The list gets shorter….
jamie on November 30th, 2005
I posted the master playlist last week, and now I need to cut everythign but the very best from that list to make up my final Best of 2005 list- to accomplish this, I’m going to try to pick the top 3 from each month. In some cases though, I’ll transfer a pick from one month to another. For instance, September is a light month, with only two artists, while August was packed with new releases. Therefore, I may chose only the top release for September, and the top 5 from August… In the end, I should end up with a list of 36 songs from which to pick the final mix.
Starting with:
January:
#1 Athlete - Wires
This is an awesome track- It’s a beautiful song written about the birth of the Joel Pott’s child, recorded with as much emotion as that kind of event can evoke. I think I first heard it on a television show as bed-level music, then spent a week trying to find out who it was. This was the first truly great track of the year, and still gets played regularly while driving or on days when radio lets me down.
#2 Hard-fi - Cash Machine
This was the first track from Hard-Fi, played by Zane Lowe right after the new year, and was the perfect rock complement to Mike Skinner (who was at very top of my best of 2004 list). Hard-Fi tell tales of everyday suburban life with slick, thumping bass lines, thich drums and ska-ripened guitar. The harmonica on the intro and outro is a great touch. I listened to a low-fi version of this Hard-fi track off their website for months, until the US finally got wind of these suburbanite brits.
#3 Kings Of Leon - The Bucket
The first non-brit band to make the cut, this Texas-based quartet sound like they are from somewhere across the pond. Even the vocals are done in near-accents, and referencing cigarettes as fags helps mislead the listener. This may be attributed to the fact that Kings Of Leon are a bit of a side-note in their native country, while selling out shows and getting regular airplay overseas. The percussion on this song is what really makes it work for me- from a driving floor-tom rhythm on the verse, halting pre-chorus, then full-on frenzied over the chorus.
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