#I feel like the shit I used to watch has just plummeted in quality l

[rubysparx]

When will spittake return from the war

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2005

16 to 17 years old. Finished public highschool, started public university in September. Looking back at 2003-2005 feels like looking at ten years of my life condensed in three. Exhausting.

Also we’re now past the halfway point of these lists! And this is another exceptionally good year for hits.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So I finished highschool that year. I met my best friend ever in late 2004 and we even had some sort of small crew back then! I had a bit of a crush on her but alas it wasn’t meant to be. I don’t know who invented the term ‘friendzone’ but they got its meaning completely wrong because staying friends basically forever with someone you love can be a fantastic thing. Things weren’t rosy nor perfect that year, of course, and I still was miserable at home, but I’m not sure where I’ll be today without her. She's amazing and she still lives nearby nowadays. Shoutout: if you read this, E., you pretty much saved my life.

I was still making tapes and burning CDs, still using my trusty portable cd player, and always listening to stuff while drawing during recess, sitting in a corner and doodling stuff in my sketchbook on the floor like a weird gangly goblin.

I had already started to buy Rock Mag in August 2004 but it really became my monthly ritual in 2005, and it lasted until autumn 2007. A reliable source of posters to cover my walls. At that point they were almost completely covered with paintings, drawings, torn pages from magazines and posters of Linkin Park, Mylène Farmer, Placebo and Indochine.

I also had a better access to the family computer and was a bit more involved online. Might explain why the number of singles I was buying plummeted.

It’s time once again for some (ok, many) honorable mentions!

Beverly Hills (Weezer) - I don’t even know why I like this but I do.

Bouger Bouger (Magic System) - I never understood why it was cool to make fun of these guys in my country. Their music is so happy and fun.

Holiday (Green Day) - My brother loved that band and listened to it a lot, and I was 100% fine with that.

Wake Me Up When September Ends (Green Day) - See above.

Gabriel (Najoua Belyzel) - That is so-bad-it’s-good at its finest right here.

Candy Shop (50 Cents) - As a sucker for terrible puns (HA, get it?? I’m sorry I’ll get out immediately) I can’t help it, I love this.

Love Generation (Bob Sinclar) - Stay tuned for more of this guy on another list.

Listen to Your Heart (DHT) - The original is better, but it was really nice to hear that again on the radio.

We Be Burnin’ (Sean Paul) - Not my favorite but still damn good.

Bad Day (Daniel Powter) - I even bought the single. What can I say except “relatable”.

All About Us (Tatu) - I bought that single as well. Almost made the list.

Le Bateau Blanc (Karol) - The last cut from the list. Not even kidding at all. I’m still not sure if Keane deserves to be on the list more than this to be honest.

Like it happened previously with Placebo not being elligible at all, it is a complete outrage that Precious by Depeche Mode isn’t elligible for this list. Like, what the f█ck. Playing the Angel was one of the defining albums of the year to me. I’m not even sure it would have topped the list, maybe #2, but it still feels wrong.

There’s another band who’s complete absence from this top feels kinda painful to me, considering how much I loved their new album at the time. Indeed, no single from Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance is elligible for this list, and it feels wrooooong, man. I love I’m not okay and especially Thank You For the Venom, but even Helena would have been nice. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

For some unfathomable reason, Get The Party Started (Pink) and, even more unexplainable, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me (Culture Club) recharted in France in 2005 and both made the year-end top 100. The fact they are both elligible but all the stuff mentioned above this paragraph isn’t makes no sense whatsoever.

And now, the actual list!

10 - Everybody’s Changing (Keane)

US: Not on the list / FR: #48

Pretty great even though it’s not my favorite Keane song. That would be Crystal Ball. It’s fantastic and as a person who is scared, above all, by existential horror, the music video is terrifying. Sadly, it’s not elligible for my 2006 list, so Everybody’s Changing will have to be its slightly less good proxy for 2005.

9 - Et Si En Plus Ya Personne (Alain Souchon)

US: Not on the list / FR: #100

This has to be the most borderline non-elligible song ever put on one of my lists. But I’m glad it is still elligible. Remember the song on the 1993 list that I called an “anticapitalist ballad”? Well that’s the same guy. And this time it’s a song about how religion can cause both beautiful things and war, and how “the sky might be empty” because of us. It’s great. Here’s a translation. You’re welcome.

8 - F█ck Them All (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #62

Aaaaaaaaand unfortunately for everyone including myself, she’s back. Not her best song by a mile (told you it was all downhill after C’est Une Belle Journée didn’t I), but still pretty damn good, and that music video where she’s destroying bird-like scarecrows is amazing so here’s a bonus gif.

7 - Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day)

US: #7 / FR: Not on the list

My brother LOVED this band and listened to it SO MUCH. And yeah, they were very good and that song might just be my favorite one from them. I don’t have much more to say about it, you all know it already. Let’s move on.

