The 40 Best Deep Cuts of 2005: Staff Picks

Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, Springsteen sings of a border-crossing immigrant for whom “the lights of Brownsville, across the river shine.” The traveler dreams of a loved one and “a touch of your loving fingertips.” But the lyric is chronologically reversed, and begins with a rendezvous that will never be, as the drowned refugee rises ”to the light without a sound.” As the coda of the intense and somber Devils & Dust album, “Matamoros Banks” is a moving finale. — THOM DUFFY

Introduced by a wailing electric guitar and built around a sample of Keith Sweat’s “Right and a Wrong Way,” Pretty Ricky’s Static Major-assisted “Juicy” stands as a prime example of why the group worked so well as an X-rated successor to B2K. In between a concupiscent refrain from Pleasure P and Static Major’s sweetly melodic chorus, Slick’em kicks off his rapid-fire verse with, “Now I’m a passionate lover that likes passionate sex/ Butt-naked in the classroom on the teacher’s school desk.” Outlandishly over-the-top sexual bravado was Pretty Ricky’s bread and butter, and the quartet put on an unmatched showcase with this cut from their 2005 Bluestars debut album. — KYLE DENIS

A great example of the “why not?” approach to songwriting and performance that made System of a Down — ironically, given the name of their most popular album –throughout the ’00s. “Radio/Video” is simultaneously the jauntiest song ever recorded about missing your childhood friends and the most melancholy song ever recorded about hearing yourself on the radio for the first time — all captured in about 30 words total — with a song that shifts tempo and tone so many times you could never imagine it getting played on the radio or the video. (Except that SOAD had already scored one such hit in 2005.) — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

T-Pain and his Auto-Tune-laced croon hit the music industry like an asteroid in 2005. Behind Rappa Ternt Sanga anthems “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)” and “I’m Sprung,” the Florida native ditches the Auto-Tune to showcase his versatility while looking inward on “Fly Away.” Two decades later, T-Pain’s legacy has long been solidified, but none of that was promised, as he grappled with the uncertainty of whether he’d ever reach those heights in a career where many fall short of stardom: “I wish I can know those things/ That everybody else knows.” — MICHAEL SAPONARA

Before the Dawn Heals Us was the M83 album that proved beyond a doubt that Anthony Gonzalez & Co. weren’t just a bunch of retro-minded nu-gazers. Actually, they were that, but not in the sense of just updating early ’90s dream-pop with a digital sheen — they were more interested in mining the deepest recesses of youthful nostalgia with music as vivid and transportive as the fantasy and horror movies that expanded our minds as kids. “Farewell/Goodbye” was one of their first such mini-masterpieces of time-travel, a swooningly lush synth-pop ballad with barely decipherable lyrics that are some combination of romantic and terrifying — all you can tell is your heart is beating fast for one reason or another. — A.U.

ANOHNI’s tender vibrato may be the star of the show on this ode to the pleasure and pain of love, but guest star Lou Reed sets the whole thing up with a soft, spoken-word introduction straight out of 1960s Motown. “I just had to let you know how I feel,” he concludes — like a more subdued riff on the Contours’ “Do You Love Me” — and from there, the song slowly builds from its humble piano beginnings to its wailing apex. “Giving me just a little bit!” ANOHNI cries at the end, as horns blare and chunky electric guitar chords sound before the song slowly fades out, as gently as it began. — CHRISTINE WERTHMAN

Aly & AJ’s “On the Ride” captures the joy of experiencing life in all its phases — the highs, the lows, and the thrill of simply living. The duo’s debut album Into the Rush embraces the theme of living in the moment, but this particular highlight takes it a step further, with an upbeat melody that captures the highs of true happiness, and chorus lyrics about how it’s all even better together (“Life is amazing with you on the ride”). — KRISTEN WISNESKI

