20 years ago sounds like both a long time ago and sort of like yesterday. The pandemic certainly messed with our perception of the passage of time, sure, but it's also because so much of the art made around that time has stayed with us, and mostly withstood the test of time.

Albums don't all age well. You might even still really enjoy a record from 1998, but maybe the production feels dated, or the lyrics feel hard to relate to now, or the person who made it has really gone off the deep end.

But sometimes, it all just clicks. 2005 was one of those years. When looking back for this feature – where we proposed to collect a smattering of highlights of records turning 20 years old this year – we at The Needle Drop were all kind of gobsmacked by the sheer volume of great records from '05. Across virtually every genre, it felt like there were modern classics everywhere we looked.

It's truly baffling how much great music was put out in 2005. We could have easily done 20 more – apologies to deserving but missing entries like Tender Buttons, Takk..., Z, or I Am a Bird Now – but these 20 selections will do just fine.

Maybe there are some here you forgot about a little, and now will revisit; maybe there are some that somehow whizzed by you, or you by it, never meeting; and maybe there are some of your all-time favorites here. I know all three are true for us when we look over this list.

Scroll through to read our 20 Turning 20: A Retrospective of 2005 in Music, presented in alphabetical order. These are simply a sampling of some of our favorites of that year, and we think you'll find a lot to enjoy.

Animal Collective – Feels

Entering Animal Collective’s sixth studio album, Feels, especially for the first time, can feel like a spiritual experience. The rhythmic patterns of the drums, the unusual guitar tunings, and the smoothness of the vocal chants do something to your brain. You begin to slip into another field of reality, closer to the world Animal Collective has built — and it’s beautiful. A world without sin. There’s still innocence intact, captured in figurative lyrics like a “pretty little femur sitting in my cherry dream boat,” as described in the song “Grass”, one of the band’s most intimate songs.

By the time Feels was released, Animal Collective had already made a name for themselves with records like Sung Tongs. The album received widespread praise and marked a major step in their evolution. Feels marked a shift in the band’s creative process, too. For the first time, they brought in outside musicians, including múm's Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir (then-wife of Avey Tare) and viola player Eyvind Kang.

This is a headphones-on, close-your-eyes, lay-down, and listen-from-start-to-finish kind of record. Played any other way, it loses something. The immersion is the point. – Ricky Adams

Bright Eyes – I'm Wide Awake it's Morning

Conor Oberst’s arguable magnum opus, essentially, is the work of a young 20-something with the wherewithal to recognize how screwed up both he and the world around him had become, while lacking the privilege of hindsight to figure out how it fits into some grand narrative. Of course, Bright Eyes' I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning boasts no shortage of profound observations on The State of Things, often coming off downright dismissive of the modern world, in a way akin to someone who self-identifies as an “old soul.”

On “Another Travelin’ Song”, for example, Oberst’s voice anxiously quivers, “I'm screaming at my brother on a cell phone, he is far away / I'm saying nothing in the past or future ever will feel like today,” and though he utters the words “cell phone” with an apprehension similar to David Lynch, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, as well as Bright Eyes as a whole, comes from a time when not even Oberst’s disaffection with his country could dull the bleeding heart at the core of this album. – Thomas Stremfel

Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine

After an online leak, label interference, and one tumultuous production cycle later, Fiona Apple finally came out with her highly anticipated third record Extraordinary Machine. After producing her 1999 album When The Pawn…, Jon Brion came back to work on this record. After some creative differences, Brion ultimately left the project. In the end, there were two different recorded albums – one with Brion, and one with producer Mike Elizondo.

Rocky production sessions aside, there are still some undeniable piano pop tunes that show up here. The title track shows personality with its plucky, quirky, and offbeat arrangement. “Get Him Back” brings a punchy piano with fiery declarations, two traits that helped shoot Fiona into the mainstream after releasing Tidal. “O’ Sailor” sees Fiona getting her sea legs with a chorus that sounds like the rising tides. “Not About Love” is constantly shifting; it feels like repeatedly going up and down a flight of stairs. Here, Fiona keeps reiterating “I am not in love,” almost trying to convince herself she's not. “Oh Well” is pure unbridled passion exploding out of the piano every time she slams the keys.

