best albums of 2005
Adam Bunch's top 10:
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10
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The Eels
Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
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Unlike most double-albums, which are nothing more than clearinghouses for material, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations demands the vast canvas upon which is it recorded. It gives E the space to craft an intensely personal album which is simultaneously confessional and tongue-in-cheek, fragile and rocking, tragic and upbeat. He manages to cover a range of material and emotions that would seem disjointed on a shorter album, and does it with grace and good humour.
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09
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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
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A little dancier than the Arcade Fire, a little darker than the Strokes, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! are in some pretty good company. Especially for a band that came out of nowhere, selling ten of thousands of albums by themselves over their website. I love Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! for its energy, for its carnivalesque intro track and for proving that the Internet may yet be the greatest thing that ever happened to music.
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08
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Sigur Rós
Takk . .
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I’ve never been to Iceland, but Takk . . . is exactly how it would appear to me in a dream. It is the sound of a glacier melting. Of endless golden hills and stark blue skies. Of icy northern lakes stretched between towering, ancient peaks. These strings and horns, xylophones and meaningless mumbling vocals, rising and falling and occasionally exploding in bursts of bright distortion, surround you with landscapes you can almost touch.
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07
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The White Stripes
Get Behind Me Satan
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In all of the moaning about Jack White neglecting his searing guitars in favour of his bluesy piano, everyone seems to have overlooked just how darn good he is at writing those quieter, poppier tunes. True, Get Behind Me Satan isn’t as earth-shattering as some of the Stripes’ recent works, but listening to these tracks, you can’t escape the feeling that someday we’ll look back at everything he writes as classic.
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06
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The New Pornographers
Twin Cinema
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Everyone’s favourite Canadian supergroup did it again this year with the release of their third powerpop album. Like Mass Romantic and Electric Version before it, Twin Cinema is packed full of the best kind of straight-up pop rock: the kind that, when no one else is around, has you up on the couch dancing and jumping and singing along.
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05
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The Go! Team
Thunder, Lightning, Strike
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It’s like Ian Parton has grabbed all the best horns, synths, keyboards and strings from the last forty years, cut them all up with scissors, soaked them deep in Sesame Street overnight, and then served them over big crunchy caffeine cookie beats. Yay!
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04
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Architecture in Helsinki
In Case We Die
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You could tell from the nearly operatic intro to the opening track that In Case We Die wasn’t going to be your ordinary pop album. And it isn’t. With their hooks and melodies and instrumentation shifting underfoot every few measures, Architecture in Helsinki manage to make every song five songs and keep even the most attention deficient, TV loving, MTV-raised Twenty-First Century Listener riveted. McLuhan would be ashamed of us all.
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03
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The Boy Least Likely To
The Best Party Ever
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A huge step forward for this truly original band. The addition of T.J. Lipple is the not-so-secret ingredient here, as he contributes greatly to a more streamlined and focused Aloha. A landmark album.
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02
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The Fiery Furnaces
EP
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Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger know exactly what they’re doing. Understanding that their October release of the wildly experimental grandmother concept album Rehearsing My Choir would alienate many fans (and it did), they first gave fans this infinitely poppier compilation of singles and b-sides. Strengthened by its accessibility, EP is still innovative and fascinating in the usual Furnaces’ style. And while there’s a big part of me that wants to put Rehearsing My Choir here instead of EP, in my heart of hearts, I can’t wait for them to return to this kind of form with 2006’s Bitter Tea.
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01
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Sufjan Stevens
Illinois
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The second installment in Sufjan Stevens’ crazy-ambitious 50 albums for 50 states project (only 48 to go!), Illinois takes all the grandeur of Michigan and takes it up a notch. Here in the Hoosier state, everything is even more beautiful and even more joyous and even more epic and even more, well, educational than across the lake. The first time I heard it, I knew within a few tracks that this is one of those albums I’ll be listening to for the rest of my life.
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Emily Tartanella's top 10:
10. M.I.A. - Arular
9. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike!
8. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll
7. Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger
6. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have it So Much Better
5. We Are Scientists- With Love and Squalor
4. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
3. Arcade Fire - Funeral
2. The Rakes - Capture/Release
1. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Christine Beals's top 5:
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
The National - Alligator
Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, it's Morning
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
Jennifer Hall's top 5:
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
The Decemberists - Picaresque
Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, it's Morning
Sigur Rós - Takk...
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
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