Now that Imogen Heap’s exquisite 2005 album Speak for Yourself has gotten the reappraisal that it deserves — by way of an extended viral moment for opener “Headlock,” and songs like “Goodnight and Go” and “Hide and Seek” being reinterpreted in pop hits years later — it’s time for the album’s back-half gem to get some shine, too. “The Walk” contains all of Heap’s hallmarks: sparse electro-pop production, skittering vocal melodies and a compelling soft-loud dynamic. But “The Walk” also boasts a particular sweeping hook, with the words “It’s not meant to be like this” strained in an elegant burst of frustration. — JASON LIPSHUTZ

Hip-hop’s conscious and commercial wings have always had a tumultuous relationship, and few rappers have captured that conflict as poignantly as Common did with “They Say.” Assisted by John Legend and Ye (formerly Kanye West) back when they were all G.O.O.D. Music artists, “They Say” finds Common wrestling with maintaining his conscious rapper branding while navigating the culture’s more commercial pockets post-Like Water for Chocolate. Over a smooth flip of Ahmad Jamal’s “Ghetto Child,” Common spits a pair of introspective verses in between a breezy hook from Legend. But the final lines of Ye’s verse — chillingly prophetic 20 years later – are the real kicker: “They say because of the fame and stardom/ I’m somewhere in between the church and insane asylum/ I guess it’s messin’ with my health then/ And this verse so crazy when I finish/ I’m just gon’ check myself in, again,” he raps. — K.D.

We’ll never quite know who Monsieur Valentine is, or what his two sides look like — Spoon frontman Britt Daniel explained that the Gimme Fiction track is the product of an alcohol-fueled imagination, built around an imaginary play called The Stranger Dance. But when you’re in an indie-rock groove like Spoon enjoyed in the mid-2000s, the narrative details aren’t as important as those hangdog guitar strums, stray piano keys and Daniel chewing up the line “Every morning, I’ve got a new chance” multiple times. — J. Lipshutz

There’s haunting album closers, and then there’s “Dondante.” Sneaking up on you at the end of My Morning Jacket’s masterful Z, the song is defined by its anguished guitar shredding and the ghostly falsetto of frontman Jim James. The song’s mournful tenor was inspired by the death of an old bandmate, but with its confusing title and oft-unclear lyrics, it’s almost more powerful for its ambiguity, allowing the overpowering emotion at its core to hit every listener differently — and linger with them long after the album stops. — A.U.

Gucci Mane has a gargantuan, hit-packed catalog — and one of his best cuts is tucked away in the middle of his 2005 debut studio album Trap House. Sure, chanting out different pockets of your hood over a whirring, Shawty Redd-produced beat is basically a hip-hop cheat code, but who really cares when the result is such a banger? From the second verse’s numerical wordplay (“Money real dirty, 9:30/ Got a trap to catch, fo’ a quarter birdie/ 10:45, quarter to 11/ AK-47 and a MAC-11″) to the third verse’s autobiographical storytelling (“Seventeen now, and I’m on the grind/ Never stand in line at the five-five-nine”), “That’s My Hood” is a grade-A slice of mid-00s Southern hip-hop. — K.D.

You have to imagine that a pretty healthy percentage of the couple million or so people that bought Gorillaz’ Demon Days album in this country expected an album of fun pop songs with starry features, like hit singles “Feel Good Inc.” and “Dare” — and were instead greeted with an album full of dubby, downtempo lost-at-sea transmissions. Those were pretty good too, though, and proper album opener “Last Living Souls” set the tone for ’em with chirping keys, a geiger-counter beat and a detached Damon Albarn asking “Are we the last living souls?” like he already knows the answer and has basically made peace with it. — A.U.

The lyrics to this theatrical highlight from emo breakout stars Panic! At the Disco’s debut LP depict a night out shaped by societal expectations, symbolized by “overcoats, canes, and top hats.” From entering with cigarette boxes to fleeing to the ladies’ room to check the mirror, each step reflects public self-consciousness. The protagonist joins the event patrons, calling themselves the “cancer” of the event, “spiking the punch” and causing chaos — to expose the artificiality and futility of social norms. — K.W.

