I had a morbid curiosity about whether the U.S. deaths in the Iraq war would cross 3,000 before the end of the year, (I checked the U.S. causality site way too often) and without a minute to spare the U.S. death toll hit 3000 on New Year's Eve.
It doesn't seem like it was that long ago when I wrote about the 2,000 death toll, yet it's only right that a year as insane as this one claimed the 3,000 mark.
The way I see it, there are two ends to the year-end spectrum.
(Bringing blacks and whites together, the MLK Jr. of this rap shit.)
Music is becoming so fragmented and niche-oriented that it's increasingly harder music critics, let alone the average listener (and where is the line between those two?) to agree on anything.
This year's collection of Top Albums lists shows exactly how random shit has become. You could pretty much make an argument for whatever album you liked as the best of 2006. Looking at Pitchfork's list, it seemed like that's exactly what they did. There are only three albums on here I can co-sign and I can't stand "Silent Shout." Pitchfork's Top Ten of 2006
10. Scott Walker - The Drift 9. Boris - Pink 8. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House 7. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury 6. Liars - Drum's Not Dead 5. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America 4. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale 3. Joanna Newsom - Ys 2. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain 1. The Knife - Silent Shout
Pitchfork's Out of Wedlock Brother, Stylus Magazine posted their list, which was a step-up from Pitchfork with 5 good albums.
Stylus Mag's Top 10 of 2006
10. Joanna Newsom -Ys 9. Junior Boys- So This Is Goodbye 8. Lil Wayne/DJ Drama - Dedication 2 7. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America 6. Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra of Bubbles 5. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury 4. TV On the Radio 3. The Knife - The Silent Shout 2. Hot Chip - The Warning 1. Ghostface - Fishscale
Blah to them both.
Start Snitching's Musical Observations of 2006
It seems like the white hipster obsession with the Clipse and Lil Wayne could not be stopped. Sadly with more albums coming from them in 2007, it seems like this fetish will continue well into 2007.
Glitchy, unlistenable electronic art-rock is en vogue. If you can listen to someone scratching a chalkboard and looping sounds of plane crashing backwards for 47 minutes you are deep.
Mixtapes are now on equal footing with albums.
Reggaeton is dead. Thank the lord.
Grime is dead. Thank the lord.
Everyone has seemingly turned against the Arctic Monkeys. Thank the lord yet again.
Thom Yorke needs Radiohead.
If your album flopped, you should blame it on the market and not your wack-ass album.
Kool Keith is over.
Get shot ain't what it used to be. Ask Proof, Obie Trice, Cam'ron and Beanie Sigel, who all got shot. Forgot already? So did everyone else.
Ghostface needs to start getting put on those greatest rappers of all-time lists.
Here's the Start Snitching guide to Top 10 Albums of 2006.
10. Cat Power - The Greatest Chan Marshall is the hottest recovering alcoholic in all of indie-rock. Leaving behind her baggage and typical sound, Ms. Power got some soul and recorded her album in Memphis with Al Green's old backing band while exorcising some old demons. If she's needs a sponsor, I can help.
9. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America
The lead singer has the voice of a bleated goat. If you can get over that, then you'll be able to appreciate lyrics that chronicle the drug-fueled self-destruction of small-town America with the same passion that Bruce Springsteen chronicled hope and small-town escape 30 years ago. Overdosing has never been more fun.
8. Hot Chip - The Warning
Now here's an electronic record that actually deserved the praise it got. Rather than slamming a bunch of keys on their laptop, this band actually made fully structured songs that a human could vibe to, with enough atmosphere and subtle influences to keep you dissecting the album, even after repeated listens.
7. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
In a parallel universe, Sonic Youth gets their own iPod instead of U2 and the entire 80 GB hard drive is filled with John Cage's 639 year long piece, "As Slow as Possible." Shitty modern rock bands would pay tribute to them on MTV Icons, instead of honoring Aerosmith and Metallica, and Kim Gordon would stare down from her throne with bored disdain.
