2005 Music Poll

Forget what grizzled middle-aged critics say, grasping their Velvet Underground, Television and Patti Smith records. Every year is a good year for music. Sure, some still sounds good years after it comes out. (A lot doesn't--we dare you to listen to Dinosaur Jr again.) And some of it sounds so good, it inspires a new generation of bands. But calling new music the same old shit? No way. Take Amerie's "1 Thing," one of our nominees for best song of the year. Just when sample-based hip-hop and R&B threaten to get stuck in a rut, this song comes along, taking a great guitar-and-drum workout from the Meters' "Oh, Calcutta!" and turning it into a brash celebration of love. Or take Jack Johnson, one of the year's hottest concert tickets. We never got into the David Gray phenomenon a few years back--and wigging out in an open field with 100,000 unwashed Phish fans always seemed about as enticing as, say, slamming your bozak in a car door--but Johnson, king of a new generation of flip-flop rock, brings a different vibe. That is, one we like. Same goes for the new experimental wave of Dirty South hip-hop. Last year, at the height of crunk, all you could do was make funny faces and shout "Yeah!" or "What?" Not exactly wowing the ladies with your poesy. This year guys such as David Banner and the Ying Yang Twins have brought seductiveness back to the clubs, whispering in girls' ears instead of elbowing people aside at the bar. Pop music is about change, evolution and creating a soundtrack to a particular time and place--its value is in its transience. Anyone still pining for another great Oasis album (which would bring the grand total of great Oasis albums to what, two?) must be out of his mind. Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs--we're in the midst of the best British invasion in a decade. And Franz Ferdinand has already made two classic albums--in the past 18 months. Don't get us wrong: A lot of the stuff out there is shite, and we're not denying it. Which is exactly why our annual readers poll is so important. With this ballot, dear reader, you define the soundtrack of the year, and with your vote you can tell the jaded critics where they can shove their copies of Here Come the Warm Jets.

Here's the official ballot. Rip it out, vote and then mail it in. You can tick off boxes, or if you think you're so damn smart, write in your own favorite artists. Still too much trouble? You can also vote online.

Best Rock Album

Best Hip-Hop Album

Check Boxes for favorite in each category

Best Country Album

Best Jazz Album

Best Soundtrack Album

Best World Music Album

Best Live Act

Mail in your entry no later than December 15, 2005.

Check Boxes for favorite in each category

Best Reissue

Best Song

Best Breakout Artist

Best Video Game Soundtrack

Playboy's Hall of Fame 2005

The Band

A new boxed set shows why this combo is so revered. Even before its 1968 debut LP, the group was backing Bob Dylan; by the 1970s many felt the Band had surpassed its mentor. And the Band's 1976 farewell show was famously captured by Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz, a landmark music film.

Chuck Berry

Exactly 50 years ago, the summer of 1955 waned to the beat of "Maybellene," the first Berry single. With a string of subsequent rave-ups, his music, more than Elvis's or anyone else's, would become the blueprint for rock and roll. John Lennon even suggested the name Chuck Berry could be substituted for the term rock and roll. Hail, hail rock and roll.

Jefferson Airplane

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of this key band from the San Francisco psychedelic scene, whose hits "White Rabbit," "Somebody to Love" and "Volunteers" still inspire on The Essential Jefferson Airplane, a new career overview. Go ask Alice.

Tom Petty

Back on tour this year with the classic Heartbreakers lineup and with a book out and a new album on the way, Petty is poised far a higher level of veneration. Heartland rock has never sounded better than when Petty sings "American Girl."

Pink Floyd

This band changed the music industry--and created the soundtrack for laser shows everywhere. After Syd Barrett's departure, Roger Waters stepped up and took the concept album to dizzying heights of artistic and commercial success with Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. The Floyd also redefined concert expectations.

Write-in Vote:

Jack Johnson

Flip-Flop you don't stop

Jack Johnson rarely wears shoes. He lives in a Hawaiian version of Margaritaville, overlooking the Pacific ocean, and serves up hushed, sunny albums that--in addition to praising the value of simplicity and the benefits of island living--regularly sell millions. Johnson's latest. In Between Dreams, is his third platinum LP, but his debut, Brushfire Fairytales, a left-field dose of palm-tree-swaying melody, enabled him to start punching his own card. "Once that record took off, we built a little studio here in the garage," he says, "overlooking a good surf spot called Pipeline. Hawaii's nice. We spend a lot of time outside." But Johnson didn't always think he would cling to the islands. "When I was 18 I loved the place like crazy," he says, "but I was also anxious to get out and see some other parts of the world. I liked going to places far from the ocean, going to big cities." Eventually his producer, Mario Caldato Jr. (best known for his work with the Beastie Boys), began to question Johnson's sanity. "He asked me why in the world I wasn't recording in Hawaii." Johnson recalls. "I had always felt that would be cheating in some weird way. I didn't know I was allowed to do things on my own terms." Once Johnson figured that out, life got really good. Now he packs arenas across the land, surfs and shoots movies about surfing. He established an environmental foundation. He has even jammed with the original flip-flop rocker. Jimmy Buffett. "Now I know that as long as I can end up back in Hawaii," he says, "everything is fine."

