Before I get to the main course, the #1 Album of 2005,
I’d like to present a few other awards and give a few shout outs to some of
the other artists, albums, and songs that meant something to me in 2005. If you don’t read anything else I’ve sent,
read this. :)
Guy I’d Like to Give Another Chance (If Only He’d
Realize Who He Truly Could Be, In a Good Way)
Usher
Last year I called Usher’s Yeah! the “worst song of the year.” I still think the song is everything I gave it credit for then (grating beyond belief, boring, repetitive, and self-indulgent). However, I do think I was wrong in mixing the man with his message.
If Michael Jackson was the best dancer of the ‘80s (and I think he was), and MC Hammer was the best dancer of the ‘90s (and I also think he was), then Usher just may prove to be the best dancer of the ‘00s. Now if his music can morph to match his moves rather than the current hip-hop movement of pure decadence and degenerance, which I think it can and will, then Usher may be the bridge between rap and hip-hop that I’ve been looking for. Then again, he recently released a movie all about himself, In the Mix, so I suppose only time will tell. As I like to say, “just get over yourself already, just get over it!”
Single of the Year
They Live By Night
Truth or Dare
“If I don’t have my one true love… then I can’t lose it.”
In their brief history together, this Swedish band has merely released a self-titled EP. Regardless, they have managed to concoct a song so good mere words cannot do it justice. Suffice it to say, every time I listen to it I get goose bumps… while I dance around my room… naked. It’s that damn good.
The
Strokes featuring Regina Spektor
Post-Modern Girls (or is it Modern Girls, I don’t know!?)
Sure, it isn’t cool to like The Strokes anymore and hasn’t been since mid-2002. And the anti-folk movement that Spektor participates in is about as ridiculous and stupid as a movement/anti-movement can be. Regardless, in my book The Strokes are still one of the best things about music in the new millennium and Spektor has some interesting talent and things to say. Together they have created Post-Modern Girls, a rollicking ode to the old love/hate element of love. Part Ani DiFranco, part, well, The Strokes, this is the perfect antidote to the American Idol blues that are just a month or so away.
Best Bruce Springsteen Impersonation
The Constantines
The gravely voice, the introspective lyrics, songs of desperation and redemption of the open heart: if you think this sounds like the latest CD from The Boss, well, you’re right. But it’s also an apt description for the music of The Constantines.
Their 2005 release, Tournament of Hearts, isn’t quite as memorable as their second, Shine a Light, but it’s still worth checking out for Bruce lovers and those infatuated with The Great White North (these dudes are Canadian, after all). I suggest On to You from the second release as a good starting point, but their newest is probably the most Bruce-esque.
Most Dubious “Beat the Customers Who Beat the System”
Move of the Year
Limited Copies of Purchased CDs
The newest technology given us by the big record companies this year: limited copying capability of purchased CDs. That’s right, you can still copy their discs, or rip them or what have you, but only a couple of times and then they are “locked.” I’m uncertain as to the specifics, but for those of you willing to shell out 15 bucks a pop for your music (and yes, prices are back on the rise once again), the control is once again slipping away from consumers back into the hands of big business. And I couldn’t be less surprised or more disappointed. Will they ever learn? And perhaps worse, will we ever learn?
Best Concert of the Year
The Walkmen @ Harvard Square, May 1, 2005
It took me almost a year of frequent listening to finally realize that The Walkmen’s 2004 release, Bows + Arrows, was one of the best, if not the best CD of the year during last year’s countdown. And that after having been on board with the band since their debut in 2002 with Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone.
But alas, living is learning and their free performance on May Day in Harvard Square was the culmination of all my good feelings about the band. They are the real deal and proved it that day in the warm spring sun. This wasn’t the first time I had seen them, but it was the best. Their expanding catalogue of tunes just keeps getting more interesting and diverse and you just can’t put a price on witnessing singer Hamilton Leithauser sing himself horse. Putting it simply, I love The Walkmen.
