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.
Music often connects to experience in strange, sometimes unpredictable ways, and its capacity to become vividly associated with times and places is, I feel, a given. In this blog, I have recently referred to these flashes of recollection that arise when listening to music from one’s past as “memory episodes,” but I don’t know that I have ever clearly defined what that means or why I think that it happens. As an organizing principle of this series in particular, it seems like that is an oversight worth addressing.
One could argue that recorded music is a phenomenological abomination. A recording tears music from the musical act and flattens it, which results in only half of a full experience for the listener. I theorize that when we listen to recorded music, the untethered aspects of the musical experience latch on to the things we are feeling, thinking, and doing as we listen. Later, if this tethering is strong enough, listening to music can trigger recollections through this association. As I reconstructed 2002 for this best-of list, my memory episodes were somewhat painful to travel through.
This was the year that I experienced the end of a marriage and desperately sought out a new path for myself. As a result, my recollections are a jumbled mess of crushing sorrow, indulgent escapism, and, later in the year, self-discovery tinted with desperation.
10. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven: My introduction to the problematic sub-genre “post-rock” also served as the soundtrack to my inner struggle with a friend’s suicide. Its melancholic mood swings still bring back sadness and rage.
9. Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head: Before they became pigeonholed as the darlings of the new adult contemporary, Coldplay resonated with me as a reinterpretation of what was once good about U2. A Rush of Blood to the Head is brimming over with well-crafted melodies and arrangements.
8. Oysterhead - The Grand Pecking Order: Although the material on the album felt a little slipshot at times, listening to Stewart Copeland lock into a groove with Les Claypool made the whole thing worthwhile. Thanks to the influence to Trey Anastasio, The Grand Pecking Order also marks the beginnings of Claypool’s interest in the jam band format, and laid the seeds for his current work with Sean Lennon.
6. Glass Hammer - Chronometree: A self-aware and somewhat satirical concept album about the pitfalls of reading too much into concept albums. Glass Hammer has made many recordings since this cautionary tale, but it remains my favorite.
5. Happy the Man - Crafty Hands: For a time this year, I was so emotionally devastated that I could barely listen to music with lyrics without twisting their meaning to suit my addiction to self-pity. This mostly instrumental release was in rotation a lot during that time, and actually served to later inspire me to play the Stick, even though there is no Stick on the album.
4. Rush - Vapor Trails: After a significant hiatus, Rush returned to the studio and produced Vapor Trails, which was a great improvement upon its predecessor Test for Echo. Although the album was slightly uneven as a whole, the band’s playing and concept was stronger than ever.
3. Spock’s Beard - Snow: Neal Morse’s final album with Spock’s Beard ended up being a career-defining rock opera with no small amount of religious overtones. Like any rock opera, Snow has its share of filler, but by and large the material is so amazing and is executed with such exhilarating chemistry that this shortcoming can be easily overlooked.
2. Peter Gabriel - Up: In retrospect, there is the nagging sense that parts of this album seemed geared toward radio airplay. These moments are fleeting, however, revealing Gabriel to be at a creative zenith in terms of orchestration and arrangement.
Album of the Year 2002
1. Porcupine Tree - In Absentia: After the relatively polished songwriting approach that Porcupine Tree had been operating with since Stupid Dream, In Absentia represented the first step in a heavier direction. While the guitar riffs were thicker than before, there was no loss of the nuanced melody and texture that had come to be the band’s trademark.
I posted last year about my history with Brendan Benson’s catalog, but I left out a tidbit of information that only now, within the context of this Jellyfish project, gains relevance. It is true that I discovered his debut quite accidentally and purchased it sight on scene, but here's the "LOST" flashback: When I cracked it open and began checking out the liner notes, I was stunned to find that several of the songs were co-written with Jason Falkner. By 1997, Presents Author Unknown had already earned Falkner a spot in my all-time greats list, and listening to One Mississippi with an ear for his influence undoubtedly contributed to my adoration of that album. Benson became another of my power pop favorites, and I have loyally followed him ever since.
As far as continuity, that criminally underviewed post on Benson would probably make more sense as the next entry in this Jellyfish-related series, but I'm addressing his most recent release in its stead. In truth, it’s been awhile since Falkner’s name has appeared in Benson’s liner notes, and his most recent release What Kind of World does bear Falkner’s influence, but not so much his direct input. I still hearits traces floating around in Benson’s songcraft, but the album’s darker setting evokes Benson’s interactions with Jack White more readily than Falkner’s vivacious energy. Regardless, Benson does have ties to Jellyfish through Falkner, and as such, deserves a dedicated branch on the their Family Tree.
Virtually every release from Benson since One Mississippi has been immediately rock-solid for me, but my experience with What Kind of World has been a bit different. Although it exhibits the same great songwriting and slick wordplay found on all of Benson’s releases, its relatively somber approach was a bit perplexing, and not just initially. It was a while before I became comfortable letting go of the carefree aesthetic of his past work. Certainly, the video for Pretty Baby reveals a very dark, and somewhat disturbing, interpretation of the song’s lyrics that did not fit with my preconceptions of Benson’s work.
