This is not what you had planned

Warning: non-film content ahead.

My top 10 albums of the year:

1. Animal Collective: Feels
2. Antony & The Johnsons: I Am A Bird Now
3. Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary
4. My Morning Jacket: Z
5. Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine
6. Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
7. Spoon: Gimme Fiction
8. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: S/T
9. The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike
10. Broken Social Scene: S/T

Honorable Mention:

Sigur Ros: Takk
The Clientele: Strange Geometry
LCD Soundsystem: S/T
The White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan
Andrew Bird: The Mysterious Production of Eggs

Also excellent but disqualified for technical reasons:

Belle & Sebastian: Push Barman to Open Old Wounds
Jens Lekman: Oh You're So Silent Jens
Iron & Wine: Woman King

Bands with tons of hype in 2005 that I haven't been able to get into:

Bloc Party: The UK's next Big Band. So what's the twist? This time, they can't sing, write decent lyrics, OR come up with any hooks! Ingenious!

M.I.A.: I'm a little too old and dorked out to fight the power...with dancing.

New Pornographers: To me, these guys always sound like they are intentionally writing pop songs. As if they say to each other in the studio, "Hey guys! Let's make a Pop Song for the Cool Kids!" Their stuff sounds a little too shiny and fake. Not that, say, the Shins don't make pop songs. But it doesn't sound like they are intentionally making pop music; it just came out that way. As though it was a side effect of a larger plan. Hmmm...none of this is making any sense. Oh well.

The Hold Steady: Does anybody in this band write music, or does the lead singer/ranter guy just start babbling into the microphone and the rest of the band improvises to fill the gaps? I can't tell.

Akron/Family: To all those overeager indie e-zines that made me buy this album: the fact that these guys can play "50 instruments!!!" does not mean they can play one of them well. Just because I can say "Tik James Bond!" doesn't mean I'm fluent in Hebrew.