However, the simplest track here, “Parting Gift”, is perhaps her best work here. It’s an achingly beautiful piano ballad about a gradual loss of love, with Fiona finally singing, “It ended bad, but I loved where we started.” – Aaron Cousin

Gorillaz – Demon Days

I have a long and complicated history with Demon Days. When I was nine years old, “Feel Good Inc.” was on the karaoke-style game SingStar, and every time that video came on, I’d leave the room. Not because I didn’t like the song, but because the “lead singer’s” creepy, eyeless cartoon face scared the absolute shit out of me.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I got reintroduced to Gorillaz — smoking weed in my older brother’s friend’s mom’s shed — when “Every Planet We Reach Is Dead” came on the speaker and completely blew my mind. I asked what it was, and when they told me it was Gorillaz, I felt a sudden rush of fear. Maybe it was 2D’s black-hole eyes flashing in my mind, or maybe it was the bong rip I just took, but either way, I was unmistakably overcome with both anxiety and intrigue.

That night, I finally gave Demon Days a full listen. Sitting cross-legged on my bed, eyes red, iPod Touch glowing, I was entranced. Dark, groovy, and cinematic, the album plays like a concept record about humanity’s downfall — war, colonialism, environmental collapse — wrapped in warped samples, eerie synth lines, and bursts of psychedelic rock and alternative rap. Produced with Danger Mouse, it was both incredibly weird and surprisingly accessible, a dystopian pop epic some dismissed at the time as a cartoon gimmick. Now, 20 years later, the message of Demon Days is as relevant as ever—if not more so. The album also cemented Gorillaz’s legacy as a genuinely innovative force in music, far beyond the “novelty act” label they once carried. And most importantly, it still rocks. – Drew P. Simmons

The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday

Most of the band’s diehards are now dad-age themselves, but one line was all anyone in 2005 needed to convince their classic rock-loving folks to give The Hold Steady a shot: “Tramps like us / And we like tramps.”

For all their Zeppelin (check out that jerky Bonham beat on “Stevie Nix”) and Springsteen cosplay (everywhere else), the Hold Steady actually proved to be the future of bar bands by cutting the middleman (the sloshed older dude shouting in your ear over the music at a dive) and inserting him directly into the band’s lineup itself. That frontman would be ex-Lifter Puller Craig Finn, ranting and raving about some guy named Charlemagne in sweatpants and a born-again hoodrat named Holly Lujah who “came into the ER drinking gin from a jam jar and now the nurse is making jokes about the ER being like an afterbar.”

Two decades later, you’ve still got to admire his moxie turning out a full-scale concept album when his band had, up to then, barely bothered to write any songs with a chorus. But don’t get it twisted: he ain’t never been with your little hoodrat friend, even if she believes damn right He’ll [sic] rise again.

Kate Bush – Aerial

Kate Bush is obviously no stranger to acclaim and renown. Her work — especially 1985’s Hounds of Love — has largely entered the upper echelons of art rock and pop, and her single "Running Up That Hill" saw renewed popularity after being prominently featured in Stranger Things. But one of her more underrated albums remains 2005’s Aerial.

Released after a 12-year wait, stretching from 1993’s The Red Shoes, Bush was on a decidedly different mission here. Echoing the two-part nature of Hounds, Aerial was presented as two distinct sides: A Sea of Honey, and a Sky of Honey. The first side is a relatively straightforward art rock set, albeit a deeply diverse one with topics ranging from Elvis to Joan of Arc to a lonely housewife. Most poignant is the side’s closer, “A Coral Room”, an abstract and deeply poetric ode to her late mother, and one of her most blisteringly beautiful songs.

Side B, however, is a sort of narrative concept album unto itself, much like The Ninth Wave part of Hounds. Across 42 minutes full of velvety dreamy synths, resonant pianos, rubbery bass, and much more, Bush guides us through a detailed account of the whole passage of a single day, starting with the birds at dawn and ending with the sun rising again. It’s a whirlwind, transporting the listener through many lives and atmosphere and styles, but holding together seamlessly, led by Bush’s commanding voice.