David Banner

How Booty Music became seductive southern Hip-Hop

Mississippi doesn't have the cachet of Atlanta or Houston in the hip-hop world, but David Banner is fast establishing it as an important outpost. And with his hit "Play." Banner is helping make hip-hop more female-friendly, reminding girls that guys are still willing and able to place as much importance on women's sexual desires as their own. Hip-hop hooray.

[Q] Playboy: With "Play" in heavy rotation on the heels of the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait (The Whisper Song)." is good old-fashioned seduction music back?

Banner: With all these Southern artists making crunk records, rap music, especially our form, wasn't catering to girls. So we came up with something we call intimate club music. The plan was to make music not for every girl in the club but for one. The tesk is to make every woman feel like she is that one.

[Q] Playboy: Word is that before writing the lyrics for "Play." you asked a lesbian for her perspective on pleasing a woman. True?

Banner: Yeah, she's a friend of mine, a beautiful girl. She said men are selfish when it comes to love and sex. She explained that a woman will pay attention to every part of your body. And I thought, Damn, what if they had a man who paid that kind of attention in his music? If you listen to "Play." I'm telling the ladies. "I'm doing this for you. I'm not trying to just bust and dip. I'm going to pay attention to you."

LCD Soundsystem

An underground tastemaker on dance-floor shakers

One of the coolest sounds to break this year is the distorted disco-punk pumped out by James Murphy, the man behind LCD Soundsystem.

[Q] Playboy: Hand clap or cowbell?

Murphy: Hand clap. I use it because the sound of rock snares--like on a Red Hot Chili Peppers album--makes my skin crawl. I like snap snares in disco and the Beatles. It's not as macho.

[Q] Playboy: Are the Rolling Stones macho?

Murphy: The Stones are full of shit. Jagger was just a fancy kid in fancy school wearing fancy pants. I preferred the Beatles: they never claimed to be anything but a pop band. Jagger wanted us to believe he was a sharecropper.

[Q] Playboy: What hip-hop are you into?

Murphy: The Kanye West song "Diamonds" is genius. But otherwise I see a lot of talented people doing stuff that isn't as good as they could be doing. For a second, when OutKast came out and blew people away. I thought everyone would go crazy. But they went right back to songs about bitches.

[Q] Playboy: Why isn't hip-hop evolving?

Murphy: The artists are just satisfied. Everyone is so psyched that hip-hop is dominant. They should remember that the dominant music used to be the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing. If you're dominant, it means you're making music for dumbasses. You need to check yourself.

Ying Yang Twins

Lightning Strikes Twice: Atl's New OutKast

Believe it or not, the Ying Yang Twins, whose U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta) was the summer's biggest album, have achieved a Zen-like sense of tranquility. "We don't really like to go to the regular clubs anymore." says D-Roc. "We head straight out to the strip clubs. You don't have to worry about the hassle of too many fights and things like that. It's relaxation. You get the club vibe without actually going to the club." Though the Twins have been closely associated with crunk--raucous party music not known for subtlety of language or production--U.S.A. is in many ways an adventurous yang to the band's earlier yin. In fact the LP brings to mind another Atlanta duo: OutKast. Funny, because in 2000, after the Twins sold 200,000 copies of the underground single "Whistle While You Twurk" only to be sued over an Uncleared Snow White sample, most hip-hop aficionados thought that would be the end for them. But as a pair of platinum albums proves. D-Roc and Kaine were just getting started. "It's a feel-good vibe." D-Roc says of their formula for success, "which is what hip-hop was originally all about." The Twins' sound developed in a musical vacuum. "Atlanta had been trying to make noise for a long time. But the industry didn't want to accept it. So we all said, 'Okay, let's go ahead and do something else.' At that point the music slowed down because everybody started smoking weed. We got a creative field going, and everybody took a liking to it."

Roger Waters

What would genius do? Return to pink floyd and compose an Opera

The Live 8 benefit concerts didn't solve the world's problems, but Bob Geldof's project did achieve one miracle: a reunion of the classic lineup of Pink Floyd, with Roger Waters joining the band for the first time in 20 years. Waters also released an opera. Ça Ira, this fall.

[Q] Playboy: Now that you and David Gilmour have reunited onstage, will you work together on an album?

[A] Waters: I might be prepared to make a record, but there's no fucking way I'm going to argue with him about how to make it. It was horrible to have to fight with somebody about how to make Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. Of course, the results were spectacular.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of bands such as Coldplay and Radiohead that are obviously influenced by Pink Floyd?

[A] Waters: If I had some influence that gave people permission to be serious about what they did, to express their inner feelings and not give a fuck about what anyone thought, to go for it in a passionate way that exposed their weaknesses as well as their strengths, then I couldn't be happier. Because so much rock and roll is posturing bollocks. You know, poodle rock, all that hair and tight trousers. I never had any time for that crap. It's just bollocks.

[Q] Playboy: Did you like any of the bands at Live 8?

[A] Waters: I don't mean to put down any of those bands, and maybe I'm totally biased, but I felt the Who and Pink Floyd were just better. When the Who came on and played "Won't Get Fooled Again." I just thought, Wow. There's something extraordinarily powerful about the melody, the words. I watched a bit of Coldplay and thought they were very engaging and nice, but I haven't the faintest idea what the songs were about. Not the faintest idea.

Vote Online > playboy.com/musicpoll