The 40 Best Albums of 2005

Confetti. As Rip Taylor once snorted, "Why freakin' not?"

January 1995

Ethically pure grunge and cokehead Britpop prove that history is bunk half the time

Whenever historians examine the past, they tend to put forth one of two points: They either want to show how things today are totally different, or they want to argue that things are pretty much the same.

Band of the Year: The Killers

What's all the Hot Fuss about? Leaving Las Vegas to take over the world, the new masters of dance rock land in New York for a heroes' welcome.

Grizzly Bear, 'Horn of Plenty + The Remixes' (Kanine)

Grizzly Bear's 2004 debut, Horn of Plenty, seemed to have spontaneously congealed under a decomposing log in the middle of an enchanted forest where the elves were too exhausted to dance. Distant, dreamy, blurred into a Robitussin haze, the Brooklyn group's songs were barely more than a few vague lines and some slow, chiming, delicately mysterious guitar or piano.

Diplo, 'FabricLive 24' (Fabric) Mylo, 'Destroy Rock and Roll' (Breastfed)

Superstar DJs, here we go....

In the postboom electronica scene, there are two sorts of DJs: the purists who preach to the converted in a bleep-world bubble (German passports are often a tip-off); and the kind of people who, artistically speaking, want hos in every area code -- happy to wallow through all sorts of flotsam to find the groove, used or new, that'll blow the largest number of minds.

Remy Ma, 'There's Something About Remy: Based on a True Story' (SRC/Universal)

Scrappy rapper says she's a lady -- and has the balls to prove it.

Remy Ma opens her solo debut with an incredulous question: "What do you mean, I'm your second favorite female rapper?" As far as she's concerned, gender can eat it. Eyeing the rap landscape and seeing only dudes for miles, the former Terror Squad poet, who outshone Fat Joe on last summer's "Lean Back," angles to play the boys' way.

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