Aerial demanded a lot of fans, and was probably sometimes seen more as a mere curio, an auteur’s late-era do-whatever-they-want kind of LP. But even if it is that, it’s also one of Bush’s strongest, most ambitious, most distinctive albums in a career rather full of those. – Jeremy J. Fisette

LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem

The scatter-brained quality of LCD Soundsystem's self-titled debut mirrors the feverish attitudes of an early internet user at the turn of the century, who, with the convenience of streaming services now starting to phase out their record collection, has unprecedented access to a seemingly infinite music library, finding even more material to sample in unorthodox ways.

The semi-satirical, plunky electroclash track “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House” represents the legendary duo as some current trend, the status symbol of coolness at house parties. Balance that with the almost retro quality of “Too Much Love” and “Disco Infiltrator”, which shimmy and loop like a redux of the disco-punk Liquid Liquid self-titled EP. And “Never as Tired as When I’m Waking Up”, a swooning, psychedelic love song inspired by “Dear Prudence” off The White Album. But the anxiety that comes with observing the dawn of a new era is expressed most clearly with the iconic non-album single, “Losing My Edge” — now a staple in LCD Soundsystem’s catalogue that candidly struggles to accept the “art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered Eighties,” playing a rapid game of history catch-up, challenging James Murphy’s “I was there!” attitude to understand the impact of the music.

For an album that successfully determined what’s going to be cool forever, LCD Soundsystem perfectly encapsulates the early 2000s hipster fears of losing touch, of feeling overwhelmed by the internet’s capabilities, and of getting stranded in the last century. – Victoria Borlando

Lil Wayne – Tha Carter II

Lil Wayne’s namesake Carter series is where Weezy truly became his own. The first Carter’s allure is largely indebted to Mannie Fresh, who scored all the tape’s dirty bounce and instructional twerk jams. Tha Carter II sadly eschews Fresh and all of his bawdy Nawlins flair, so Wayne upped his pen to compensate.

In an act of pure hip-hop showmanship, Wayne performs a 100-beat kumite on the tracklist, murdering the same beat three different ways over the beginning, middle, and end of the projec. Just when you think it’s about to enter a quick lull, the fog of war expands: “It’s still Tha Carter II, people.”

While there are quintessential brag raps (“Best Rapper Alive”) and bouts of crunk machismo, the record humanizes Wayne as more than an indomitable bullet-spitting machine. Take "Receipt", where he yearns over some chipmunked Isleys about a woman he lost but refuses stay mad at: “It’s kinda hard saying this shit to your face, so I do it over snares and bass / Music, take me away.”

Tha Carter II is where Wayne became fueled by desire, this romantic idea to prove himself as rap’s greatest and create a rap dynasty that transcends beyond Louisiana’s borders. “Hustler Musik” says it the best: “I deserve the throne / And if the kid ain't right, let me die in this song.” – Alex Peterson

Madonna – Confessions on a Dance Floor

By 2005, the Queen of Pop had reinvented herself countless times. But until Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna had never quite sounded so liberated. Following 2003’s divisive American Life, Madonna sought to make an album that was more escapist than political. Teaming up with producer Stuart Price, she returned to the source (her source at least): disco.

She pulled from the flamboyant melodies of late ‘70s disco, the metallic sleekness of New Wave, and the curatorial flow of ‘90s house to make the album a gay club fantasy. Opener “Hung Up” is the album’s crown jewel – an instantly iconic dance single, buoyed by a sample from ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" – but Confessions never loses steam, each song sequencing into the next seamlessly like a flowing DJ set.

“This is who I am / You can like it or not,” Madge sings on the closer. In a way, Confessions on a Dance Floor is Madonna’s masterpiece, an album defiantly committed to dance, joy, and relief. For all of her reinventions, Confessions feels like Madonna at her core. It’s an album so good it just might need a part two.  – Andy Steiner

Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth

Remember back in the day when Nine Inch Nails stood for the angst of black-hearted middle schoolers across the land? You may wonder how Trent Reznor’s pet project (now + Atticus Ross) flipped towards the more commercial-friendly entity it is today. Some point towards the first Reznor/Ross film score, for blockbuster The Social Network (2010), as patient zero. Others cite the earworm-tastic “Head Like a Hole” from NIN’s debut, Pretty Hate Machine (two choruses!)