Still, I never quite closed the door on What Kind of World. It kept finding its way back into the player, and I began to notice traces of Benson's freewheeling past in several songs - instances that were somehow eclipsed by the album’s more solemn moments. It took a little adjustment to smooth over these extremes. As always, however, Benson proves to be quite adept at infusing each of his albums with a definitive, unifying character. The disposition of that character is a bit more moody on What Kind of World, but it is still defined enough to bring the album together as a singular experience.
Because it follows My Old, Familiar Friend, which might be my favorite album from Benson to date, What Kind of World has a lot to live up to. In the end, however, like all of Benson’s releases, it is a phenomenal entry into the power pop canon. It is also a very recent manifestation of the long-term influence that Jellyfish continues to have in that genre, as well as my own listening interests.
The previous post in the Jellyfish Family Tree is here.
To skip to the next one, you have but to click here.
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.
Sometime in Denton around 1997, there briefly existed an independent record store in the Carriage Square shopping center whose name is now lost to obscurity. After the Sound Warehouse closed on Fry, it was one of the few places where a music fan could go and browse close to UNT campus. I'm quite sure that they were aware of this, too, because the store had a loose system in place for suggesting up-and-coming artists. In most stores, this would take the form of haphazardly sharpie-scrawled endcap claiming that “employee [x] (who you don’t know, but under whose authority you should unconditionally bow) suggests artist [y] (simply because we said so).” This store was a little different, and I’m not sure how they did their research, but at least in the case of me and Brendan Benson, it worked out pretty decently.
At the time I was an avid fan of Ben Folds Five, and as I was browsing through their section, I ran across a label suggesting Benson. I glanced over and found his full-length debut One Mississippi, and I bought it on a relative whim. It subsequently became a personal favorite that I spread far and wide amongst my friends with a near- evangelical fervor. Since then, he has consistently proven to be one of my favorite power-pop solo artists.
Early in his career, Benson projected a charismatic Weezeresque slackerishness that seemed to contradict his effortlessly clever songwriting.
In 2005, he largely shed his carefree demeanor in favor of a more polished musical approach on The Alternative to Love. I have plans for a more focused blog post on this one in the future, so I’ll save it, but its 2007 successor, My Old, Familiar Friend, continued in this somewhat more mature vein. In either case, the progression in his sound suited him incredibly well, and both of these albums are, again, personal favorites. Is it very, very difficult to pick a standout track from My Old, Familiar Friend, but this crunchy little tidbit always seems to hit me where I live.
Aside from his obviously freewheeling approach to songcraft, Benson has an astonishing consistency to his work that he continues to innovate and improve upon. Although he can place a beautifully introspective folk ballad right alongside a ripping self-conscious punk-pop anthem that would force Green Day out of their front seat on the bus (even on their best day), Benson’s albums always have a particular character and they clearly progress from one to the next. If you are interested in Benson’s oeuvre, I think that the best experience might come by starting at the beginning and traveling through his catalog chronologically, but you can get any one of them with very little fear of a dud.
Despite having such a long and, I think, artistically successful career at this point, Benson remains frustratingly relegated to the fringes. So, being such a longtime fan of Benson, I get a little defensive when he now is referred to as “the other guy from the Raconteurs.” Everything Benson does now seems to revolve around his participation in that band. It’s not like he came out of nowhere. While I accept that Jack White is more visible, and I think that he is genuinely talented, I’m not quite ready to call him a genius. I think that Benson’s track record, on the other hand, ranks him amongst my favorite artists, which exceeds a mere respect for his talent.
As far as continuity, that criminally underviewed post on Benson would probably make more sense as the next entry in this Jellyfish-related series, but I'm addressing his most recent release in its stead. In truth, it’s been awhile since Falkner’s name has appeared in Benson’s liner notes, and his most recent release What Kind of World does bear Falkner’s influence, but not so much his direct input. I still hear its traces floating around in Benson’s songcraft, but the album’s darker setting evokes Benson’s interactions with Jack White more readily than Falkner’s vivacious energy. Regardless, Benson does have ties to Jellyfish through Falkner, and as such, deserves a dedicated branch on the their Family Tree. 
At the time I was an avid fan of Ben Folds Five, and as I was browsing through their section, I ran across a label suggesting Benson. I glanced over and found his full-length debut One Mississippi
, and I bought it on a relative whim. It subsequently became a personal favorite that I spread far and wide amongst my friends with a near- evangelical fervor. Since then, he has consistently proven to be one of my favorite power-pop solo artists.
" on him. Finally, though, in 2001, Lapalco 
was one of the more reflective songs from this album.
In 2005, he largely shed his carefree demeanor in favor of a more polished musical approach on The Alternative to Love. I have plans for a more focused blog post on this one in the future, so I’ll save it, but its 2007 successor, My Old, Familiar Friend
, continued in this somewhat more mature vein. In either case, the progression in his sound suited him incredibly well, and both of these albums are, again, personal favorites. Is it very, very difficult to pick a standout track from My Old, Familiar Friend, but this crunchy little tidbit
