Best of 2005: Rough Trade Shops Edition

As a died-in-the-wool Anglophile, I find Rough Trade Shops' (different than the label) weekly New Release Email to be invaluable source of information on new bands. (You can sign up for it in the little box on the lefthand nav on thier site.) They were the first to tell me about and turn me on to The Knife, Jose Gonzalez, The Boy Least Likely To, the Velvet Tinmine complilation, and many more. Their staff's enthusiasm about music is genuine, and I especially look forward to their massive year-end lists. They just posted their Top 100 Records of 2005 which was based on shop sales and individual staff votes. Here's the Top Ten:

1. brakes - give blood
2. black mountain - black mountain
3. sufjan stevens - illinoise
4. m.i.a. - arular
5. lcd soundsystem - lcd soundsystem
6. antony and the johnsons - i am a bird now
7. king creosote - kc rules ok
8. the boy least likely to - the best party ever
9. richard swift - the novelist / walking without effort
10. jose gonzalez - veneer

Check out the whole list.