I dig MUSIC
As usual, I'm not going to do a list of the best albums of the year. I'm going to do a list of every album I bought this year, ranked by quality. Even in a particularly heavy album-buying year like this one, my list of everything is about the size of the best-of in a publication like SPIN, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, or Magnet, and the number of the albums below that I feel confident as calling "best of the year" doesn't extend much beyond five or six at most.
With that in mind, and because of my CD spree, I'm dividing this list into tiers. The first tier is the stuff I think would still make a legitimate best-of list even if I bought as many albums as I do movie tickets. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. I may, like the overstuffed lists mentioned above, enjoy most of these albums, but at least I have the excuse that I only listen heavily to albums that I think I'll like.
Statistical notes: Over the last couple of years, I've been aspiring to seek out more new music, as since college I've felt myself falling into habits, going back to the same artists and their various offshoots. Ten of the following thirty albums are by artists who I've never bought on CD and who have no formal affiliation with other bands I like, which is pretty good for me (even if some of them have informal affiliations). Unfortunately, I evened things out with my rock shows. Many of this year's concerts were acts I had already seen several times, and eight of my thirteen shows were acts I saw more than once in 2006 alone. As always, an asterisk denotes an artist I saw live this year.
Finally, a shout-out to Rolling Stone. I am currently rocking my second semi-consecutive free subscription to Rolling Stone (they give it away with a variety of products these days), and I sometimes forget, reading their political reporting and interviews with actors, that Rolling Stone kinda sucks. As a music magazine, that is. Their non-music articles are often quite good. Their music articles will award album of the year to Bob Dylan -- on its own, that's not too bad, because Dylan did make a very good album, sad boomer kowtowing nonwithstanding. Then they'll do something far stupider, like give the number two slot to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So, is that just because it's a double album? Or just because they have like ten other albums? Or a combination of the two? At least boomer kowtowing, at least this year, rewards Dylan; I don't even know who is being deferred to when you say the Red Hot Chili Peppers had the second-best album of the year (Generation X? But wouldn't they disgusted by it too?), but whoever it is, count me out.
Anyway:
2006: The Year of Buying Lots of Albums!
---TIER 1: THE ACTUAL BEST---
1. Boys and Girls in America, The Hold Steady*
Not as much of a driving tackle as Separation Sunday, the third Hold Steady album is nonetheless one of those addictive minor miracles that makes you hungry to hear and feel it again and again, despite a few flaws -- namely, the fact that it may not be possible for an album to be as good the whole way through as the opening one-two kick-punch combo of "Stuck Between Stations" and "Chips Ahoy!" But the rest of Boys and Girls in America is also pretty great: funny, literate, tough, sentimental, huge, and hard to beat.
2. Show Your Bones, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Top six most transcendent moments (of many) on the second Yeah Yeah Yeahs album:
1. Karen O's "bup-bup-bup-bup-bove" in "Cheated Hearts."
2. Karen O saying "take it away, Nick!" on "Mysteries."
3. The screechy guitar solo with which Nick then takes it away.
4. The way the music drops out abruptly to end "Turn Into" (and the album).
5. The moment that the electric guitar kicks into "Warrior."
6. The multi-phase scream that ends "Mysteries."
3. The Life Pursuit, Belle and Sebastian*
The B&S yippeeeee renaissance continues -- but never fear, for they can still come up with something as pretty and melancholy as "Dress Up in You." Feel free to jump around to "Sukie in the Graveyard" and shake your ass to "The Blues are Still Blue" without sulky hipster remorse.
4. Sun, Sun, Sun, The Elected and Rabbit Fur Coat, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins*
It is a testament to the general wonderfulness of Rilo Kiley that the band's two main creative forces, Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, could record separate solo projects that sound so strong even as their absence from each other is immediately obvious. In fact, the records are both logically complementary and weirdly similar: they could both be tagged as country but have just as much root in old-timey rock & roll and folk (where a country influence was less of a big deal). Jenny takes the personal lyrics and gorgeous voice; Blake handles the expansive guitar sound. Neither album is as great as any of Rilo Kiley's three; both are inviting in their own right.