But back here in reality, Sonic Youth is still grinding away in its 3rd decade of existence, doing their best to keep the guitar relevant with their most melody-focused album, in a year when shitty unfocused electronic music won all the accolades.
6. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Yea I picked Gnarls Barkley as my number 2. And what? I've heard people call this album a gimmick record and then praise MF Doom in the same breath. That is called hypocrisy.
Gnarls is just catching backlash for getting (way too much) radio play, selling a million and getting that platinum plaque. The production is some of the best of the year and most artists wish they could have pop melodies this strong.
5. TV on the Radio
A black indie rock band! Huzzah!!! Dense, intensely lyrical, rhythmic art-rock by a band that's 80% Negro. If they could just get on BET somehow, I'd be a happy man.
4. Lily Allen - Alright, Still
You wouldn't be wrong for thinking "pikey/chav" when you hear the name Lily Allen. She is a white girl who makes songs about getting into fights on the line of night clubs. Social distnctions aside, anyone who digs this deep into the crates to find the classic reggae, ska, blues and dub samples on display here and then overlays them with pop music this subversive is going to make the list.
2 & 3. Ghostface - Fishscale/More Fish
His album scraps are killing most people in the game. A thrown together project that his label pitched to him ended up being fire and he sounds hungrier than most new cats in the game. What more is there to say?
No one raps with the intensity, urgency or the creativity of Ghostface. If you would have told anyone in 1994 that Ghostface would be the most relevant, respected and commercially viable rapper from the Wu-Tang clan you would have quite possibly been slapped. It's not that he wasn't good. He just wasn't in the forefront like that.
But more than 10 odd years later he put together an MVP performance and people still sit up to hear that new Ghostface. Remember who started that coke rap kiddies. A kilo is a thousand grams.
1. M. Ward- Post-War
M. Ward's dusty lo-fi record is based on what he claims is an examination of how a society obsessed with and destroyed by war moves on. Fortunately there isn't one whiny ass protest song on this record to undermine M. Ward's trademark hazy sound or intimate vocals. Post War takes the slacker aesthetic of Pavement and gives it enough political context to sneak right under the ambivalence of our lazy ass generation.
10. Scissor Sisters - Don't Feel Like Dancing 9. Nelly Furtado - No Hay Igual 8. Cham - Ghetto Story 7. Cat Power - The Greatest 6. The Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars - Soda Soap 5. T.I. - What You Know 4. Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down 3. Be Your Own Pet- Bicycle, Bicycle, You're My Bicycle 2. Easy Dub All Stars - Lucky (Radiohead Cover) 1. M. Ward- Right in the Head
Top Ten Albums of 2007 (I'm Psychic Like That)
10. Raekwon - Built For Cuban Linx 2 9. Bloc Party 8. The Shins 7. Radiohead 6. MIA 5. Madvillain 2 4. Modest Mouse 3. The Go! Team 2. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible 1. MF Doom/Ghostface - Swift and Changeable
That's it for music in 2006. Stay tuned for the Top Coons of the year.
Nas has never been a commercial powerhouse on the levels of Jay, Pac or whatever new (c)rapper was running the charts. But the dude is a legend regardless of his album stumbles or how many times his production makes you shake your head in disappointment and wonder why Primo couldn't do his beats instead of Christina Aguiliera's.
His career sales and the wackness of his last album "Street's Disciple" are his weakness which allows disrespectful young bucks like Jeezy to say shit like this about Nas,
"I’ll tell you what, we’ll look at them first week numbers and we’ll talk about it."
Sales and popularity should never be a factor for determining artistic merit. Is America Idol the best on television because it's the highest rated? Better than The Wire and The Shield?
Is Creed a better rock band than Sonic Youth?
Was "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" the best movie of the year?
All of this is part of why it was so ignorant for Jeezy to make that statement because his album outsold Nas' last album.
