The Colonel's Top 10 Albums of 2005

By Bret Foster

1. Spoon
– Gimme Fiction
I often don’t care too much for guys that my wife thinks are hotter than me, but darn-it if Britt Daniel isn’t one talented bastard. Spoon has been notorious for having a striped-down sound, but on Gimme Fiction, the band paints a more atmospheric landscape for Daniel to pepper with his witty and cryptic lyrics. This album is solid for when the needle hits until it lifts and I found myself going back to this album again and again all year long. If Wilco is the greatest American band, then Spoon is the greatest American “Rock” band out there today. And for my money, things just don’t get any more American than rock n’ roll!

2. My Morning Jacket
– Z
2005 was a big year for My Morning Jacket. They appeared in the not-so-great Cameron Crow film, Elizabethtown, fought their label’s idiotic anti-piracy software scam by making copies of their own album and giving it away to fans, and, oh, they released the best album of their career. Rolling Stone writer David Frick recently called My Morning Jacket, " America's Radiohead." Which is a compliment I guess, but an inaccurate comparison in my opinion. A better, yet, even more unnecessary tag could be, “ America’s Flaming Lips,” but I’ll just call the My Morning Jacket.

3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
– Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
From time to time a band comes from out of nowhere and blows me away. The Arcade Fire did it last year and this year it’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Yes, they sound like Talking Heads…Yes, they could have chosen a better band name…Yes, the first track on this album sucks so bad that I almost didn’t listen to any other songs. However, what follows is pure ear candy for those wishing to have a mind full of cavities.

4. Wolf Parade
– Apologies to the Queen Mary
Canada is to today what Seattle was to the early nineties. Great band after great band is coming out and taking the indie rock scene by storm. And this debut release is just like many other freshmen in high school; awkward, spastic, unconfident, but with just enough gumption to be brave and unknowingly bold.


5. Sigur Ros
– Takk:
“I don’t know what these guys are saying, but they’re saying all the right things.” That’s what I told my wife after listening to this album on a cold and wet fall afternoon while sitting at my desk that’s positioned in front of our bay window. An acquaintance of mine, Ron Whitehead, has done some recording with these guys…so they must be either wildly creative or as “crazy as nine loons." Either way, this album is beautiful, mysterious, and from time to time, haunting. All I know is that this album would be a fascinating and fittingly sweet soundtrack for the life of the privileged and diseased.

6. Sufjan Stevens
– Illinois
I don’t know why, but for some reason, every time I listen to this album, I feel like I’m listening to the soundtrack to a late sixties romantic comedy starring Marlo Thomas. But, that’s a good thing!


7. The New Pornographers
– Twin Cinema
Another great album by a great figgin’ band and I’m beginning to think that these guys can do no wrong. If you’re a fan of well written and beautifully executed pop music, The New Pornographers should be your favorite band. I mean, let’s face it; these songs have more hooks than a tackle box. (OK, that may very well be the worst line I’ve ever written.)

8. White Stripes
– Get Behind Me Satan
This past October my wife and I saw Spoon in concert. Before the band took the stage you could hear the typical indie rock mix CD was playing over the PA. When the White Stripes song “Seven Nation Army” came on, the crowd went bonkers. I mean, they freaking cheered for a song playing on a CD!! Now that’s weird, but that’s also the power of the White Stripes. Even though that song is from the band’s previous album, Get Behind Me Satan is a another strong release full of misery, sorrow, grace, and undistinguished hope. The Whites once again take the title of best album cover in 2005.

9. Mars Volta
– Frances the Mute
Weird, spastic, scary, and beautiful. Hands down the most bizarre album on my list and probably the most ground breaking one too.

10. Ryan Adams
– Cold Roses / Jacksonville City Nights / 29
“Ryan Adams needs an editor.” I read that line time and time again when the press would critique any of the THREE full length albums (one was even double album) that Adams released in 2005. Now, I subscribe to the “Robert Pollard Philosophy” that prolific artists should release as much as they can and let the fans decide what’s good or isn’t. Well, it looks like Ryan Adams took Pollard’s philosophy to heart and went on a creative binge. If you took the best songs off these albums, you probably would have the best album of the year, however, mix in all the filler and pap and spread them out over three albums, well, you get number 10.

Bret Foster is an Honorable Colonel of the Dark and Bloody Ground and has often been mistaken for seventies TV sweetheart Kristy McNichol. Nevertheless, he is a scholar and a gentleman and can be contacted either though his parole officer or by going to www.bretfoster.com