Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 2005 poll

this one is going to be tough for me.

Demon Days. Piece of piss.

I would have liked to have voted for Supernature, or Witching Hour, or Road To Rouen, or Tender Buttons, but alas.

aerial no contest

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Possibly my fave album of the decade.

The Mysterious Production of Eggs is my favorite from 2005.

Feels

voted Alligator, still their best album by a lot

aerial easy but i thought about i am a bird now for a sec

Thoughts on this year. . .

1 90 Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
At first, I liked this album. Thought it was inspired and nice. Lots of time passed and I didn't listen to it once. Tried to get into again and was struck at how boring a melodically mediocre it was. Dull.

2 249 Antony and The Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
Another overhyped, melodically-challenged yawn of an album.

3 281 M.I.A. - Arular
Godawful racket.

4 356 Kanye West - Late Registration
More self-referential, self-congratulatory trash. He really is bad.

5 357 LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
I'd heard people absolutely rave about this album, so perhaps it was set up for failure. In any case, what I heard was totally devoid of any originality whatsoever and that completely ruined it for me. Just really derivative, uninspired music.

6 486 Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Another one that was really hyped and was pretty uninteresting upon hearing it. All the bands that sounded like this were coming out at the time and it made me wonder if anyone had ever heard a Public Image, Ltd. album.

7 491 Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
I have no idea what this guy did to get popular like he did, but it certainly wasn't because of catchy tunes, 'cause man, this album was boring.

9 612 My Morning Jacket - Z
The title perfectly sums up my reaction to this album.

10 673 Gorillaz - Demon Days
Completely and utterly plastic music.

11 674 Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
I never got into Sleater-Kinney beyond this album, but I've always liked this one. Heard it a lot working at Tower Records at the time. Should revisit.

12 834 Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
It's that fucking mustache indie bullshit. Tired herky-jerky rhythms and no sense of vocal melody whatsoever. It also seemed like they knew, at most, maybe six chords and just played away at them in sometimes varying order throughout the songs.

14 885 Sigur Rós - Takk...
I remember thinking it was a letdown at the time. But how could they possibly follow up ( )? I go back to it now and I like the way it's sequenced a lot. It's just a more streamlined effort. I still regard it as the last record of the band's classic era. Great.

17 1195 Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
Another one that I was disappointed with at the time, but that I now love unconditionally. Probably one of my most personally anticipated albums ever. Very rewarding music.

18 1198 The Decemberists - Picaresque
More bland indie plop. This time with even less of a clue about creating vocal melodies.

20 1322 Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Another one I was initially disappointed with, but that has become a personal favorite. Probably the band's most melodically subtle album, but that just means it's an even more rewarding listen all these years later.

21 1350 The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
If you thought this band was uninspired before, just listen to this unimaginative unmemorable crap.

23 1679 Kate Bush - Aerial
Super high concept album and probably her best work since Hounds of Love. I've loved it since it first came out, though I don't really think I fully understood it at the time. A Sky of Honey is so epic in scope, with a sound to match. Almost cinematic at times. Endlessly captivating music. Wonderful.

27 1765 Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
At least the title was honest.

30 1834 Common - Be
This album has always rubbed me the wrong way. It was a huge regression after Electric Circus, musically and lyrically, and having Kanye around definitely crapped things up several notches. It felt like betrayal, to be quite honest. Someone I had grown up with and, it felt like, matured into the same ideas and interests with and who, simultaneously, created the soundtrack that conveyed all of that just up and went off into a totally misguided direction that sounded to me like Lonnie doing a very poor imitation of himself. It's here where it became apparent that my favorite music maker was not only fallible, but that this was a sign of things even more problematic yet to come.

Voted for Aerial. And yeah, where the hell is Andrew Bird?

Richard Hawley

While I couldn't really fault some of the '60s/'70s/'80s lists, which very much looked merely like a series of "canonical" albums that had been decided upon over a long period of time, and even with the '90s lists I could understand why a lot of those albums were there, these '00s lists are looking incredibly strange to me. I guess this decade hasn't been fully reassessed yet. There must be some explanation as to why the utterly pointless Animal Collective keep showing up on these lists.

Aerial >>>>>>> The Woods >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Frances The Mute best of the top 50

Not a great year. Arular still holds up.

Aerial, no doubt.

I couldn't really get into Aerial, so it's probably time to revisit. The Woods has so much fury, I can't not vote for it. I also like that Bright Eyes album (though imo Lifted is the absolute best).

Terrible year. Agreed about Frances the Mute.