Runner-up:
The Electric Six @ The Middle East Downstairs,
September 29, 2005
I’d been waiting to hear these dudes live ever since Danger! and Gay Bar wandered across my headphones a few years back. In 2005, I finally got my chance and they did not disappoint. The lead singer took his clothes off, the waving and improper dancing was second to none, and can you say, “Radio-Ga-Ga cover!” Yes, this was not your typical 2005 indie-rock concert, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Holiday Songs of the Year
The Walkmen – The Christmas Party &
The Raveonettes – The Christmas Song
Released at the end of 2004 while I was compiling last year’s list, these two Christmas originals are simply amazing. It’s one thing to cover perennial favorites; it’s a whole other undertaking churning out tunes this catchy, fun, and relevant to the season.
The Walkmen’s stab at Christmas is a drunken ode to family holiday revelry and I think if I was ever to record my own holiday theme song this would be it. Stuffed with jingle bells, “ooo’s and aahhh’s” from a backing female choir, and main man Hamilton Leithauser crooning like a frog voiced Santa at the Ocean County Mall this is the stuff of legend. And I couldn’t love it anymore.
The Raveonettes go a completely different direction in their take on the holidays by following the lead on their regular album tracks and channeling the spirit of ‘50s doo-wop and Phil Spector influenced girl groups from the early ‘60s. Simply divine.
Heartbreaking Split of the Year
Sea Ray &
Hefner
While the separations of Brad and Jen and Jessica and Nick may have been the most traumatic to readers of People weekly, my heart was broken by the fall of great bands Sea Ray and Hefner. For me, these were two of the most unheralded yet wholly unique bands in contemporary music. Both seemed assuredly the product of their time and place (New York and Great Britain, respectively), yet each found a way to noticeably distinguish themselves from their peers. With Stars at Noon (2003), six-member strong Sea Ray picked up the mantle of shoegazer bands such as Ride and Spiritualized from the late ‘80s/earl ‘90s and gave them a modern feel. This was brought out most elegantly by the haunting cello playing of Anne Brewster.
Hefner, meanwhile, turned ‘80s synth conventions upside down through their contrasting of digital versus analogue (both sonically and lyrically) on their 2001 masterpiece, Dead Media. Neither quite achieved the accolades I thought was their due so it saddens me to see them go. But no matter, in my heart they will never be forgotten.
Arch-Enemy of the Year
B.B. King’s Manager (Name Withheld to Prevent Causing
Me More Anger)
This year I learned the power of the Internet first-hand. An innocent “press release” turned into a public relations nightmare when I touted the April release of my full-length feature presentation, The Last Temptation of Douglas Small, as featuring the greatest music of all-time borrowed with “no authorization whatsoever.” What ensued was B.B. King’s manager somehow getting hold of my e-mail message and threatening both me and the theater that promised I could “show anything I wanted, anything whatsoever.”
In the end, I spent the four days up to the minute of the showing re-editing the entire movie with original music (some of which I embarrassingly recorded myself in my basement at 4 in the morning). And to add insult to injury, BB King has been EVERYWHERE since then from commercials to concerts to Hurricane relief. In a nutshell, it has been a great year for B.B. and his manager, and I’m a little more wrinkled, and teensy bit more dark under the eyes, and the hair, well, let’s just say it has been fuller in the past. Thanks B.B. Thanks for NOTHING!
Irony of the Year
Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are Time
magazine’s People of the Year
Does anyone else find it hilarious that Apple’s biggest pitchman, Bono, is sharing a cover with two of the biggest names from Microsoft? Surely Time must have understood this, otherwise it’s ludicrous to put Bono in the same magazine, let alone cover, as the Gates family. It’s one thing to talk big about abolishing poverty while charging 150 dollars a ticket for your stadium sized concerts. It’s a whole other world to donate billions of your own dollars creating programs to actually do something about it.
Hey, Didn’t I Hear Them Do That Same Bunch of Songs Last Album?
In
Your Honor
Good try, boys. And trying to get us to buy a double disc this time instead of one, disguising the second behind an acoustic guitar? For shame!
In 1991 Shakespear’s Sister released their second record, Hormonally Yours, an album as good as it is strangely titled. The disc threw off one hit song, Stay, and then faded into obscurity. The single is still a work of art and the rest of the CD is diverse, original, and very well done.
This year, the duo released a greatest hits compilation, which is odd considering they only properly released two albums total in their brief history. No matter, Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey, the latter formerly of Bananarama, yes, that Bananarama, are the real deal. The fact that no one bought this hits compilation is irrelevant. You should get your hands on Hormonally Yours. It’s a great pop album with soul that could give the young pop princesses and producers of today a lot of tips on how to construct a great and catchy tune while being mature and insightful at the same time. But I suppose that would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it?
