25-21

25) Hot Chip – The Warning
Why didn’t I find this album earlier? I, admittedly, lost my edge this year. I didn’t read Pitchfork or Stylus or CokeMachineGlow or any other sites as religiously as I had in ’05 and certain releases just slipped by me. However from the moment Nick passed it on to me it became my background music—for a solid week. Hot Chip intrigues without overwhelming, relaxes but doesn’t dull. Had I listened to it earlier no doubt it would have climbed higher but at least it came along to bump Nelly Furtado off the list. I’m still trying to decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.

24) Yo La Tengo – I’m Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
I picked up this album soon after it came out, listened to it maybe once and shelved it. Later, after being berated by Nick and Blake, I picked the album up again and didn’t even get halfway. I wanted to like because it had the best album title, well, ever. But it just annoyed me. Then it clicked. It’s an album of small details: the strings on “I Feel Like Going Home,” the fifties organ on “I Should’ve Known Better.” Even the nine-minute “Pass the Hatchet” feels incomplete, a brief distilled moment, a minute detail.

23) Peter Bjorn and John – Writer’s Block
I don’t like this kind of this kind of music. Don’t ask me to define the demonstrative, I can’t tell you what I mean by this. Just imagine a slight sneer when I say it, this. However I like this (supply required proper noun) as opposed to, say, Belle and Sebastian—which you will not find on this list. I don’t mind the whistling on “Young Folks” or the faux western guitar on “Let’s call it off.” Nay, I like those moments. An example of appreciating quality song writing among almost hated musical elements.

22) Girl Talk – Night Ripper
Musical masturbation. Plain and simple. The ability to shamelessly enjoy ghetto rap spread like butter over late-nineties and indie standards. When I play this for my friend I ask, “Did you recognize the Neutral Milk Hotel, sample?” or “Don’t you love how he subverts Annie’s ‘Heartbreaker’ with ‘My Humps’?” I feel superior, and dance like a white boy. There’s only one reason this album didn’t make my top ten: masturbation, though many will argue, never equals the real thing—he doesn’t actually create music. Girl Talk simply had the time between real masturbation sessions to concoct this pure pleasure of an album.

21) The Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
I shouldn’t like this album. I should ban their over-hyped, over-produced, over-British sound from my ears. My teenage high school students go bonkers for this shit. They lack originality and mature song writing (‘Montagues and Capulets?’ what the fuck?). For this reason no one thought they’d win the Mercury Prize (as if anyone cares about the Mercury Prize)—but they did. Why? This album is simply good. They do what every garage band wants to do: beat the fuck out of their instruments and make it sound good.