Flashback to the Oughts: 2005

Every year since I started this blog, I put myself through a soul-wrenching struggle to create a satisfying “best-of” list.  I don’t have too much trouble coming up with representative entries.  That aspect is mostly a matter of record-keeping, which kind of takes care of itself in the process of writing.  Ordering these titles in a way that will stand the test of time, however, is a bit more difficult.  Occasionally, some albums that I have ranked very highly in their respective years have not come off of the shelf much since, while other lower ranked entries and honorable mentions have proven to be more durable.

Creating a “best-of” list retroactively for a year gone by is no less problematic, but the issues of accuracy and durability seem to be inverted.  This is especially the case in the early oughts, as record stores were still kind of a thing.  If I did not purchase an album on Amazon back then, I have few definitive calendrical references for what I was listening to and when.  The slippery nature of memory resists definitive sequencing, making accuracy a primary concern.  Once I can sketch out a clear picture of what was in rotation during a given year, however, hindsight allows these selections to fall into order relatively easily.  

The list for 2005, however, has been probably the biggest struggle yet. The records from that year hang in between online purchases and record store walk-ins. Stitching these together with my memory episodes was particularly difficult because I was existing at the crossroads between being a band director, a graduate student in ethnomusicology, and being increasingly involved in my "significant other's" world.

10. Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness: I listened to this hour-long track a whole lot in 2005 on my old Zen player as I walked to Cross-Cultural Ensemble rehearsal with my Stick strapped across my back.  Although I have not listened to it much since, upon revision I found it pleasantly familiar, if a bit thin in the production department.

9. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing:  Although it may not be apparent from Lazarus, which is included above, Deadwing was Porcupine Tree’s heaviest album to date.  It also followed their most commercially successful album and I have always felt that the writing, which is still more nuanced than most, suffered a bit under the burden of following its standard.  

8. Panjabi MC - Beware: By 2005, my ethnomusicological studies had given me a deepened appreciation for intercultural popular music and a growing interest in the music of India.  Not only did Beware sit at the intersection of these two fields, it was catchy enough to win over my significant other.

7. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema: Although I had been introduced to The New Pornographers during my late 90's power pop jag, it was 2005 before I wandered into a record store in Massachusetts and picked up Twin Cinema. I have been a staunch advocate ever since.

6. Frank Zappa - Studio Tan:  Zappa’s music was always finding its way from used CD bins into my collection during the oughts, so although his music was ever-present, it is nearly impossible to unravel specific dates.  I do know for certain, however, that I took a Summer class on the music of Frank Zappa in 2005 and Studio Tan was in heavy rotation during that time, along with Broadway the Hard Way and several volumes of the You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore series.

5. Fountains of Wayne - Utopia Parkway:  Perhaps one of the best post-Jellyfish power pop albums in my collection, mostly because it is stylistically distinct.  For the most part, Fountains of Wayne relies on outstanding songwriting more than overt semiotic nostalgia for their success.

4. Ramnad Krishnan - Vidwan: Music of South India: Songs of the Carnatic Tradition: On the suggestion of my Indian music teacher, this was the first album of Indian classical music that I ever purchased. Although I started unpacking it in 2005, I am still unraveling its nuances.

3. Rumah Sakit - Rumah Sakit: To this day, the details about Rumah Sakit remain vague - they are references to them everywhere, but it is difficult to pin down their origins and history. Nevertheless, my expanding appreciation for rhythmic complexity in Indian music allowed this album to spark my interest in so-called "math rock."

2. The White Stripes - Elephant: In direct contrast to all of the deeply complex stuff I was into in 2005, Elephant's focus on low-technique rock songwriting rose to the top of the heap. Pardon the video in the playlist, by the way - I will always remember showing that to the Pop Music and American Culture class I was TA for a couple of years later.

Album of the Year: 2005

1. Brendan Benson - The Alternative to Love: Although I was a fan of Brendan Benson's since One Mississippi, this album convinced me that he could do no wrong as a songwriter. There isn't a single dud in the bunch.

The Wondermints Shine on Brian Wilson's SMiLE

I used to fumble around Amazon quite irresponsibly, and sometimes, for better or for worse, a CD would just appear in my mailbox.  I would immediately rip these offerings into the MP3 player I began to use around this time, too, and I was pretty disciplined about keeping it updated with my latest acquisitions.  I soon felt naked walking to UNT campus without 300 albums floating around in my backpack.  In 2005, when The Wondermints’ Mind if We Make Love to You unexpectedly showed up, I had hardly listened to it when, on one particularly pleasant fall afternoon, this incredible ditty cut through the fog. I don't think I have stopped singing it since.



If you’ve followed the blog at all, it is no secret that I am an advocate of progressive rock, but I hope that I don’t come across as insular. Prog is attached to an obvious (perhaps adolescent) technical virtuosity that I connected with at a particularly impressionable moment in my life, but I deeply admire the similar and perhaps more subtle virtuosic potentials of melodic rock and power pop. In the hands of lesser musicians, pop songwriting can come off as bland and formulaic, but The Wondermints have "that special something." Although there are great individual performances on Mind if We Make Love to You, they always stand in service to the enthralling melodies and harmonies that saturate each song.