Simply put, Hormonally Yours is a timeless mini-masterpiece.
Comeback of the Year
The Depeche Mode Revolution
The doom and gloom of Depeche Mode may go in and out of style, but the band never the less produces a new disc of music every few years. And like the Phoenix, who rises from her own ashes to fly again, this year the “Depeche Mode sound” is as popular as ever. No surprise, really, as the band originally came on the arches of post-punk which itself had a resurgence earlier this decade in the form of The Strokes and their followers.
Surely one of the top influences on ‘90s bands as well such as Nine Inch Nails and the whole Industrial music trend, Depeche Mode has proven once again with Playing the Angels that you can knock them down but you can’t knock them out. They’ll noodle their way into the popular musical landscape by hook or by crook and rise with a message of their own when you least expect it. And even when they finally take that long synth walk into the sunset, their sound will continue to live on in bands such as The Bravery, She Wants Revenge, and the countless others who will touch off from them.
Memorable Lyrics of the Year
“IIIIIIIIIIIII jumped up!
And I felt tipsy!.” -The Walkmen’s The Christmas Party
Comment – I mean,
come on, who hasn’t thought this themselves!?
“If I don’t have my one true love… then I can’t lose
it.” -They Live By Night’s Truth or Dare
Comment – So sad but
so true.
Most Hilarious Man of All-Time
Scott Stapp, Former Lead Singer of Creed, Currently
Performing Solo!
Mrs. Kensington once famously quipped, regarding “super-stud” Austin Powers, “women want him, men want to be him!” For as ridiculous as this remark may have been in referencing Mr. Powers, I don’t think she could ever have laughed harder if applying the comment to “the former voice of Creed,” as his website so informatively exclaims.
Scott Stapp is hilarious. He is more earnest than Bill Clinton pointing with his thumb as he lectures on fidelity, more hopelessly sincere than a glitter clothed Neil Diamond, and so ‘90s throw-back that he makes Chris Cornell look almost comfortable as a member of Rage Against the, I mean, Audioslave.
Now please recall, this is the man who famously held his baby child in his arms on stage as he crooned, With Arms Wide Open, the man who mugged for the MTV cameras bare-chested as he performed on top of a building in front of about 50 paid fans at the MTV Music Awards, and who posed sans shirt once again for his 2002 mug shot photo. Call me comedy deficient if you will, but for my money’s laughs per minute, no one, and I mean NO ONE beats the man, the myth, the legend, THE STAPP! And if you don’t want to take my word for it, go watch the video for his new song on his website, aptly found at, what else, www.scottstapp.com.
Milk and Orange Juice Award (Mixing the Seemingly Unmixable)
In case you haven’t heard, MatisYahu is a Hasidic Jew who sings/raps over reggae beats. Who would’ve thunk it? But don’t take my word for it, hearing is believing: http://www.hasidicreggae.com/
He’ll be back in Boston February 12 at Avalon. Last time it was a sell-out, so if you’re serious about your Old Testament and your love for the ganja, light up a phatty and get your tickets ASAP.
“Hey Ya” Award for Song You’re Bound to Hear EVERYWHERE
Next Year
I Have No Clue!
Last year I predicted Gwen Stefani’s Cool would be everywhere. I was close. Instead it was Hollaback Girl. Right artist. Wrong song. This year, I have no idea. I’d like to write The Strokes You Only Live Once, which is totally awesome, but I have a feeling radio might not see things the same. That being the case, I think Kelly Clarkson is going to continue pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. You know you love it!
Tube
and Berger featuring Chrissie Hynde
Straight Ahead
I pushed this song during the Halloween season of 2004. Apparently, no one was listening. In fact, I had forgotten about it until about two weeks ago. Now, I can’t stop playing it. Again. Don’t be like me: stupid and forgetful. Get your hands on this techno masterpiece. Even that curmudgeon Moby would be hard pressed to find something wrong with this. And it features Chrissy Hynde for God’s sake!
And Finally… The Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For…
The Best Album of 2005…
Find out tomorrow!!!