An Ear For An Era: 2005

I am very well aware that 2005 was a decade ago. That weighed on my mind as I went through this. 2005 was arguably the best year of my adult life personally. I went through a whirlwind and came out on the other side something resembling a grown up.

2005 was the year I...

• Completed my final film for school
• Graduated from said school
• Moved in with my sister
• Got this very computer I'm typing on right now (it's damned ancient)
• I was trying to log on to myspace to see if I posted my year-end list thing there at the time...and now...my computer is too out-of-date for myspace! 
• Using my phone, it appears that the blog entries might not even be available anymore on myspace, just old pictures and top 8s.
• I could now potentially just sort the music by "date added" and be even more granular in when stuff comes on and all that! Weird! I don't think I'm gonna do it, too many complications. But still weird!
• Joined the hipster scene with the kickball and the dancing and the dancing some more
• Met some of my best friends
• Got that full-time gig at the Internet TV station
• Moved into my first studio apartment in Denver
• Met my wife
• Went on our first date
• All that jazz.

I remember in college I kept thinking I was doing it all wrong. I did not party, I did not drink until I was 21, I just went to class and didn't have many friends. Spent a lot of evenings alone. Went to a lot of shows at least. Then senior year I finally started hanging out with the friends I should have been hanging out with the whole time. But really, when people refer to college as "the best  years of [their] life," I just thought I wasn't having the fun I was supposed to be having. But then the summer of 2005, when the freedom just hit me, that was when I had that experience. Out of school, paying very little rent to my sister, working for very little money but it was okay (and having a crazy schedule, 4am-noon), going out multiple times per week, it was a very good year.

Is it time to talk about music now? I am scared of doing this.  I started listening to 2005 a month and a half ago. It took awhile. There was a lot. So I apologize if I'm short-worded on some of this stuff. Some of it was so long ago.

It was a pretty significant year in music. If 2003 was the end of my punk/"emo" dominated days, 2004 was the big dance year, then 2005 was when I went full hipster with the indie rock. But still lots of dancing. Lots of indie dance rock, if you will. So let's start there.

Remember Datarock? They were goofy. But "Computer Camp Love" was fun and quoted Revenge of the Nerds. Witching Hour by Ladytron had the hit "Destroy Everything You Touch." They ended up having a lot of really great songs. I also closely associate Goldfrapp with them. Supernature was one of their bigger hits. Both of those groups had already established themselves over the years before and had mature albums, great craft, and just kind of owned the synthy indie dance stuff in 2005. Fischerspooner held up surprisingly well. Or it was just coasting on my nostalgia. But Odyssey was fully entertaining to listen to all the way through. The Juan Maclean's got a groove for sure. But of course there's the other half of the DFA coin...LCD Soundsystem just blew the whole thing up for me. Their debut self-titled full length was such a blast of fresh beats. I kind of got sick of the inescapable single "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" but upon revisiting it, it makes me want to jump all over the dance floor with all my friends. But the rest of the album is great. "Movement" is a great rock song, and the beat to "Thrills" will get stuck in your feet.


My second favorite album of the year was even less of an album than my #1 (to be seen later in this entry). It was a single! Kind of a double sided single. Two songs available only on this single. And both covers. Okay, enough teasing. !!! put out a cover of The Magnetic Fields' "Take Ecstasy With Me" backed by a cover of Nate Dogg's "Get Up." And it took everything I loved about !!! into two separate but equal directions. I've given both of the songs five stars. The most consistent the band has been (not that consistency over two songs is a great accomplishment). "Take Ecstasy With Me" takes the essence of the Magnetic Fields song and spaces it out and turns it into a real ecstatic experience. Then "Get Up" is a pure party track with a huge build to a huge ecstatic climax.

 

!!! "Get Up"

Metric was a favorite of my wife's. "Monster Hospital" is a pretty undeniably awesome track. I liked the new New Order album Waiting for the Sirens' Call..."Krafty" showed that they still could pack a dance floor.