And yeah, sure, you can make a case for these two, or any NIN hit single pre-2005, but With Teeth marked the clearest shift in Reznor’s mission. He got clean, worked out, and shedded his former skin – the one he occupied while crafting Nine Inch Nails’ previous album, the bleak and grandiose The Fragile (1999). With Teeth ditched the conceptual ambition, which loomed over both The Fragile and 1994’s The Downward Spiral, in favor of radio smashes like “Only” and “The Hand That Feeds”. In 2005, Nine Inch Nails exited the realm of the outcasts, heading for the ears of anyone with a cranked radio, but did so exaltedly. – Tyler Roland

Of Montreal – The Sunlandic Twins

When looking at a discography of nearly 20 albums, it’s tough to find one that stands out from the rest. The Sunlandic Twins is quite possibly the most fantastical and frantic album in of Montreal’s catalogue. Kevin Barnes explained that the title of the album comes from a dream his previous partner had. In this dream there was a planet called Sunlandia where the two of them were the only inhabitants, which made them The Sunlandic Twins. This theme makes sense as the album focuses heavily on love and its extremities.

The very first line of “Requiem for O.M.M.2”,the album’s opener, is “When I met you I was just a kid”. And the final lyric of “The Reputiated Immortals”, the album’s closer, is “I’ll take care of you if you take care of me.” Whether it’s a song about spending time in Norway like “Oslo in the Summertime”, or tracks about fucking like black wizards on “The Party’s Crashing Us”, it’s hard to sit still while listening to this album. Each track has a ridiculously sticky chorus that will burrow into your brain.

This album also has probably the song people associate with of Montreal: “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games”. It’s one of those songs that just immediately grabs you and puts a huge smile on your face. Arguably the most cathartic moment of the entire record is the song’s outro and final round of “let’s pretend we don’t exist, let’s pretend we’re in Antarctica.”

Personally, this album reminds me of the joys of love. The older I get, the more I get out of The Sunlandic Twins, and I recommend you play this album as loud as you possibly can and just scream whenever it makes you feel something. – Wade Stokan

Opeth – Ghost Reveries

Truth be told, I selected Opeth's Ghost Reveries to highlight because I wrote a (rejected) pitch for the 33⅓ book series about it this year. Across eight tracks, Ghost Reveries sees the Swedish metal-forgers at the top of their game.

Where to start? How about the flawless production – which is so pristine, you could perform surgery with the chainsaw guitars, Deep Purple-esque organ, and rhythm section to die for. Plus, bandleader Mikael Åkerfeldt delivers world-class cleans and growls that could even convert those guttural haters (this author included).

Ghost Reveries lit Opeth up in North America, showcasing their ability to pivot from prog to pummeling death metal before the former style took over their sound. 2001’s Blackwater Park may stand as Opeth’s most iconic LP, but this one’s definitely a Swedish sweet spot. – Tyler Roland

Spoon – Gimme Fiction

Gimme Fiction remains a fan favorite not for reinventing Spoon, but for sharpening their sound, and pushing it into grittier territory. Released three years after the minimalist triumph of Kill the Moonlight, the album opens with the heavy, descending piano notes of “The Beast and Dragon, Adored”, setting the stage for something a bit darker and more atmospheric than any of their previous projects.

Spoon was effectively able to expand their sound without losing what makes them distinct: off-kilter songwriting, tightly wound rhythms, and Britt Daniel’s unmistakable rasp. From the strutting groove of the immortal “I Turn My Camera On”, to the explosive joy of “Sister Jack”, and the yearning simplicity of “I Summon You”, Gimme Fiction captures the band at a strange, creative peak. – Drew P. Simmons

Sleater-Kinney – The Woods

Opening for Pearl Jam on their Riot Act Tour in 2003, Sleater-Kinney realized that their music had a problem. Playing to cavernous rooms of 20,000+ people, the songs felt almost weightless: too fast, too lacking in the low-end, a lot of bark but not enough stadium bite.