Heard maybe half of these at the time and haven't revisited any of them for years. That said, I'm tempted to vote for Congotronics without relistening just for the sheer amount of joy it brought me at the time. Nothing else on the list makes me think that joy is a possibility.

yeah this is a truly woeful year

Actually it's not so bad when you consider what the AM list manages to avoid

Dälek - Absence
Ulver - Blood Inside
Volcano! - Beautiful Seizure
Earth - Hex, or Printing in the Infernal Method
Hood - Outside Closer
Autechre - Untilted
Half Man Half Biscuit - Achtung Bono
The Dandy Warhols - Odditorium or Warlords Of Mars (fuck yaaaaaaaallllll)
Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites

Oh look, it's a good year again! If you fucking ignore the music press

Liking 31-50 more with The Sunset Tree, wearemonster and OK Cowboy (hasn't aged well but I do still put it on and enjoy it, including the tracks which were obviously slightly rubbish even at the time).

I'm pretty sure a whole lot of records I love came out in 2005 but none of them are on this list. I thought the 2003 list was rubbish too so I filtered my mp3 collection for 2003 and kept going "oh wow, this! I forgot about this!"

...OK I've just started doing that now and I'll try not to list all the stuff I loved in 2005 (Oneida - "The Wedding"! DJ Scotch Egg!) that nobody else cares about but seriously, no Grouper "Way Their Crept", what is wrong with this list

xp!

Volcano! - Beautiful Seizure yesss

Was that Hood really from 2005? It feels like it's from a different era to all the others somehow

Twin Cinema, just over Late Registration (definitely my favourite Kanye album these days). This list isn't great but I don't think '05 was a particularly good year for albums - lots of lesser records by good acts (Spoon, Sleater-Kinney, Missy Elliott, Daft Punk, Low, Boards of Canada). I bought Frances the Mute after hearing a bit of it round at a mate's house but I thought it was awful. Aerial still holds up really well.

One of my favourite 2005 releases was that Numero Group 'Yellow Pills' powerpop comp.

Konono No. 1

LCD for the tunes, but the best ones are reissues so going with Arular.

2005 was one of my favourite years for albums but a lot of them aren't here. Bang Bang Rock 'n' Roll and Tender Buttons would both be in my top 20 albums ever. Witching Hour, Anniemal, Chemistry, Oceans Apart, Come & Get It, Tales From Turnpike House, Strange Geometry and OK Cowboy should be here too.

Voting for I Am a Bird Now which is still one of the most beautiful records I know. Robyn would be the other big contender.

real tossup b/w alligator and fiona

I agree with Kitchen Person, really - I bought more new albums in 2005 than probably any other year of the decade, and quite a fair bit of 'em just aren't in this list. I'm getting a similar vibe from most of the 00's lists so far, tbh.

The '60s/'70s/'80s/'90s lists look as if they've been decided upon over a long period of time, whereas this list just looks like a list published in 2005 - there looks as if there's been no reassessment yet of what has actually held up over time and what hasn't.

Arular pretty easily

Damn, yeah Strange Geometry was great.

From the Indiesphere, the National, Okkervil and The Hold Steady probably released their best albums this year, but the rest of it does not hold up at all. Except Twin Cinema, which is still classic

Kanye and Common the only Hip-Hop from this list? No Young Jeezy? No Tha Carter II?

When people reassess the music of the 00s, the indiecentrism will prob be the first thing to go.

There must be some explanation as to why the utterly pointless Animal Collective keep showing up on these lists.

― the hair - it's lost its energy (Turrican), Thursday, July 21, 2016 5:40 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is silly. the AC were one of the most influential and critically beloved bands of the 00s.

as has been established, the critics knew little

AC checked all the boxes for lasting relevance: critical adoration, lots of diehard fans, and very very influential records. i saw many copycat AC bands post-Feels.

They were beloved by Pitchfork and people who hadn't worked out what their ears were for - get it right. The absolute epitome of "why the fuck is everyone fapping over this utterly horrendous shit?" for me, and anyone with an ounce of sense.

looking at this list, I think around 2005 was probably when I completely stopped listening to pitchfork approved music. I recognize most of these indie rock titles but I think most of them I listened to something between 0.5 and 2 times and then never again. They're probably not worse than what came in the years previous, but by this point it was just too much, I needed to go elsewhere.

xp How condescending. You're discounting the huge fanbase that they still have, and all the kids that are still discovering them and fawning over them. They were not some flash in the pan. Whether or not you like them is irrelevant.

You're right, whether I like them or not has no bearing on how terrible, utterly shit, and yes, irrelevant Animal Collective are.

Right

I don't like Pavement, but I realize that they're the same kind of band as AC: critics, fans, huge influence. They're not irrelevant.

Turrican otm.

Also, interesting how the critical enthusiasm for the follow-up to whatever their "breakthrough" was (the one with "My Girls") was almost nil. The only reason I hate them less than I used to is 'cause no one really seems to give a shit about them anymore.

that's not really true. I don't really keep up with new music but a lot of shit I hear in coffee shops etc. sounds v ac influenced.

