Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

You can subscribe to this site via RSS (the humanity!) or .

Top 50 Albums of 2005

When the new year rolls around most people are content to come up with a bunch of resolutions and reflect on the past year of their life. I, on the other hand, prefer to spend the weeks leading up to the new year figuring out my favorite 50 albums of the past 12 months. It’s a serious undertaking that takes weeks of ranking, grading, listening, searching and other verbs that end in ‘ing.’ After all that inging it’s finally time to unleash the list to the world. Each album on the list includes a link to the band/album’s official website, as well as my own five word description and a legal/semi-legal MP3 when possible. If anyone’s got MP3s to add to the list, please let me know. Also, for those interested, here is the link to the top 50 albums of 2004.

And now, without any further ado or introduction, my top 50 albums of 2005:

1 Sufjan Stevens – Illinois

2 Wolf Parade – Apologies to Queen Mary

3 Andrew Bird – Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs

4 Stephen Malkmus – Face the Truth

5 Antony and the Johnsons – I Am a Bird Now

6 Bettie Serveert – Attagirl

7 The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree

8 M.I.A. – Arular

9 Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah

10 Ben Folds – Songs for Silverman

11 Deerhoof – The Runner’s Four

12 Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene

13 The Bravery – The Bravery

14 Architecture in Helsinki – In Case we Die

15 Archer Prewitt – Wilderness

16 The Decemberists – Picaresque

17 The Boy Least Likely To – The Best Party Ever

18 Animal Collective – Feels

19 Sleater-Kinney – The Woods

20 Death From Above 1979 – Romance Bloody Romance: Remixes and B-Sides

21 Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have Been So Much More

22 Aqueduct – I Sold Gold

23 Spoon – Gimmie Fiction

24 Beck – Guero

25 Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine

26 Prefuse 73 – Surrounded by Silence

27 Devendra Banhart – Cripple Crow

28 The Hold Steady – Seperation Sunday

29 Queens of the Stone Age – Lullabies to Paralyze

30 New Pornographers – Twin Cinema

31 The Fiery Furnaces – EP

32 Bloc Party – Silent Alarm

33 Fischerspooner – Odyssey

34 Ben Lee – Awake is the New Sleep

35 Brendan Benson – Alternative to Love

36 Sam Prekop – Who’s Your New Professor

37 The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan

38 The Doves – Some Cities

40 Stars – Set Yourself on Fire

41 LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem

41 Coldplay – X & Y

42 Iron & Wine – Woman King

43 Ed Harcourt – Strangers

44 Dressy Bessy – Electrified

45 M. Ward – Transistor Radio

46 Art Brut – Bang Bang Rock n’ Roll

47 Jack Johnson – In Between Dreams

48 Stellastarr – Harmonies for the Haunted

49 Mercury Rev – the Secret Migration

50 Bright Eyes – Digital Ash ina Digital Urn

January 9, 2006