jon_chaisson | Jan. 11th, 2006

I've been reading up on a lot of "Best of 2005" lists and as I've mentioned to Emm, there is a surprisingly large number of albums that are on them that I really had no intention of buying at all. And the strange thing is that they're all in the alt.rock genre!

I think it's that a lot of these bands, at least for me anyway, come off as not terribly great in the sense of performance but I can forgive that. Besides, I can still listen to the Flying Bohemians. ;) What bothers me is that this "meh" sort of feel behind the albums is permeating the lists. By "meh" I mean this lack of oomph behind their songs. Like a lot of bands had decided in '05 to go acoustic and/or twee or something and totally lose their backbone. I will agree to a few albums, especially the ones I heard on the radio or on IMF. I'll even concede to I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning by Bright Eyes because it's actually quite good. But most of them I've heard and said "meh" to. Just didn't grab me at all. I'm not saying that all acoustic music sucks; what I'm trying to say that I wish there were more bands out there that had come out with something I could sit there staring at the stereo and say "...DAMN!" to with a slack jaw and wide eyes. Don't get me wrong; there were a lot of good albums that came out and I managed to make a Top 40 out of both albums and singles (see this post for my list). But I really had to look for them. And interestingly enough I found them NOT on the radio, NOT listed in magazines, and only a number of them through IMF or other stations, but on the INTERNET, by way of K-ROCK2.com or my Launchcast station.

I'm curious to see where 2006 will take us in terms of music. The last year was very much missed by me partly due to moving and not spending inordinate amounts of money on cds, but also to disinterest. I would like to see a lot of new stuff come out that will stun me, excite me, maybe even get me writing as consistently as I once used to. We'll see.