spasticrobot: Best of 2005: Music (a mixtape)

Mixtape
I've decided to change things up with a different approach to this year's "best of" music list. Instead of just listing the 10 best albums of the year I decided to compose a "mixtape" of the songs that were most important to me this year. (Contains lots of links to the iTunes music store)

side a
1. M83 – Don’t Save Us From the Flames
This was the first track of the year that I truly loved. My Bloody Valentine + JG Ballard + 1994-era Weedeater

2. M.I.A. - Sunshowers
“Like P.L.O. I don’t surrender!”

3. Bloc Party – Like Eating Glass
This is great, anthemic pop music. This song was trapped in my head every time I rode my bike through the city this spring.

4. Beck – Missing
Lonely, handclappingly good BossaNova off of Beck’s comeback album, Guero

5. The Fiery Furnaces – Here Comes Summer
A really catchy pop tune with great analog backing synths

6. Mia Doi Todd – The Last Night of Winter
Mellow folk-pop as heard on KCRW, a major listening obsession of mine this year

7. Bright Eyes – First Day of my Life
Another single I picked up on via KCRW. This is my favorite single off of the only Bright Eyes album I've ever enjoyed.

8. LCD Soundsytem – Tribulations
Self-deprecation and loathing in the form of a catchy dance song, what?

9. Gorrilaz – Feel Good Inc.
De La Soul’s rhymes and Albarn’s spooky melodies make a nice combination.

10. of Montreal – Requiem for O.m.m2
Sweet & catchy psychedelic pop music

11. Kings of Leon – Milk
The strangeness of Caleb Followill’s vocal on this song is compounded by its bizarre subject matter. “She saw my comb over, her hourglass body, she had problems with drinking milk and being school tardy, she’ll loan you her toothbrush, she’ll bartend your party” WTF?

side b
1. Boards of Canada – Chromakey Dreamcoat
The Campfire Headphase is my favorite BoC production since Music Has the Right to Children. The guitar is such a nice touch and as always BoC are the ultimate curators of organic analog synth tones.

2. Broadcast – America’s Boy
The most beautiful track off of the rather disappointing Tender Buttons LP

3. Vitalic – Polkamatic
Drug fueled 1970’s Eastern Bloc electro

4. Madonna – Hung Up
Lu Cont! ABBA! 50ish Madonna in a leotard! Hung Up is my favorite dance song of the year.

5. Ladytron – Destroy Everything You Touch
Dark, brooding music that makes me want to live in a Northern European city.

6. Three 6 Mafia – Stay Fly
The only Rap or Hip Hop track that I loved all year long

7. Moussa Douimbia – Keleya
The grooviest song off of World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love’s a Real Thing, a celebration of West African pop of the 60’s and 70’s.

8. Kelly Clarkson – Since U Been Gone
I first heard the Ted Leo cover version of this song and didn’t really see what all the fuss was about. Then I listened to the original and was immediately addicted.

9. Deerhoof – Running Thoughts
A gorgeous track that revels in retro J-pop, dissonant indie rock and synth music.

10. Animal Collective – Grass
This is the Animal Collective song I’ve been waiting for. Singularly weird and catchy at the same time. The more I listen to it, the more I love it.

11. Devendra Banhart - Heard Somebody Say
This is a great song off of a pretty good album.

12. Antony & The Johnsons – Hope There’s Someone
I’ve never heard anyone that sounds like Antony. The intense sadness and isolation encoded in these four minutes are some of the most powerful emotions I’ve heard in a long, long time.