posted
It's that time again, and all the lists are out. This has been an amazing year for me. I don't know if it's because I've paid more attention to new music this year that there seems to be such a cornucopia of brilliance, or the fact that it was such an amazing year that made me pay such close attention. But I've bought more new music this year than maybe any other year of my life (I usually focus on older stuff with a proven track record.) Even so, I didn't get half the albums I wanted, and aside from a couple disappointments, it's all just been varying types and degrees of fantastic.
There have been a lot of great new artists showing up this year. And plenty of the people who have been around long enough to have used up all of their tricks (or so I'd thought) have surprised me with some real masterpieces.
I wanted to put in some picks and reviews of my favorites, but it's going to be at least a couple of days until I'll get the time. So I'll post some links to the picks of various professional critics and popular opinions.
NPR All Songs Considered The Best of 06 show. Here's where you can hear full tracks from these albums for free. The main show is primarily listeners' picks, but there are links on the page to each of the editors' personal favorites.
Amazon Possibly the least useful of the lot, but here it is:
I'll hopefully be back in a few days to list some of my own favorites. Meantime, does anyone else have an opinion on 2006 in general? Any specific album picks? Or any best-of lists that I've missed? I can't wait to hear.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
Ganging up on the Sun - Guster Supersunnyspeedgraphic - Ben Folds Black Holes and Revelations - Muse 10,000 Days - Tool Home to Oblivion - Christopher O'Riley (a tribute to Elliot Smith)
posted
The Decemberists have this one sown up, in my book. I wasn't a huge fan of "Picaresque," but "The Crane Wife" is magnificent. Their first album on a major label and it's a folk-prog concept album sequenced in reverse order. Love it!
I'm glad Kaki King and Regina Spektor are getting some love, as well.
Other favorites:
Thom Yorke - "The Eraser" (although Yorke's live renditions of "Analyse" and "Clocks" are even better)
Cursive - "Happy Hollow" (their best album yet, excepting "Domestica." The new horn section fits much better with their jagged style of rock than the cello in the previous album.)
As a personal "favorite musical experience of '06," which wasn't actually released in 2006, but which I only started listening to this year: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' "Shake the Sheets." Punk rock the way it was meant to be.
Edit: And just to make things interesting, how about some disappointments?
Dresden Dolls - "Yes, Virginia." Actually not a bad record at all. In fact, I like all of the songs at least a bit, and I love about half of the album. But the dry production sucks some of the life out of the music (a damn shame for an act as vibrantly bursting from the seams with energy and heart as the Dolls), and there aren't any true standout tunes. Just a minor letdown after the brilliance that was their debut.
Built to Spill - "You In Reverse." Another good-to-great album that didn't quite live up to its predecessors. Some really fantastic songs on this one, but some major clunkers, too.
And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - "So Divided." Huh boy. Pretentious, schizophrenic junk. I can't believe that these are the same guys who created "Source Tags and Codes."
Ben Folds - "Supersunnyspeedgraphic." Ben Folds' career has been on a consistent downward slide since "Rockin' the Suburbs," and this collection takes some of the better songs from his EP set and... well... mediocre-izes them. Most of the new mixes sound flat compared to the originals. "All U Can Eat," especially, is ruined by the altered arrangement. Bring back the Five, Ben.
quote:Ben Folds' career has been on a consistent downward slide since "Rockin' the Suburbs,"
dude, ouch.
I mean, I disagree completely--I don't think I could ever complain about something that Ben has produced--and Silverman and Supersunny were better than Suburbs in my honest opinion. And he did bring back bass/drums for the last two albums(and tours--I never miss him), if that's what you mean by "bring back the Five".
Anyway...
My biggest dissapointments:
X&Y - Coldplay Under the Iron Sea - Keane
*edit* I will agree with you that the the EP version of All U Can Eat is better--I had to download it to hear it.
posted
Nah, by "bring back the Five," I meant in quite a literal sense. Robert Sledge and Darron Jesse's contributions to Ben Folds Five took Ben's songwriting to a level that I don't think he could have managed alone. The new guys he's working with are competent, but they don't give the music the same sense of interplay that the Five had- instead, it feels very much like Ben Folds plus some anonymous backup musicians. Which it is.