The now-ubiquitous influence of The Beatles, particularly during their studio period, makes it easy to take for granted the kind of genius that is involved in album like Mind if We Make Love to You. In the 60s, bands were scrambling to keep up with Lennon and McCartney's innovations, and very few could compete. The Beach Boys stepped up to the plate, however, when they released the masterpiece Pet Sounds in response to the Beatles sprawling artistic vision.  The album was so ambitious that it cracked the foundations of the band.  Smile, the eccentric 1966 follow-up to Pet Sounds and Brian Wilson's legendary "teenage symphony to God," was so orchestral (maybe even progressive) that the Beach Boys refused to complete it, sending Wilson into a decades-long depression.

Although the Wondermints have not released any new material in quite awhile, they have remained active, particularly as collaborators with a recovered Brian Wilson. Wilson resurrected the Smile (now rendered as SMiLE) project in 2004, and keyboardist/singer Darian Sahanaja played a role in piecing together and arranging the incomplete segments. The final result, in which the Wondermints acted as Wilson’s backing band, revealed Wilson’s distinctive creativity and vision, as well as Sahanaja's talent.  The band was subsequently absorbed into the immense, but necessary, 20-piece SMiLE touring group. I was fortunate enough to see Wilson on this tour, and I distinctively remember him referring to Sahanaja as his “musical director.” Not a shabby designation, considering Wilson essentially played the same role in the band that produced some of the finest pop music of the 60s.



The live performances of SMiLE garnered some attention, and brought the brilliance and imagination of Brian Wilson into the awareness of the 21st century audience. As amazing as SMiLE is, however, I find that I revisit Mind if We Make Love to You more often. It’s a go-to album that reminds me what it is that I like about consistent, well-crafted songwriting.

Snapshot of Fort Worth 2005: Benson and the Stripes

 In 2005 my Then-Girlfriend-Now-Wife got a job at a museum in Fort Worth. I was still teaching in Krum and working on my master’s at UNT, so long story short, I spent a lot of time burning up the highway between Denton and the apartment she was renting close to the museum. Naturally, with increased time spent in the car, there was a specific soundtrack that I now associate with this commute and the life that surrounded it. What is interesting in retrospect is that, although I knew of no connection between these two artists at the time, their paths would soon artistically cross.

If you saw my previous post, you’d know that I am a Brendan Benson O.G.  I picked up his first album on a whim when it came out in the late 90s, but it had been quite a while since I had heard anything from him when The Alternative to Love came out that spring (by the way, a new one from Benson comes out this year!). As a fan, I was very pleased with its polish, and it seemed that Benson’s already amazing songwriting skills were evolving. It was in rotation for a pretty significant chunk of time, so listening back to this album brings back pleasant episodes of afternoons and early evenings at the museum district in Fort Worth.  As with all of Benson's work, The Alternative to Love is a gem from beginning to end, but this one tugs at me a bit.



Her apartment was very close to the arts district, and subsequently, the downtown Fort Worth area. After work, we would often go out and frequent the restaurants in the area, in particular the Fox and Hound. This faux-pub chain had dartboards and the polished wood aesthetic that we found appealing at the time. Also, they had huge, multi-screen displays cranking out videos. Brendan Benson didn't have the big media backing to warrant that kind of airplay, but I sincerely thought that The Alternative to Love had the potential to break him into a wider audience. 

Around the same time, however, I got into The White Stripes. I had been hearing their name whispered in the shadows for a couple of years, and after doing a little research, Elephant ended up being my entry point. Jack White’s obvious talent and charisma quickly won me over (and allowed me to overlook Meg White’s lurching sense of time). Elephant ended up being a favorite that year, and one that, in retrospect, was unwittingly mainstream. I did not realize just how visible the White Stripes were until I saw this video thrown up on the Fox and Hound video wall one night.



Benson’s neo-romantic pop brings back memories of the days in Fort Worth, but The White Stripes conjure up the nights. After dinner, her apartment, though quite accessible to the downtown area, was also incredibly accessible to crazy beings from the afterlife. It was as haunted as I’ve ever seen, and at night it came alive, so to speak. It had cold spots, creaky hard wood floors, bizarre sounds, and other phenomena that just made you want to jump out the window. I don’t know how she slept there.

Later in 2005, my Aiki Brother walked into the dojo one day and announced that Jack White and Brendan Benson were collaborating on a project. We now call that project the Raconteurs, an album with its own story.



As an epilog, this was also during the time that I was working as a TA for UNT. One morning, the professor was running uncharacteristically late and we were instructed to stall. We were able to keep everyone in their seat thanks to a new, young little thing called YouTube. I threw up the video for The Hardest Button to Button and then followed it up with this little gem.

Get More: GameTrailers.com, TheCookieAddict - The Simpsons VS The White Stripes, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

I still think I deserved a bonus for staying in the lines on that one.  After all, the class was titled "Popular Music and American Culture."