---TIER 2: REALLY QUITE GOOD---
6. Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio
I didn't tumble for TV on the Radio as hard as some of the actual rock critics out there -- they're one of those bands whose vibe is sometimes more impressive than the actual songs. That said, Return to Cookie Mountain has a great vibe, and some great songs to go along with it (especially "Wolf Like Me" and the hypnosis of "A Method"). It sounds sort of like a scrappier, less beautiful Arcade Fire.
7. Bitter Tea, The Fiery Furnaces
Liking the Fiery Furnaces is frustrating. They put out a fanciful eighty-minute story-concept-something circus like Blueberry Boat, and it's borderline unlistenable; they follow it up by sticking some of their best material on an odds-and-sods collection that would be their best album, and call it an EP instead. For their next proper album, they give their grandma lead vocal duties. And they frontload the album after that, Bitter Tea, with some of their most rambling, Blueberriest songs. It's almost as if they can't make a good record if they think someone is paying attention; the rest of Bitter Tea gets better and better until it peaks around track ten -- virtually unheard of in this track-three world. The band doesn't seem interested in wielding its weirdness like a powerful sword a la the White Stripes or They Might Be Giants, and you often want someone to save them from themselves, but the new album is sporadically brilliant.
8. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Neko Case*
Listening to Neko Case's half-covers live album and then several of her studio joints, as well as her work with the New Pornographers, I was put in the awkward position of liking her, but not really her own songs. Fox Confessor gets rid of that with her most distinct, energized set of music so far.
9. Modern Times, Bob Dylan
This bluesy, old-timey album in the vein of Love and Theft might be my favorite of the three recent Dylan albums (even if it lacks a song as fantastic as "Mississippi" from Theft). His voice, literally and narratively, only gets more distinct and comforting with age (even as it crackles and strains more than ever). The best track is a lovely piano-based song called "Workingman's Blues 2"; I also, like everyone else, like the part where he's thinking about Alicia Keyes.
10. Bottoms of Barrels, Tilly and the Wall
Former Rilo Kiley opener, part one: the tap-dancing sounds like a gimmick on paper, but it gives many of these indie-pop songs the extra drive they need. The only time this cutely raucous and mostly-delightful album falters is when the dude singer sounds so eerily like Bright Eyes that you wonder if this is a charity project for Conor's no-good half-brother (that said, even one of the faux-Bright Eyes songs is pretty good). Otherwise: "Rainbows in the Dark," "Bad Education," "Lost Girls," "Sing Songs Along," ole!
---TIER 3: GOOD ENOUGH---
11. The Information, Beck
Or, another perfectly decent Beck album. I said before that Sea Change and Guero would be a lot more acceptable if there weren't three-year gaps between them. The Information arrived about eighteen months after Guero, so I'm going to keep up my end of the bargain and say good job.
12. Get Lonely, The Mountain Goats*
This seems like quite a dive for the guy whose last two albums topped my lists in 2004 and 2005. Get Lonely is less forceful and brilliant than its predecessors; the lasting impression it gives is more of a sustained (hushed, sad) mood than the kind of short-story-like masterpieces John Darnielle can by now write in his sleep. I guess this is sort of like his Sea Change, and he's talented enough to make it work.
13. Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, Rainer Maria
Rainer Maria came to what seems like a weirdly unceremonious end this year -- just this past weekend, in fact, with farewell shows I had to miss for TMBG and schoolwork -- releasing the now-standard pre-breakup one-off on a new label. But unlike The Woods, Catastrophe was a blip compared to the wave of promotion that accompanied, say, Long Knives Drawn in '03. The new record isn't as spiky as Knives or as pretty as A Better Version of Me, but some of the individual songs are Rainer Maria's best: the driving "Life of Leisure," the fast-paced "Bottle," and the gorgeous "Terrified." Only some labored mediocrities, like the semi-awful "Southpaw," keep it from ranking with their best. As it is, they've cemented their status as a perpetually underrated, overlooked rock & roll band.
