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Greg Kot's 20 Albums I most enjoyed in 2005
Greg's Midyear List
The 20 albums I most enjoyed in 2005:
1. Kanye West, “Late Registration” (Roc-A-Fella): The South Side native’s second album aims even higher than his acclaimed 2004 debut, “The College Dropout.” With coproducer Jon Brion, West expands hip-hop boundaries into a symphonic realm while demonstrating a knack for personalizing the political; in the process, he’s made one of the decade’s defining pop albums.
2. LCD Soundsystem, “LCD Soundsystem” (DFA/Capital): Indie-rocker-turned-deejay James Murphy finds the sweet spot between disco and punk. He pays homage to the heyday of the anything-goes No Wave and dance scenes in New York, circa 1980, but he’s not particularly reverent about it. This bass-bombing, hip-shaking, cowbell-clanging music mixes sonic bite with self-deprecating fun, and is topped off by a bonus disc of Murphy’s essential club hits.
3. Sleater-Kinney, “The Woods” (Sub Pop): After a decade as one of indie-rock’s finest bands, this Portland trio improbably ups the ante with their hardest rocking album yet. With the Iraqi war and the 2004 election as a backdrop, Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss sound louder and larger than life.
4. Common, “Be” (G.O.O.D./Geffen): With West as his producer, South Side native Lonnie Rashid Lynn creates a classic hip-hop album built on the toughest beats of his career and soul-searching rhymes. This is a cinematic urban drama about everyday life in a blue-collar community, Common’s answer to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
5. The New Pornographers, “Twin Cinema” (Matador): On its third album, this Vancouver band delivers more perfect pop songs, but with a darker twist. The multi-part songs play out like mini-epics, but the complexity is never apparent because the melodies always reign.
6. Out Hud, “Let Us Never Speak of it Again” (Kranky): A dash of Human League-style female vocals gives the house beats and scratchy funk guitars a pop insistence, but it’s the daring, ghost-in-the-machine production that makes this a dancefloor filler that also works on headphones.
7. Amadou & Mariam, “Dimanche A Bamako” (Nonesuch): Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia, a blind married couple based in Mali, have been making brilliant records for decades, and this is their most accessible yet. The playfully irreverent, continent-spanning production of Franco-Iberian pop star Manu Chao brilliantly complements the couple’s timeless traditionalism.
8. Low, “The Great Destroyer” (Sub Pop): The slowest, quietest band on Earth discovers its distortion pedals. The shot of unexpected aggression is strangely uplifting, even as the trio’s ghostly harmonies and chilling melodies remain.
9. M.I.A., “Arular” (XL/Interscope): Sri Lankan refugee Maya Arulpragasam stirs Jamaican dancehall reggae, Asian bhangra beats, Brazilian funk, U.K. hip-hop grime and nursery rhymes into subversively political dance-pop.
10. Tom Brosseau, “What I Mean to Say is Goodbye” (Loveless): The voice is unmistakably in its own class -- a high, plaintive, almost feminine cry – and the beautifully sparse songs sound like they could’ve fit on Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music.”
11. Danger Doom, “The Mouse and the Mask” (Epitaph): This collaboration between two of the more inventive voices in the hip-hop underground, rapper MF Doom and DJ Danger Mouse, dives into a surreal cartoon world. It manages to sound trippy, playful and spooky all at once.
12. Otis Taylor, “Below the Fold” (Telarc): This Chicago-born, Colorado-based songwriter is a late-blooming visionary. He may be the world’s foremost psychedelic banjo-playing blues man, and his trance-inducing groove-based songs underpin lyrics that leave welts on the subconscious.
13. Bettye LaVette, “I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise” (Anti): LaVette’s singular voice re-emerges on this eerie, atmospheric gem of adult loss and longing. The 59-year-old soul singer supreme inhabits contemporary songs by female songwriters such as Lucinda Williams, Sinead O’Connor and Fiona Apple, and makes them her own.
14. Sons and Daughters, “The Repulsion Box” (Domino): Over pounding drums and boots, and ferociously terse guitars, Scott Paterson and Adele Bethel turn harmonizing into a thrilling cat fight that evokes X’s Exene Cervenka and John Doe.
15. Keren Ann, “Nolita” (Metro Blue): The daughter of a Javanese-Dutch mother and a Russian-Israeli mother, the Paris-based Keren Ann Zeidel filters the uneasy undercurrents of New York into her gorgeous folk-pop melodies.
16. John Legend, “Get Lifted” (G.O.O.D./Columbia): Spicing the soaring melodies of old-school soul with hip-hop attitude and beats, John “Legend” Stephens doesn’t offer epic bedroom fantasies but moving microcosms of everyday life.
17. High on Fire, “Blessed Black Wings” (Relapse): Power trios don’t come any nastier, but previous albums sacrificed punch for a heavy, bass-dominated mulch. Thanks to the fist-on-face engineering of Steve Albini, “Blessed” burns white-hot.
18. The Perceptionists, “Black Dialogue” (Definitive Jux): The high-minded lyricism of master MC’s Mr. Lif and Akrobatik conspires to create not only pointed political commentary, but some surprising detours into emotional vulnerability and surreal humor.
19. Antony and the Johnsons, “I Am a Bird Now” (Secretly Canadian): Antony Hegarty’s voice is a stunning instrument that echoes the adrogynous warble of Little Jimmy Scott. The piano-driven chamber pop songs are lovely creations that conceal an ocean of heartache.
20. Kiran Ahluwalia, “Kiran Ahluwalia” (Triloka/Artemis): The native of India sings in a centuries-old style of romantic song known as ghazal, modernized into rapturous pop confections.
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What Greg said Midyear 2005:
1. Common, "Be" (GOOD/Geffen)
2. Sleater-Kinney, "The Woods" (Sub Pop)
3. The Perceptionists, "Black Dialogue" (Definitive Jux)
4. LCD Soundsystem, "LCD Soundsystem" (DFA/Capitol)
5. Tom Brosseau, "What I Mean to Say is Goodbye" (Loveless)
6. V.A., "Love's a Real Thing: The Funky, Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa" (Luaka Bop)
7. The Quarter After, "The Quarter After" (Bird Song)
8. MIA, "Arular" (XL)
9. Rachid Taha, "Tekitoi" (Wrass)
10. John Legend, "Get Lifted" (GOOD/Sony)
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