Am I the only person bored by 2005 (six months In, obv)?

answers appreciated by people who don't think things like the decemberists or the hold steady are making 2005 a rocking year, man.

On saying that I should be moving in Sept-ish which is a change, I suppose.

The main question is that I don't really know what I want to get out of things in 2005, which isn't exactly a Spinoza-shaking question.

Things that have made my year:
Gin
Dr Who
Plastic merlot
Lasagne
Microdisney

Strangely I am tempted to say music for the first time in a while, I seem to be listening to more stuff more often. Perhaps to make up for lack of Else in 2005. I should add I am rarely listening to stuff made after 2000 - perhaps 2005 is my year of not bothering to keep up with the kids.

Oh :(

(This is an ILM cliche I know - e.g. see here and here, and you can easily disprove it 'by science', but it still sort of feels true.

NB - strongo predicting 2004 to be best year EVAH in that first thread linked!

xpost

The result is that while I'm enjoying music I've spent a year rediscovering other stuff I enjoy and care about, so I feel nicely disconnected.

I think what I'm craving right now is the dramatization of moral dilemmas. It could be "a post-election thing."

Actually this is projection, as it's what I ought to be doing this summer for work.

so 2005 has suddenly become one of the best years in ages !

but the backlog still doesn't look too hot.

singles, not so much.

I was all happy-go-lucky WOO 2K5 for the first three-to-four months of the year, but I also found this joyous-shock-of-the-new meted by this streak of (INDIE ROCK!) nostalgia - going back to old old stuff, re-evaluating things I luv'd way back when. I imagine turning 30 had something to do w/ it. That's why I now have the last 2 Soundgarden CDs in my possession. Again.

(I do like that Decemberists album, tho, so, y'know, into the briar patch I go.)

that's all i've bought due to slackerdom and incessant working.

So, 2005 isn't boring, not overall. But right now, yes it is.

Ah, now this is interesting, I'll be seeing them on Monday open up for Meat Beat Manifesto, though I hadn't heard much positive about 'em. So what are they like?

Still, nothing's rocked me like the new Criterion rerelease of "The River" I got from Netflix last night.

2004 was a genuine bummer at the time, only partially saved by a few overlooked '04 purchases made later on.

'05 seems like it's going to be all about the first and last thirds of the year with a (welcome!) break in "things I really must buy" pressures for the summer.

Having said all that, I'm still getting the feeling that nothing has really leapt way out from leftfield, shocked and surprised people (or at least me) since 2003 now.

M.I.A. (and all the other trendy genres you can link to her) etcetera still seems more like a continuing consolidation of various exciting micro-trends than any huge and significant leap forward for music at this point. Still waiting for the '07's (according the the Anthony Wilson outlook on music cycles) perhaps?

*Just* for them? You madman! If you don't stick around for MBM then I will no longer lie!

My anticipation for Rachel Stevens, JC Chasez, Kiley Dean and Kano are pretty level.

Heheh. Slowdive and Echo, actually. ;-) Keep in mind that after DJing for eleven years I was already burnt out on radio for other reasons!

If I go I will certainly stick around, but I didn't end up being impressed by that last album outside of a few Dave King breakbeats (Dave King and Joe Tomino used to play together, btw). No idea what they're like live.

To my ears it sounds like some thoughtful, of-the-moment 'song'-ish forms uglily mated with close to bog-standard electro-trance (ala Ferry Corsten). Much, much too obvious & soulless for me and if that makes me some kind of dance-rockist then so be it.

Let me extend my cadaverous hand towards you and say "JOIN US IN OUR DANCE OF DEATH!"

Actually, I sound like me ten years ago. So I sorta expect to drift out of this phase onto something new. I ain't rushing things any though.

I sympathize with Daddino upthread. However most, films this year have sucked (and I've also gone twice a weekend for a while) while the albums have been a tad better.