14. The Jarvis Cocker Record, Jarvis Cocker
Everyone seems to be saying it's just called Jarvis, but the spine says Jarvis Cocker Record so that's what I'm going with. Jarvis is still in the less intense, more detached and laid-back mode of Pulp's We Love Life -- the most fiery song, "Running the World" (aka "Cunts Are Still Running the World"), is a secret track. But on the plus side, We Love Life is underrated and his solo joint doesn't have any whisper-monologue songs (the tracks that are like "I Spy" but boring). Sometimes Cocker doesn't appear to be trying very hard, adhering too closely to verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure without the escalation and peaks of the best Pulp songs, but many other songs are keen. I can't wait to download the awesome extra songs they'll slap on the U.S. release (if it ever happens)!
15. Bang Bang Rock 'n Roll, Art Brut
I can't imagine what a second Art Brut album is going to sound like or, right now, what the point of it would be, but for now everything is peachy (if not exactly something you always play all the way through).
16. Idlewild, Outkast
Here's a tip for next year: if Entertainment Weekly is lukewarm about an album by an established artist, deeming it too weird and messy for its own good, buy it. It happened to Amnesiac, it happened to Get Behind Me Satan, and it happened to Idlewild; by now, it's basically a seal of approval. Outkast's work isn't quite in a league with the other two, possibly because of the weird aftertaste of a soundtrack album accompanying a movie that jettisons most of the soundtrack songs, and possibly because of the weird rap-album compulsion to add lots of padding and crappy skits. But that double album of theirs is a lot more sprawling and a lot less thematic than this.
17. Public Warning, Lady Sovereign
Okay, I feel a little guilty about getting another white rap album, but Public Warning is a lot of fun, especially in the first half. It pains me to say this, but Lady Sovereign made a way better LP than Northern State did. Comparisons to Eminem abound; I can hear it a little in her voice, but unlike Eminem, I don't have trouble believing that Sov has a sense of humor. Bonus: no skits.
18. Broken Boy Soldiers, The Raconteurs
Remember back in the spring when people were getting super-excited about this? I assume that was because "Steady as She Goes" is pretty kickass, and I assume the subsequent relative quiet about the Raconteurs has to do with the fact that, oh, wait, there might be more people in this band, but the White Stripes still have better songs. I'm also pretty sure that Jack White is a better lyricist than the other dude who forms this lopsided "supergroup." But enough grousing: this is an enjoyable stop-gap solution to the White Stripes no longer doing an album every year (not that I was listening to them back when they were doing that). I especially like the nonsensical psychedelia of "Intimate Secretary."
19. Post-War, M. Ward
Former Rilo Kiley opener, part two: a gentle, old-timey collection of folk-rock songs from M. Ward. He sometimes adds unnecessary echo/distortion effects to his already raspy voice, and most of the songs don't really pop out at you, but there is a lot of warmth and intelligence here.
20. Make Love to the Judges with Your Eyes, Pony Up!
Sort of a poor man's Palomar, these friends of Ben Lee (way to network with someone who I imagine couch-surfing between Evan Dando and Ben Kweller) have improved a lot since their debut EP. Like some of Palomar's work, they have chirpy voices and surprisingly, pleasingly gloomy melodies. Obviously, this is right up my alley.
21. The Loon, Tapes 'n Tapes
OK, so I bought this album on a whim, and I've listened to it, I don't know, four or five times. Every time I've listened to it, I've enjoyed it. But I couldn't tell you the name of one song on it, or even hum a few bars offhand. I recognize some of them when I hear them again, and I could tell you that some of the melodies sort of sound like the Pixies and the guy's voice sounds (again) like the dude from the Arcade Fire, and that I think the best songs are in the first half of the album. But something about it disappears from my memory immediately upon finishing, every time.
22. The Pick of Destiny, Tenacious D
Oddly, this soundtrack to a ninety-minute movie is about half the length of the first D album. This is a mixed blessing; it doesn't have as many instant classics, but brevity is one thing that would've helped the first record considerably. Some of the songs don't have much use outside of the context of the film, but give it up for "History," "Kickapoo," and "The Government Totally Sucks." I like the song about Sasquatch, too.
23. Let's Get Out of This Country, Camera Obscura
Pretty, though perhaps unnecessary what with Belle and Sebastian still making good albums.