Meg White thumping on the drum kit as Jack White wails on his cherry-red 1964 Res-O-Glass Airline guitar: For many, this is the definitive image of The White Stripes. But for all the band’s career, primitive folk music – like “As Ugly As I Seem,” a standout from the eclectic Get Behind Me Satan – was a necessary and effective counterweight to all that six-string squall. Here, Jack elevates a hypnotically simple instrumental with verifiably Dylanesque lyrics: “The rogue is a bank, he’s never broke,” he sings, “But worth as much as a joke / That no one is laughing at.” — ERIC RENNER BROWN

This song might have been a hidden track tucked at the end of X&Y, but it’s been hiding in plain sight ever since. “Kingdom” was reportedly intended to be a duet between Chris Martin and Johnny Cash, who died before it was recorded. And while the Coldplay landmarks are all present (guitar-driven production, earnest lyrics about life and death), you can feel the Cash-ready twang here too – and when the band performs “Kingdom” live, they often incorporate “Ring of Fire” into the song. While it wasn’t a single, it did have a couple of other big looks: on the soundtrack for 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and as performed by Martin with only a church organ and his acoustic guitar at the 2015 funeral for Joe Biden’s son Beau. – KATIE ATKINSON

Chris Brown burst onto the music scene in 2005 as a force to be reckoned with while churning out hits with his self-titled debut. But tucked into the album were tender R&B tracks like “Is This Love,” which showcases Brown’s penchant for perfectly describing young love as if he were a heartbreak veteran, and not a teenager barely old enough to drive over to his first flame’s house. — M.S.

Daft Punk’s third album didn’t garner the rapturous reviews or spawn the enduring hits of its first two, but the chest-punching force of its grimy, muscular electro-house would come to make a lot more sense as a progenitor to the EDM era of the early ’10s — and only sounds more phenomenal today. Despite its slightly dated sentiment in the age of cord-cutting, “Television Rules the Nation” is a thumping, gleaming exemplar of the album’s visceral appeal, and sounded particularly revelatory two years later as blended with “Crescendolls” on the robots’ classic Alive 2007 live album. — A.U.

Kirk Franklin, a key architect of contemporary gospel music, had a big 2005 with his Hero album, which housed a Grammy-winner in “Imagine Me” and a Hot 100 hit in “Looking for You” (No. 61). Arguably one of his strongest albums, Hero’s fusion of gospel with elements of hip-hop, rock, disco and soul made for a uniquely transcendent collection of music – and “Let It Go” is one of its most underrated gems. Featuring powerful spoken-word verses from Franklin interspersed with TobyMac’s take on Tears for Fears’ “Shout” chorus, “Let It Go” lays bare various struggles, addictions and hardships that people encounter while developing their relationship with Christ. A headier and more downtempo offering than most of his signature hits, “Let It Go” allows Franklin to command the stage on his lonesome – his impassioned storytelling filling in for his usually omnipresent backing choir. — K.D.

Even Weezer fans turned off by the band going Hollywood with their 2005 album’s lead single had to give it up for this irresistible Make Believe cut. “This Is Such a Pity” was perhaps the closest the band had come to a Blue Album-style gem in a decade, a shimmering new wave riffer with a synth-soaked, double-vocal-tracked chorus, built around a lyrical sentiment no one could argue with: “This is such a pity/ We should give all our love to each other/ Not this hate that destroys us.” Weezer would continue to challenge its longtime disciples for decades to come, but kept them around by reminding them just often enough that the band could still dial it back like this. — A.U.

“I love New York, but gangbangin’, that’s L.A. s–t,” The Game declares on this highlight from his debut, underlining the bicoastal nature of his rise to mid-’00s stardom. He’s pure Cali on the verses, claiming that he’s got “More hatred inside my soul than ‘Pac had for Delores Tucker,” but there’s no mistaking the pen of G-Unit head honcho 50 Cent on the casually chest-puffed hook — and there’s never any doubt when you hear a Just Blaze beat, his regal East Coast horns heralding Game to the West Coast throne. — A.U.