And just like, indie indie. You know? Indie like indie rock or whatever. One song that persisted in my brain for weeks after hearing it here was this one:

The Decemberists "16 Military Wives"

It's just so damn catchy and beyond that, it demonstrated to me the power of a great protest song that didn't have to be punk rock. It can be catchy pop folk music. I remember we played this video a lot. But this time, listening to it again, it just reminded me of my rage over the Iraq war and it just fired me up. And made me mad about it all over again. That is one powerful song. The rest of the album is quite good but that song in particular wouldn't get out of my head. And now I'm listening to it again so that's sure to happen again. I forgot to put the band's name in here to bold it. The Decemberists. Great group.

When Sufjan Stevens released Illinois, I was concerned with one thing: how could I make money off this thing? See, right before the album came out there were news reports about a last minute change to the cover art, and how for copyright reasons they were trying to recall the cover art that included an image of Superman. There were stories of the version with Superman going for lots of money on eBay. And I went to my favorite local record store and there was the version with Superman! So I bought a few copies and left them unopened. Then I heard the album was good so I opened one copy for myself. Then I found out that the Superman version was really not that rare, just the first pressing. So I had a few extra copies. Luckily, I had a few friends to give them to. The moral of the story? Buy this album (with or without Superman on the cover). Because it is amazing, as many know. It's not some big secret. An album of folk songs accented by lush orchestral arrangements. Some of the saddest songs and some of the most joyous. All beautiful. And since Illinois, every major album he has put out has been nothing short of a masterpiece. This is where it started for me. I'm glad I hatched my hair-brained money making scheme because it ended with me having a copy of this album.

Sufjan Stevens "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead! Ahhh!"

In early 2005, since I was kind of keeping track of when music came out, I reluctantly let Bright Eyes be my first 2005 album. It's always such an honor in my mind, being the one that kicks off the music of that year for me. I'd always been pretty skeptical of Bright Eyes, but I liked Desaparecidos so I figured I'd check out his "electronic" type album Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. You know, anything to kind of mask the whiny voice because I can admit that he is a good lyricist and songwriter, I just couldn't stand that voice. But he has gotten better at that and later in the year I learned from my new girlfriend that his folky album (he put out the same day) I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning was actually a better album and showed a new level of maturity and has a bunch of really good songs on it. Fine, Bright Eyes. You win.

And Okkervil River. Black Sheep Boy was kind of the peak of their slower, folkier period. I would become a huge fan on the next one when it was a bit more rock, but going back to Black Sheep Boy is such a pleasure. Just absolutely brilliant.

A guy in my film class found out I liked The Pixies so he realized I had impeccable taste in music. Once when we were at the hipster bar he was telling me about Spoon, and how I HAD to check out Gimme Fiction because it is just amazingly amazing. I listened to him and got the album. And then couldn't get away from "I Turn My Camera On" at work. But still. I'm glad I got it because he turned me on to who may be the most consistently great band in indie rock.

Another consistently great band in indie rock is Sleater-Kinney. This year (2015) there was all that hype around their new album, their first since 2005. And the hype was justified because it is simply amazing and they didn't lose a beat over those 10 years off. But The Woods, that's...also simply amazing. I think they are one of the truly great guitar based bands of our time. By guitar based I mean really guitar based. They use it as more than just filler or a necessary sound...they really make the guitar mean something and it's just so much fun to hear. I probably could have written that better. But they couldn't have written The Woods better (see what I did there? Lazy, I know).

The album I ended up voting as my #1 of the year was an odd choice. An EP that wasn't particularly groundbreaking but just had two artists combine their visions into one in such a perfect way. I'm talking about Iron & Wine and Calexico and their collaborative EP In The Reins. I'd gone into it as an Iron & Wine fan. They also had the Woman King EP this year which had them incorporating a lot more sounds into the once minimalist folk music. I was familiar with Calexico, but on the strength of this EP I became a big fan, particularly in every album they put out going forward. But what was it about this EP that drew me in so strongly?  Just the perfect compliment of Iron & Wine's lyrics and vocals with the southwestern flavor of Calexico's instrumentation? It's even a subtle thing for the most part. A slide guitar here, some moody atmospheric percussion there. Calexico's not stepping on anyone's toes. Sam Beam has a delicate voice and they compliment it just perfectly.