Nas scores his third No. 1 on The Billboard 200 this week with his eighth studio set, "Hip Hop Is Dead." The Def Jam effort moved 355,000 copies last week in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Compare that to Jeezy's first week,
Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy debuts at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 with his second Def Jam album, "The Inspiration." The set sold 352,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Whoops! Wanna talk about it now Jeezy? Maybe the south ain't running this rap shit as throughly as they thought. And the realest shit about this whole deal is that all the aspiring cocaine dealers who bought Jeezy's trashbag album didn't pass the good word along because he dropped around 40% of his first week sales and out of the Billboard Top Ten in one week.
It's always refreshing when an artist can have the sales to go along with the respect. Big-ups to Nas on his resurrection on the back of hip-hop's death. Something good had to come of it.
I don't blog about technology often because that is what Engadget and Digg are for.
But not everyone has the time or interest to get find the worthwhile shit out there and appreciate the power that technology has on their lives, so here's the shit you should have been rocking in 2006.
I don't think people realize how real in the field Google is with their shit and the level they will be on by the end of the decade. I also afraid as to how much more detailed this program can get in 2007. Tinfoil-hat conspiracies aside, Google Earth is exactly what a country who loves Borat but isn't quite sure if his country is real needs. Get global fools, before Chinese robots are banging your wife.
Internet TV is some next level shit that won't take off until Verizon DSL and friends stop selling those bullshit "high-speed" Internet connections. This software lets you rock free TV, Cable and Global Television over the Internet. Illegal? Probably. Free cable? Definitely.
Sign up for a two-week free trial with a music subscription service. MTV Urge, Yahoo! Music Unlimited and Napster are a few of the more popular ones. Urge doesn't ask for a credit card. Download thousands of protected WMA files to your computer for free and then cry as they expire when your trial ends. Or use this program to rip off the DRM protection and enjoy them well after your trial is up.
I'm not encouraging you to do that. I'm just saying that it's a possibility.
Shit, you might actually like one of the services enough to sign up after the trial ends. That's what I did with Yahoo Music Unlimited. You get tired of shitty quality SoulSeek tracks after a while.
VOIP is scaring the shit out of the telecommunication companies. How do you run your business when you know that one day all calls will be free? I don't know and I don't care. Skype isn't new, it lets you call anyone, anywhere in the world for free as long as they have Skype. The noteworthy step is the fact that Skype is starting to get common on cellphones with Wi-Fi, which means soon you'll be making free calls everywhere. I love it.
_____________________________
My 2007 calls.
1) I know y'all are all in love with your iPods but don't sleep on that Microsoft Zune. No one thought Microsoft would steal the crown from the Sony PlayStation and look what happened. XBox 360 is running the table and I am better than you at Madden. The next Zune should be fire.
2) Cellphones will get gullier, meaning built-in hard drives, better cameras and such. Not to mention Apple will release some sort of Apple Phone. Everyone will step their game up after the Apple Phone drops. Competition gets that ass moving.
3) I will acquire some sort of HDTV. Standard TV is not cutting it for Start Snitching.
There was no way I could celebrate Jesus' Birthday with a clear mind without taking a minute to shout out Mr. James Brown.
When I read he had pneumonia I had a feeling that it was over for him. His age and the gullyness of the disease didn't leave me with a good feeling and unfortunately I was right. He passed away today at age 73.
For better or worse, hip-hop wouldn't exist without JB along with a few dozen other genres. Listen to any one of his "Greatest Hits" albums and the hear the samples of a million rap songs.
I'm not going to post some long list of James Brown MP3's and the rap songs they created. I'm sure someone with the time has done that already or will do that soon.
I'm just going to put up a few of my favorite JB songs that any self-respecting music fan should already have on computer. Looking past his incredible influence on a myriad number of artists and genres, he made incredibly rhythmic, soulful and passionate music that should be appreciated for what it is. Great music.
I was going to choose Matthew LaClair as the Snitch of the Week for taping his history teacher saying in class that "dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven," but the story about the former Texas drug agent who is making an instructional video on how to hide drugs takes the crown this week.
Barry Cooper, who was one of the star drug agents in Texas, which means he helped Bush fry a lot of Negroes, decided that the war on drugs is wasting time and money and that people with two spliffs in the dashboard aren't exactly riding dirty.
I would have to agree with that.