---TIER 4: DISAPPOINTMENTS---
24. You in Reverse, Built to Spill
Built to Spill just doesn't sound into it anymore. Their jam-band tendencies don't bother me because they're interwoven with an ability to make concise, punchy pop-rock songs. The problem is, they've now made one of each type of their records in what I can only assume is a blah state of mind. Both Ancient Melodies of the Future (concise pop) and now You in Reverse (guitar jams) have a few gems ("Conventional Wisdom" on the new one) amidst a sea of unmemorable work. The lyrics, especially, sound like afterthoughts, as if -- as on the last proper Ben Folds album -- the music was completed long before the words, and the artist half-assed that part to get it done.
25. At War with the Mystics, The Flaming Lips
With each album since The Soft Bulletin, the gaps between the brilliant Lips songs (and there are always at least a few) grows a little. At War with the Mystics gives you some greatness at the beginning and the end, but also makes you suffer through a bloated, wonky, half-realized middle. They may be taking the stoner-band thing too seriously.
26. supersunnyspeedgraphic, Ben Folds*
EP and soundtrack leftovers from Folds, who I still think may be suffering from writers' block. I wouldn't normally stick an odds-n-sods compilation on here, but what the hell. The best songs on here, subbed for the lesser cuts on Songs for Silverman, definitely could've improved that album a bit, but on their own, I don't see myself listening to them much.
27. The Eraser, Thom Yorke
I don't get it. I'm not one of those "when will they rock again?" Radiohead fans. I'm not even one of those "Kid A yes, Amnesiac no" guys. The glitchy, moody, electronic stuff is all fine with me. So why don't I like Thom Yorke's glitchy, moody, electronic solo album more? In a way, it's comforting, because even though you might wonder what the other guys in Radiohead are actually doing on the giltchy albums, I take The Eraser -- pleasant enough but not interesting enough -- as proof that Ed, Johnny, and Phil really do matter.
28. Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam
This is sort of ironic, because I didn't really think Pearl Jam was in need of a comeback. Granted, I don't actually have Binaural or Riot Act, but the possibility that I could find them and buy them for five bucks a piece has loomed in the back of my mind for awhile. I just never got around to it. So when I heard "best PJ album since Vitalogy" (which I love), and I was at Best Buy picking up a router, I thought, for ten bucks, why not? It's not that this album is bad so much as that it seems absolutely typical of Pearl Jam's recent work. Which is to say, not nearly as varied or crazy as Vitalogy -- and I'd even say the much-disliked No Code is a lot better, too (also operating under the aforementioned Entertainment Weekly rule). Good moments, but the people still knocked on their ass by Pearl Jam are mostly those too stubborn to be knocked on their ass by the White Stripes or the Hold Steady.
29. Damaged, Lambchop
The vague feeling that I should check out and like Lambchop was half-realized this year. It turns out they're really boring. There's definitely some merit in the Leonard Cohen-ish voice narrating slow-paced tales of whatever, but they're more literary (and theoretical) than musical (or enjoyable).
30. Standing in the Way of Control, The Gossip
I got this used on a whim because Sleater-Kinney likes them. I tried, but they're annoying. And for me to say a girl-fronted rock band is annoying, well, just picture it.
Fifteen Mixtape Keepers '06
I'm not very up on radio songs and other singles, so only a few of these are from people not already mentioned on the list (I really like the Gnarls and Xtina songs, but truthfully there is a ton of stuff on the Hold Steady/Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Belle and Sebastian albums that I like just as much or more).
"Ain't No Other Man," Christina Aguilera
"Bad Education," Tilly and the Wall
"The Bank & Trust," The Elected
"Cheated Hearts," Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Chips Ahoy!" The Hold Steady
"Crazy," Gnarls Barkley (obviously)
"A Method," TV on the Radio
"Morris Brown," Outkast
"Pull Shapes," The Pipettes (thanks, Rob)
"Rise Up with Fists!!" Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
"Stuck Between Stations," The Hold Steady
"Sukie in the Graveyard," Belle and Sebastian
"The Truth about Cats and Dogs (is that they die)," Pony Up!