"Silverman" has some decent melodies, but the lyrics are the worst that Ben Folds has ever written. Hackneyed, trite, with none of the wit and flair for storytelling that characterized his older work. And the music just isn't good enough to stand on its own... by and large, it's slow, lifeless, and possesses none of the unexpected-yet-somehow-perfectly-tuneful moments that were everywhere in Ben's earlier days.
"Supersunnyspeedgraphic" was better when it was the three EPs- like I said, my main complaint was in the production and re-arrangements. "All U Can Eat" was a great tune, even if the lyrics were sorta stupid, but the version on "Supersunny" cuts out the extended coda that was my favorite part of the song. Boo.
Edit: Whoops, sorry- posted this before I saw your edit. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Gotcha--though if I remember right, I don't think Ben would have much power to bring back Sledge and Jesse--the breakup was very mutual.
And don't get me wrong--I still take all of the BFF albums over his new stuff. I think I, like all the fans, would die for a reunion.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh yeah, I don't expect a reunion to actually happen anytime soon. Or ever, really.
But as a musician, I'm all too aware of how rare it is to find bandmates whose distinct personalities and playing styles blend together to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. BFF had that sort of chemistry in spades, and it's the spark that I feel has been missing from Ben's solo work.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm actually not certain how many of the albums I bought/listened to this year were actually also released this year.
I bought The Great Western, the solo album by James Dean Bradfield (the lead singer of Manic Street Preachers) but was kind of disappointed in it.
Coldplay's X&Y was good, and so was the Arctic Monkeys first album, but both were overhyped, I think.
Hmm. Probably the best album I got this year was The Crane Wife by the Decemberists. It's also probably one of the saddest albums ever.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm seeing no mention of the BNL's (Barenaked Ladies Are Me) new album anywhere on these lists, I guess that's cause only the first half of it is really out. And the first half ain't that great. I'm loving the second disc a lot more, but I would definitely put the second disc in my top 10. Fun and Games is a great song, as is Down to Earth Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
Return to Cookie Mountain - TVOTR Islands - Return to the Sea Akron/Family - Meek Warrior
But mostly Ys. That is one amazing record.
On disappointments, the new DJ Shadow record made me sad. So did the new Tool.
Odd to hear you say that it was a fantastic year. I've heard alot of albums from this year, and I really wasn't feeling much of it at all. I thought 2006 was very weak in comparison to the last few years.
Posts: 122 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
Billy Talent II (Billy Talent) Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies (Neverending White Lights)
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The NPR picks were mostly terrible choices. Evidenced particularly by the fact that Joanna Newsom was on the list.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
Joanna Newsom is the greatest discovery I've made this year. Her music is intricate and involved (she uses a lot of polyrhythm), yet it's so sincere and true and real. There's no image or genre stereotype that holds her back--it's ORIGINAL. If you just give her voice a chance, it grows on you fast. The harp is just so beautiful--I'd be curious as to what you don't like about her music.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
All the good albums like Hip Hop is Dead, dropped in the late fourth quarter of the year so they haven't even gotten radio play yet. Next year is gonna be pretty bad too I think, at least the first part of it is.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: Hehe, I hate to sound like I'm dogpiling, but most of your list makes me want to curl up and cry, Launchy.
Generally speaking, 2006 was not a good year for music.
No worries here. I'm curious as to what you'd put at the top of your list...not just for '06, but in general.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by SoaPiNuReYe: Next year is gonna be pretty bad too I think, at least the first part of it is.
I don't know much about the pipeline, but there's a new album by The Shins due out in early '07. So that's enough to make me optimistic.
My favorite albums were apparently not very popular. I'm not seeing any on anyone's lists here. And very few on the professional lists I posted, for that matter. But I stand by them. I'll be back with my favorites soon, for all of you to pick apart. Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by B34N: BT - This Binary Universe
Ooh, thanks for reminding me. I'm a huge BT fan. I'd heard that this was coming out, but somehow it dropped off my radar before it was released and I never got it. After reading your post I went down and picked myself up a copy, and I just finished listening to the DTS mix.