In less than five minutes, “Missing” surveys so much of what made Beck an alt-nation hero over the preceding decade – no small feat given his catalog’s range during the time. Like much of Guero, his Odelay collaborators The Dust Brothers are back in the fold; the bossa nova gem is the third in what Beck has called his “Brazilian trilogy,” following Mutations standout “Tropicalia” (“Missing” even samples Claus Ogerman’s ’60s bossa cut “You And I (Vocé E Eu)”); and the musical polymath sets the proceedings against the suspenseful strings that define Sea Change. No wonder that when Beck busted out the song for the first time in 13 years at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound in 2022, the crowd lost its mind. — E.R.B.

When Aerial launched in late 2005, it marked 12 years since Kate Bush’s previous album, the critically divisive The Red Shoes. In the interim, a new generation of singer-songwriters (Björk, Tori Amos, Fiona Apple) utterly unafraid of embracing their oddities, had risen to prominence — but the sprawling double-disc effort made it clear the English iconoclast was from finished when it came to pushing alternative music in idiosyncratic new directions. The mesmerizing “Joanni,” a five-minute ode to Joan of Arc, floats in gently on a soft bed of strings before two competing rhythms – one organic percussion, the other robotic blurps – take the song to a weird, wonderful spot. When she starts in with the heated humming at the four-minute mark, you could close your eyes and swear Miss Piggy was making a guest appearance. (And yes, that’s a good thing.) — JOE LYNCH

With a title that’s like the best anonymous note to leave your middle-school crush, M.I.A. takes to task someone who is getting a little too close to her man on this Arular cut. The song borrows heavily from the funky, super-slick theme song to the 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son, “Sanford & Son Theme (The Streetbeater),” written by the one and only Quincy Jones. Though the backdrop is cheery, M.I.A. isn’t playing (“You f–k my man and wreck my home/ I’ll get my bro to rob your phone”) — except when she is: “Is your dad a dealer? ’Cause you’re dope to me.” — C.W.

One underrated standout from Faith Hill’s Billboard 200-topping 2005 set Fireflies was “Dearly Beloved,” which explores the consequences of actions within a relationship, and the emotional turmoil of fulfilling a commitment that neither person truly wants, but is driven by societal expectations. The lyrics, laced with sarcasm and humor and laid over a rollicking, Chicks-y country groove, portray a so-called “dearly beloved” who is clearly just going through the motions — anything but the title, really. — K.W.

It’s hard to imagine any other pop artist singing “New York is not for little p—ies who scream” on an anthem about the Greatest City in the World, but Madonna has always been in a class of her own. (That being said, Sinatra might have said it around pals after a martini or five). Regardless, “I Love New York” pulsates and throbs like the messy, addictive city it salutes, giving the post-disco of Confessions on the Dance Floor — her best LP of the 21st century so far — a hefty schmear of grit. Speaking of screams, when she whipped out an electric guitar and combined it with a shredding version of “Burning Up” on her Celebration Tour’s Brooklyn stop in 2023, that’s exactly what fans were doing. — J. Lynch

As the first line says: “I should write a song about you and all the s–t that you do.” And so she did. The production is the real star here, all disco strings and “ah-AH” backing vocals, as Robyn lyrically takes aim at a person who embodies the dictionary definition of “idiot.” Robyn’s entire indie-album debut is a dancefloor-filler, but something about this one really makes you want to move. We don’t know what the title “Crash and Burn Girl” did to make Robyn read her for filth over a perfect nu-disco beat, but we’re not mad at her for it. – K.A.

With everything life throws your way, there’s always a lesson to be learned: Pages turn, bridges sometimes burn, and that’s all part of the journey. On this piano-led Some Hearts ballad, Underwood reflects on how every relationship, friendship, and experience — good or bad — can teach us something. Ultimately, it’s not just about what happens, but how you respond, grow, and move forward that truly defines the lesson — as the Idol champ phrases beautifully, over a breezy midtempo melody that could’ve soundtracked a dozen different different mid-’00s TV dramas and rom-coms. — K.W.

