2005 was the year we started to sit up and pay attention. No longer did we dabble and dally. We took shit seriously. Madonna's seminal (well, we think so) disco album Confessions... kicked things of nicely, cementing and acting as the catalyst for our love of her. Supernature, by Goldfrapp, a similarly inventive synth-based album and the inspiration for Madge's own glam opus, helped us delve further into the wonderful and glittering forest of pop.2005 also gave birth to one of the most criminally underrated pop albums of all time: Juliet's Random Order (also produced by Confessions' Stuart Price), and Imogen Heap's Speak for Yourself - an album that carved its own beautiful and unique space out in the pop landscape, despite parodies and backlash galore. As if that wasn't enough, we were treated to one of the best girlgroup pop albums released in living memory: Girls Aloud's tirelessly original and refreshingly odd Chemistry... it was a stellar year for pop.
Elsewhere, the 'French Björk', fabulous and talented Camille, crafted an entire album out of one droned note: Le Fil; Sufjan Stevens made good on all that prodigious promise with an epic and lush paean to Illinois; Laura Veirs made even more impossibly luxurious folk; Antony and the Johnsons won a Mercury Prize for their gorgeous and heart-bruised story of gender dysfunction; and last but most certainly NEVER LEAST: Kate Bush returned after an unbearably long hiatus with an album so expansive, beautiful, ornate and touching, it almost made up for the wait.
- Antony and the Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
- Camille - Le Fil
- Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
- Girls Aloud - Chemistry
- Goldfrapp - Supernature
- Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself
- Kate Bush - Aerial
- Laura Veirs - Year of Meteors
- Madonna - Confessions on a Dancefloor
- Juliet - Random Order
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