I don't know about other music writers, but I always feel a vague sort of confused pressure when it comes time to do the annual Top 10. Like, do I include a funk record that I may not actually have liked quite as much as I liked a punk record, in the name of being as well-rounded as possible? Is all-inclusiveness more important than how often a certain album found its way back into my personal regular rotation, and for how long? Do comparatively objective criteria such as originality, instrumental prowess and eclecticism carry more weight than the pleasure I received from listening? Should popular opinion and hype come into play?
Fuck it.
I heard a buttload of records of all kinds of styles this year. The one I hated most was Big & Rich's Coming to Your Town. (The abhorrent compilation of unknown rappers covering Metallica ran a close second.) Here are the 10 — well, 15, really — I liked the best.
1. The National: Alligator (Beggars Group). I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think the only five-star review I handed out this year went to this amazing piece of work. Brooklyn rock quintet The National has been great, original and cinematic for four albums now, but Alligator takes the group's boozy, introspective, barely twanging sound to sophisticated new highs and lows — never have the guitar lines been more inventive, the rhythms more evocative, the lyrics more expressive. Call it pretentious or depressing or self-absorbed, but Alligator never once fails to dress up or strip down its free-associative narratives with astoundingly effective soundscapes.
2. Marah: If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry (Yep Roc). This Philly group takes inspiration from the gritty real-life poignancy of the likes of Springsteen — who likes the band enough to have provided background vocals on its last album — and imbues them with old-school roots and new-school intoxicated cool. The casually literate drunk in the semi-y'allternative gang, Marah's funny one-liners and shambling grooves never obscure its formidable array of instrumental and songwriting talent. There's not a bad song here, or even one that drops down to halfway decent.
3. Riddle of Steel: Got This Feeling (Ascetic). When you grow up on hard rock, you never completely outgrow it — you just get smarter, while hard rock rarely ever does. Many thanks to St. Louis, Mo.'s Riddle of Steel, then, for making a hard rock record smart enough to look to other clever acts like The Police and Queens of The Stone Age, then use what it found to help create something all its own. As catchy as it is gnarly and musically jaw-dropping, Got This Feeling just plain never gets old.
4. C-Rayz Walz: Year of the Beast (Definitive Jux). Walz's background as a freestyle and battle rapper gives him a lopsided, freewheeling flow that's like no other. Plus, like most every Def Jux product, this Beast is packed with social commentary, top-notch production and myriad kick-ass guest spots from similarly talented associates.
5. Clem Snide: The End of Love (SpinART). Like Marah, New Jersey pop/rock/roots act Clem Snide (a band, not a dude) proves that smarts, humor and musical ambition can be as important to what might nominally be called alt-country as heartbreak, hard consonant sounds and the old G/C/E-minor progression. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Clem Snide has all that other shit, at times, too…
6. Common: Be (Geffen). For his sixth release, celebrated, underexposed Chicago mainstay Common left behind the sprawling experimentation of Electric Circus — and tapped friend Kanye West for some production — to create his most uniformly soulful effort yet. At once contemporary and timeless, Be grooves like a perfect, sunny Sunday strut around your favorite urban neighborhood. Nothing can go wrong, and nothing does.
7. The White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan (V2/Third Man). Jack and Meg White may have been left behind by the mainstream after their first single "Blue Orchid" faded, but I honestly believe this warm, self-indulgent mess of rudimentary piano, Zeppelin-isms, Appalachian acoustica and broken blues will age better than anything the duo has done to date.
8. Duchess: Duchess (Blackball Records). Singer-songwriter Christy Schnabel (formerly of Ugly Beauty) blends styles both old and new to produce a beautiful, eclectic record that alternates between lean, spunky post-rock and a sparse, haunting Americana feel.
9. Every Time I Die: Gutter Phenomenon (Ferret Music). For all its supposed heaviness and postured dis-enfranchisement, screamo typically isn't very raw, or exciting, or dangerous. But this is; Buffalo metalcore combo Every Time I Die's fourth release is as primal as it is technical, a thrilling post-emo blast that's more coherent and grounded in traditional rock rebellion than the likes of Blood Brothers, but no less likely to leave assorted cuts and bruises.
10. LOW: The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop). Twelve years into a critically hailed career, Low introduced a new dynamic this year by, um, getting dynamic. The resulting album is arguably their masterpiece, a sweeping, moody collection that showcases a group of musicians known for a particularly subdued milieu redefining itself with ease and stellar success.
Honorable mentions: Of course, there are always a few more deserving releases I wish I could've fit in. Here they are:
Spoon: Gimme Fiction (Merge)
Aimee Mann: The Forgotten Arm (Superego)
Roky Erickson: I Have Always Been Here Before: The Roky Erickson Anthology (Shout Factory)
The Lawrence Arms: Cocktails & Dreams (Asian Man)
The New Pornographers: Twin Cinema (Matador)
See you next year.
This article appears in Dec 28, 2005 – Jan 3, 2006.