The 12 CDs of Christmas:
Best of 2005 Year in Music Review
By Scott Marlowe
scottmarlowe@undependentmedia.com

Introduction
December 13, 2005

Last year, in the spirit of sharing something I hold dear with others, I wrote and compiled a series of music album reviews and sent them out one per day until the first day of winter. In doing so I discovered much about what I think and why I think it as I delved into the best music of 2004. I listed contenders and pretenders, surprises and disappointments, and at the end of it all felt better than I would have had I lied on a couch in some shrink’s office at 125 bucks an hour. But I digress…

In a way, I suppose, what I was really doing by putting down in words the songs and emotions I had felt during the year was what many of us do all the time in our heads but probably never realize: creating a soundtrack to my life. I giggled as I recalled such atrocities as Northern State’s All City or the big let down of U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. I rejoiced in regaling The Walkmen’s Bows & Arrows, !!!’s Louden Up Now, and Green Day’s American Idiot, and happily delighted in spilling the beans on The Organ’s Grab That Gun, The Scissor Sisters self-titled debut, and the amazing changing of direction in Tegan & Sara’s coming of age So Jealous. 2004 was, for me, a great time to really be into the current music scene and I was thrilled to share it with anyone who was willing to read along.

2005 found me furiously switching alliances from music to movies as I not only completed my own feature presentation in April, The Last Temptation of Douglas Small, but also wrote scores of movie reviews, completed my first season of flag football, toured the country on my 9 month wedding guest odyssey, and played host to a menagerie of various themed barbecue parties that heard many of my musical favorites from 2004. Needless to say, my concert going and album listening diminished as I sought out fewer new musical releases to pass the time. But all, as they say, was not lost.

Perhaps I will never again be as enthralled with musical culture as I was in 2004, but then again, something tells me I just might. While this year’s crop of releases didn’t quite have the same hold on me as the year’s predecessor, it certainly had its share of good stuff. Beyond that, 2005 reminded me that sometimes the roses we dried out and put away long ago can still smell as fresh as the ones at the flower shop, and sometimes even better.

The 12 CDs of Christmas: Best of 2005 Year In Music Review is my take on the soundtrack of my life for this year. Admittedly, the breadth of musical styles isn’t what it used to be for me as rap and pop have veered off in directions I have not been able to appreciate while the new New Wave and the return of post-punk have held my center stage. Still, there was much that surprised me, kept me dancing, and made me optimistic about the present and future of music.

For now, I leave you with a quote from The Walkmen song, The North Pole, one of my favorites from last year and the promise that in the next week or so I will bring you something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Only this time, it won’t be wedding related!

I hope you will have as much fun reading as I have had writing.

Maybe,
it’s not good and it’s not bad

Maybe,
it’s a problem that we have

Everybody knows

That’s the way it goes.

Yours in Good Music,

Marlowe