•   15. The Magic Numbers, The Magic Numbers
•   14. Beck, Guero
•   13. Ryan Adams, Jacksonville City Nights
•   12. Bright Eyes, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn
•   11. Bloc Party, Silent Alarm
•   10. Bright Eyes, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
•   9. The Cribs, The New Fellas
•   8. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
•   7. Maximo Park, A Certain Trigger
•   6. Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better
•   5. Wolf Parade, Apologies To The Queen Mary
•   4. The Rakes, Capture/Release
•   3. The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
•   2. Brakes, Give Blood
•   1. Arcade Fire, Funeral

2005 was a year of ups and downs for some new bands: one moment your band is the hottest thing on the block, the next it’s just that little bit trendier to hate you (see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Bloc Party, to name a few). It was amusing to witness some of the music critic’s schizophrenia at first, but after a while it got mighty annoying. It made me question what I wanted out of an album. Well, I thought long and hard about it and the only thing I could come up with was: “It must not suck”. So it is quite safe to say that this list is totally, 100 percent free of suckage.

Picking the albums I wanted on the list was not the problem, putting them in a particular order was the pickle. It was hard. I mean heartbreakingly hard. I don’t ever wanna do this again … until next year. Now, after a bajillion revisions, I’m still not sure I got it right. I wasn’t sure how to rate one band I love over the other. How do you measure the degrees in appreciation?? I decided to pick the albums I keep going back to and/or the ones that moved me the most. Well, here they are, these are the albums that moved me to dance, cry, laugh or nod my head vigorously in 2005. Oh poop. I just changed it again …

I love them all for different reasons: For their originality, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Wolf Parade, Brakes and Arcade Fire were the bands that really surprised me. Or the way they transform guitar music into a celebration of being young like The Rakes and The Cribs do so well. Or for the unchanging – unless it’s for the better – quality and constant creativity Ryan Adams, Beck, The White Stripes and Bright Eyes give us. Or the way Bloc Party, Maximo Park and Franz Ferdinand make me want to get down and boogie reminiscent of the dance scene in The Breakfast Club. Or just for being able to make me grin in the street like an idiot with headphones, which is what The Magic Numbers and The A-Sides (who didn’t make the list but are still worth mentioning) did for me.