Yeah I mean if you don't hear AC's influence in the bands that followed you're just not paying attention.

I guess I see AC as one of those bands that owes its popularity largely to P4K having to have someone to write about. Like, if you were to ask me who the most revered and/or influential acts of the era were, I'd say Kanye, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A. and maybe Broken Social Scene and New Pornographers. Several of those probably owe a good chunk of their success to P4k's endorsement of them (Carl Newman pretty much said so about his band when I interviewed him years ago), but once P4K becomes a "tastemaker" that people look towards for discovering the Next Big Thing, P4K then has to keep producing Next Big Things, which is basically what AC were.

It is possible that I am not really paying attention, I admit. Like, I couldn't really name a band that sounds influenced by AC, unless you're referring to Passion Pit or something.

Well, firstly, Pavement were actually good - there's a world of difference. Secondly, I'm fairly confident that it wasn't a case of bands being influenced by Animal Collective, more they were influenced by the fact that Pitchfork liked 'em. I guess all bands need something to aim for, and if the goal was to become a critics darling on an American web publication while sounding like arse and aiming for immortality in coffee shops, then so be it. Still shite. Nobody of any worth has ever, or will be, influenced by Animal Collective.

If this thread has taught me anything, it is that it is not yet safe to go back into coffee shops.

You're missing the point: the kids that were inspired by AC to start bands didn't give a fuck what p4k thought. Obviously the site helped them reach a wider audience, but it's not some Claps Your Hands or Tape n' Tapes shit. I'm not talking about hipsters in their 20s- the AC has always, since Feels, had a huge fanbase of teenagers and really young kids that got turned onto the band by their friends or their siblings, not a website.

Hahaha! Animal Collective are the very definition of an "internet band"! Hahahaha!

we should give him a little latitude imo

oh hi nomar would you mind joining my 'ignore me and i'll ignore you' group, vip version of course. i had the same unspoken arrangement going with turrican but i slipped, forgot he's relentless and now look where i am. :(

turrican reiterating inflexible and unnuanced opinions shocker

it's just animal collective y'all, not even the members of animal collective are this wound up about animal collective.

if we're going to talk about 2005 can't we all just agree to hate jack johnson and be done with it?

What a lame year in music according to this list. Most of the other lists it's been pretty easy to pick a favorite. There's maybe 3 albums here I even like. Went with Be, despite its many faults.

Albums that I would pick over any of these:
Jackson & His Computer Band - Smash (my actual pick for 2005 and wholly underrated to this day)
Autechre - Untilted
Blockhead - Downtown Science
Nujabes - Modal Soul
Kettel - Through Friendly Waters
Modeselektor - Hello Mom!

Isn't it the case that music from about a decade ago is usually the least in favor, and then comes back around after another decade — the generational cycle? It's a banal observation, maybe, but while complaints about canon reevaluation are probably legitimate, it seems that at times the "consensus" canon doesn't undergo major revision. At least, I recall it being said of Pitchfork's '80s lists that they weren't really all that different from, say, lists Spin or Rolling Stone put out at the end of that decade.

As someone who participated in p4k's clearly buzz-oriented promotion of Animal Collective (eye rolling emoticon), I will say circa 2005, they certainly didn't seem like vessels for internet-based hype. To me, they were a really unlikely band to become popular, which is why I didn't like Feels much -- the previous records were weirder. Sung Tongs was one of the freshest breaths of air I'd heard in years -- how could anyone still build on a Beach Boys-borrowed sound? Somehow they did. Here Comes the Indian was great too, like someone picking up the torch for both the Residents and early Boredoms. Very odd to see the band break through, and at no point did notions of emperor's new clothes or vapid buzz-object enter my mind. I tend to agree w/ sentiments above that AC endure because people actually like them (tho perhaps the majority of their fans don't like them for the same reasons I initially did).

And for the record, my fave record from that year was Orthrelm's OV, which may actually have been BNM somehow(?). Last one they made too; somehow p4k's support didn't land them in this poll.

Reading this thread made me vote for animal collective even though I don't even like them. I hope you're happy, Turrican!

I listened a lot to most of these records in 2005, so I don't really get the idea that this is a surprising list. Where were you getting your music journalism? Most of these are on RS and p4k 2005 album top 50s. I guess if I were able to quickly search my physical music collection for 2005-albums I might find some favorite stuff missing, but only thing that springs to mind is THE CLIENTELE STRANGE GEOMETRY which is in my all time top 5 or something. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah too, great record. Maybe Cam'ron Purple Haze too, Carter II.

Anyway, two of my all time favs here, could never choose one over the other
7 491 Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
8 569 The National - Alligator
so I'm going with Animal Collective since it was a really important record for a lot of my friends

Reading this thread made me vote for animal collective even though I don't even like them. I hope you're happy, Turrican!

