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

The high-five awards of 2015

There was a lot of music this year that really spoke to me, but were undeniably niche.  Instead of hamfisted justifications for their presence in my top ten, I've decided to create an "honorable mentions" list of 2015.

Here are the top five things that deserve a high five, a gold star, a hug, the game ball, or maybe one of those scratch n sniff fruit stickers...

The fearless dedication to 90's alt-rock in Bully's debut, Feels Like.

It's only one note, but a loud and clear one.  I can't wait to see where they go next.  Alicia Bognanno has the range, and her band has enough hooks to do some really creative things...

Check out:  This appropriately 90's video for "Trying"

L'Orange bringing back gimmicky hip-hop in a big way.


I wanted to write about both of these L'Orange produced albums this year, but writing about hip-hop has always intimidated me. I'm a huge fan of Dan The Automator, and all the themed albums he produced in the 90s/00s, such as Deltron 3030, and Lovage.  Time?  Astonishing! and The Night Took Us In Like Family definitely follow in that same vein.  The only thing that kept these from breaking into my top ten was the way the samples were clumsily inserted into the mix without any real grace and flow.  I love me some songs about time travel and 1920s gangsters, but not enough to overlook how jarring the experiences were from song to song.

Check out:  "The Green Ray"







2015's most charming album: Noun's Throw Your Body On The Gears And Stop The Machine With Your Blood


There is enough character in this album to cast in a film.  Baked in teen goth imagery and lore.  The delivery is just straight enough for the music to stand on its own merits, but the entire package is adorable.

Check out: "Pain"


The "best sounding" album of 2015: Sleater Kinney's comeback release, No Cities To Love


The guitars on this album sound like if lightsabers were power-tools.  No Cities To Love was only two bad song choruses away from my top ten.

Check out: "Fangless"



the telephones bow out on their own terms with Bye Bye Hello

It requires a bit of homework, and a high tolerance of... whatever the telephones do, to appreciate it; but this dumb ass band generated more sentiment than anything else I've heard all year.  The nostalgia soaked ballads are just as fun as they are heavy.  I'm gonna miss these dorks.

Check out: ... these 75 seconds of "Something Good" because that's all YouTube in NA has.  Good grief, Japanese music industry, find your chill.

(art for art's sake) - my favorite cover art of 2015

(it begins again) - My favorite songs of 2015

My favorite songs from 2015 from roomrunner on 8tracks Radio.

"when you leave me at home alone" (Noun - Throw Your Body on The Gears And Stop The Machine With Your Blood)

Noun
Throw Your Body on The Gears And Stop The Machine With Your Blood

why you'll love it: fun and kitschy goth, adorably grim

why you'll hate it: cheap production, tame compared to Screaming Females

I haven't played a new video game all year.  The closest I've come has been The Binding of Isaac's DLC content: Afterbirth.  It's a retro-Zelda inspired dungeon crawl that's drenched in cartoony gore and occult imagery.  The best description of Noun's sophomore album, Throw Your Body on The Gears And Stop The Machine With Your Blood, is that it's the perfect companion to a game like The Binding of Isaac.  It's the exact same tone, very similar music, and even the album cover looks like it could be a boss fight.

For those not into indie-roguelikes, Noun would be more commonly known as a side project by Marissa Paternoster (of Screaming Females). The 2010 debut came and went, but all of the ridiculous goth influence of Throw Your Body... gives Noun some real character.  It's like a high-schooler's notebook in audio form.

Don't expect the same level of power and grit a traditional Screaming Females album has.  Right from the first few seconds of this album, you know you're getting a DIY effort.  The cheap drum machine effect would come off as irritating in most cases, but here it just adds to the kitsch.  "Pain" and "Tidal Wave" sound more like the Doom soundtracks than they do any Screaming Females songs.  There are a few outstanding guitar licks, but even those feel nerfed by the mix.

Musically, there is nothing outstanding about Throw Your Body....  Paternoser's dark imagery takes up all of the spotlight, and she does a fantastic job of walking that thin line between fun and corny.  Even some of my favorite bands that specify in horror, like The Paper Chase, sometimes threw out a cheeseball line about skeletons.  I can't think of a single moment of Noun's 36 minutes of theatric sorrow that had me roll my eyes.  This album is soaking wet with misery, but the delivery is dry as a bone.

As 2015 comes to a close, I'm seeing plenty of albums that aren't exactly a total package, but cater so well to its niche that I just want to give them a big hug.   Throw Your Body on The Gears And Stop The Machine With Your Blood is certainly one of those, as much as it would probably resent the hug.