From the article,
Barry Cooper, who has worked for small police departments in East Texas, plans to launch a Web site next week where he will sell his video, "Never Get Busted Again," the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported in its online edition Thursday. A promotional video says Cooper will show viewers how to "conceal their stash," "avoid narcotics profiling" and "fool canines every time."
I don't know if this is the best approach or if it helps more serious operators but if he thinks that's how the "War on Drugs" will be fixed, then more power to him.
Barry Cooper, for your gully brand of proactive drug-law reform, you are the Snitch of the Week.
Is the world really as simple as rap and non-rap? Of course not.
But I'm not going to call this the Top Ten Indie-Pop, Art-Rock, Electronica and Prog-Metal Albums of 2006. So y'all are going to have to deal.
There was no consensus album for the hipsters to rally around this year like there was for Kanye's overrated "Late Registration" in 2005 or the pretty great Arcade Fire record from 2004, so you could make your case for placing almost any album at any spot.
I'll go into this more when I combine the rap and non-rap lists for the true Top Ten Albums of 2006.
Close calls go to Beck's "The Information," Regina Spektor's "Begin to Hope," LCD Soundsystem "45:33."
Here we go again,
10. Band of Horses - "Everything All The Time"
This is just big, shimmering, straight-forward rock reminiscent of early My Morning Jacket. A solid debut record from a not so new band. It should be interesting to see where they go from here.
9. Espers - II
This is the type of album music critics dream about. Dark, dense, droning and almost to impossible to listen to outside the context of the album. Let the Espers guide you through your next acid trip.
8. Mastodon - Blood Mountain
Mastodon is single-handedly bringing metal out of the 80's and back into the conversation of today's tight sweater and black-rimmed glasses set. Incredible production to match the ambitious prog concepts that would make Tolkien proud. It's worth the neck pain.
7. Cat Power - The Greatest Chan Marshall is the hottest recovering alcoholic in all of indie-rock. Leaving behind her baggage and typical sound, Ms. Power got some soul and recorded her album in Memphis with Al Green's old backing band while exorcising some old demons. If she's needs a sponsor, I can help.
The D.A. Mike Nifong ignored all common sense and approached this case with the subtlety of someone who learned law by watching the deleted scenes of Boston Legal.
What was Nifong's obsession with getting these white boys? Did some LaCrosse players steal his lunch money when he was in college?
I know the intersection of race, gender and class was an appealing rallying point for liberals and social justice avengers everywhere who would love nothing more than to watch these rich, white Ivy-league white boys go down in flames, but sometimes you have to research the mascot.
Nifong might have destroyed his career by sticking up for this chick despite all the holes in her story. And boy were there holes. He might even be investigated by the U.S. Attorney General for his conduct in the case. Whoopsie!
The saddest shit about this is that somewhere, Tawana Brawley is laughing at this whole mess.
(Why isn't Ghostface in your Top 5 All-Time list?)
I couldn't even find 10 rap albums I liked in 2005, let alone pull together enough albums to make a Top Ten, so I didn't even bother.
2006 had some signs of a turnaround, especially earlier in the year, although as a whole rap was still pretty shitty. But at least there was enough decent to good shit to throw together a Top 10 without cheating like most people do and adding a mixtape to the list.
You can talk me out of number 9 and 10. Those are my affirmative action picks. In fact please talk me out of them. I like those albums but I'm not married to them.
Before we start, no year should end without Skillz's Rap-Up.
Not as hot as it used to be, but no one else does it.
"Lil Kim came home from doing a bid Is it me or when she came out she was looking like Big?"
I love TV. I know it's cool to say things like, "God I don't know the last time I watched TV was" but I can't lie, the last time I watched TV was yesterday. Or maybe even today.
HBO continues to be as great as they can be with all their marquee shows about to go off the air and Showtime is doing their best to steal that crown.
You nerds have told me I need to watch BattlestarGalactica and Heroes. I will. B
Here's the list for 2005 and here's the best of what I saw, which was a lot.
