Continuing my look at the albums of 2005…
My somewhat back-handed compliment for Bright Eyes’ sixth album, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, is that it’s perfect mixtape fodder. Just about any one of its 10 songs would be a standout track on a lovingly curated compilation.
The catch is that I’m never in the mood to hear all of those songs in a row. After awhile, there’s a sameness in composition and delivery that wears on me.
Continuing my look at the albums of 2005…
This album was released in 2005 in Sweden but didn’t make it to the U.S. until three years later. I’m considering it a 2005 release for the sake of this installment of Decades.
Robyn started her career as a teenage pop artist in her native Sweden, releasing a trio of lightweight dance albums influenced heavily by her label. After a three year break, she left to start her own label and make the music she wanted to make.
Continuing my look at the albums of 2005…
I had to include this album in my 2005 rundown because it is one of the most critically-acclaimed releases of that year. However, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois (or Come On Feel the Illinoise!) is a record I’ve just never been able to embrace.
I want to like it. It’s an ambitious indie folk opus by an artist who has a knack for the kind of melancholy music I’m usually drawn to. But it’s way too artsy-fartsy for my taste.
Continuing my look at the albums of 2005…
The world’s top-selling album in 2005 was Coldplay’s third studio release, X&Y. The album was the band’s first #1 in the U.S., cementing the British rockers as superstars on both sides of the pond.
X&Y is best known for sentimental single ‘Fix You,’ which balances on the razor’s edge between profound and maudlin and has been called one or the other by many a music fan. The better single is ‘Speed of Sound,’ one of the great rock anthems (even if it owes a bit too much to the band’s earlier hit, ‘Clocks‘).
Continuing my look at the albums of 2005…
The White Stripes’ fifth studio album, Get Behind Me Satan, moved away from the guitar-heavy sound of their earlier releases and made room for more piano and acoustic guitar. The duo still managed to rock out, and the album features its share of blues jams, but you’ll find just as many off-kilter ballads here.
This album reminds me a lot of 60s and early 70s Rolling Stones, with Jack White channeling Mick Jagger on deadpan bluegrass numbers and heartsick soft rockers like today’s SOTD.
Meet Me In Montauk 