December 14th, 2005
KEITH PHIPPS
1) The Go! Team, Thunder, Lightning, Strike (Columbia)
2) Antony And The Johnsons, I Am A Bird Now (Secretly Canadian)
3) Sufjan Stevens, Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty)
Sure, Stevens' ongoing project of basing albums around each of the 50 states is a gimmick. But it's a gimmick that works, as this follow-up to Michigan proves. Drawing on aspects of Illinois history—well-known, obscure, honored, and infamous—Stevens creates a vivid portrait of a place that's unmistakably the Land Of Lincoln, but also a stand-in for anywhere there's human drama.
4) Sleater-Kinney, The Woods (Sub Pop)
5) My Morning Jacket, Z (ATO/RCA)
6) Sun Kil Moon, Tiny Cities (Caldo Verde)
7) The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan (V2)
Nobody stays the same forever, and all the experiments on The White Stripes' fifth album don't quite work out on first listen, but it's still a thrilling exercise. And on subsequent listens, it all starts to come together. Sometimes the deepest thrills aren't the visceral ones.
8) Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine (Epic)
Apple's long-in-limbo third album was on the verge of becoming a joke. Rumors of a disaster swirled until a Jon Brion-produced version linked to the Internet helped quiet them. The final version—a set of raw, forceful, unflinching tales of heartbreak that surpasses Apple's previous albums—suggested that she should be a voice of note for years to come, assuming she wants to be.
9) Common, Be (Geffen)
10) Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Cold Roses (Lost Highway)
Self-restraint has never been Ryan Adams' strongest quality, and that makes it all the more strange that his strongest solo album would be inspired by The Grateful Dead. But with Cold Roses—the first of Adams' three albums released this year—Adams drew on American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, those Dead albums that even jam-band-haters can love, and which serve as the secret source of more alt-country than most alt-country fans would willingly admit. The result: A yearning, delicate set that's his best album since he left Whiskeytown.
Dismissed On A Technicality
Released independently in 2004, then re-released last spring, Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitsch (Sire/Shoplifter) combines heartbreak and genuine oddness. Whether singing songs narrated from the perspective of inside an ex-lover's mouth, or creating moving fantasies of a cancer-stricken woman's escape into luxury, Spektor announces herself as a strikingly original talent, usually using nothing but her voice and a piano. Like Antony And The Johnsons, she makes cabaret art into a high-wire act.
Three Things To Do With A Time Machine:
1) Warn Lincoln about going to Ford's Theater.
2) Kill Hitler.
3) Prevent the Black Eyed Peas from recording "My Humps."
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