After much blood letting, gnashing teeth, and rending claws I managed to eek out my top twenty albums of this past year. Now, for those of you who might have been following along at home there are some changes to this list: Khohiba and Minus The Bear fell off and Nitin Sawhney and Colette moved in. I spent some time going over my statistics at Last.fm and at home and concluded that the former artists did not enjoy the same level of play that the latter did and that the list should really reflect those albums that seized my imagination and made demands of my attention.
- Ananda Project - Relight
- Balkan Beat Box - Self-Titled
- Bebel Gilberto - Remixed
- Blackalicious - The Craft
- Celso Fonesca - Rive Gauche Rio
- Colette - Hypnotized
- DJ Rap - Bulletproof
- DJ Cheb I Sabbah - La Kahena
- Doves - Some Cities
- Grupo Fantasma - Movimiento Popular
- LCD Soundsystem - Self-Titled
- Lemon Jelly - ‘64-’95
- M.I.A. - Arular
- Nitin Sawhney - Philtre
- Nortec Collective - Tijuana Sessions Vol. 3
- Ohmega Watts - The Find
- Sleater-Kinney - Woods
- Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
- Yerba Buena - Island Life
- Zuco 103 - Whaa!
Alright, so the really hardcore among you might be saying right about now, “WTF, James! This list is alphabetical! Take a stand!” Fair enough but the trouble is that there are only so many hours in the day and coming up with a group of twenty was hard enough. I will commit to this though, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoise is my top pick for the year.
Illinoise was like a ragged old piñata covered in sun-faded crepe paper, something that you would normaly pass over looking for something brighter and shinier. My friends convinced me to pause, pick it up, and run home with it so I could beat its goodness right out of it. I’m not a huge fan of the singer-songwriter schtick, often seems too contrived, but there is something about Stevens that drew me in and the piñata that is Illinoise continues to yield a bounty of gems and moments to pure clarity with each listen. Illinoise takes the number one spot because it has gripped my thoughts so strongly, changing my mind about the state of rock and the role of the singer-songwriter, and opened up a new landscape of music for me to explore.
Over the next couple of days I’ll be working out a playlist of my favorite track from each album and will post it here for all to enjoy and explore.
