Best Albums of the Year: 20-16

20. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
"Banquet" was my little secret in 2004, when I first caught them on one of the 100 music channels I had in my expat flat in London. My little secret became excessive mentioning of an unknown band to friends when "Little Thoughts" arrived with it's bright colored lego-block looking video and that moment where the drummer freaked out at the end. I was crowning them with BEST NEW BAND like it was 2001 and the Strokes still made great albums. This atmospheric grey-washed album was not the hook-laden release I had predicted, and instead took time to sort out. It's mostly worth it. "So Here We Are" and "Blue Light" prove the band isn't one dimensional. But while that's all well in good, it's the manic moments when the drummer is pounding like the only song he's ever head is "Teenage Riot" that kept me listening.

19. My Morning Jacket - Z
It begins with that pulsing bass before the effortless moan fills the chorus and makes life a wonderful place. But what sets this release apart is the wide-screen scope of its ambition. That was particularly striking during a year when the intimate was treasured. Quirky eccentrics should be valued, but that should not automatically crown someone as having musical integrity. Just because you spend all day in a homemade studio does not mean you craft great albums. Here is an album that was made in a real studio, and an expensive one at that. And it's a rush to hear a band so dangerously close to greatness firing off Flaming Lips send-offs like "What a Man" and demented minor key guitar freak-outs like "It Beats For You" in absolute fidelity.

18.The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
This was my cruising album last summer. Let me rephrase. This was my bike riding around Indianapolis cruising album. On a girls bike. That was too small. I'd like to say that this concept album of lost souls in a dead end town had something to do with my bike riding adventures when I really didn't have a job beyond grading ISTEP tests for junior high kids in Kentucky and my only worries were what Abby and I were having for dinner and whether or not I was going to go to Austin's to have some whisky and listen to Tom Waits. But my memories are probably just mere nostalgia for warm weather. The ride to his house took about 15 minutes and took me from the tree lined canal, around an obscene number of war memorials, and then up multilaned Delaware, to the semi-shady/cool-new-part-of-town where Austin lived. And for some reason the classic rock underpinning these tales and the husky crooner sounded great to the pumping of my overly-long legs. While the characters in the mini-rock soap opera worrying about overdoses and salvation, I just worried about large cars and flat tires.

17. Paul McCartney - Chaos and Creation in the Background
Cute Paul is the most embarrassing Beatle to claim as your favorite. While this is might be due to his being a "smug, charmless fuck” as pitchfork so eloquently said, it’s mostly because he’s made 20 or so bad albums that I’ve never wanted to listen to. Each passing year I’ve had to feel even more ashamed of liking the guy that wrote “Hey Jude” and “Penny Lane”. I have to endure the millions who claim that George Harrison was the integral part to the Beatles’ destiny because, you know, he was cool.
Chaos and Creation in the Background isn’t the long lost classic that I want Paul to write, there are no hits here, nor anything that will replace his Beatles contributions. Instead it’s weather-worn collection that feels like a lost treasure trove of b-sides lovingly stashed in a dresser drawer, taken out and shown to those he really cares about. “Jenny Wren” and and “How Kind of You”, like his excellent “Vanilla Sky” released two years ago, appear so accidental, that it shows how natural McCartney’s genius really is when he decides to use it.

16. LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
To most outside the innner indie-rock crtique circle, which oddly includes me though I've been reviewing albums for over 5 years, our first introduction to LCD Soundsystem was through Pitchfork's remarkable Best Singles of 2000-2004. Judged against those three singles ("Beat Connection", "Losing My Edge", and "Yeah") this album can seem almost quaint. Most of the epic dance freakouts are gone, replaced by small fragments with an almost insular focus. "Too Much Love" continues the basic beat principles of their best songs, but "Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up" slows things down to a Pink Floyd stroll. "Movement" furious three minutes rush by like punk. The songs don't flow well into each other, but taken individually, as the album most be heard, they become something of small wonders of musical knowledge. And it doesn't hurt that those three singles are included in the bonus disc.