6 - Sugar We’re Going Down (Fall Out Boy)

US: #40 / FR: Not on the list

Again, it feels wrong that both Fall Out Boy AND Panic! at the Disco were elligible for this list but not My Chemical Romance. I was never a fan of these two acts, at all, and their supposed rivalry was kinda hilarious to watch from afar. With a bucket of popcorn. While listening to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge and nodding sadly, of course.

This is still a great song, mind you.

5 - Feel Good Inc (Gorillaz)

US: #37 / FR: Not on the list (really? wtf happened)

Again, I live with someone who loves Gorillaz, so I claim overexposure.

It’s still #5 on a list based on a very, very good year.

That’s quality for you.

4 - Speed of Sound (Coldplay)

US: #57 / FR: Not on the list

A new chapter in the ascension of Coldplay from “Johannes hates this band” to “this is one of the best mainstream bands we have”. An epic saga, years in the making, and Speed of Sound was basically the last scene of Act One. Not my favorite song from X&Y (that would be Talk), but still really good. Hell, I even bought the single, and goodness knows I wasn’t buying a lot of singles anymore in 2005.

Holy shit, half of these are Benassi Bros garbage. None of them are elligible, though! Dodged a bullet there, didn’t I.

3 - Numb/Encore (JayZ + Linkin Park)

US: #93 / FR: #75

What a blessed mashup. For a few magical months in 2005, all the punk goth kids and the hiphop kids were united under this song’s banner and it felt like world peace had been achieved. It could have pissed off everybody but no! Everyone loved it instead!

“But Johannes, this is just Numb all over again with different lyrics. You can’t keep putting Linkin Park at the top of your lists forever.” Sadly no, I can’t. I know. It’s only #3. Don’t yell at me. Also, the next two songs are genuinely better, at least in my opinion!

2 - Lift Me Up (Moby)

US: Not on the list / FR: #31

I heard this on the radio and bought the album, Hotel, on the grounds that Natural Blues from 2000 was one of my favorite songs ever and than it wouldn’t hurt to actually own an album of that guy after all that time (”all that time” being only five years, but please keep in mind the past three years had felt like ten, and in my mind, they still do ; trauma is one hell of a thing). And a couple of days later that year, we went to Disneyland for my brother’s birthday, and I only had a small bag that could contain my cd player, and the earphones and nothing else. So I could only put one cd in it and that was it.

So I picked Hotel, and I basically retreated inside of it whenever my mother was starting to talk aggressively, which happened a lot in the various queues. So in the end, I listened to that cd a LOT that day and every single time, it would calm me while still being energetic enough to keep me enthusiastic for the various Disneyland rides.

Lift Me Up is energetic but cold, aerial but distant, uplifting but sinister. It was the perfect song for someone who was, at the time, trying to tone down their aggressivity and anger and trying to be masculine but in a softer way, while still staying themselves and not giving up the fight. I absolutely adore this song. It’s perfect.

It instantly joined my list of favorite songs ever that year.

1 - Mr Brightside (The Killers)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list (this feels so wrong)

If I had to make a top ten of the hits of that entire decade, this would be #2. No debate whatsoever.

Because holy shit.

I was already sold on that band after hearing Somebody Told Me on the radio, which sadly isn’t elligible for this list (I instantly loved it, first because it was catchy as hell, but also because I love the chorus “Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend / Who looked like a girlfriend / That I had in February of last year", because as you already know I tend to be extremely literal minded and my immediate conclusion was “wow you two dated the same trans guy before and after he was out of the closet” and that was highkey relatable and no you can’t change my mind). So I bought the album about two weeks after, mostly blind, because the cd store was playing it and also because Rock Mag said it was great.

That was an understatement. Hot Fuss is one of the best albums of the entire decade and you probably know that already. The first song, Jenny Was a Friend of Mine, floored me right after putting the cd in the player and it felt like the album already reached its peak and there were still 12 tracks after that.

The very next track was Mr. Brightside. And. How do I put this.

There’s like a dozen interpretations possible for this song, and most of them are something like “this guy is so anxious and paranoid he’s gonna break up with this girl because he keeps imagining her cheating with another guy and it might not even be real.”

Now might be a good moment to remind you that at the time, I had a crush on my best friend, and was still firmly in the closet. And this song starts, as everyone knows, with “Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine“.

So... yeah. This is the song that accidentally convinced me the closet sucked and did nothing to deter bullies anyway, and that after more than three years of feeling mostly miserable, I should try to be myself and screw the consequences. I know it wasn’t the original intention behind that song. But still.

Godspeed, The Killers. I owe you one, guys.

Next up: Still not able to put Indochine nor Placebo on a list, OP is this close to punching a wall