Honorable Mention goes to a few shows that have either improved a lot or are much better than I thought they'd ever be, but still not good enough to make it into the Top 10.
Honorable Mention:
Prison Break - Much more interesting outside of prison, go figure.
The Unit - It's fun bit of fantasy to see the military be efficient and get things done within an hour, all before I finish my dinner.
30 Rock - Tracy Morgan is fucking hilarious. Plain and simple. You gotta live every week like it's Shark Week.
Brother and Sisters - A watered down network TV friendly version of Six Feet Under that allows me to see what life would be like for Brenda after Nate's death. At least that's how I like to look at this show. She's the only reason I watch it.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Maybe this show is a little too industry specific and Hollywood cute to get the ratings NBC thought it would, but the combination of great writing and Matthew Perry working overtime to redeem himself from the "Chandler" cliche he fell into post-Friends made for one of the better debuts of the year.
Top 10
10. Weeds (Season 2) - Showtime / It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 2) - FX
I couldn't pick just one of these shows for the 10 slot so I copped out and chose both. Both hilarious, both flawed. Maybe Weeds more so because it tried to get serious at the end but regardless as 30 minute sitcoms, it'd be hard to find a better way to pass the time.
And of course Weeds dropped this little nugget of wisdom.
This is why suburban white people are fucked the fuck up.
9. Friday Night Lights (Season 1) -NBC
I have never seen the bullshit psychodrama of high school given so much relevancy. This show carries the name of the famous book and movie before it but with much less football. But the kids lives are so interesting they could be playing badminton and the show would still be on point. The shit these kids go through in their shitty little Texas town can sneak up and hit you in the heart if you're not careful. And you never know what's going to happen in the football games. They even brought in a Katrina evacuee and made it OK to hate him. Didn't think that would be happening so soon.
8. Deadwood (Season 3) - HBO
This season was the biggest cocktease HBO has ever put on the air. They set up the largest alpha male showdown in the history of the show and then resolved it with a handshake. Sadly that was the motif of this season. Unresolved tension, dangled plots and character threads. Regardless, the dialogue and acting keeps this show in the Top 10.
And they did give us the Greatest. TV. Fight. Ever.
It's that serious. Sit down and digest your food before you watch this shit.
Motherfuckers don't fight like that anymore...
7. Dexter (Season 1) - Showtime
I will watch anything a member of the Six Feet Under cast stars in. I'd watch Nate read from a phone book. That's how real that show was to me. It didn't hurt that one of the lead actors from that show (Michael Hall) got his own series about a serial killer who worked for the Forensics Department of the Miami Police Department. This show screamed "I was based on a book" with its heavy-handed exposition and not every plot thread was fascinating but Michael Hall is an incredible actor and the show hit me with a twist that I should have seen coming. I have to give them props for that.
They also have the greatest opening theme I've seen.
6. The Sopranos (Season 6) - HBO
What can you say about this show at this point? Is it treading water? Yes. It is still better than most shows? Of course.
David Chase weighs down the show with his social commentary and his inability to do what you know what he wants to do with the characters, but this season had some of the best Sopranos episodes ever. That means good TV.
Note to David Chase, next time Tony gets shot, kill him. No more fucking metaphysical/existential dreamworlds. For real.
5. The Office (End of Season 2 - Start of Season 3) -NBC
This show has gotten better every season. I went from not even wanting a U.S. version of this show to wondering in earnest if this show is better than the U.K. version. Blasphemy, I know. But the writers made this show their own and Steve Carell is fucking hilarious. Watch this show and comprehend why Chinese children will own your ass in 2043.
4. Extras (Season 2) - BBC
"Are you having a laugh?" Ricky Gervais (creator of the original Office) is a masochist. He puts his character, David Brent through hell as he ascends the Bizarro World Hollywood food chain. Every drop of success is followed by a swift gut punch to keep him in check. Kinda like real life.
Too bad though, I think this was the last season.
3. Sleeper Cell (Season 2) - Showtime
I said this about Season 1 and I'll say it again about Season 2. Every American needs to watch this show. That ranges from the hippie liberal retards who think Bush detonated the Twin Towers while high-fiving Dick Cheney to the Ann Coulterbobblehead Republicans who think that anyone who knows what "Allahu Akbar" means should have attack dogs sicced on their crotch.
