2005: Music

2005 wasn’t the best year in music, but it has its highlights.

Death Cab For Cutie’s Plans delivered on the promise of 2003’s Transatlanticism. Alkaline Trio, Motion City Sountrack, and The Starting Line released records full of some of the best AltRock out there. Coldplay’s X&Y is a flawed record, I think due to its futuristic/electronic tone that isn’t their bread and butter (leave it to Radiohead), but songs like Til’ Kingdom Come and Swallowed in the Sea is some of their best work.

If I had to pick a runner up for 2005, I’d pick Jack’s Mannequin’s debut Everything In Transit. Its a great summer album thats full of breezy, rocking tunes. Ben Folds and Elton John are obvious, but appropriate comparisons. On top of everything, Andrew McMahon was diagnosed with leukemia mere days before the albums release and its juxtaposition to the albums care-free tone enhances the album.

Now on to my pick of 2005…

Kanye West: Late Registration

Kanye is a conceded ass, there really is no argument about that, but that kind of personality is essential in making an album like Late Registration thrive. In a song like Touch the Sky that cockiness drives the song from the lyrics to the beat. But then he brings out a song like Hey Ma, you see his innocence and a side of him that makes you think that a lot of that is a front for a little boy that needs attention; thats not an excuse for the way he acts, but its something we all deal with in some way.

From a purely musical standpoint, the man knows how to work a melody and easily makes some of the best beats in town. For me, Gold Digger is the best single of the decade. It’s pretty hard to make a catchier track then that and is perfect produced and performed by West and Jamie Foxx.

Kanye isn’t the best rapper or best lyricist in hip hop, but he has a lot more pop sentiment (like on album opener Heard ‘Em Say) than the rest of the genre and that sets him apart.