"T.H.E. W.A.N.D.," The Flaming Lips
"Woke Up New," The Mountain Goats
2007 music preview: Radiohead, Rilo Kiley, TMBG, Arcade Fire, the New Pornographers, the White Stripes, and Fountains of Wayne all should be putting out albums. PEACE.
With that in mind, and because of my CD spree, I'm dividing this list into tiers. The first tier is the stuff I think would still make a legitimate best-of list even if I bought as many albums as I do movie tickets. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. I may, like the overstuffed lists mentioned above, enjoy most of these albums, but at least I have the excuse that I only listen heavily to albums that I think I'll like.
Statistical notes: Over the last couple of years, I've been aspiring to seek out more new music, as since college I've felt myself falling into habits, going back to the same artists and their various offshoots. Ten of the following thirty albums are by artists who I've never bought on CD and who have no formal affiliation with other bands I like, which is pretty good for me (even if some of them have informal affiliations). Unfortunately, I evened things out with my rock shows. Many of this year's concerts were acts I had already seen several times, and eight of my thirteen shows were acts I saw more than once in 2006 alone. As always, an asterisk denotes an artist I saw live this year.
Finally, a shout-out to Rolling Stone. I am currently rocking my second semi-consecutive free subscription to Rolling Stone (they give it away with a variety of products these days), and I sometimes forget, reading their political reporting and interviews with actors, that Rolling Stone kinda sucks. As a music magazine, that is. Their non-music articles are often quite good. Their music articles will award album of the year to Bob Dylan -- on its own, that's not too bad, because Dylan did make a very good album, sad boomer kowtowing nonwithstanding. Then they'll do something far stupider, like give the number two slot to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So, is that just because it's a double album? Or just because they have like ten other albums? Or a combination of the two? At least boomer kowtowing, at least this year, rewards Dylan; I don't even know who is being deferred to when you say the Red Hot Chili Peppers had the second-best album of the year (Generation X? But wouldn't they disgusted by it too?), but whoever it is, count me out.
Anyway:
2006: The Year of Buying Lots of Albums!
---TIER 1: THE ACTUAL BEST---
1. Boys and Girls in America, The Hold Steady*
Not as much of a driving tackle as Separation Sunday, the third Hold Steady album is nonetheless one of those addictive minor miracles that makes you hungry to hear and feel it again and again, despite a few flaws -- namely, the fact that it may not be possible for an album to be as good the whole way through as the opening one-two kick-punch combo of "Stuck Between Stations" and "Chips Ahoy!" But the rest of Boys and Girls in America is also pretty great: funny, literate, tough, sentimental, huge, and hard to beat.
2. Show Your Bones, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Top six most transcendent moments (of many) on the second Yeah Yeah Yeahs album:
1. Karen O's "bup-bup-bup-bup-bove" in "Cheated Hearts."
2. Karen O saying "take it away, Nick!" on "Mysteries."
3. The screechy guitar solo with which Nick then takes it away.
4. The way the music drops out abruptly to end "Turn Into" (and the album).
5. The moment that the electric guitar kicks into "Warrior."
6. The multi-phase scream that ends "Mysteries."
3. The Life Pursuit, Belle and Sebastian*
The B&S yippeeeee renaissance continues -- but never fear, for they can still come up with something as pretty and melancholy as "Dress Up in You." Feel free to jump around to "Sukie in the Graveyard" and shake your ass to "The Blues are Still Blue" without sulky hipster remorse.
4. Sun, Sun, Sun, The Elected and Rabbit Fur Coat, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins*
It is a testament to the general wonderfulness of Rilo Kiley that the band's two main creative forces, Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, could record separate solo projects that sound so strong even as their absence from each other is immediately obvious. In fact, the records are both logically complementary and weirdly similar: they could both be tagged as country but have just as much root in old-timey rock & roll and folk (where a country influence was less of a big deal). Jenny takes the personal lyrics and gorgeous voice; Blake handles the expansive guitar sound. Neither album is as great as any of Rilo Kiley's three; both are inviting in their own right.
---TIER 2: REALLY QUITE GOOD---
6. Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio
I didn't tumble for TV on the Radio as hard as some of the actual rock critics out there -- they're one of those bands whose vibe is sometimes more impressive than the actual songs. That said, Return to Cookie Mountain has a great vibe, and some great songs to go along with it (especially "Wolf Like Me" and the hypnosis of "A Method"). It sounds sort of like a scrappier, less beautiful Arcade Fire.
