ROUGH TRADE 2005 YEAR END LISTINGS

Decided by a combination of sales and staff votes (the exact mix isn't explained, but we imagine that means they took the sales chart and fudged it about until it was something they could be proud of, Rough Trade Shops offer their Top 100 albums of the year. Here's the treetop:

1 The Brakes - Give Blood
2 Black Mountain - Black Mountain
3 Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
4 MIA - 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 Gonzalez - Jose Veneer

We're a little surprised to see MIA there - presumably held aloft on critical acclaim rather than actual sales, although if someone from the label pimps some of the tracks out to advert makers they might start to make some of their cash back. Gonzalez, of course, has been used to push Sony's colour televisions, as if to prove the point.

Lower down the chart you find the records where the hipsters start to fade to the mainstream - Gorillaz at 26; Franz Ferdinand's You Could Have It So Much Better at 36; Bright Eye's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning a surprisingly low 39.
[Thanks to Aaron S for the link]

music 2005 the brakes