That all changed with The Woods, their seventh and heaviest record to date – ten songs so all-consuming that it took the band a decade to follow it up. “We were in a really heavy, aggressive, desperate kind of zone at the time,” (now ex-)drummer Janet Weiss recently recalled, and it absolutely shows on tracks like the steaming ballad “Modern Girl” or 14-minute combined masterpiece “Let’s Call It Love” and “Night Light”, which signs off the record in barbed and volatile style.

With its feverish, earth-shaking crunch and unscripted corrosion that seldom lets up, The Woods remains a fraught one-off in the S-K catalog 20 years on, and all the better for it. – Alan Pedder

Stars – Set Yourself on Fire

Canadian indie art rockers Stars have, by their own admission, always tended to believe that whatever album of theirs has just come out will be their final one. They feel like a band always living on the edge of existence, like one day they might release their swansong without fully realizing it.

Thankfully, so far that has not been the case, and you need look no further than their seminal 2005 album, Set Yourself on Fire, to see how vital they are to the indie landscape. Orchestral pop rock was pretty in vogue in the 2000s, as were the boy-girl vocals and political lyrical underpinnings, but Stars pulled it all off with such heart, such grace, and such precise artistry, it was impossible not to fall for it.

Set Yourself on Fire is a heart-on-sleeve record, by turns romantic and tragic, navigating a twisted thicket of themes like long-term relationships, forgotten loves, the woes of war, crooked politicians, sex, and more. It’s a ride, and it’s buoyed by a surging blend of driving indie rock and swelling strings and horns and synths.

The sound — capped by Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan’s duel lead vocals and indelible harmonies — is at once very indicative of a certain kind of 2000s blogosphere indie music that resonated with adolescents and young adults in the throes of life, and also a shockingly timeless rock record. There’s a reason the band still plays a lot of songs (including the whole record on a recent celebration tour) from this album live, and why hundreds of audience members still sweetly sing back “Live through this and you won’t look back” every time. – Jeremy J. Fisette

Sufjan Stevens – Illinois

Between the margins of its long, campy song titles and flute flourishes are the lyrics and carefully crafted compositions that make Illinois an inimitable hallmark of Sufjan Stevens’s illustrious career.

The second and final installment of Stevens’s fabled (and fabricated) "50 States Project", Illinois’s grandiosity has singlehandedly come to eclipse the ambition offered by said project. Lush orchestral pieces weave us through heartbreaking personal (“Casimir Pulaski Day”, “Chicago”, “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!”) and historical (“Come On! Feel the Illinoise!”, “John Wayne Gacy Jr.”, “Jacksonville”) anecdotes, making increasingly more sense why it inspired a Tony-winning Broadway adaptation.

Stevens isn’t from, nor seemingly spent all that much time in, Illinois, but I would concede that he understands the state’s history and culture better than I do, as someone born and raised there. The pure amount of work, mental fortitude, and gumption that went into Illinois feels almost antithetical to the cherubic, humble figure that Stevens is known to be, but it’s pulled off in spades nonetheless. The Illinoisemakers – the touring band enlisted for this record’s live show, – ended up producing several future indie rock heavy-hitters (including St. Vincent, Bryce Dessner, and My Brightest Diamond), all wondrously led by Stevens.

The size and scope of Illinois is a triumph – the likes of which hasn’t really been seen before or since. – Leah Weinstein

System of a Down – Mesmerize + Hypnotize

When System of a Down released the one-two heavy metal punch of Mesmerize and Hypnotize, few realized it would be the last full-length records that the band ever produced. The two albums are widely, and rightly, considered to be two halves of a double album. Though released six months apart, the albums were recorded together, share similar artwork, and are bookended by the same song: "Soldier Side".

It’s a record so deeply tied to its time and yet also one that retains its relevance, pulsating with anger at the U.S. military-industrial complex and its consequences in the Middle East. As singer Serj Tankian wails in "B.Y.O.B", "Why don't presidents fight the war? / Why do they always send the poor?"