Calexico and Iron & Wine "Sixteen, Maybe Less"

CocoRosie followed up their great debut with Noah's Ark. The album itself was a small disappointment for me personally. Like my idea of what the band should sound like, how they should evolve, was different from the direction they evolved into. In retrospect it is a solid album, but when I first heard the single "Noah's Ark" before the album came out, I loved it so much and the rest of the album couldn't live up to it. Here is my ideal version of CocoRosie:

CocoRosie "Noah's Ark"

The joy of The New Pornographers on Twin Cinema, it doesn't get much better than that. Every time I hear the coda to "The Bleeding Heart Show" I can't help but bang on my steering wheel/leg/whatever's available as hard as I can and sing at the top of my lungs. So damned catchy! The dictionary definition of power pop, if you ask me. Underline the word power. And the word pop. Twice. Put a few exclamation marks at the end of it too, why not.

The White Stripes. I finally got into them with Get Behind Me Satan. I listened to that album a lot. I think at the time I didn't acquire a ton of music so what I got I listened to a lot. In the car on my daily commute. And my nightly commute back into Denver to party. You know. Anyway, I remember this album was on in my car a lot. I really liked "My Doorbell" and the video with Conan. Was that for "The Denial Twist?" I think so. Catchy songs. And lots of more low tempo songs. I liked the kiss-off vibe of "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)."

Other stuff happened too! Like hip hop!

Blackalicious released their follow-up to the brilliant The Blazing Arrow and did everything one could hope for.  Full of bangers, full of catchiness, The Craft was kind of a victory lap but in a very acceptable way. Not the cohesive, singular statement but just an expression of...the craft. Good songs. Great songs even. Fun songs. Fun Fact: this was the first album I ever ripped to this computer.

Beauty & The Beat by Edan was quite brilliant, very good recommendation (but I do need to listen to it more). 

Is this where I put Gorillaz? When Demon Days came out I felt bad for Dan the Automator but I don't know what politics or personal relationships were involved when Damon Albarn went to Danger Mouse to produce this one. I think at this point Danger Mouse was just known for The Grey Album. So Demon Days, the 2005 Gorillaz album, started his hot streak of being on top of the crossover pop world. "Feel Good Inc" and "Dare" were such hot tracks and more or less defined the year in pop music. I ended up liking it more for the darker songs (the vast majority of the album).



I guess it makes sense to use this to transition to Danger Doom. The other big Danger Mouse production of the year. I was already a fan of the Adult Swim stuff so it was just a fun, silly album to listen to that had Brak rapping on it. And Meatwad, he was pretty good. But it was also really my introduction to MF DOOM and turned out to be more than just a novelty. And Talib Kweli was on that track which was just so great and maybe that was my introduction to Talib Kweli. And Ghostface. Really it introduced me to a whole other side of hip hop.


Hey, who's this Kanye West guy? Late Registration is such a great piece, even if I got oh so sick of "Gold Digger" and Jamie Foxx doing his Ray Charles impersonation (though he was great in the movie). We should keep an eye on this dude though, I think he's going to say and do some interesting things in the public eye and if we don't pay attention he might just disappear. Seriously though, Late Registration was the last Kanye album I was late to, so it's still one I need to pay more attention to, but all of the singles are so great and there's not really a weak track on the thing.


Also Notable...