I've *only* been watching "old" movies. For example, I've had this utterly ridiculous quest for about...hmmm...thirteen years now, and it's to see every single film on the National Film Registry, (Anybody got a copy of Dead Birds or the surviving reels of The Exploits of Elaine handy?) and have added to the must-see list (YES A LIST A LIST I AM A NERD HELP) a whole bunch of listed on theyshootmovies.com and a couple other places.

Richard Widmark is hot in a total-psycho way.

grime? off my radar;
as for rap, it's only June;
as for rock, WHO CARES?

Er? I've missed this descriptive term.

I have no idea. I just know that some acts have it (Daft Punk, for instance and some don't for me. like The Chemical Brothers most, but not all, of the time). It just isn't stirring any sense of anything except pure functionality on the dancefloor for me :-/ No real mystery, longing, wistfulness... Maybe I like odd things in my 'dance' music!

xpost - Isolee is still in the post :-P
The only similarity with Ferry Corsten is the same keen knack for euphoric release, but Vitalic beats him (and msot others prominent in Dance right now for attention to detail and range (because it's not as if the album is ALL epic bangers) imo. I agree on that entirely. I think that was what my comment about 'thoughtfulness' was reaching to say.

OTM. I'm sure there's lots of great stuff that's come out (there always is), but finding it's the problem!

ps -I haven't heard any of the Isolee yet, but the tracks I heard of OK Cowboy didn't sound like anything special to me.

Rolling 2005 Country Thread

fair enough, if you haven't been as compelled by music this year as you have in the past, but it's almost certainly to do with you, not the music. For me, 2005 has been incredible, maybe not in the genres I expected to be but still there's so much amazing stuff that I barely have the time to listen to non-current music. I mean...OK Cowboy, 'Gasolina', 'Since U Been Gone', 'Negotiate With Love', that Dahlback & Dahlback remix of The Knife, the new Missy, Brooke Valentine, Ellen Allien, Kano, r'n'g, MIA, the continuation of Ciara's quest for world dominance, '1 Thing', 'Don't Cha', baile funk, Electrelane, Róisín Murphy, Mu, 'Hollaback Girl', Sway, Isolée, 'Oh My Gosh', Teairra Mari, 'Vibrate'...2005 has given us ALL OF THAT and people are still whining?

I predict ...a ryyyyyyottt... 2005 BEST YEAR EVAH!

it's probably less that i haven't LIKED anything than i haven't LOVED anything.
-- strng hlkngtn (hm...), June 8th, 2005.

also, the US charts have pretty muched sucked 50 cent's big dick since spring

lots of good shit being released this year, same as every other year. lots of overpraised crap, lots of overlooked gems, lots of stuff coming up that I'm anticipating eagerly.

do your own dirty work!

And 50 Cent being so popular could be a lot worse, i.e. for every "Candy Shop" there was a "How We Do," for every "Disco Inferno" a "Hate it or Love It."

It's just that once it's been established that it's 'you'/your attitude that's the problem rather than the quality of new music out there (reasonably consistent i'd say), where can the topic go? 'Make me excited about new music please' as a more provocative way of asking for recommendations across the board this year would be fair enough if there weren't already plenty of threads containing recommendations, enthusing and discussion about this.

It's extremely difficult to swallow any view that standards have slipped, or even that there are no good (as opposed to 'new') ideas left.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00067RGAE.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Is this where all non-regular female OC cast-members go when they're axed?

Matthew Jonson
Isolee
Low Deep
Imp Batch
Amerie

and Journey

loving 2005!

(it's not as if I haven't had massive disappointments this year - Tiefschwarz, T Raumschmiere, Tori Amos, complete dearth of quality in British chart pop apart from Rachel Stevens - but there's so much else that I don't even have time to get upset about them)

but it's the consensus, if you will haha, that's missing - the groundswell behind the tunes. also, much recent (longtime really!) excitement comes from cross/multi-genre listening, but where's the fullscale cross-boundaries attendance and social force?
still - good nights/musicalevents happen around the world all the time, though maybe outside our personal social net*work -
and it's a cruel joke that we often can't identify a golden age until after the fact.

ooooooooooooooh!