It's nice to see him continuing on the path he started with Monster. I loved that album, and this one sounds even better. It still holds together as an whole, but he's really able to stretch out and cover a lot more creative territory now that he's not constrained by the limits of a film score. There was so much in there that it's hard to even know how to classify it.
Also, I loved the little short films that went with the DTS mixes on the DVD. I won't go calling it the next Koyaanisqatsi, but they were quite artfully done and, for the most part, enhanced the music nicely.
I'll have to listen to it some more to really get a handle on it. And I have a feeling that it's the kind of album that bears a great deal of repeating. But based upon the first run through, it's the most consistently engaging 75 minutes of electronica I've heard in a good long while.
Classic Costello combined with New Orleans Jazz, I almost got to see them on tour, but there was some financial unpleasantness that came about through the actions of others. Anyway, it’s a great album.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I concur with 10,000 days. Tool is consistently brilliant. I love Vicarious, and Wings for Marie parts 1 and 2.
I also loved The Eraser. Best track is Atoms for Peace, imo. Thom Yorke is still awesome. =)
I'm also pretty fond of the Jupiter disc from the new Red Hot Chili Peppers release. I haven't listened to the Mars disc enough to make up my mind yet on that one.
My favorite band lately is actually System of a Down, but they didn't have any 2006 release, unfortunately. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Joanna Newsom is the greatest discovery I've made this year. Her music is intricate and involved (she uses a lot of polyrhythm), yet it's so sincere and true and real. There's no image or genre stereotype that holds her back--it's ORIGINAL. If you just give her voice a chance, it grows on you fast. The harp is just so beautiful--I'd be curious as to what you don't like about her music.
EDIT: Mostly, her voice and the style of her music. Too much artsy-fartsy, not enough...well, sincerity.
I don't have a problem with singers who can't really sing-- I like Mark Knopfler, after all-- as long as the music is approachable. Listening to Newsom is like having crusty, sharp fingernails inserted into my ears and twisted. The complexity of the instrumentations she's arranged just doesn't quite make up for my bleeding ears.
[ December 18, 2006, 08:55 AM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Josh Ritter- The Animal Years Hank Williams III- Straight to Hell León Gieco- Por Favor, Perdón y Gracias Goldfrapp- Supernature
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wouldn't say that, Scott. Her voice sounds exceedingly sincere to me... it's just that it also has a timbre that makes me think of nails on a chalkboard. I don't think she's being pretentious; it's just the natural way her voice sounds. It's a real shame, too- I think her songwriting is fantastic, and her use of the harp creative and melodic. But I, too, just can't get past the girl's voice (which is admittedly odd, since I love many other idiosyncratic voices, like the aforementioned Thom Yorke).
Another good one I forgot: Rx Bandits' "And The Battle Begun." Not as good as their previous album, which balanced their reggae, jazz, and punk influences more effectively, but still a damn good record by some of the most talented musicians in punk rock. Chris Tsagakis may be one of the five best drummers in rock today.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
God I am feeling old right now. I have never heard any of these people on the AV list. I realize I never listen to the radio, it all sounds the same to me. Am I missing out on some good music? How do you find good new music if it is not on the radio? I do listen to Pandora.com a fair amount and have found several new to me bands but I am still starved.
Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Okay, I'm going to start with one of my favorites. Not that this is necessarily my album of the year pick or anything. If I could pick out a definitive favorite this year, I'd start there, but I can't. So here is one of the albums I really like.
Donald Fagen: Morph the Cat This is an album that didn't get much publicity. I'm a huge Fagen/Steely Dan fan, to the point that I'm usually camping out in front of Best Buy (metaphorically) a month before they release anything. But I hadn't even heard about this one until a couple weeks after it had been released.
Now I realize that my own obsession with Fagen is, to a large extent, personal. I mean, I think there are things he's done that are categorically brilliant, and anyone that has any interest in music should have Countdown to Ecstasy, Aja, and The Nightfly in their collections. But I'd never try to push my own completist-level fandom on anyone else. So when Fagen or Steely Dan put out a new disc, I usually get it, love it, and keep it to myself.