• Sharon Jones! I didn't know who she was until '07 but Natually is a good collection of throwback soul goodness.
• Similarly, Bettye LaVette!
• Common! I'd heard about him because in some American music class some classmates did a project about him and praised him for being all progressive and whatnot. So then Be came out. And it's got stellar Kanye production and that "Testify" song. We played that one a lot at the ol' station.
• Coldplay sucks! So for some reason Amazon once thought it'd be fun to charge like a buck each for their albums so I went for it. Mostly so I could have the relics when I was doing this project, this is what 2005 sounded like to the mainstream or whatever. But all I could think while this played was, why did I pay money, as little as it was, for Coldplay music? Why is this taking up space on my hard drive(s) and why is it taking up my time when I could be listening to something else? I think I'm gonna get rid of it...
• When The Buzzcocks were at the studio a Wolfmother song played and the guys liked it and asked about it. So ManiaTV!, amongst our other accomplishments, introduced Wolfmother to The Buzzcocks! Umm anyway, Wolfmother is pretty neat sounding. A better mainstreamish rock band of 2005 than stupid Coldplay.
• Jens Lekman gave away free downloads of a bunch of tour EPs and let me tell you...they have some of his catchiest material. Check out "Run Away With Me."
• Beck too, Guero might be my favorite Beck album. Certainly among the most fun he's put out.
• I liked Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta, but it was a bit tough and too proggy and it turned out to be the last Mars Volta album I actually bought.
• TV On The Radio put out a free song called "Dry Drunk Emperor" and I loved it and made everyone at work listen to it a lot.
• Animal Collective, they were on to something with Feels.
• Antony & The Johnsons, how great were they??
• Yeah Yeah of Montreal, The Sunlandic Twins. Their last album before I found out about them! "The Party's Crashing Us" is great fun though.
• Old favorites Polysics moved from Asian Man Records to Myspace Records (???) and reached a strange level of popularity and it was weird. But it resulted in them playing a show in Denver so I got to see them live, so I am super appreciative that it worked out that way. Now Is The Time isn't quite as great as Neu, but it's still a lot of fun and resulted in opportunities to introduce them to more people.
• No more Black Eyes but Hand Fed Babies, one of many offshoots, were pretty great.
• Remember that "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" song? That was ridiculous.
• Bruce Lee Band EP! Acceptable ska. But I do like their next one (just came out recently!) better.
• Kaiser Chiefs were another good "Target" band that I checked out because they were cheap at Target. Lame I know. But like Franz Ferdinand, I ended up liking it way more than I'd ever have expected.
• Speaking of Franz Ferdinand, that second album was also quite good!
• Thunderbirds Are Now! Turned out to be Jess' friends but I discovered them when they opened up for Enon. That Justamustache album is audio crack.
• Junior Senior put out a second album too! It's entertaining too!
• Bang Bang Rock & Roll by Art Brut was one of the most fun releases of the fun year, and whenever "My Little Brother" came on at Lipgloss or other such dance nights I would go so crazy. I could see myself as the little brother who just discovered rock & roll.
• When M.I.A. came out with Arular (and the infectious "Galang") I didn't know what to think. I didn't particularly care for it. But after finally "getting it" with the follow-up album, I came back to Arular and realized it was quite amazing. 
• I was just looking through the stuff from a future year and discovered that Robyn's self-titled album was actually 2005. So I then listened that. "Konichiwa Bitches" is still a huge blast to listen to. Of course, she's more known for the great progressive-ish pop of her recent Body Talk series, but the level of sass hits some dangerous levels here in '05. Irresistible.
  

EDIT: I can do this now!
2005 Mix From 2005:
It Was 2005
1. LCD Soundsystem "Daft Punk is Playing at My House"
2. Thunderbirds Are Now! "Eat This City"
3. Franz Ferdinand "Do You Want To"
4. The New Pornographers "The Jessica Numbers"
5. The Kaiser Chiefs "What Did I Ever Give You"
6. Bright Eyes "Hit the Switch"
7. CocoRosie "Noah's Ark"
8. !!! "Take Ecstasy With Me"
9. Gorillaz "O Green World"
10. Danger Doom feat. Ghostface "The Mask"
11. Blackalicious feat. Lateef & Pigeon John "Side to Side"
12. Fischerspooner "Never Win"
13. Out Hud "The Song So Good They Named It Thrice"
14. New Order "Krafty"
15. The White Stripes "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)"
16. Sufjan Stevens "Casimir Pulaski Day"
17. Calexico and Iron & Wine "Dead Man's Will"

Next Time:
Amy Winehouse's big breakout, those Arctic Monkeys, remember Bat for Lashes? And one of my favorite Belle & Sebastian albums! Beth Orton's angelic voice made me swoon. Big Bob Dylan combeback. Cursive come on back, I finally get really into The Decemberists, the crazy Gnarls Barkley, Hank III's finest moment (perhaps), The Hold Steady, Islands, Dilla's Donuts, SexyBack, The Knife, the last Lawrence Arms album for awhile, remember Lily Allen? Food & Liquor was good! Nas was hip hop's coroner, Neko Case's brilliant Fox Confessor album, Pipettes, Game Theory (!), Teddybears, Yo La Tengo is not afraid of you, and MUCH more. These are getting really long you guys.