― silverfish, Friday, July 22, 2016 5:31 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not arsed about the outcome of this poll either way, but what a brilliant and accurate commentary on Animal Collective's fanbase!

And that's that Animal Collective has indeed always been a horribly tuneless second tier act, hyped up because of aesthetics and perceived "importance."

OTM. Voted Gorillaz.

Dominique 100% OTM upthread. Pre-Feels AC was quite a different beast and not a hype-band. And yeah the bit about the Beach Boys is exactly why I liked them.

Also - yes it's weird that they of all bands became such a cause celebre. Totally unconventional and quite abstruse on top. You couldn't hear the words half the time and a lot of their tracks were just droney atmospheres or weird screeching noises. They were almost always a psychedelic noise band with certain folk and electronic leanings rather than an indie/pop band, and that's where I think people stumble over them: they're expecting indie rock music, and that's not what it's meant to be.

Of all the bands to get riled up about, AC is especially not worth it.

This does remind me of seeing Panda Bear at the...wait for it... Pitchfork festival a while back. Spin wrote, accurately,

Lennox opened with an interminable song that entailed holding a long, wordless vocal tone, paired with a similarly minimalist keyboard progression. The crowd waited patiently for several minutes, then the restlessness began. When it showed no signs of stopping, the texts and tweets began, with plenty of people bailing to get a good spot for LCD Soundsystem.

People weren't even mad, they just left.

A relisten to Twin Cinema today confirms what I already thought: their strongest songs and therefore probably their best album, but too little Neko

i like the first avey tare and panda bear album, it's like pixie stix in music form. i had no idea who they were or what their deal was... i pictured the singer as some big haired cosmic elderly regal bowie/peter murphy type from the future wearing colorful paisley robes and stuff.

this thread is too much. i got on board with Strawberry Jam and was caught up in the Merriweather Post Pavilion hype. i really listened to those and Feels. i really don't know why they are so hated, it's baffling to me.

every time i've caught an AC song in isolation i've liked it, but i've never investigated further.

Black Sheep Boy

Arular easily, though The Woods is a strong second. It took me a while to get used to the brickwalled mastering of The Woods, but apart from that, it's their best record.

voted for Sufjan. It has at least six songs that I will love forever; The others don't.

i agree that the Sufjan album has about 6 good songs.

Gimme Fiction has like 9 or 10 great songs so that's mine.

Who Is Mike Jones? and Shinola Vol 1 both should be here.

Gene Wilder vs Johnny Depp?

it is Wilder as Wonka is masterful, though i did like Depp in the remake. it just isn't as good.

it is

Aerial forever

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels

Finally in the end I had to vote for Spoon here as I don't think GA GA will get my vote in that upcoming year.

Voted Eels as I listened to that a shitload at the time. None of these records hold up for me today.

Congotronics still p dope if not quite as ecstatically brain-frying as I remember, voting for that

Deadwing by Porcupine Tree seriously not on this list? dang

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Would have voted for Hawley - a great batch of songs that create a distinct sense of time and place though the combo of syrupy voice and strings might be a bit much for some. Arular would be #2. Koenjihyakkei also had a great album this year, and Opeth's wasn't bad either.

Animal Collective almost pulled it off.

people just sucking up to P4K, obviously, wake up sheeple

That hold steady record is a lot of fun

Will revisit aerial, at the time I'm p sure I was too young to enjoy it proper

if I had seen this poll I would have voted fiona

I've never actually heard Animal Collective but I voted for them because they make some people so angry

Ha, I was gonna say! The majority of those Animal Collective votes were clearly troll votes, since there's absolutely no way it could have been on the strength of the (utterly abysmal) music, so good work :)

Koenjihyakkei also had a great album this year

really great Echolyn and Glass Hammer albums this year too, shame nobody heard them

voted hold steady, that album seems pretty obviously their peak, when their "we love these misfits and fuckups" thing felt sincere and heartfelt, and not like a stale pose. I know Boys and Girls in America is maybe more favored, and the big songs on that one have THS's best melodies. But I love the sing-speak and urgency on Separation Sunday, and how the whole thing coheres. Definitely helped me through some tough times.

2006 please, Bee.

The tasteful were clearly split between #s 3-6, what can ya do.

2006 please, Bee.

it's funny as i do open a new poll just about every Wednesday, will do the Songs ones after we wrap up Albums and after about a month break, but to make it last all summer i do take a week off here and there. this is that off week, also going to work out what i want to do on this damn Oasis poll, so 2006 will be in a weeks time.

http://memesvault.com/wp-content/uploads/Okay-Crying-Meme-08.png

lol

Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 2006 poll