MY 5 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2005

Mike Myers didn't win a Grammy either.

5. Young Jeezy Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101

The signature sound of 2005 had to be Young Jeezy's YEAAAHHHs and UNHHHs. But there's a lot to like about Let's Get It beyond the adlibs. Jeezy is charismatic, yes, he delivers punchlines methodically, yes, and Let's Get It is the quintessential coke-rap album, yes, but the music is exciting in its own right. The album's various producers mirror the fast/slow tension of Snowman's verses by filling their tracks with rapid synthesizer chirps and deep, patient thumps. When the horns blow deliberately like on the album's two classic cuts, "Standing Ovation" and "Go Crazy," it's a wrap.

4. Beanie Sigel The B.Coming

The B.Coming is the sound of conscience rap; fuck Common. While all the trap-hoppers were slanging,murdering and womanizing, BeSi was locked in a cell and so his prospective is a little different. Beans is a bad man (he does his dirt) but he isn't happy about it (pain weighs heavy on his heart, it hurt). I'm not sure, but I think this is the bleakest hip hop album of all time. This is Nebraska, this is the Delta blues. Beanie Sigel is out of jail, he just doesn't sound like it.

3. Art Brut Bang Bang Rock & Roll

I think Art Brut annoys everyone at first. Then the drums and guitars get you. Then you're laughing/shouting BRAND NEW GIRLFRIEND. This album is a perfect example of a band finding a formula (loud, clean drums+loud, clean guitars+ridiulously prosaic verses+huge sing/shout-along choruses) and sticking with it. For almost any other rock band this might be too much of the same thing, but Art Brut is one of the few rock bands who are musically vibrant enough to compete with hip-hop these days. In other words: Art Brut! Top of the Pops!


2. Lil' Wayne Tha Carter II

I didn't believe it. Greatest rapper alive? Get out of here. But Weezy F. (the F stands for FEMA) Baby changed my mind and the evidence is right here. On track after track after track, Lil' Wayne spits pure fire. Everyone talks about how Wayne's grown into his cackle and how his voice adds depth to everything he says. I think he sounds silly and I like it. On the J.R. Writer mixtape track "Pick It Up," Weezy raps, "I've got a cocky-ass walk/I bounce and I bop" and he could just as easily be describing his gleeful flow. On Tha Carter II, his voice skips from high to low in a pleasant sing-song way that adds a tension to his frequently nasty rhymes. This is the South's Blueprint: throw any beat at Lil' Wayne and he'll kill it.


1. Kanye West Late Registration

What did you expect? Kanye just has too much more to say and too many more ways to say it. Plus it all holds together. "Crack Music" sits comfortably next to "Roses." The production is on point through out the album (although the hottest beat comes, ironically, from Just Blaze) and enough with the complaining about Kanye's flow: he stays on beat the entire record and offers up the right details to make his tales come to life. On "Drive Slow," my favorite track, Kanye absolutely kills it with the specifics of his memories, like his boy Mali, who had an Al B. Sure do, walking through the mall with his detachable stereo face in his hand. Late Registration isn't perfect--there's one awful track ("Bring Me Down") and a few more that don't live up to Kanye's absurdly high standards--but who else out there can talk to us about trapping, the buffet at KFC and the healthcare system AND make it sound this good?