2005 The Music Year In Review at EIL.COM, home of Esprit International Limited

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Another 12 months in the world of music has come and gone and left behind its usual trail of delight and destruction.
It�s been a year of reunions, come-backs, scintillating debuts, superb newcomers and news stories you just couldn�t make up.

Without doubt there can only be one major event that happened this year worth discussing.
Of course that was Britney Spears having a baby. Brit gave birth to Sean Preston with loving, velour track suited father Kevin looking on. Needless to say it now looks like Kev has had it away on his Nike clad toes and headed to the hills.

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Bob Geldof held another little gathering for a few hundred thousand close friends at Hyde Park when he brought the plight of the world's poor to the attention of world leaders at the G8 summit in July. Around 1 million people attended the 10 different concerts around the world with an estimated 2 billion tuning on TV. Sir Bob didn�t please everybody though, with a large number of commentator�s curious as to the lack of African artists on the bill.

We lost one of the finest soul voices this year when Luther Vandross passed away in July. Luther started his career as a session singer for the likes of David Bowie before finding mega-stardom in his own right. He was an
exceptional talent and the music world is a poorer place for his loss.

2005 proved to be a good year for new and up and coming artists with the emergence of Hard-Fi, the exceptional
Kaiser Chiefs and the internet success of the Arctic Monkeys. KT Tunstall was the biggest new talent to rise to the
top thanks to her debut album Eye to the Telescope which has sold over a million copies.

The news was dominated this year by the trial of Michael Jackson. Jacko who was up in court on all manner of weird and wonderful charges was finally acquitted after a bizarre final day in court which received blanket news coverage across just about every TV station with the exception of QVC and The God channel. Funny how he was never actually proclaimed innocent just that he was free to go.

Pete Doherty from noise mongers the Libertines and Babyshambles was another never out of the papers this year thanks largely to his tempestuous relationship with super model Kate Moss. That�s all I have to say on the matter as he really doesn�t do anything worthy of many more column inches. My advice; put a shirt
on, brush your hair, learn to tune a guitar then come back in 6 months and try again.

In May it was announced that Aussie Pop Princess Kylie Minogue had been diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately it looks like Kylie is recovering well and we wish a full and speedy road back to health.
With Kylie having to take an enforced break the sisterhood of pop turned to Gwen Stefani and her album Love Music Angel Baby , Mariah Carey with The Emancipation of Mimi and the long awaited return of both Madonna and Kate Bush to keep the female pop flag flying high.

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Madge returned with the superbly infectious Hung Up from her critically acclaimed album
Confessions On A Dance Floor. Ms Bush stormed back after over a decade away from the spotlight with
the album Aerial featuring a guest spot from none other than Rolf Harris. Let�s just hope we don't have to wait another 12 years for the album.

Eric Clapton reunited with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker for a series of Cream concerts in the U.K and the U.S. I'm not quite sure why the tickets were so vastly overpriced as I�m sure neither Ginger nor Jack needs to rely on the state pension to pay their bills. Still the gigs rocked and the live cd an dvd proved that there really is no need to try and teach an old dog new tricks if the tricks they know are as good as this.

Oasis finally delivered an album worthy of sitting alongside their debut Definitely Maybe.
Don�t Believe The Truth was a superb collection of songs with the stand out tracks being the superb
singles Let There Be Love, Lyla and The Importance of Being Idle.

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Three of the finest albums of the year came from the elder statesmen of rock. The Rolling Stones
belied there combined age of 754 by producing a stunning slab of riff driven rock on A Bigger Bang.
The band also kicked off their latest world tour which will finally hit the U.K in the summer. Paul McCartney received his best reviews for a solo album in many a year. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard was a more back to basics album for Sir Paul who played pretty much all of the instruments himself. The somewhat gloomy production from Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich managed to marry itself perfectly with some of Maccas most beautiful melodies to date. Robert Plant released what many people here considered to be the set of the year. The former Led Zep man who remains one of the most inventive, consistently daring figures in contemporary music. His band 'The Strange Sensation' who worked with him on 2002�s Grammy Award Nominated 'Dreamland' were vital in the development of what is without doubt one of the must have albums of the year, the Grammy nominated Mighty Rearranger.

The year came to a close with yet another sacrificial pop cow being led to the slaughter by the devil incarnate Simon Cowell and Louis �I liked it � you made it your own� Walsh. Both men should be sent to Mars post haste, least of all for inflicting Westlife, Il Divo, Gareth Gates and Michelle MacManus on us.
It goes to prove that the Devil does not always have the best tunes!

So that was 2005, what will 2006 have in store..? Well I never said I was Mystic Meg or Derek Acorah did I. The only thing that is certain is that it�s gonna be another year of ups and downs, triumphs and tragedy. It may only be rock n roll but we like it, like it yes we do!!