We've been lucky enough in American to not have to see terrorism daily but that shit is real. This show is a reminder. Watch the government fuck up. Watch the government succeed. Watch the terrorists fuck up. Watch the terrorists succeed.
Dare I say this show is like the Wire of terrorism? Maybe I won't go that far but it's not a bad comparison for the simple fact that this show gives you a real look at the ugliness of both sides. If there was a terrorist as frightening as OdedFehr's depiction of Farik, America would re-elect George Bush another 5 times on pure fear alone.
And the final scene will send chills down your spine. Season 3? Don't know how they'd pull it off, but I'm there.
2. The Shield (Season 5) - FX
Shane's actions at the end of the Season 5 put this show on course for some biblical level repercussions. I don't think I can handle the moment when Vic confronts Shane.
Forest Whitaker deserved an Emmy and so did Walter Goggins (Lem) for their work here but they were jacked as all good shows are. I have nothing else to say expect Shane will die.
Chris, Snoop, Donut, Omar, Kima, Prop Joe, Bubs, Randy, Prez, Carcetti, Namond, McNulty, Marlowe, and that's just this season.
I don't know what else to say about this show, expect that I read that David Simon wants to do a 6th season about the effect of Hispanics on Baltimore but he doesn't think he can do it because he doesn't know Spanish or have any Hispanic writers.
If you know Hispanic writers or Spanish, please get at David Simon and keep this shit on the air.
The most specific example is from 2003 when two undercover officers were murdered execution style by Ronell Wilson, who shot both of them in the back of the head as they waited in their car to complete an arms purchase.
If you watch The Wire, then you know the situation was damn near the same as what happened to my baby Kima in Season 1. The only difference is that the fake Negroes in The Wire didn't write a rap song about it afterwards.
From the article,
“In that rap song,” said Colleen Kavanagh, a federal prosecutor, “the defendant identifies himself by his nickname, ‘Rated R,’ and brags about shooting his victim in the back of the head.”
You just murdered two cops, the police are gunning for your ass, you're probably going to get caught and you decide to document your murder on pen and paper. Brilliant. I swear to anything that the IQ of black people has lowered since the inception of rap music. But the real reason rap has denigrated to the point it's at is because these young cats come into the game thinking that the formula for gullyness is something like this:
# of stabbings X # of guns busted ________________________ = Gully Quotient
Number of Times Shot At
You can tell from the now famous Young Jeezy interview that he thinks his coke-selling is the key to what makes him an authentic rapper.
Despite all the hilarity, the funniest shit to come from this is the account of the white ATF agent reading the rap lyrics,
Whatever their reliability as documentation, the lyrics were clearly not intended to be presented in the style they were in court. In a flat voice, Special Agent Thomas P. Kelly of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives read them to the jury, wincing slightly at the curse words and racial epithets.
When the agent was done, a defense lawyer, Kelly J. Sharkey, assured him that the cross-examination would be relatively easy.
“I’m not going to ask you to read the raps again,” she said. Special Agent Kelly’s face was not the only one to register relief.
Nothing like awkward white people trying to read rap lyrics.
Ronell Wilson, for being a dumb bastard, you are the Snitch of the Week. Maybe some MF Doom can help shed some light on your situation.
So it's that time of year, not when Jesus was born or Jewish people light candles but when the Internet explodes with Top Ten Lists and everyone makes it clear how shitty everyone's taste in everything is.
I need one more weekend to re-listen to everything before I post my list so in the meantime I thought I would put up my revised list of the Top Ten Albums of 2005.
It's funny how some albums just don't end up being as good as you wanted them to be when you put them on your list. And how the albums you tried to hate on ended up being better than you realized.
I haven't seen anyone really revise their Top Ten List nearly a year later, mainly because the musical attention span in this day and age lasts about 2 songs and no one wants to admit they're wrong.
I can.