Halfway through his long-awaited debut LP as frontman of acclaimed disco-rockers LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy switches it up with the much slower, fuzzier, hazier “Never as Tired as When I’m Waking Up.” Over a lurching, chiming groove that practically begs to be described as “Beatlesque,” Murphy sounds for all the world like he did indeed just get out of bed, with his lyrics a mentally jumbled mix of horniness and hungover-ness as he declares “It feels like I’m in love again, with what you do” — though he saves lyrical twist for the final chorus: “But not with you.” Bottom line: Don’t even talk to James Murphy about lifelong commitment (or about the Fab Four) before he’s had his morning coffee. — A.U.

Nowadays, Fiona Apple may be best known for making unfettered, piano-driven music that pushes boundaries with found sounds and a cascade of lyrical poetry, but with 2005’s “Tymps,” she made a genuine banger. Various percussive elements — drums, claps, a xylophone-like synth sound — join forces to give this toxic relationship recollection a buoyant, springy feeling, while Apple remains reflective, frustrated — and wry as ever. “I’m either so sick in the head, I need to be bled dry to quit,” she sings melodramatically in her husky alto, but then offers an alternative: “Or I just really used to love him, I sure hope that’s it.” Either way, if you thought Apple only stuck to languid piano music or the avant garde, “Tymps” will encourage you to think again. — C.W.

If you only knew his sophomore album The Massacre from its more radio-pandering singles, you might’ve thought 50 Cent had lost the majority of both the charm and menace that made his Get Rich or Die Tryin’ debut such a masterwork. For that 50, you had to go to deeper into the album, to highlights like “Ski Mask Way,” where he unleashes “the flow right here that f–ked up Jeffrey’s career” while a smooth O’Jays sample keeps him from ever running too hot. And the chorus is classic Curtis, both pure evil and totally irresistible as he boasts “I get mine the fast way, the ski mask way/ Make money… take money…” — A.U.

The eye at the center of The Woods‘ Category 5 hurricane, “Modern Girl” dispenses with the thunderous cacophony that characterizes most of the album to spotlight one of the best-written songs in Sleater-Kinney’s sterling catalog. But despite it’s superficial tranquility, the song drips with irony as Carrie Brownstein rattles off the ways commercialism and the media have come to define the lives of women today. There’s a reason “Modern Girl” is now Sleater-Kinney’s most streamed track on Spotify and lent one of its lyrics to the title of Carrie Brownstein’s memoir: It may well be the quintessential Sleater-Kinney song. — E.R.B.

Prior to their falling out, Jeezy’s hustler ambitions mixed with Shawty Redd’s ominous melodies made for trap cinema. “Air Forces” is a quintessential trap song — and all it took was the first two bars for Jeezy to get his point across. “I went from old school Chevys, to drop-top Porsches/ You couldn’t walk a mile off in my Air Forces,” he raps about his rags-to-riches lifestyle. Rather than the project’s hits, essential tracks like “Air Forces” went on to power Jeezy’s TM:101 debut album to classic status, which raised a generation of hustlers. — M.S.

Anyone wondering how an esoteric indie album like Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois became the basis of a Tony-nominated Broadway musical need only listen to the emotional reach and cinematic production of “Chicago,” the centerpiece of Stevens’ towering tribute to the Prairie State. The song’s utilization of yearning strings and all-together-now choral harmonies expanded its stature as a studio product, but “Chicago” has endured as a signature song for Stevens because of the humble lyrical declarations — like “I drove to New York/ In a van, with my friend,” or  “I fell in love again, all things go, all things go” — that Stevens has used to affect listeners over the course of his illustrious career. — J. Lipshutz

Four years after her self-released debut album, Lambert made her major-label bow with Kerosene on Epic Records, the first of her seven albums to reach No. 1 on Top Country Albums. “Greyhound Bound For Nowhere,” co-written by the singer and her father Rick Lambert, finds her voice rising across the subtlest, almost dream-like country arrangement, as she offers details like, “That cell phone I hear ringin’/ I keep wishin’ it was you.” The tale of a lost love turns existential as Lambert sings, “We’re all on a Greyhound bound for nowhere,” making this an early hidden gem in her repertoire. — T.D.

