1 - Spoon - Gimme Fiction
2 - Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
3 - Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
4 - Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
5 - My Morning Jacket - Z
6 - Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
7 - Kanye West - Late Registration
8 - Decembrists - Picaresque
9 - Ed Harcourt - Strangers
10 - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Howl
11 - Elbow - Leaders of the Free World
12 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
13 - Feist - Let it Die
14 - Eels - Blinking Lights
15 - LCD Soundsystem
16 - New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
17 - The Magic Numbers
18 - Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production...
19 - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Cold Roses
20 - Supergrass - Road to Rouen
21 - Animal Collective - Feels
22 - Sleater Kinney - The Woods
23 - Martha Wainwright
24 - The Go Betweens - Oceans Apart
25 - Paul McCartney - Chaos & Creation...

I guess it says a lot about what a relatively weak year it was in music when you only want to do a 25 list instead of our 50s from last year. Strangely absent this year were anything exciting out of the Alt-Country ranks, Rap was cold and the ubiquity of Emo notwithstanding, it didn't offer anything terribly memorable. It was also an off year for the gals. Fiona Apple's return was an over-hyped disappointment as were misfires from the likes of Liz Phair, Shelby Lynn, Sheryl Crow, Madonna, Ani DiFranco and Garbage to name a few, though Rufus' sis Martha shone on her debut, and we yanks finally got a release of Broken Social Scene's Chanteuse Leslie Feist. And though Kyle couldn't agree, I enjoyed Sleater Kinney's Friddman-produced opus.

Ryan Adams managed to make good on his 3-release '05 promise, with the Grateful Dead tribute making my list and what a welcome surprise it was to have the Go Betweens make, not only a return, but one true to form. The same goes for Kate Bush, who didn't quite make my list, but didn't miss by much. 2005 was also marked by so-so releases by some of our past favorites, i.e. Coldplay, Doves, White Stripes, Fiery Furnaces, Death Cab For Cutie, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead to name a few. Honorable mentions go to Kate Bush, Beck, Ben Folds, Devandra Banhart, Broken Social Scene, Okkervil River, Gorillaz, Mars Volta, Magnolia Electric Co, Stephen Malkmus, British Sea Power and Hot Hot Heat (I'll catch hell for that last one). I dunno, maybe it wasn't such a bad year after all?