What would Nick Hornby do? -- the obligatory year end "best of" list

at championship vinyl: "quick, top 10 albums of . . ."

Its that time of the year. The 12 days of Christmas, the 8 days of Chanukah, the 7 days of Kwaanza. And the 12 "best" (or favorite) albums of the year. According to los amigos. So here goes. (Think i'm waaay off? Yell at me in the comments, yo).


1. The Go! Team: Thunder Lightening Strike. The 2005 US release of this album deserves the top spot for all the right reasons: it's amazingly smart, incredibly fresh, and, more than a year after its original UK release, still sounds like nothing else out there. The team mixes and mashes everything from girl group r&b, northern soul, '70s funk and TV action show themes, My Bloody Valentine-like noise, lush and cheesy '60s pop, a wee bit of twee, and healthy doses of old school hip hop, playground rhymes and cheerleading drills. It rocked my iPod more than anything else this year. Oh, and their show at Paradise last month was incredible.


2. Sufjan Stevens: Illinois. While I'm not a HUGE Sufjan fan (he was in town the same night as Bloc Party and I opted for the boys from South London), this is an incredibly impressive album. Sufjan's song writing skills are more often than not jaw droppingly great. And the fact that the instrumentation and arrangements occasionally sound straight outta Waiting for Guffman is somehow a good thing (there's little of the Chicago period Stereolab sound that peppered Michigan). "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.," "Casimir Pulaski Day," and "Chicago," ranked among my most played songs this year. The hype is well deserved. p.s. this got bumped up from # 3 because two of my fellow bostonist contributors refused to put it on their lists at all, and another only put it at # 8. Moreover, achingly beautiful songs about bone cancer and serial killers somehow seem more important in the long run than tunes about benzie boxes and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Speaking of which . . .


3. DangerDOOM: The Mouse and the Mask. Damn I love this album. Take Danger Mouse's impeccable beats and sublime sampling, add MF Doom's crazy-ass raps and smooth flow, throw in the cast of characters from the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and you get one lip smacking treat. Like a big bowl of Lucky Charms, its magically delicious. Guest appearances by Talib Kweli, Cee-Lo, Ghostface Killah and Money Mark (on keys) just sprinkle on more sugar. Ummm, sugar. Plus its funnier than Automator and Prince Paul's Handsome Boy Modeling School projects (just check Master Shake's voice mail messages that run through the album -- "call me back doggie"). Full disclosure: you don't have to be a fan of Adult Swim to love this album, but it helps.


4. Boards of Canada: Campfire Headphase. Too bad we have to wait so long between releases by Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin. Others have tried, but nobody crafts blissed out beats, dreamy soundscapes and phenomenal sound textures like BoC. While not as amazing as Music Has the Right to Children (one of my favorite albums of all time), this campfire makes you feel just as warm, deliriously drowsy, and a tad bit unsettled. Like that half conscious, half hallucinatory state on the cusp sleep. After you've heard a few ghost stories. Pass the marshmallows. Happy cycling.


5. Common: Be. Perhaps not as groundbreaking or "important" a release as his mid '90s work, this is still a fantastic album. Common, along with the Roots, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, kept socially conscious, jazz infected hip hop alive after the rise of gangsta rap and decline of "golden age" giants like Tribe, De La, and Digable Planets. Be includes guest appearances by Kanye (who also produced the joint), John Legend, John Mayer and the legendary Last Poets (!) Not a single weak track -- each had me repeatedly reaching for replay on the iPod. Heaviest rotation all year next to the Go! Team. Of course I'm a sucker for progressive hip hop smoothed out on a '70s funk and soul tip.


6. Four Tet: Everything Ecstatic. Kieran Hebden moves away from the organic, dreamy "folktronica," he's known for with this darker, denser, more rhythmically complex and compelling work. Not that there aren't bright, sunny moments. "Smile Around the Face" sounds like the Avalanches in a particularly ecstatic mood.



7. M.I.A.: Arular. Ahh, Maya Arulpragasam. From Sri Lanka by way of London. UK garage and grime, baile funk, reggaeton, dancehall, crunk. It's all bumped up on this high energy follow-up to the awesome Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtape Maya and Diplo put together. Ain't nothin' but a party baby. Well actually it is more. Underlying it all are Maya's radical politics and connection -- through her father -- to the Tamil revolutionary movement. If you can't dance to this you're dead.