The first time I listened to Morph the Cat, that's about how it appeared--another solid Fagen album to keep me happy for a couple years until their next release. But then I kept listening, and subsequent spins revealed depths to this disc that even Donald himself rarely reaches. After a couple months I realized that this is unassuming, unpublicized little entry into the catalog was probably the best thing he's made since at least 1982's The Nightfly.
Musically, it's still the funky, understated jazz fusion that is his specialty. But he's dispensed with some of the patterns he's fallen into in his last few albums and given his music a simmering tension, and a tight, subtle groove that matches anything in his best work. And of course, the consummate musicianship and the every-note-in-its-place perfectionist production qualities (for better or worse) are as tight here as anything he's made since the '70s.
Lyrically, he's never been more intimate or personal. There are songs on here about aging, politics, and life in post-9/11 America, that are unusually pointed for someone as ordinarily obtuse as Fagen. And although his meanings are still obscured by his trademark wry, subversive wit, obscure allusions, metaphor and allegory, he actually puts short explainations in the liner notes next to they lyrics, so that it doesn't take teams of scholars to figure out what the heck he was talking about. It's about as transparent and personal as I've ever seen him.
In short, even for a fan this album really surprised me. It's the best thing he's done in decades (and that's going up against some solid competition). In fact, if I were going to introduce someone for the first time to Steely Dan/Donald Fagen, this album wouldn't be that bad a place to start. And if that doesn't say something impressive about a work produced 35 years into an artist's career, I don't know what does.
So there's one of my favorites. More to come.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't think she's being pretentious; it's just the natural way her voice sounds.
I dunno... I heard an interview with her on All Songs Considered, and she has a perfectly lovely speaking voice. I have to think she's doing some weird throat constrictions to get the sound she produces.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by SC Carver: God I am feeling old right now. I have never heard any of these people on the AV list. I realize I never listen to the radio, it all sounds the same to me. Am I missing out on some good music? How do you find good new music if it is not on the radio? I do listen to Pandora.com a fair amount and have found several new to me bands but I am still starved.
Oh, ignore the radio at all costs. In the age of broadband, there are much, much better ways to find new music than homogenized Clear Channel affiliates. Pandora's a good place to start, although keep in mind that its very nature means that you'll only find new artists that sound like the artists you already like, rather than exploring entirely new styles of music. Despite its general aura of insufferable pretension, I find that browsing Pitchforkmedia.com is a good way to expose yourself to a lot of great new music- each news story usually includes a free representative MP3 or link to a Youtube video to give you a sense of what the artist sounds like.
I generally avoid their reviews, though. Aside from the aforementioned pretentious air, Pitchfork's reviews tend to wax philosophical about whatever the hell the writer was thinking about at the time, and rarely seem to address the actual music they're reviewing. Popmatters.com is much better in that respect- informative, well thought-out reviews that hit the mark more often than not. They don't offer song samples, to my knowledge, but you can always search out an artist on iTunes store and listen to some 30 second samples.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sorry for the double-post, but I just realized that there's one glaring omission in the lists thus far: Gnarls Barkley's "St. Elsewhere." If nothing else, "Crazy" is easily the best single of the year.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: Hehe, I hate to sound like I'm dogpiling, but most of your list makes me want to curl up and cry, Launchy.
Generally speaking, 2006 was not a good year for music.
No worries here. I'm curious as to what you'd put at the top of your list...not just for '06, but in general.
Here's the great irony: for the most part, I really like your list of artists, but I consider most of those albums to be significantly worse, if not their worst, work. Ben Folds, Tool, Muse, Damien Rice, Incubus, Radiohead - all great groups, but their most recent efforts (or, in the case of Radiohead, Thom's) have been disappointing to me.
More detail when I'm not at work, which means a while, because my computer at home 'sploded.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: Sorry for the double-post, but I just realized that there's one glaring omission in the lists thus far: Gnarls Barkley's "St. Elsewhere." If nothing else, "Crazy" is easily the best single of the year.
That was actually going to be the next one I put on the list. I saw them live this summer and they weren't that great. But the disc is brilliant.
