Opening up the 2005 time capsule

Looking back at 2005, it was a banner year for a bunch of reasons.  I'll get to most of them in a moment.  I specifically remember 2005 as the year I started really caring about discussing music.  I don't think I was finding something to write about on a weekly basis quite yet, but certainly remember making a top ten that year.    Usually, I've done these "ten years ago" lists from the perspective of "if I knew what I know today, this is what my top ten would have been".  This is the first year I have something pretty solid to compare to.

I remember my old top 10 having Gorillaz, Beck, Reel Big Fish, and Hot Hot Heat.  Old habits must die hard, because most of those stayed.  Beck's Guero felt really special at the time because it was like a long overdue sequel to Odelay, but The Information blew that out of the water a few years later.  I cut the Killer 7 soundtrack, Spoon's Gimmie Fiction, Thunder Lightning Strike (The Go! Team), The Runners Four (Deerhoof), Polysics' first deep dive into pop music in Now is The Time!, even the god damn debut LCD Soundsystem album!  2005 was packed, and the running theme in what stayed is "lightning in a bottle".  Almost every album has this "never again" historical stigma to it.  Here's why...

NUMBER TEN

GIANT DRAG
HEARTS & UNICORNS


Listen to: "Slayer"


A just culture would have seen Hearts & Unicorns as the beginning of an amazing career for songwriter, Annie Hardy.  To this day, I'm still not sure how much of her persona is a shoot or work.  Actually... I'm... gonna check if she's still alive...

ok phew.  Alive, and same as ever.  Anyways, this album rocks.

NUMBER NINE

REEL BIG FISH

WE'RE NOT HAPPY TIL' YOU'RE NOT HAPPY

Listen to : "The Joke's on Me"

Yeah, this is happening.  For the last time ever (most likely), I'm saying it...  Reel Big Fish were most known for being a silly ska band that stumbled into a record deal because of the three months in 1997 when ska was big.  What keeps them on my iPod today is Aaron Barrett's unrelenting cynicism.  His self deprecation set to the tone of "happy-go-lucky power pop" reaches an apex on their final major label release.  After this album, the band deteriorated, as they tried to become something they kind of never were meant to be; a silly ska band.  As far as I'm concerned this is their swan song.

NUMBER EIGHT

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI
IN CASE WE DIE

Listen to: "Frenchy, I'm Faking"



In 2005, indie twee-pop hadn't quite reached its tipping point yet, and nobody looked more golden than Architecture in Helsinki.  In Case We Die was their Rushmore.  It was their cute, colorful, 5th grade art class charm, with a big budget.  Just like the previous two albums on this list, we never saw another one of these albums.  AiH went on to greener pastures... for one album.  Let's never mention them again.

NUMBER SEVEN

BLOC PARTY

SILENT ALARM

Listen  to: "Banquet"

Never again.  Bloc Party started a revolution.  A resurgence of post-punk in the UK charts.  A lot of bands followed suit.  They didn't.  Three albums followed, in three different genres.  As neat as it is for a band to have a career like that, Bloc Party never crawled out from under the shadow of Silent Alarm.  It's that good.  Still that good.

NUMBER SIX

HOT HOT HEAT

ELEVATOR

Listen to: "Pickin' it up"

How this album didn't have a dozen radio hits is a question for the ages.  This is the most fun and confident with pop music Hot Hot Heat ever got.  This is one of the few bands on this list that fumbled what they had going.  The album after this one was in the same vein, but a total dud; which led to the band falling off the face of the Earth for a few years, and returning with a new sound.

NUMBER FIVE

HORSE THE BAND

THE MECHANICAL HAND

Listen to: "Octopus on Fire"

Of all the parallel universes from this top ten, I'd most like to visit the one where Horse The Band runs with all the themes that made The Mechanical Hand great.  The decision to turn away from overt humor and video game references in their already ridiculous moog-assisted grind-core style makes sense.  You don't want to come off as shallow.  As a result, nothing Horse The Band went on to do had as much impact as The Mechanical Hand.  It's probably the most fun I've ever had with grunty vocals and chugga guitars.

NUMBER FOUR

METRIC

LIVE IT OUT

Listen to: "Handshakes"

Wow, what ever happened to Metric?  They put out an album in 2015, and I didn't even give it a shot. That's how low their stock has fallen since Live it Out, which still resonates today.  The take on 80's aesthetic is still hip.  Not ironic, or cheesy.  Seriously hip!  Emily Haines' social critiques and feminist anthems still have an edge to them.  No songs have lost their luster.  Somehow, nothing they've done since has had enough energy to power a wristwatch.  I ask again... what happened?

NUMBER THREE

SLEATER -KINNEY

THE WOODS

Listen to: "What's Mine is Yours"

Well... at least I can stop saying "man, what went wrong with this band?", because Sleater-Kinney came back in 2015 with a pretty good record.  It doesn't match up to the kind of power The Woods throws, but to be fair, neither does demonic possession.

NUMBER TWO

TEAM SLEEP

Listen to: "11-11"

Every 8 months or so I google Team Sleep, hoping for something new.  There have been vauge promises that never come true, so I might as well just accept the next closest thing.  What may have been Team Sleep songs probably morphed into †††, or some of Deftones' more experimental material.  Nothing quite hit that special balance between dream-pop, trip-hop, hardcore, chill-wave, witch-house, beauty-core, root-down, post-noir, chamber-blues, future-dub, past-step, present-drift -okay I'll stop.  

NUMBER ONE

GORILLAZ

DEMON DAYS

Listen to: the whole damn thing

Still the best 2005