Two Thousand and Five Was A Classic...

...how the hell is 2006 going to live up to this year? Have we just witnessed one of those 'classic' years in music? The Ipod took over the world and the music industry is dead.... but then the Arctic Monkeys became living proof that free downloads in fact launch careers and boost sales.
This year has seen an endless release of quality albums from both established and emerging artists (in June alone we releases from Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Magic Numbers, and Oasis fill the charts.) As well as releases, this year was perhaps the biggest and best ever for music festivals. So here are my musical highlights of the year...

Albums / Album Tracks / Singles / Live

January saw Feeder release Pushing The Senses. The album was perhaps a little dissapointing. Great songs, but there seemed to be an edge missing that Feeder had discovered on Comfort In Sound. However, later in the year they released Shatter, a former B Side, which quite frankly ROCKED!

Singer Songwriters were in demand this year, what with that master of cockney rhyming slang James Blunt sitting on top of the charts, and that other goon Daniel Powter having a bad day. But delving past the mainstream saw some masterful albums from the likes of Josh Rouse, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and the Swedish Argentine Jose Gonzalez (whose song HeartBeats featured on the Sony TV ad.) And crikey... Ryan Adams has released three albums this year!

As mentioned earlier, the big guns were out in force this year. A double album from the Foos (the acoustic outshined the rock in my opinion) a return to form from Oasis (the songs Liam wrote are the best) and of course Coldplay (X&Y was good, but their live performance at Glastonbury was better.) But 2005 was ultimately the year of the new bands... Hard Fi, Editors, Duke Spirit, and of course Arctic Monkeys all deserving a mention.

My album of the year was without doubt Elbows Leaders of the Free World. It's simply a stunning album full of beautiful heartfelt songs (plus it has a pop at George Bush, and those other flipping idiots, bouncers.) This band are criminally ignored. But thats just my opinion.

On the live scene, the summer was amazing, with all festivals having outstanding line ups. Oasis and Coldplay embarked on massive stadium tours over the summer. Foo Fighters ruled at Reading again. And Glastonbury confirmed its status as the greatest festival in the world.

2005 will be remembered as the year that real music returned. Where the hell is 2006 gonna take us?