Top 5 Records of 2005

So, even considering that I was waiting until 2005 was actually over to post my top five list of 2005, this is late.

2005 was a great year of music for me. Four of my top five bands/artists put out records (the fifth, Radiohead, has one on the way in '06!), all of which reinforced my love for them, and three of which made it on to this list. The chase, to which I will now cut:

5: Sigur Rós, Takk...


If (    ) was an ocean, and it was, Takk... is a river. It meanders and lingers in pleasant turnings and then opens into vast wide spaces before narrowing into furious rapids. Even after rafting through this album a few times, you never know what's around the next bend. To say that Sigur Rós has adopted a new tone is not quite right -- despite a much greater variety in instrumentation, they still feel like Sigur Rós. I would call it a difference in outlook, which is a strange thing to say of a band with no real lyrics to speak of (although there are vocals aplenty). Takk... undoubtedly communicates hope more than any of their previous albums. In fact, it's a more hopeful record than you're likely to find in the 21st century.

4: The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan


To the limited extent I know him, I like Jack White. I like his respect for American musical traditions, his half-coherent essays, his professional regard for technical skill, and his sister (or is she his ex-wife? I thought I knew once...). I also like his ability to move forward, an asset that is especially highlighted in Get Behind Me Satan. Here the Stripes leave behind their guitar/piano-and-drums-and-that's-it orthodoxy and enter an exciting new world full of... marimba, mostly. This is easily their most sensitive record, less brash and packed with unique little touches to show they really do care, just like they've always said. (This record and Takk... are also tied for my two favorite album covers of 2005.)

3: Optimo, How to Kill the DJ, Pt. 2


This record might have been higher in the list, but the fact that very little of this music is actually made by Glaswegian DJs Wilkes and Twitch (here collectively called Optimo) takes off just a few points. Call me old-fashioned, I guess. There are two discs here, the first of which is a DJ set seamlessly mixing and matching disparate styles, from steel-drum soul to 21st century dance-punk to children's choir, all backed by beats that not even a quadriplegic could resist. The second CD, essentially a mixtape, is even more diverse, but here the tracks stand as their own entities, not coopted into the mission to make you move. The real achievement here is the selection of eighteen amazingly lovable songs, each of which not only represents a different syle of pop music, but -- to my ears -- a whole other universe.

2: Sufjan Stevens, Illinois


Of course, here is the undisputed album of the year. I feel like such a rebel for not putting this at number one. I don't think I was the only one to be very pleasantly surprised at the amazingly good press this record received. Here are songs that unflinchingly see the world as it is, but don't reach the conclusions of despair and absurdity as so many others have. Here are hope, joy and love, communicated so skillfully and unassumingly that I hear no groaning from the world's most cynical inhabitants -- that is, music critics. On the contrary, they have extolled this light in the darkness. And really, why should that be surprising?

Two down, forty-eight to go. I'm staying on this train till the end of the line.

1: John Vanderslice, Pixel Revolt


Should I like John Vanderslice as much as I do? I mean, at heart he's what's sometimes called a singer/songwriter and that can't be good. That calls to mind names like Jason Mraz or Sarah McLachlan. Nevertheless, I've always loved JV's songs, and I'm not hesitant to say that here they reach new heights. If JV has a shtick, it's that almost all his songs use first-person narration from a fictional perspective. For instances, in "Continuation" he takes the perspective of a detective, in "Plymouth Rock" that of a soldier in Iraq.

Ohh, wait. Soldier in Iraq... these aren't political songs are they? Well, they deal with current events, but not in a didactic manner, and they're far from protest songs. If there's any fault here, it lies in falling prey to the unjustified pessimism and morbid focus on strategic and moral failures to the exclusion of any sense of mission or purpose. "I lost the reason I'm here" the soldier says after getting shot on his first mission, in "Plymouth Rock." Similarly, "Trance Manual" tells the story of a soldier's conflicted visits to a prostitute, his escape from the monotony of his mission to "stand alone and then shift, and shift."

A few songs, though, breaks with JV's narrative conventions, telling a very personal and autobiographical story of depression and flawed redemption. These moments are made all the more affecting because, on all his records, he so rarely steps outside of the personas he constructs for his songs. The combination of "Dead Slate Pacific" and "The Golden Gate" (two halves of a song which I feel should have been left one track) is the heart of this record, and it is one of the most heartbreakingly sad and beautiful songs I've ever heard. And also, there is this:

"Farewell Transmission"

...

Your dad didn't know the age of the sun;
Now we know the hour it was born.
How does that help us now?
Hold on,
Hold on.

We need your pretty words,
in clipped enchanted verse.
Your race depends on you,
I do too,
I do too.

Hold on.

...