Best of 2005 - Music

Back in the days before I became a teacher, I spent 10 or 12 years working in what I sardonically like to call the "music business." At the time, I compiled running lists throughout the year of new releases that I really liked. By the end of the year that list often filled a full page, probably 50 or more titles easily. (In fact, for awhile, I had my employees at Face the Music in Winona put together a "top five picks" list that we changed every month.) Nowadays, I don't hear much new music, and what I do manage to hear doesn't impress me too much. I mostly stick with the tried and true names I know I can depend on. I do branch out for some newer music now and then, but I usually just wait until I find something used that I can pick up cheaply in case I really don't care for it. So if I do listen to "new" music, it's usually a year or two old by the time I get to it. So with that huge caveat hanging over my head, I present my list of the best new music of 2005, limiting myself to CDs that were actually released during this year.

Best CD: Prairie Wind by Neil Young.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Speechless by Bruce Cockburn; Master of Disaster by John Hiatt; Bareback at Big Sky by Poco; Solo Acoustic Volume 1 by Jackson Browne; and Besterberg: The Best of Paul Westerberg by Paul Westerberg.

It's a somewhat sad list, especially if you consider that the Cockburn and Westerberg titles are compilations, and the Browne and Poco discs are live, acoustic versions of well-known older songs.

Is it just me or is music really sucking these days?

Tomorrow: the best movies of 2005.