Number Ones That Never Were: Best of 2005 Edition

Part Two:

10) Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood/Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: critical darlings from Brooklyn. Lead singer Alec Ounsworth pushes his luck with his repeated chanting of "child star" but redeems himself when he gets to "the sex, and the drugs and the rock and rock and rock and rock and roll, hah!"

11) Going Blonde/Juliana Hatfield: She¹ll never top "My Sister" but Juliana has finally released a new album that¹s extremely listen-worthy. And I¹m sure she means no offense to the real (intelligent) blondes the world over...

12) Centro-Matic/The Mighty Midshipmen: recommended by the creator of Pete & Pete, The War Next Door and The Transistor Widow. Need I say more?

13) This/Brian Eno: we waited 15 years (1990's Wrong Way Up with John Cale; 28 years if you want to get technical and only count solo albums) for Brian Eno to release a vocal album and all we got was this? With the exception of this lead-off track, the title track (Another Day on Earth) and a tiny handful of others, his long-waited album of actual "songs" was a huge disappointment for me. In the past, his song albums sounded like nothing before (or after); this new one sounds like re-treads.

14) The True Wheel/Doug Hilsinger with Caroleen Beatty: A reminder of Eno's past greatness, this track is from Doug & Caroleen's cover album of Eno's entire Taking Tiger Mountain, perhaps his finest hour. While these covers don¹t add much to the originals, there¹s something refreshing about hearing fans salute a hero so reverently. And Beatty¹s vocals definitely have their charms. The True Wheel, by the way, gave birth to a number of band names: 801 (Phil Manzanera¹s "supergroup" with Eno), A Certain Ratio and, possibly Johnathan Richman & the Modern Lovers.

15) No Child of Mine/Marianne Faithfull: PJ Harvey¹s collaboration with Faithfull, Before the Poison, is actually better than Polly Jean¹s own album released in the summer of 2004, Uh Huh Her (which included a shortened version of "No Child of Mine"). This song is my idea of perfection.

16) Yoga Means Union/Ambulance Ltd.: the lead-off track from an album which sounds more like a mix-tape of your favorite bands (none of which you can quite put your finger on) rather than a coherent work by one band. But I like them anyway. Plus, I¹ve used this song for work twice now (once for IFC's 10th anniversary and once for an extreme sports tape) and I have to tell you, it¹s a dream to edit to.

17) Wake Up/Arcade Fire: I don¹t think there was ever any doubt that I¹d end this collection with this song. It¹s rousing, majestic, intense, emotional, transcendent and unlike anything currently heard in "popular" music. Check them out, performing this song with David Bowie, here.

Bonus Tracks:
18) Favorite Things/Negativland: from their first album consisting entirely of stolen material, this track once nearly made me drive off the road. You¹ll hear why. A friend of mine who owns a bar wants to use it as his signal that it¹s "last call" ­ if this doesn¹t make them go running for the door, nothing will.

19) My Generation Rx/the party party: people are tryin' to put George W. down but he¹s not hearing it. In fact, he thinks it¹s all a bunch of "poppycrock." For more like these go to thepartyparty.com. Most of them are not work safe.

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