Barima I have that album! Is it good? The cover looks so amazing that I've been afraid to unwrap it. I envisage it as being Serbia's ultimate Eurovision entry.

The new Hellfish album
The Shenk riddim and it's remix
"Pon Di Replay"

No complaints from me.

can we at least give it until the end of June until we start the list thread plz? i think strongo would rather have some critical analysis at this point rather than read a buncha lists. that said, i have only heard abt 3 LPs from 2005 thus far, so I'm not really qualified to pontificate in either form :(

perhaps i shall splurge on the isolee, vitalic, ellen allien and a few others this week

1. Gang Gang Dance – God’s Money
2. Various – Run The Road
3. Richard Davis –Details
4. Superpitcher – Today
5. Various – Rwd AAA Mixtape
6. Isolee - Wearemonster
7. Various – Absolutely Shocking Mixtape
8. Justus Köhncke – Doppelleben
9. Various – Rio Baile Funk:Favela Booty Beats
10. Vitalic – OK Cowboy

Probably forgot a few things. Actually, I'm sure I did.

saint etienne still to come! it's a good year

Mike Jones, Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, High On Fire, Immolation, Lost Soul, Cafe Tacuba's live thing, the Miles Davis Cellar Door box (out in September), the various America free jazz reissues, Fantomas, Stiffed (not out yet I don't think), the Esoteric, Riddle of Steel, Baczkinski/Flaherty/Corsano, Meat Beat Manifesto, Marc Ribot (the Spiritual Unity thing with Roy Campbell, Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor), New Order (even though my wife likes it more than I do)...

Maybe not listening to the radio is shielding me from the suck-ness of 2005, I don't know. But I'm having a pretty good year, as a listener.

And maybe an excellent counter right here would be to use this thread as the 2005 so far good cop/bad cop fun time discourse, which is where it seems to be going.

So, ILM, do your lists thing.

Albums:
The Shortwave Set - The Debt Collection
Cagedbaby - Will See You Now
Gustav - Rettet Die Wale
Superthriller - Superthriller1 (v. late 2004, lo-fi Dirty Mind-style Prince, British, Beck tour support)
Fannypack - See You Next Tuesday
Beck - Guero
Amerie - Touch
Gorillaz - Demon Days
The new Kiley Dean stuff I've heard
Supersystem - Never Again (which I recommend to LCD fans and disappointees)
LCD Soundsystem - s/t
Half of Will Smith - Lost and Found
And possibly The Chemical Brothers - Push The Button

Singles (a quick top 15):

Amerie - One Thing
Cagedbaby - 16 Lovers
The Shortwave Set - Is It Any Wonder
Rachel Stevens - So Good
Crazy Titch ft. Keisha B - Gully
Lady Sovereign - Random
Cut Copy - Saturdays
Britney - Do Somethin'
Daft Punk - Technologic (Jaxx Mix)
Beck - E-Pro
Out Hud - It's For You
Kathryn Williams - Shop Window
Rihanna - Pon De Replay
Gwen Stefaneee - Hollaback Girl
Patrick Wolf/Colder split 7"

anyway, blount may be right. i have listened to coldplay four times today. :(

As well you should.

i suppose its a decent year for psych-y rock and folk

Excellent: MIA (but you knew that already), Fiery Furnaces (but it's previously-issued material)
Very Good: Fantomas, A-Frames, Jennifer Gentle
Good but need to hear it more: Malkmus

Who ate all the pies?

