Best albums of 2005

In which Sufjan Stevens encapsulates yet another State of the Union within a compact disc. The album’s sheer volume of stories, history, relationships and places overwhelms at first but then begins to open up, rewarding repeated listens. The inventiveness and passion that infuse the music are rare commodities in today’s music world and Illinois is an album to be thankful for.

It’s hard to believe this album came out only this year – it’s already such a part of the musical firmament. It’s also less an album than the most cohesive singles collection ever. Bloc Party knew they had only one shot to justify the hype and they don’t waste a single track. Kele Okereke’s stream of consciousness lyrics and angst-ridden squawk lifts the band’s music upwards, while Matt Tong’s drumming propels you to exactly where the band wants to take you. And it’s not such a bad place to be.

Not even Conor Oberst’s staunchest fans could have predicted this opus. Oberst’s stories finally take the leap from teenage self-absorption to a universality that they’ve always hinted at. Mike Mogis’ dramatic countrified arrangements and the best backing vocalist ever in the form of Emmylou Harris make this the album that Gram Parsons might have made in the shadow of Bush’s America.

These Windy City natives take the spirit of experimentalist neighbours such as Tortoise and apply it to their vaguely “metal” music. The riffs feel like continents shifting – somehow setting the course of the future of instrumental music. Pelican have truly mastered dynamics on this record. The swells and fades have an effect you expect from illicit substances more than from rock music.

One half of techno-pranksters Super_Collider, skinny white boy Jamie Lidell was never going to be next Curtis Mayfield. Or so we thought a few months ago. His slightly skewed take on 40 years of soul music (Otis Redding to R Kelly via Prince) leaves you gasping at his audacity and at the amazing agility of his voice. This is an album you try to push to all your music-loving friends.

Mark Mitchell is a mid-20s Australian music geek, like myself. Unlike me, he has recorded a great album of atmospheric lap-top indie pop (2003’s Come Here When You Sleepwalk) and then followed it up with a shift almost as dramatic as Dan Snaith’s transformation into neo-hippy on the second Manitoba LP. One Way It’s Every Way has more ideas and great musical moments than most bands’ careers.

Definitely the most divisive album of 2005. A five part song cycle split over 12 tracks, with lyrics that Yes dismissed as too pretentious, was never going to be a source of consensus, but it’s the bravest experiment I’ve heard this year – making up for most of its faults. I think I now know what Santana and Led Zeppelin let loose in the playground without their Ritalin sounds like.

The Tortoise comparisons are easy, but there’s something idiosyncratic about this Sydney combo’s electro bossanova. Creative use of turntables, a rock solid rhythm section and a track named after my favourite blonde movie starlet – I couldn’t ask for more.

MMJ have trimmed the fat that weighed down their last three albums and released a new beast – a little bit thinner and a hell of a lot meaner. Jim James’ voice still can sound like an angel singing in a grain silo, but he pulls out a John Fogerty yowl now and then to propel the rockier numbers. Each song sounds like the classic rock they’ve always drawn comparisons to (Crazy Horse, Tom Petty, Creedence, Skynyrd) but there’s a special MMJ flair for spinning things off centre and careening into a corner of the bayou you’ve never seen before.

Something of a late inclusion for me given how recently I discovered this gem. It's a relatively pop album for Eric Bachmann this time around, with some vaguely Spanish musical and lyrical flourishes that give the album a slightly surprising edge. But it’s ultimately Lara Meyerratken's backing vocals (much as for Emmylou Harris' work on the Bright Eyes album this year) that push these simple tunes into another world of meaning and symbolism, as they mesh with Eric’s lead lines, cohering into a conversation or even a whole relationship.
Categories: Indie