My Top 10 CD's so far of 2005 (or, ROCK SNOB ALERT)

Just wanted to share some of the stuff I've been listening to lately:

10. Gimme Fiction - Spoon

Fun and eclectic - a cross between Wilco and the Plastic Ono Band. Some of the best guitar rock I've heard this year. Then there's "I Turn My Camera On" a sweet, funky fresh Prince/"Some Girls" era Jagger groove.

9. Magic Time - Van Morrison

Just a superb modern take on 60's jazz/soul melodies. Turn down the lights, pour yourself a glass of wine and put this record on. You'll have no regrets.

8. Guero - Beck

Sad Beck is gone, happy Beck is back. Not much to say other than this is Beck doing what he does best.

7. Live at Stubb's - Matisyahu

Just another Hasidic Jew spitting out some of the most firey reggae rhymes I've heard in awhile. They are all based on Old Testament stories and themes (which if you know reggae music is not all that surprising). Very impressive, not a novelty act like you might expect. This album is pure worship, aggressive, infectious, enthusiastic, and uplifting.

6. X&Y - Coldplay

When I first played this I thought it was a colossal failure. Ambitious but slippery. "They tried too hard to follow up "Rush", flew too close to the sun and the wings melted" I thought. After a solid five hours on replay during a extremely trying paper for my International Biz class. I was hooked...couldn't get it out of my head. They rival Radiohead for best current Brit band (sorry Oasis).

5. Twin Cinema - New Pornographers

Haven't heard it yet. But if it's half as good as "Mass Romantic" and "Electric Version" which I loved, it will immediately be #5. Verse-chorus-verse with lots of catchy hooks.

4. Face The Truth - Stephen Malkmus

Truth be told I was never much of a Pavement fan, so I was pretty unaware of his solo career. Then I heard him perform some cuts on "Morning Becomes Ecletic" and I immediately got the album. Can't really describe it...you just have to get the CD. It's one of those albums you will find yourself humming long after your done listening.

3. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning - Bright Eyes

Conor Oberst follows up his brilliant but meandering last album, "Lifted, Or, The Story is in the Soil" with another strong one. This one's much tighter than his other albums. Oberst has been compared to the likes of Dylan ad nauseum, not just because of his nasally tenor but also his introspective lyrics. He's not there yet, but he's on the right track.

2. Picaresque - The Decemberists

Imagine a band that is a cross between R.E.M and They Might Be Giants composing and performing Broadway influenced, literate sea shanties about pirates, death, war and Victorian Europe. It also contains the near perfect gem "Sixteen Military Wives" one of the best recent anti-war songs that skewers both the ultra "kill 'em all" right as well as the lefty Hollywood types, with their "pristine liberal minds".

1. Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

Quite possibly the most beautiful, spiritual and moving CD I've listened to in quite awhile. I first heard about Sufjan's (Soof-yan) work through the Danielson Familie band (another band that you need to be aware of - catchy, creative pop music). I bought his previous album "Seven Swans" sight unseen (not like me at all - I'm usually the guy going through all the "preview" tracks on Amazon) and I was well rewarded for it. Now he's raised the bar with this new album.

The concept is this: Some time ago, Stevens announced that he wanted to write an album for every state in America. A daunting task even for the likes of well-traveled humanists like Dylan and Springsteen. While after the release of Illinois he has backtracked a bit on that original statement, I really hope that he plans to go through with it, impossible as it seems.

Quite frankly it is the best album so far of 2005. It explores all of the deep emotions of the spirit - laughter, optimism, joy, pain, heartbreak and darkness. One of the tracks is devoted to serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr (an Illinois native) and it is one of the most beautiful and haunting songs on the album. After a disturbing litany of Gacy's methods of death, Stevens ends the song with this chilling line:

"..and in my best behavior, I am really just like him.
Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid"

This is a man who takes his sins seriously (yes he is a devout Christian)

But this is not your older brother's happy, slappy, naive and ultimately benign "Christian" music. This is well-made, thoughtful music that just happens to be written by a Christian. It is music that mourns the fallenness not only of man but also of creation. In "Casmir Pulaski Day", perhaps the most powerful song on the album, he inhabits the character of a young man mourning the loss of his girlfriend to cancer. In the middle of the song he deals with a God that seems to be absent:

"Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens..."

Finally at the end of the song when his beloved dies he closes the song with:

"Oh the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes"

The song closes with a trumpet solo...quiet and mournful which after awhile seems to come to a sense of acceptance if not closure.

But if there is weeping at night then joy also comes in the morning. "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" is an uplifting song that celebrates humankind's need for community in a society that increasingly celebrates the individual.

The album first three songs open with an exhilerating, joyful rush of themes and melodies that travel far and wide exploring UFO sightings, the "god" of Progress that promises salvation but delivers frustration, as well as the history and geography of Illinois, and finally hangs out with Carl Sandburg who asks Mr. Stevens if he's "writing from the heart".

If he isn't then no one is.

Get this album now!