Amerie, "1 Thing"
Architecture in Helsinki, "Do the Whirlwind"
Basement Jaxx, "Oh My Gosh"
Bloc Party, "Like Eating Glass"
Coldplay, "The Speed of Sound"
Decemberists, "The Engine Driver"
Missy Elliott ft. Ciara, "Lose Control"
The Game ft. 50 Cent, "Hate It or Love It"
Kelly Clarkson, "Since U Been Gone"
The Killers, "Mr. Brightside"
Lady Sovereign, "Random"
LCD Soundsystem, "Daft Punk is Playing at My House"
Ludacris, "Number One Spot"
M83, "Don't Save Us From the Flames"
Natalie, "Goin' Crazy"
Out Hud, "One Life to Leave"
Snoop Dogg ft. Justin Timberlake and Charlie Wilson, "Signs"
Spoon, "I Turn My Camera On"
Stars, "Ageless Beauty"
Rachel Stevens, "Negotiate with Love"
Supersystem, "Born Into the World"
Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl"
Trick Daddy ft. Cee-Lo and Ludacris, "Sugar (Gimme Some)"
Vitalic, "My Friend Dario"
Kanye West, "Diamonds"

Albums I LOVE so far this year: Mountain Goats The Sunset Tree and Electric Six's Senor Smoke. Respectively the best arguments for optimism and nihilism I've heard this year.

was spot on. What I called (sweepingly) micro-trends above (Baile Funk, Grime etc blah blah). To anyone IN those scenes it's probably no 'micro' thing at all. But to outsiders... no "big zeitgeist".

Perhaps this is nostalgia on my part, but I think what I'm missing is that groundswell, the feeling of some faultline really opening up in that propels very weird, dangerous & (later) life-changing, society altering music into the public perception.
I guess it'd be nice to be reassured by a pure blast of something wild and other.

That's the kind of thing I'd refer to as 'incredible' right now there's a lot of music which is merely 'very good'. And yeah, if it happened I might not even see it, what did ex-disco fans think of acid-house? Just more of the same?

As much as I can approve a lot of (for example) Lex's choices, I'm not quite getting the sense of that from any of the brash Pop, RnB, Grime, Underground House/Techno around yet. Although a lot of it might prove stepping stones to what comes next i.e. The Neptunes minimalism, Grime playing about with sonic/lyrical expectaions in a different way than regular UK Hip Hop, MIA bringing uncommon, foreign (baile, or different) beats into mainstream consideration, even if she's adding less to them than say Missy.. it could be a good thing. To steal more directly = less dilution of source material & more people opening up to acceptance of foreign-ness in music.

That last paragraph is probably going to embarass me later on. It's hardly original thoughts.

Some of the PFT tracks work in a bit of that don't they? Gimme a tip (and I'll do a search on Gasolina). Curious.

I think I often make the mistake of confusing the two actually.

There ya go, Scott.

Of course this is totally subjective.

and anyway, i do listen to metal scott. just not a lot. anymore.

I NEED to hear the Vitalic album.

Don't start taht again!

Crimes? or is there something newer?

Scott OTM. And OTM about Deana Carter, and that Ulver album, too. Either way, there have been scads of good metal albums this year. My favorites are probably Subterranean Masquerade and/or JD Blackfoot and/or the Sirens. All of which many metal fans would say are not metal, but what the hell. I have loved non-metal metal since forever.

Get the Jumpstyle 2005 album. It's thought provoking. Like the cusp of something really interesting about to happen. It's time the low countries came up with something new...

That Gustav song "We shall overcome" is also very exciting. A decent political dance record! Who'd'a thunk? Feels like it could foreshadow an infusion of 'meaning' into the electro juggernaut at a relatively late stage in its life, which could be unusual and life-affirming.

And finally, its from last year, but that Bertine Zetlitz song, 'Broken' is... wow. Not a great song per se, because it's ruined by the Imbruglia-isms of the singing, but the instrumental. Fuckin hell. If all europop goes that minimal this year, it could go really weird places.

And then 'Aim High vol 2' - that should have got anybody excited. Those freestyles! Shows that despite the apparent lull in the grime scene, the level of craft among the mcs is shooting skyward and we might get that classic album from someone other than Dizzee anytime soon.