Mariah Carey is practically the human embodiment of 2005 pop, so the idea of her having anything resembling a deep cut from that year is a bit mind-boggling. The Emancipation of Mimi spun out six singles, but none of those included “Circles,” one of the most soulful selections in the Songbird Supreme’s sprawling catalog. Written with James “Big Jim” Wright, Mariah uses “Circles” to flex her full voice over a ‘70s-evoking soul record composed solely by live musicians. Between the gospel inflections in her backing vocal arrangements and the simplicity of the song’s instrumentation, “Circles” recalls the best moments of Mimi’s 1991 Emotions album, and casts them in the light of her matured, raspier mid-’00s voice. — K.D.

Yes, an album titled Silent Alarm begins with an alarm that isn’t silent; no, there was no better way for the album to begin. Though Bloc Party burst onto the U.K. chart (and won over the U.S. blogs) with muscular, catchy rock singles like “Helicopter” and “Banquet,” the band’s 2005 debut places “Like Eating Glass” in the leadoff to immediately convey a sense of urgency, with Kele Okereke’s wails of “It’s so cold in this house!” joined by Russell Lissack’s air-raid guitar riffs and Matt Tong’s relentless drum fills. When the chorus finally arrives more than two minutes into the track, the moment feels like clouds briefly parting, and a great new band fully arriving.  — J. Lipshutz

When it came time for Fall Out Boy to meet its mainstream moment with From Under the Cork Tree, the band did so with a near-greatest hits-caliber set of bangers, only three of which ultimately got pulled as singles. You likely already know that trio of classics by heart, but just as memorable was the deeper “Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner,” an absolute clinic in romantic emo fatalism, the combination of Patrick Stump’s sulky-but-sympathetic whine and Pete Wentz’s poisoned-candy pen proving absolutely lethal on lyrics the signature chorus promise, “I’ll be your best-kept secret and your biggest mistake.” And just in case it doesn’t already really hit your millennial audience where it hurts, let’s name it after the most famous Dirty Dancing quote, why not. — A.U.

It’s one of the most affecting moments of Kanye West’s career: The rapper, at the pinnacle of his commercial powers, kneeling onstage at the 2008 Grammys as he performs in tribute to his mother, Donda, who had died three months earlier to the day. And the song wasn’t even on the album that would net West four awards that night – it was “Hey Mama,” the poignant track nestled deep into Late Registration that still stands as the most heartfelt moment in his catalog. With production help from Jon Brion and a deft flip of Donal Leace’s “Today Won’t Come Again,” West delivers the cinematic goods like he so often did in the ’00s, but what differentiates “Hey Mama” from his other creative moonshots is its earnestness. When people say they “miss the old Kanye,” this is what many of them mean. — E.R.B.

Not long before fans started to take his claim to the throne seriously, Lil Wayne touted himself as the “Best Rapper Alive” on Tha Carter II. Over an Iron Maiden lift and DJ Khaled scratches, Weezy puts the competition on blast and sneers with a combination of swagger and cleverness that only the New Orleans dignitary could muster up. While probably never picking up a pole in his life, Wayne somehow flexed on his peers with shrewd fishing-themed wordplay. Who else was doing this with ease? “I’m busy, I got paper to reel in God/ I hope they snappin’ at the end of my rod/ I hope I’m fishin’ in the right pond/ And I hope you catchin’ on to every line,” he raps.

The C2 deep cut ended up a fan-favorite without ever having a video or being tabbed as a single. Wayne wasn’t kidding with that title either, as he went on a torrent mixtape and feature run, climbing the rap food chain in the subsequent years leading into his blockbuster Carter III. The album lived up to its billing, selling over a million copies in the first week, and cementing the claim that he first began to make unignorable here. — M.S.