Best albums of 2005
The Strand's fiercest music critics, Ryan Hardy and Nav Purewal, stare down and select the top albums of 2005. So your favourite album didn't make the cut? Questioning why they choose said album? No need to be hatin'. Maybe your music just simply sucks.
By Ryan Hardy and Nav Purewal
Issue date: 12/1/05 Section: Film & Music
Ryan Hardy's Picks:
Following the excitement and change of 2003 and 2004, 2005 has seemed, on the whole, like a disappointment. But the overall crappiness only makes the moments of excellence seem even better. Here's ten of them:
10. My Morning Jacket - Z
It's tempting to say that My Morning Jacket are the right band at the wrong time. But that begs the question: what time would have been right for a band like this? For all the "Southern rock" comparisons, it's difficult to imagine any actual fans of Skynyrd and the Allmans (aside from, er, me) loving MMJ. The era that is congenial for a band of sensitive Southerners helmed by a songwriter as subtle and ambitious as Jim James has yet to happen. Either way, Z charts the course between Eat A Peach, Tumbleweed Connection and Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, and should please open-minded fans of all three.
9. Kelly Osbourne - Sleeping in the Nothing
If historians remember Kelly Osbourne at all, it will be for this album. The historical significance of Sleeping in the Nothing is twofold. Most obviously, it serves as an indication of just how mainstream the eighties synth revival and, more generally, electronic music altogether had become by 2005. It will also probably stand as the absolute peak of the woefully misnamed phenomenon known as "electroclash." But it's not just for geeks in the future. This is a great pop album that allows two rather problematic talents-Osbourne herself and producer/Non-Blonde Linda Perry-to show how good they can be. Bonus points for the anti-date rape anthem "Don't Touch Me While I'm Sleeping."
8. Ellen Allien - Thrills
Sooner or later, Ellen Allien is going to be kicked out of Germany. Oh, sure, she seems like the latest in a proud tradition of inscrutable, ice-cold Teutonic musicians working with electronic technology (Kraftwerk, Manuel Göttsching, Basic Channel, Ekkehard Ehlers) but she's got a secret: beneath her shiny, metallic veneer lies a warm, beating heart. Synths and glitches aside, Ellen Allien is fundamentally a sentimentalist who just wants people to put the guns away and fall in love. That kind of thing has no place in the music of a country that produced both National Socialism and KMFDM.
Following the excitement and change of 2003 and 2004, 2005 has seemed, on the whole, like a disappointment. But the overall crappiness only makes the moments of excellence seem even better. Here's ten of them:
10. My Morning Jacket - Z
It's tempting to say that My Morning Jacket are the right band at the wrong time. But that begs the question: what time would have been right for a band like this? For all the "Southern rock" comparisons, it's difficult to imagine any actual fans of Skynyrd and the Allmans (aside from, er, me) loving MMJ. The era that is congenial for a band of sensitive Southerners helmed by a songwriter as subtle and ambitious as Jim James has yet to happen. Either way, Z charts the course between Eat A Peach, Tumbleweed Connection and Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, and should please open-minded fans of all three.
9. Kelly Osbourne - Sleeping in the Nothing
If historians remember Kelly Osbourne at all, it will be for this album. The historical significance of Sleeping in the Nothing is twofold. Most obviously, it serves as an indication of just how mainstream the eighties synth revival and, more generally, electronic music altogether had become by 2005. It will also probably stand as the absolute peak of the woefully misnamed phenomenon known as "electroclash." But it's not just for geeks in the future. This is a great pop album that allows two rather problematic talents-Osbourne herself and producer/Non-Blonde Linda Perry-to show how good they can be. Bonus points for the anti-date rape anthem "Don't Touch Me While I'm Sleeping."
8. Ellen Allien - Thrills
Sooner or later, Ellen Allien is going to be kicked out of Germany. Oh, sure, she seems like the latest in a proud tradition of inscrutable, ice-cold Teutonic musicians working with electronic technology (Kraftwerk, Manuel Göttsching, Basic Channel, Ekkehard Ehlers) but she's got a secret: beneath her shiny, metallic veneer lies a warm, beating heart. Synths and glitches aside, Ellen Allien is fundamentally a sentimentalist who just wants people to put the guns away and fall in love. That kind of thing has no place in the music of a country that produced both National Socialism and KMFDM.