7. Bitter Tea, The Fiery Furnaces
Liking the Fiery Furnaces is frustrating. They put out a fanciful eighty-minute story-concept-something circus like Blueberry Boat, and it's borderline unlistenable; they follow it up by sticking some of their best material on an odds-and-sods collection that would be their best album, and call it an EP instead. For their next proper album, they give their grandma lead vocal duties. And they frontload the album after that, Bitter Tea, with some of their most rambling, Blueberriest songs. It's almost as if they can't make a good record if they think someone is paying attention; the rest of Bitter Tea gets better and better until it peaks around track ten -- virtually unheard of in this track-three world. The band doesn't seem interested in wielding its weirdness like a powerful sword a la the White Stripes or They Might Be Giants, and you often want someone to save them from themselves, but the new album is sporadically brilliant.
8. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Neko Case*
Listening to Neko Case's half-covers live album and then several of her studio joints, as well as her work with the New Pornographers, I was put in the awkward position of liking her, but not really her own songs. Fox Confessor gets rid of that with her most distinct, energized set of music so far.
9. Modern Times, Bob Dylan
This bluesy, old-timey album in the vein of Love and Theft might be my favorite of the three recent Dylan albums (even if it lacks a song as fantastic as "Mississippi" from Theft). His voice, literally and narratively, only gets more distinct and comforting with age (even as it crackles and strains more than ever). The best track is a lovely piano-based song called "Workingman's Blues 2"; I also, like everyone else, like the part where he's thinking about Alicia Keyes.
10. Bottoms of Barrels, Tilly and the Wall
Former Rilo Kiley opener, part one: the tap-dancing sounds like a gimmick on paper, but it gives many of these indie-pop songs the extra drive they need. The only time this cutely raucous and mostly-delightful album falters is when the dude singer sounds so eerily like Bright Eyes that you wonder if this is a charity project for Conor's no-good half-brother (that said, even one of the faux-Bright Eyes songs is pretty good). Otherwise: "Rainbows in the Dark," "Bad Education," "Lost Girls," "Sing Songs Along," ole!
---TIER 3: GOOD ENOUGH---
11. The Information, Beck
Or, another perfectly decent Beck album. I said before that Sea Change and Guero would be a lot more acceptable if there weren't three-year gaps between them. The Information arrived about eighteen months after Guero, so I'm going to keep up my end of the bargain and say good job.
12. Get Lonely, The Mountain Goats*
This seems like quite a dive for the guy whose last two albums topped my lists in 2004 and 2005. Get Lonely is less forceful and brilliant than its predecessors; the lasting impression it gives is more of a sustained (hushed, sad) mood than the kind of short-story-like masterpieces John Darnielle can by now write in his sleep. I guess this is sort of like his Sea Change, and he's talented enough to make it work.
13. Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, Rainer Maria
Rainer Maria came to what seems like a weirdly unceremonious end this year -- just this past weekend, in fact, with farewell shows I had to miss for TMBG and schoolwork -- releasing the now-standard pre-breakup one-off on a new label. But unlike The Woods, Catastrophe was a blip compared to the wave of promotion that accompanied, say, Long Knives Drawn in '03. The new record isn't as spiky as Knives or as pretty as A Better Version of Me, but some of the individual songs are Rainer Maria's best: the driving "Life of Leisure," the fast-paced "Bottle," and the gorgeous "Terrified." Only some labored mediocrities, like the semi-awful "Southpaw," keep it from ranking with their best. As it is, they've cemented their status as a perpetually underrated, overlooked rock & roll band.
14. The Jarvis Cocker Record, Jarvis Cocker
Everyone seems to be saying it's just called Jarvis, but the spine says Jarvis Cocker Record so that's what I'm going with. Jarvis is still in the less intense, more detached and laid-back mode of Pulp's We Love Life -- the most fiery song, "Running the World" (aka "Cunts Are Still Running the World"), is a secret track. But on the plus side, We Love Life is underrated and his solo joint doesn't have any whisper-monologue songs (the tracks that are like "I Spy" but boring). Sometimes Cocker doesn't appear to be trying very hard, adhering too closely to verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure without the escalation and peaks of the best Pulp songs, but many other songs are keen. I can't wait to download the awesome extra songs they'll slap on the U.S. release (if it ever happens)!