8. Bright Eyes: Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. Look, i just gots to give it up for my Omaha homeboy. While most critics thought Conor's I'm Wide Awake Its Morning, released by Saddle Creek the same day, was the stronger of the pair, I can only take so much countrified folk and pedal steel. But the gentle electronica, laid down with some help from the Postal Service's Jimmy Tamborello, and the harder rock (the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Nick Zinner adds a few cameos) had me playing this album over and over. "Gold Mine Gutted" and the fantastic "Light Pollution" (how many rock songs reference the Socialist Review?) are standouts. Course the latter's penultimate verse about "the baseball game letting out," and driving "out through the crowd and all those cops, out past that Center Mall, out past that sickening sprawl. . ." has special meaning to someone who grew up watching baseball's College World Series in Rosenblatt Stadium. Sorry to say I missed the Bright Eyes tour promoting this album with Omaha's brilliant synth pop/electrofunk retro futurists the Faint. Of course there's more to the lauded (or lamented depending on your perspective) Omaha scene than Conor and the Faint. Or even the Saddle Creek stable of bands. Hell there's even the hip hop of Mars Black, Breathless, and Buck Bowen. For more on the Omaha scene, see Clever Titles Are So Last Summer. Although she's from Lansing, CTASLS's Bethanne has her finger more firmly on the pulse of the Omaha scene than any other audioblogger.


9. (tie) Bloc Party: Silent Alarm / Bloc Party: Silent Alarm Remixed. One of the best of the batch of post punk and punk funk revival bands from the past few years. Lots of Gang of Four influences, but much less derivative, angular and political than Radio 4 (who i love, btw). And they certainly have a much broader array of post punk and early 80's new pop influences and references points. As i mentioned in my review of their show @ Avalon this September, Bloc Party has been described as GoF mashed-up w/ the English Beat. Which isn't a bad characterization (especially for songs like "Blue Light"). The Remix album is better than most such projects (I actually liked it even better than the original).


10. Kanye West: Late Registration. Kanye's sophomore effort is brilliant and infectious. Just try and tell me that the use of the looped Ray Charles sample, the honkin' electronic line and squiggly scratches at the end don't make "Gold Digger" a great single. It ain't braggin' if you can back it up. 'Nuff said. Oh, except "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Word.


11. Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah: Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah. Yeah. All the hype. I was resistant at first. But the bandwagon kept circling the block. So i finally decided to give up and jump on. And going along for the ride has been a great trip. (And hell, a little bit of early talking heads sound never hurt any band).



12. Beck: Guero. I wish I could rank this higher, but Beck isn't the groundbreaking whiz kid of old. This return to Odelay form -- complete with a Dust Brothers reunion -- was nevertheless a welcome treat. And a damn great album, albeit it one we've heard before. Only complaint, the poppy "Girl" simply sucked (and I thought Mr. Hansen couldn't write a bad song). p.s. I haven't heard the newly released remix album Guerolito yet. p.p.s. Pitchfork's review is hilarious (even though they only gave the album a 6.6)


Just missed the cut: Gorillaz: Demon Days (there must be a rule that you can't have more than one cartoon hip hop collaboration album featuring Danger Mouse on a year end "best of" list); LCD Soundsystem: LCD Soundsystem; The Rakes; The Kills: No Wow ("The Good Ones" should have been a monster single); The White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan; Architecture in Helsinki: In Case We Die (great show at the Middle East in October).

Need to spend more time with: Kassabian: Kassabian (may well have replaced Beck had I bothered to pick it up and hear more than a couple cuts); Elbow: Leaders of the Free World; Sigur Ros: Takk.

Favorite mash-up: 1). The Legendary K.O.: "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People." Well, not really a mash-up, but K.O.'s use of Kanye's "Gold Digger," (and infamous quote) to make a statement about the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina was was perfect. 2). DJ Rico and Lenlow (Boston's own) "P-Funk is Playing at My House". Part mash-up, part remix, part cover of LCD Soundsytem's "Daft Punk is Playing at My House." More Cowbell!! 3). dj BC (Boston's own) "The Coltrane Influence." Ok, saving this "category," finally a pure mash-up. Jurrasic Five and Coltrane. damn straight.

Favorite Guilty Pleasure: tie: Annie: Anniemal (inspite of, not because of "Chewing Gum") / Shakira: Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1. Where's my blow pop?

p.s. this list will be posted on bostonist. It also informed the official bostonist "best of" list, culled from the rankings of four bostonist contributors. While our lists had little overlap (only two of us had any hip hop), it was surprisingly easy for us to agree to one list (although it took a while and a whole slew of back-and-forth emails).

p.p.s. I asked my brother Andy to email me his list and here it is (thanks bro!) 1. Gorillaz: Demon Days, and, in alpahabetical (not ranked) order: Boards of Canada: Campfire Headphase, Chemical Brothers: Push the Button, Doves: Some Cities, Kaiser Chiefs: Employment, Kasabian: Kasabian, New Order: Waiting for the Sirens Call. Honorable Mention: Beck: Guero, Death Cab for Cutie: Plans.

happy holidays, yo. yo, yo.