I took off Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine" because only a few songs kept my attention, Electrocute because it got annoying, "Run the Road" for the same reason and Dangerdoom because it just wasn't as inspired as some other MF Doom efforts.
Rap music still sucked in 2005, even after going back and listening to everything again. The Documentary was underwhelming, Kanye West's "Late Registration" was overrated, Jeezy can't rap, Tha Carter II was trash and the supposed underground gems like Little Brother's "Minstrel Show", AZ's "The Format" and Blackalicious did nothing for me. I feel bad when so little rap makes the list, but it is what it is.
Here we go...
10. Common - Be
Common's Gap commercial confirmed the move that this album started. Common is trying to be the first Lite FM rapper. Despite some generic happy love raps and some beats aimed for the local old folks home, he still managed to squeak out one of the best rap albums in a weak year for rap.
9. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
Yeeaaabwoy. This is what I'm talking about. I feel sorry for these young jazz cats because no one takes the time to get to know what they're about (I'm sure some of them are spitting that fire) because old shit like this keeps getting dug up and all the dope boys go crazy. Or something like that. Thank God for the Library of Congress.
8. Beanie Siegel - The B. Coming
The first and last good thing Dame Dash gave rap music since Jay-Z exposed him has the charlatan he is. Beanie spits with a kind of wisdom, regret and reflection that only comes after doing your 5th prison bid. Maybe when he gets out he'll get locked up again and put out another gem like this.
7. My Morning Jacket - Z
I'm not going to pretend to know a shitload about My Morning Jacket but I will say this, they made the 7th best album of 2005. How do I know? Because I liked 6 albums from 2005 better. After someone asked me why this wasn't in my old list, I listened to it again and they were right. The oddball falsetto of the lead singer, combined with the dabblings in reggae, psych and folk brought this band into my Top Ten.
6. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
People would have loved for this album to flop so they could say cool indie things like, "God, the EP was so much better than the album"
Like they did when TV on the Radio dropped their debut full-length. But they couldn't because Bloc Party followed up the greatness of "Banquet" with an album full of terse post-punk, hook-centric, mainstream-indie rock.
And if the lead singer wasn't black, they might have gotten that Arctic Monkeys love. Oh yea, I went there.
5. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Spoon = Not Famous, Fairly Unknown = Critical praise? I'm trying to figure out the exact number of records a rock record can sell and still get some love form the critics at the end of the year.
Regardless, "Gimme Fiction's" slapdash of Sonic Youth guitar histrionics, strong upbeat melodies and best rock-piano this side of the Walkmen ended up working together. And their concerts are filled with white girls from Michigan that want to smoke weed with you. Take that as you will.
4. The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Go Platinum after years in the underground = Hipster Backlash?
Is that the formula?
Is that why Pitchfork put Camron in the Top 5 and shunned The White Stripes?
Fuck what you heard, this album el fuego and it worked even better live.
3. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
This album came out overseas in 2004 and got its official U.S. release in 2005 so it can fill up two years of lists.
Shit, I'm looking for a way for this to get on my 2006 list.
If you don't experience sheer joy while listening to this album you might have very well spent your childhood running from the Janjaweed or escaping the Rwandan genocide.
If so, I can forgive you.
2. MIA - Arular
I'm against terrorism and annoying hipster fetishism and I still enjoy this album.
Is her voice annoying? At times, but the album remains extremely listenable due to the strong production and she's attracted attention from Timbaland so her next album should be even better.
1. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
The songwriting, the ambition, the incredible instrumentation, it all still works.
Sufjan's 50 state project, however doomed to failure it is, produces the best music of whatever year it's released in.
With song titles like:
2. The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologize For The Inconvenience But You're Gonna Have To Leave Now, Or, 'I Have Fought The Big Knives And Will Continue To Fight...
He walks that fine line of indie pretension but I'm along for the ride until he puts out his NY album with the song:
For Sean Bell, The Poor Negro Who Was Shot Mercilessly By the NYPD and His Wife Who Still Mourns for Him, One Day You Will Get Your Comeuppance or Negroes Will Riot.
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