15. Bang Bang Rock 'n Roll, Art Brut
I can't imagine what a second Art Brut album is going to sound like or, right now, what the point of it would be, but for now everything is peachy (if not exactly something you always play all the way through).
16. Idlewild, Outkast
Here's a tip for next year: if Entertainment Weekly is lukewarm about an album by an established artist, deeming it too weird and messy for its own good, buy it. It happened to Amnesiac, it happened to Get Behind Me Satan, and it happened to Idlewild; by now, it's basically a seal of approval. Outkast's work isn't quite in a league with the other two, possibly because of the weird aftertaste of a soundtrack album accompanying a movie that jettisons most of the soundtrack songs, and possibly because of the weird rap-album compulsion to add lots of padding and crappy skits. But that double album of theirs is a lot more sprawling and a lot less thematic than this.
17. Public Warning, Lady Sovereign
Okay, I feel a little guilty about getting another white rap album, but Public Warning is a lot of fun, especially in the first half. It pains me to say this, but Lady Sovereign made a way better LP than Northern State did. Comparisons to Eminem abound; I can hear it a little in her voice, but unlike Eminem, I don't have trouble believing that Sov has a sense of humor. Bonus: no skits.
18. Broken Boy Soldiers, The Raconteurs
Remember back in the spring when people were getting super-excited about this? I assume that was because "Steady as She Goes" is pretty kickass, and I assume the subsequent relative quiet about the Raconteurs has to do with the fact that, oh, wait, there might be more people in this band, but the White Stripes still have better songs. I'm also pretty sure that Jack White is a better lyricist than the other dude who forms this lopsided "supergroup." But enough grousing: this is an enjoyable stop-gap solution to the White Stripes no longer doing an album every year (not that I was listening to them back when they were doing that). I especially like the nonsensical psychedelia of "Intimate Secretary."
19. Post-War, M. Ward
Former Rilo Kiley opener, part two: a gentle, old-timey collection of folk-rock songs from M. Ward. He sometimes adds unnecessary echo/distortion effects to his already raspy voice, and most of the songs don't really pop out at you, but there is a lot of warmth and intelligence here.
20. Make Love to the Judges with Your Eyes, Pony Up!
Sort of a poor man's Palomar, these friends of Ben Lee (way to network with someone who I imagine couch-surfing between Evan Dando and Ben Kweller) have improved a lot since their debut EP. Like some of Palomar's work, they have chirpy voices and surprisingly, pleasingly gloomy melodies. Obviously, this is right up my alley.
21. The Loon, Tapes 'n Tapes
OK, so I bought this album on a whim, and I've listened to it, I don't know, four or five times. Every time I've listened to it, I've enjoyed it. But I couldn't tell you the name of one song on it, or even hum a few bars offhand. I recognize some of them when I hear them again, and I could tell you that some of the melodies sort of sound like the Pixies and the guy's voice sounds (again) like the dude from the Arcade Fire, and that I think the best songs are in the first half of the album. But something about it disappears from my memory immediately upon finishing, every time.
22. The Pick of Destiny, Tenacious D
Oddly, this soundtrack to a ninety-minute movie is about half the length of the first D album. This is a mixed blessing; it doesn't have as many instant classics, but brevity is one thing that would've helped the first record considerably. Some of the songs don't have much use outside of the context of the film, but give it up for "History," "Kickapoo," and "The Government Totally Sucks." I like the song about Sasquatch, too.
23. Let's Get Out of This Country, Camera Obscura
Pretty, though perhaps unnecessary what with Belle and Sebastian still making good albums.
