LAist Staff Picks 2005: Music

With any luck, right now the mistletoe is hung, the presents are wrapped, the wassail is bubbling and all of our lovely readers are snuggled up happily at home, enjoying the beginning of what promises to be a fine holiday weekend.

We understand, however, that most of us are not that lucky. Most of us are, in fact, probably at work right now, resigned to spending one more day shuffling papers prior to making a mad dash to a mall for some last-minute gifts before hitting the freeway with a car full of mostly-wrapped packages en route to someone else's house for the holiday. Oh yes, a merry day indeed.

The friendly faces at LAist HQ would like, in a bid to help ease the frentic energy of the impending whirlwind, to offer our thoughts on some of the high points of 2005. It was, after all, a great year, which is what we all try so hard to remember while sitting amidst our fellow Angelenos in bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to get anywhere—anywhere—on the 5 this time of year.

So, what follows is the first in a series of highlights for the year; we decided to kick things off with some noise, both for those wanting suggestions for the aforementioned last-minute gifts, and for those wishing to drown out the bleating horns of holiday traffic...

CAROLYN (in alphabetical order)
01. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
02. LCD Soundsystem — LCD Soundsystem
03. Silversun Pickups — Pikul
04. Spoon — Gimme Fiction
Most Played Album(s) from a Year Other than 2005:
Igor Stravinsky — Rite of Spring, Pierre Boulez conducting (1969)

CHRIS
01. Coldplay — X&Y
02. Death Cab for Cutie — Plans
03. Fall Out Boy — From Under the Cork Tree
04. Franz Ferdinand — You Could Have Said It So Much Better
05. The White Stripes — Get Behind Me Satan

JASON
01. Common — Be
02. Mariah Carey — The Emancipation of Mimi
03. Dangerdoom — The Mouse and the Mask
04. M.I.A. — Arular
05. Kanye West — Late Registration
06. Sleater-Kinney — The Woods
07. Eisley — Room Noises
08. The Decemberists — Picaresque
09. Little Brother — The Minstrel Show
10. The Perceptionists — Black Dialogue
11. Maximo Park — A Certain Trigger
12. Amos Lee — Amos Lee

JEN
01. Queens of the Stone Age — Lullabies to Paralyze
02. Heartless Bastards — Stairs and Elevators
03. Beck — Guerolito
04. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club — Howl
05. LCD Soundsystem — LCD Soundsystem

JOSH SPECTOR
01. 22-20s — 22-20s
02. Detroit Cobras — Baby
03. Green Day — American Idiot
04. The Kleptones — A Night at the Hip Hopera
05. Bettye LaVette — I've Got My Own Hell To Raise
06. Various (Mojo Magazine) — Best of Trojan Records
07. Various (Mojo Magazine) — Dylan Covered
08. Ozomatli — Live at the Filmore
09. Party Ben — Sixx Mixx
10. White Stripes — Get Behind Me Satan

KEVIN
01. Old Crow Medicine Show — OCMS
02. Sigur Ros — Takk...
03. Enya — Amarantine
04. Imogen Heap — Headlock
05. Mike Doughty — Haughty Melodic

LINDSAY
01. Josh Rouse — Nashville
02. Death Cab for Cutie — Plans
03. Imogen Heap — Speak for Yourself
05. Ryan Ferguson — Three, Four EP

MARLEIGH
01. The Hold Steady — Separation Sunday
02. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals — Cold Roses/Jacksonville City Nights
03. Bright Eyes — I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
04. Anthony & the Johnsons — I Am a Bird Now
05. Robbie Fulks — Georgia Hard
06. Ulver — Blood Inside
07. The New Pornographers — Twin Cinema
08. Dredg — Catch Without Arms
Honorable Mention:
Morrissey — Live at Earl's Court
Queens of the Stone Age — Lullabies to Paralyze
Neil Diamond — 12 Songs
M.I.A. — Arular
Nada Surf — The Weight is a Gift
The Darkness — One Way Ticket...
Most Played Album(s) from a Year Other than 2005:
The Smiths — The Queen is Dead (1990)
Dolorean — Violence in the Snowy Fields (2004)
Interested in top tens from other parts of the globe? Check out what they're listening to at our sister sites in Shanghai and Boston.

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