Good Weather For Airstrikes

[UPDATE: Blogger is randomly inserting HTML code all over this post, so there is a chance that it looks far worse than it was designed to. It looks different in Firefox than it does in Safari, apparently it looks really messed up on a PC running Internet Explorer, and the album covers were misaligned when I checked in NetNewsWire so if you’re reading this in an RSS reader it may look awful, and for all this formatting issues I apologize. If you have a Mac, try checking out the post in Safari, it looks perfect there and nowhere else. I really have no clue how this happened and it’s very frustrating. That said, try and enjoy the music regardless, that is what this site is about after all. Thanks for your tolerance.]

First off: I am an album person. I prefer listening to albums straight through, I’ve never been a huge fan of singles, and I’m old-fashioned enough to still consider a music video to be an advertisement for the album as a whole. Some people prefer songs (Derek, for example), some people prefer the album in its entirety, its really just a matter of opinion. This personal preference of mine is the basic reason that all the end-of-year lists I’ll be putting up here on Good Weather for Airstrikes will be albums, not songs or singles or music videos. The first list up here is what I would consider to be 10 albums that won’t be making my favorites list but that I would definitely consider worthy of checking out. These albums all came out in 2005 to much less fanfare than I believe they deserved. Again, this is an extremely subjective list, as I had to judge both what albums I liked AND what albums I felt were underappreciated in the blogosphere. The following is the result (with an mp3 [yes, it actually is an mp3, not an m4a… I converted them for YOU] for each album, of course).

The Joggers, With a Cape and a Cane
I don’t really know too much about this band, and I couldn’t find any information on their website, so I’ll just give you the limited information that I do know: Pitchfork gave this album, the bands second, a very solid 8.3 rating, describing it as ‘consistent’ and ‘a solid indie rock record’. Downloadable below is the first track on the album, which is my personal favorite song.

The Joggers, Ziggurat Traffic

13 & God, 13 & God
This band is a collaboration between Germany’s The Notwist and California rap group Themselves. Though you may not think this sounds like a recipe for success, and at first listen you may be ready to affirm your thoughts, further sonic investigation leads to a truly unique sound that will inexplicably get itself stuck in your head. Overall a good experience, and definitely worth the time it takes to ‘get it’.
13 & God, Tin Strong

Goldfrapp, Supernature
Allison Goldfrapp’s triumphant return to the dance-y scene glam scene somehow seemed to slip criminally under the radar of most music bloggers, and anybody who missed out on Supernature ’cause they were too busy hopping the Annie bandwagon (or worse, the Robyn bandwagon) should be ashamed. This stunning young lady makes me want to la la far more than Ashlee Simpson ever did.
Goldfrapp, Ooh La La

Cage, Hell’s Winter
Cage is white “demonic shock-rapper” (says Pitchfork). The ‘Fork also calls Hell’s Winter a “revelation”; as it sees Cage rapping about his own life, which is plenty harrowing to the average person. On this disc Cage also got help from some big-name producers, including RJD2, who made “Shoot Frank”, a track featuring Darryl Palumbo, frontman of Glassjaw and GWFAS fave Head Automatica.
Cage, Shoot Frank (f. Darryl Palumbo)

Wilderness, Wilderness
Any band signed to the fantastic Jagjaguwar label (home of Okkervil River) is expected to be good, and Wilderness does not disappoint. As if that wasn’t enough to get me psyched about Wilderness, the band is set to play shows with one of my favorite bands, Explosions in the Sky. Hailing from Baltimore, MD, the hard-working band is already finishing up a sophomore album for Jagjaguwar.
Wilderness, Arkless

Audible, Sky Signal
This band has kind of a history. It started as a solo project that added members. They played a show opening for Bright Eyes. The band disbanded (very punny, eh?) when the two members joined matt pond PA (meh). The guys left matt pond PA, restarted Audible, played a show (opening for matt pond PA), and now are being heralded as Philadelphia’s answer to Death Cab for Cutie by me.
Audible, October Song

Teenage Fanclub, Man-Made
This band entered the studio for the first time 6 months and a few days after my first birthday, and thats a little bit off-putting. Lord knows I haven’t produced much in the past seventeen years, but Teenage Fanclub has gone through quite a lot and put out more than a couple good albums. For some reason, probably the age gap, the blogs aren’t really eating this one up, but they should be.
Teenage Fanclub, It’s All In My Mind

Ladytron, Witching Hour
I just posted a track by this band a little while ago here, and the one I posted (”International Dateline”) is my favorite from this album. Instead of posting it again below, I’m going to post the single from the album that everybody seems to like more than “International Dateline” anyway. If you like girls and electronic music you should like Ladytron. This is an all-around good comeback for the band, and deserves some more hype.
Ladytron, Destroy Everything You Touch

Black Mountain, Black Mountain
The second Jagjaguwar band on this list, which should let you all know how underrated I feel Jagjaguwar to be. Black Mountain hails from Canada, but they still deserve our respect. Those that know of Black Mountain consider them to be a “next big thing” type of deal, which may have something to do with their touring with Coldplay. To those of you Coldplay haters, Black Mountain, sounds nothing like Coldplay.
Black Mountain, Druganaut

The Perishers, Let There Be Morning
Though this post has been done mostly out of order, this is probably my favorite album on this list and in my opinion one of the more underrated albums of the year. It’s funny, cause this band was on some O.C. Mix or something and they had a song played on an episode, you’d think they’d at least get mentioned, but I guess not. If everyone listens to these two songs, that should change.

The Perishers, Sway
The Perishers, Trouble Sleeping

So there you have it, ten of the more underrated albums of 2005 as chosen by me and solely me, a list that probably nobody will totally agree with. The basic goal here was to expose the readership to some new music, and hopefully I accomplished that. Coming up next from me: “13 Albums from 2005 That I Shouldn’t Like but I Do Anyway”.

Until next time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 24th, 2005 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.