---TIER 4: DISAPPOINTMENTS---
24. You in Reverse, Built to Spill
Built to Spill just doesn't sound into it anymore. Their jam-band tendencies don't bother me because they're interwoven with an ability to make concise, punchy pop-rock songs. The problem is, they've now made one of each type of their records in what I can only assume is a blah state of mind. Both Ancient Melodies of the Future (concise pop) and now You in Reverse (guitar jams) have a few gems ("Conventional Wisdom" on the new one) amidst a sea of unmemorable work. The lyrics, especially, sound like afterthoughts, as if -- as on the last proper Ben Folds album -- the music was completed long before the words, and the artist half-assed that part to get it done.
25. At War with the Mystics, The Flaming Lips
With each album since The Soft Bulletin, the gaps between the brilliant Lips songs (and there are always at least a few) grows a little. At War with the Mystics gives you some greatness at the beginning and the end, but also makes you suffer through a bloated, wonky, half-realized middle. They may be taking the stoner-band thing too seriously.
26. supersunnyspeedgraphic, Ben Folds*
EP and soundtrack leftovers from Folds, who I still think may be suffering from writers' block. I wouldn't normally stick an odds-n-sods compilation on here, but what the hell. The best songs on here, subbed for the lesser cuts on Songs for Silverman, definitely could've improved that album a bit, but on their own, I don't see myself listening to them much.
27. The Eraser, Thom Yorke
I don't get it. I'm not one of those "when will they rock again?" Radiohead fans. I'm not even one of those "Kid A yes, Amnesiac no" guys. The glitchy, moody, electronic stuff is all fine with me. So why don't I like Thom Yorke's glitchy, moody, electronic solo album more? In a way, it's comforting, because even though you might wonder what the other guys in Radiohead are actually doing on the giltchy albums, I take The Eraser -- pleasant enough but not interesting enough -- as proof that Ed, Johnny, and Phil really do matter.
28. Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam
This is sort of ironic, because I didn't really think Pearl Jam was in need of a comeback. Granted, I don't actually have Binaural or Riot Act, but the possibility that I could find them and buy them for five bucks a piece has loomed in the back of my mind for awhile. I just never got around to it. So when I heard "best PJ album since Vitalogy" (which I love), and I was at Best Buy picking up a router, I thought, for ten bucks, why not? It's not that this album is bad so much as that it seems absolutely typical of Pearl Jam's recent work. Which is to say, not nearly as varied or crazy as Vitalogy -- and I'd even say the much-disliked No Code is a lot better, too (also operating under the aforementioned Entertainment Weekly rule). Good moments, but the people still knocked on their ass by Pearl Jam are mostly those too stubborn to be knocked on their ass by the White Stripes or the Hold Steady.
29. Damaged, Lambchop
The vague feeling that I should check out and like Lambchop was half-realized this year. It turns out they're really boring. There's definitely some merit in the Leonard Cohen-ish voice narrating slow-paced tales of whatever, but they're more literary (and theoretical) than musical (or enjoyable).
30. Standing in the Way of Control, The Gossip
I got this used on a whim because Sleater-Kinney likes them. I tried, but they're annoying. And for me to say a girl-fronted rock band is annoying, well, just picture it.
Fifteen Mixtape Keepers '06
I'm not very up on radio songs and other singles, so only a few of these are from people not already mentioned on the list (I really like the Gnarls and Xtina songs, but truthfully there is a ton of stuff on the Hold Steady/Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Belle and Sebastian albums that I like just as much or more).
"Ain't No Other Man," Christina Aguilera
"Bad Education," Tilly and the Wall
"The Bank & Trust," The Elected
"Cheated Hearts," Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Chips Ahoy!" The Hold Steady
"Crazy," Gnarls Barkley (obviously)
"A Method," TV on the Radio
"Morris Brown," Outkast
"Pull Shapes," The Pipettes (thanks, Rob)
"Rise Up with Fists!!" Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
"Stuck Between Stations," The Hold Steady
"Sukie in the Graveyard," Belle and Sebastian
"The Truth about Cats and Dogs (is that they die)," Pony Up!
"T.H.E. W.A.N.D.," The Flaming Lips
"Woke Up New," The Mountain Goats
2007 music preview: Radiohead, Rilo Kiley, TMBG, Arcade Fire, the New Pornographers, the White Stripes, and Fountains of Wayne all should be putting out albums. PEACE.