2005 has felt like a slow year for me too, although it's not due to a lack of good music to check out (if anything since taking a break from weekly reviewing I'm more "behind" than ever) but because of two key absences:

1) the OMGWTF critical dances around key records, songs, scenes, sounds etc. (excepting the M.I.A. debate which is too conflicted to count I think)

2) the fact that I haven't been out dancing with my close friends much and therefore don't have the same amount of "our song" bonding that I used to wrt eg. "Hot In Herre" or "Get Busy" etc (not coincidentally my favourite songs from their respective years).

Thing is, the actual music is almost less crucial than this process surrounding it. If I'd been out dancing with my friends as much as normal than "One Thing" might mean as much to me for 2005 as "Hot In Herre" did for 2002.

Of course this is just me, yr mileage may vary obv.

Then you might like M2M's "Our Song," my most favorite teenpop song from the '00s thus far; it quotes, surrounds, recycles an old Bee Gees song that I'd only shrugged at in the original version; in this one, with the M2M song surrounding, it's in my pantheon of vulnerable hope and naked ache, along with the Chantels' "Maybe," the Shirelles' "Tonight's the Night," Irma Thomas's "Ruler of My Heart," and Debbie Deb's "When I Hear Music." ("Our Song" is on the first M2M album, Shades of Purple.)

(And the new Marion Raven single, out in Japan even as we speak, is an attempt to ride the crest of "Since U Been Gone," probably with Max twisting the dials: It's good, though Marion's voice isn't quite as suited as Kelly's for living-on-the-tiger-that's-ridin'-the-prayer-on-a-steel-horse-I-ride-while-riding-the-crest-type transcendence.) (Marion Raven was the M in M2M. Unless she was the other M.)

Actually, a good story here! Friend Stripey and I were record shopping tonight and this was playing over the PA -- Stripey was so taken by it that after a couple of minutes of listening she went ahead and bought it! I knew this would make Scott happy in particular. :-)

There's a lot of great singles from the past 6 months which have me at least moderately excited about new music. The excitement for me has dwindled slightly for the last 2 weeks or so, but I haven't bought Get Behind Me Satan yet, so there's hope.

I think the period starting 25th May 2004 up to date (fingers crossed there does appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel at the moment....) has probably been the worst of my life so far; thereby successfully elbowing 1983/84, 1992/93 and 2000 into (in no particular order) 2nd, 3rd and 4th place.

The last few years I've noticed a tendency to listen to music less than normal when I'm angry / upset; whereas when I was younger I used to imerse myself in it as a means of escape. I've no idea why this should be, but I'd be interested in any theories!

I don't seem to have been inspired to buy as much music the last few months 'though; which is not something I'm conscious of ever having been linked to periods feeling angry / upset in the past - if anything, probably the opposite.

I bought quite a few good things from 2004 back in Jan / Feb that had managed to slip through the net until I saw the same titles keep cropping up on various different year-end best-of lists (and I'm sure there will be a similar number come the end of this year; but so far the only new (2005) releases I can think of off hand that I've particularly enjoyed have been by Cheese, The Coral, The Eels, The Magic Band (obv.!), MIA and Smog.

when i was playing this last nite, ned, i thought of you (that you would dig it) and i was thinking of talk talk! isn't stripey the big talk talk fan? not that it really sounds like talk talk, but that a talk talk fan might like the new ulver. don't ask me how i made this leap. it was a leap. turns out i was right!

I need to hear this. Too, I like the Tra La La record OK, at first I said "Buzzcocks" but Chuck said "Jesus and Mary Chain" and I hear bits of both, and kinda some Liliput in there too. Sounds funny to me, I don't like the way the voices were recorded, but it's grown on me.

-- o. nate

My 2005 example has to be "Bitches Without Britches", my ears! also another absolute zinger for 2003 = still ruling my world.

'04 doesn't seem quite so bad now, and '05 not quite as great as it seemed like it might be (luckily for my finances) earlier in the year, still an improvement though.

How is anyone else feeling at this point?

Overlooked '05 thread due in Jan '06?