Top 6 Albums of the Year So Far

6) Cat Power: Jukebox

I’ve never been a big Cat Power fan, but that might be because I’ve been listening to songs Chan Marshall wrote herself. These are all covers, though, and some of them have been changed so drastically that I didn’t even realize what they were until I looked at the song titles. Even when they are fairly recognizable, the spin she puts on them is unexpected and completely fascinating. She shows she’s got soul, a little bit of groove, and a ton of talent when she’s not having a breakdown in the middle of her songs.

5) Gnarls Barkley: The Odd Couple

Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse return with an album that is, on the whole, even better than St. Elsewhere. It doesn’t have any of the sharp hooks or obvious hits of that first album, but the songs here are moodier, more nuanced, and far more layered, and while it’s never quite great, it is consistently very good from beginning to end. Also, they made a video that had to be pulled from MTV because they were afraid it would throw people into epileptic fits, which will always bump you up a spot or two on my lists.

4) The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride

If John Darnielle makes a record, it has to end up on any “best of the year” list. It just does. It’s like some cosmic law or something. I once made a “Best Nonfiction Books of 2005″ list, and when I was finished I looked it over and somehow Darnielle’s The Sunset Tree album was on there. I have no idea how that happened.

At any rate, this is easily his most sonically ambitious and accomplished album, and his lyrics can still make you just shake your head (“my heart’s an autoclave”). If sometimes I get a little nostalgic for his old lo-fi-sit-in-the-closet-and-record-on-a-noisy-tape-deck days, well… I can always go back and listen to the old stuff. Go forth, JD.

“When the house goes up in flames, no one emerges triumphantly from it. When the scum begins to circle the drain– everybody loves a winner.”

3) The Black Keys: Attack & Release

As exciting and surprising as The White Stripes can be, these two (who use the same setup, a guitar and a drum set) are just far and away superior musicians. This album, produced by (again) Danger Mouse, somehow figures out how to sound refreshingly clean and very, very dirty at the same time. They don’t even bother to pretend that they aren’t cribbing from old acts like Cream, but they grind out the genre so well that one could easily get confused about when this album was really released. High, high craftsmanship. And real live rock and roll.

2) Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago

Heartbreaking and completely infectious. Justin Vernon’s style takes a moment to get used to, but once you do, there’s no going back. His spare sounds worm their way into your head and are able to convey the loneliness of a winter cabin (which is where he recorded the album, alone) without veering off into “cry myself to sleep in the corner” territory. Deeply melancholic and occasionally bittersweet, it still somehow makes you want to listen to it again and again. This could easily be the best actual record album of the year. But:

1) Flight of the Conchords: Flight of the Conchords

Well, why can’t this be #1? More or less the soundtrack to the unparalleled HBO show of the same name, this is the funnest, funniest, most surprisingly good set of songs in a long, long time. These aren’t just clever lyrics (although they are that too) or songs with Tenacious D-ish “winking at the camera even though we’re playing it completely straight” level songwriting (not knocking the D here, either, I love you guys, too). No, the New Zealand duo of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement honed their craft on stage before moving to radio and then television, and it allowed them to develop a lyrical style that constantly foils expectations while remaining completely hilarious. And more than that, they move effortlessly through singer-songwriter ballads, urban funk hits, Fugees “Vocab”-style rap songs, David Bowie ripoffs, Robot epics, and even Jamaican dancehall hits– not just with ease, but with skill. It’s possible this should belong to a category of its own, so it doesn’t get in the way of “serious” artists, but– no, that’s not possible. This really is the best album of the year. So far.



–Note: List does not take into account anything released after June. There’s already been some great stuff this month (Hold Steady, anyone?) that’ll have to wait for the year-end list. Tough.