The band’s Armenian heritage also shines through on the album, especially on "Holy Mountains". One of a few songs tackling the Armenian Genocide, "Holy Mountains" references Mount Ararat, the peak that dominates Yerevan’s skyline. Guitarist Daron Malakian does insist on singing sometimes, which creates the record’s lowest moments, but Tankian’s dynamic and theatrical vocals easily make up for it. With much of the record being penned by Malakian, the records also reveal the internal tensions that led to a hiatus by the band, with Malakian’s increasing creative control flaring financial and creative frustrations that were already present in the band. And while they did release two singles in 2020, they still haven't followed up this fiery twofer. – Albert Genower

The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan

Get Behind Me Satan departs from the abrasive garage rock of The White Stripes’ early work, embracing the melody-driven direction of the songs on the back end of their 2003 album, Elephant. Incorporating new instruments like marimbas and piano, the duo leaned into softer sound palettes which opened the door for new influences like bluegrass and country, laying the foundation for their follow-up (and final) record, Icky Thump.

Although usually known for her rudimentary, primitive drumming, Meg White’s style takes the backseat on this record as she delivers some of her cleanest and subdued performances of any White Stripes album, often subbing out the drum set for bongos or hand drums.

Positioned between Elephant and Icky Thump, Get Behind Me Satan seems like the oddball of the group, but ultimately holds its own with its strong identity rooted in theatricality, and creative ambition from songwriter and producer Jack White. And when he does plug in the electric guitar, like on “Blue Orchid” or “Red Rain”, it’s just as delightfully wail-y and crunchy as any of their other records. – Tony Le Calvez

Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary

Wolf Parade’s debut album Apologies to the Queen Mary is a seminal piece of mid-2000s indie rock history. Alongside Funeral by Arcade Fire, released the year prior, the album helped pave the way for a new wave of jangly, instrumentally layered, folk-tinged indie rock that was beginning to create serious buzz.

A big part of what made Apologies stand out is co-ontman Spencer Krug’s distinctive, polarizing vocals. Much like beloved frontmen Jeff Mangum, Tom Waits, or Isaac Brock (who actually worked with Wolf Parade just before this album), Krug's unique voice became a signature element of the band’s identity. Not everyone may love it — but it’s unforgettable.

The duality between Krug and guitarist Dan Boeckner – who delivers deeper, more grounded vocals on his songs – adds a crucial counterbalance to Krug’s unhinged hollering. The result is a genre-defying album full of instrumental crescendos and celebrated ecstatic messiness.

One track that encapsulates this raw energy is the 2000s indie staple, “I’ll Believe in Anything”. It opens with a simple electric riff, followed by a stately drum pulse and a gentle guitar line, before Krug belts, “Give me your eyes, I need the sunshine.” From there, the song only continues to build and build, capturing the beautiful tension-and-release dynamic that runs through the entire record. – Ricky Adams

Wussy – Funeral Dress

A lot of people don’t know Cincinnati legends Wussy, but as the saying (sort of) goes: those who do consider them one of the best bands on earth. Ragged, jagged, Crazy Horse-style folk-rockers who triangulate R.E.M.’s jangle, Neil Young’s fuzz, and Lucinda Williams’s homespun desperation, they also kicked off their very existence with a romantic split between singers Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker.

And Funeral Dress, their hallowed debut, chronicles it right away in “Airborne”, one of the most electrifying breakup songs you’ve never heard, with lines like, “When something from the ‘yours’ pile shattered on the floor tile / And you went off like Frankenstein.” There’s also the beautiful, Walker-sung “Soak It Up”, where she “found a bullet while you were finding God,” a strange paean to a “Humanbrained Horse”, and this band’s version of a love song, “Yellow Cotton Dress”, which is “beautiful no doubt, but it becomes a motherfucker when you fill it out.”

The one I chose to get tattooed on my body is from the immortal, harmonica-drenched “Crooked”, because it just applies to so many hurtful situations in our lives: “It wasn’t meant the way you took it.” So goes the universality of this great debut record. – Dan Weiss