I'm sure it will be a little controversial, just because it's *gasp* pop. But it was unique, intelligent, and loads of fun. I mean, using soul in hip-hop isn't a new idea, but it usually comes in the form of a sampled Curtis Mayfield or Gil Scott-Heron sample worked into a hook. Putting one of the most creative hip-hop DJs and producers working today in collaboration with an actual soul singer twists both styles in fascinating ways.
Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo each have a unique style, and they both seem to get equal representation in the final product. It's nice when you get a true collaboration like this, without one person drowning out the others' contributions.
The lyrics are clever as well. Who else could make a concept album about mental illness sell as many copies as this one?
And I've got to respect the fact that they had the nerve to release a disc in 2006 that runs less than 40 minutes. In the days of vinyl, this was nothing strange. But most people today, particularly in this genre, feel like they have to fill up most of an 80-minute disc or the fans will feel ripped off. So they put in their good ideas and fill it out with whatever crap they can crank out by the deadline. This disc is a lean, compact nugget with practically no filler, and it always leaves me wanting more. It's as though someone went to iTunes and bought just the good tracks from one of the best albums of the year.
I don't think everyone will agree with this album, but I'm with you all the way.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I would like to add the little known CD's Scars Remain by Disciple and The Reckoning by Pillar.
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
As for the best way to find new music, I am lazy. I have two or three good friends whose musical tastes I share, and they do most of the hard work of listening to new bands. Then when they find someone they love, they share them with me, and I get to only listen to the best stuff.
Sometimes I try random bands, too, that intrigue me, with often mixed results.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
So I didn't rush out to buy this when it was released because the critics panned it, said it was a pale imitation of Bruce Springsteen, and that the Killers had lost whatever magic touch they had displayed on Hot Fuss.
This is one of the most immediate and engaging records I've heard in years. Slightly noisier than I might like -- but that's the Killers. Real heartache in music and a strong sense of place and culture are hard things to find.
Now that I'm listening to this disc, I'm sort of stunned that it got the mixed reviews it did.
I think it's better than 'The Eraser' for instance, and I think Thom Yorke is one of the best songwriters of the current generation. Maybe THE best.
But I just think Sam's Town is a better record. (Not that it's a competition in any way.)
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Eh... I think the Killers are overrated in general. The whole 80s revival thing never really clicked for me.
IMO, "The Eraser" has some of the best songs Yorke has ever written. They're just sometimes buried under a rather uninspired Nigel Godrich mixing job. There's less of the dynamic range that characterizes Radiohead's best records, and a lot of that comes from the placement of the blips and beeps at the top of the mix. That being said, the album cuts of "Black Swan," "Harrowdown Hill," and the title track are brilliant.
As I said in my first post, check out the live versions of "Analyse," "The Clock," and "Cymbal Rush." They're absolutely gorgeous- as haunting and melodic as anything Radiohead has ever done.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't think she's being pretentious; it's just the natural way her voice sounds.
I dunno... I heard an interview with her on All Songs Considered, and she has a perfectly lovely speaking voice. I have to think she's doing some weird throat constrictions to get the sound she produces.
I saw her live and was also curious how such a beautiful girl with such a beautiful speaking voice could make the sound she did--but even if it is affected (I don't think it is), I still think her music and lyrics and intentions are incredibly sincere (and not pretentious).
quote:Originally posted by ersomniac: Here's the great irony: for the most part, I really like your list of artists, but I consider most of those albums to be significantly worse, if not their worst, work.
I can definitely see where you're coming from there--I don't think the 2006 releases were the best from those artists at all (Black Holes was my least fav Muse album, and DR's 9 was no where as good as O)
But I still put them at the top of my 2006 list--I still LIKE the albums more than anything else I'd heard this year (mainly because they're from my favorite artists)
As a music major, I spent way MORE time listening to classical and jazz than popular music, so what I do listen to is usually stuff I already know I like, or discover and like. I don't do as much "searching" as some people do.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Pretentious is the last word I'd use to describe Joanna Newsom. Coming from a classical background to making strange harp pop-epics, the music she makes and the path she's taken exudes a sense of love and sincerity of her music above all else.
Posts: 122 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
