée - We Are Monster
22) Electrelane - Axes
23) The National - Alligator
24) Paul McCartney - Chaos & Creation in the Backyard
25) Devendra Banhart - Crippled Crow
26) Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze
27) Camille - Le Fil
28) Edan - Beauty and the Beat
29) M.I.A. - Arular
30) Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
31) Spoon - Gimme Fiction
32) Common – Be
Panda Bear wrote:
Sometimes you're quiet and sometimes I'm quiet
(Hallelujah!)
Sometimes I'm talkative and sometimes you're not talkative, I know
Sometimes you hear me when others they can't hear me
(Hallelujah!)
Sometimes I'm naked and thank god sometimes you're naked. Well, hello...
Seriously considered strategic voting on that one, as Feels needs a push, but I’ll stay fair and square.
Feels is my favorite love album ever, and I’d say the greatest concept album too if Illinoise wasn’t one, though I’d say based on the execution of the concept and how it shapes the album itself, I’d say Feels is better. It chronicles a love story from burgeoning to its end (and the hope for a new one) in a brilliant and disarming way. Surprisingly the 3 songs mentioned by Depeche Mode are probably my least favorite in the album.
I should also say that The Woods possibly have my favorite 5 song stretch in any album, the section from What’s Mine is Yours to Rollercoaster is flawless. Don’t listen much to the first 2 and last 2 tracks though, hence the 5th place.
Carrie Browstein wrote:
My baby loves me, I'm so hungry
Hunger makes me a modern girl
Took my money and bought a donut
The hole's the size of this entire world
Songs :
1) Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us
2) Animal Collective - Banshee Beat
3) LCD Soundsystem - Great Release
4) Kanye West - Gone
5) Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything
6) Bloc Party - Like Eating Glass
7) Gorillaz - El Manana
8) Boris - Farewell
9) Tapes'n Tapes - Insistor
10) Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco
11) Out Hud - Dear Mr. Bush, There Are Over 100 Words for Shit and Only 1 for Music. Fuck You, Out Hud
12) Queens of the Stone Age - I Never Came
13) The Rakes - Binary Love
14) Sleater-Kinney - Jumpers
15) Architecture in Helsinki - The Cemetary
Alex Turner wrote:
Yeah, but his bird said it's amazing, though, so all that's left
Is the proof that love's not only blind, but deaf
16) Les Fatals Picards - Quoi encore ?
17) Sufjan Stevens - They Are Zombies…
18) Animal Collective - Purple Bottle
19) Architecture in Helsinki - Maybe, You Can Owe Me
20) Sleater-Kinney - Rollercoaster
21) Vitalic - My Friend Dario
22) Millencolin - Farewell My Hell
23) Four Tet - Smile Around the Face
24) Electrelane - Eight Steps
25) Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
26) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Is This Love
27) The Decemberists - Sixteen Military Wives
28) The Game - Hate It or Love It
29) Three 6 Mafia - Stay Fly
30) Kaiser Chiefs - Everyday I Love You Less and Less
31) Camille - Au Port
32) Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day
33) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
34) The Subways - Oh Yeah
35) Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
36) Sleater-Kinney - Entertain
37) LCD Soundsystem - Disco Infiltrator
38) Gorillaz - DARE
39) Robyn - Be Mine!
40) Boris - Pink
41) Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister
42) Kanye West - Diamonds from Sierra Leone
43) Sleater-Kinney - Modern Girl
44) Les Fatals Picards - On est des oufs !
45) And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Will You Smile Again ?
46) CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above
47) Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
48) The Chemical Brothers - Galvinize
49) Tapes n Tapes - Cowbell
50) Edan - Torture Chamber
51) Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
52) Lindstrom - I Feel Space
53) Guillemots - Trains to Brazil
54) Foo Fighters - Best of You
55) Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
56) Justice - Waters of Nazareth
57) The Strokes - Juicebox
58) The White Stripes - Blue Orchid
59) Spinto Band - Oh Mandy
60) Amerie - 1 Thing
61) Les Fatals Picards - Les Bourgeois
62) Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
63) Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Going Down
64) We Are Scientists - Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt
65) OK GO - Here I Go Again
66) Jamie Lidell - Multiply
67) Olivia Ruiz - La Petite Voleuse
68) System of a Down - Cigaro
69) Electrelane - Bells
70) Devendra Banhart - I Feel Just Like a Child