Friday, December 29, 2006

Best of 2006

I know that I am no Pitchfork, but I still feel like doing my own List of the Best albums of 2006...What can I do? It's just a funny silly game we all want to play once in a while, and now is my turn.
So, these are the 15 album I have listened the most in these twelve months, there may be better ones, but these are the ones that have stayed in my head (and on my iPod and PC) the longest. If this list can make some people curious or someone else go back to something the y went past without noticing, then I'd be more than satiesfied.


1-Cat Power: The Greatest
I would just need the second voice that enters during the refrain to make this one of my fav
albums of the year. But also all the rest of it superb-quality songwriting.

2-Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings The Floor
Even better than Blacklisted. Which is tough.

3-The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
A complex LP that makes you whistle, laugh, sing, and want to to listen to it again.

4-Julie's Haircut: After Dark, My Sweet
A great italian indie band that sounds like Pink Floyd-Live At Pompeii-era. Best live act I have seen this year, really awesome.

5-M. Ward: Post-War
A great Americana record.

6-Paul Simon: Surprise
Brian Eno's production does him a lot of good. And there is also this line in it: "You cannot walk with the holy if you're just a halfway decent man".

7-Sebastien Tellier: Sessions
I have loved this from the first second:his best songs played plain and simple with acoustic guitars, drums, and piano.

8-The Magic Numbers: Those The Brokes
Best
voices around. Listen to Slow Down when the female chorus comes in: doesn't it sound like Bacharach? When Indierock meets 60's vocal pop.

9-Belle & Sebastian: The Life Pursuit
I know they are not the same band of If you're feeling sinister, so what? Bands do have to change. And B & S could not stay the same naive pop band forever. And all these pastiches are good for the heart (The blues are still blue is a great T-Rex-like song, funny as they only can be).

10- Arab Strap: The Last Romance
Incredible that this is their final work, but it is so good to end at the top: this is their best compromise with both pop and rock, but still an Arab Strap thing.

11-Jarvis Cocker: Jarvis
Jarvis Cocker in best shape, almost as good as on Pulp's Different Class. And Black Magic sounds like The Who that play a Lou Reed riff (Sweet Jane basically).

12-Mojave 3: Puzzles Like You
AKA Neil Halstead goes back to pop-rock. Not exactly the stuff they were doing as Slowdive (no shoegazer guitars in here), but not even the classic rock/c & w oriented music they have been playing in these last years. And Breaking the ice should have sold as Gnarls Barkley's Crazy.

13-Sparklehorse: Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain
Mark Linkous will probably neverwrite hapy songs...but there is something in here that gets close to...Well, anyway, I find it their best album.

14-Broken Social Scene: Broken Social Scene
It is hard not to put a BSC album in one of these lists. Mainly because they are one of the rare -and really- new things in rock music. We will see if and how relevant (and influential) they will get in the future years.

15-Grizzly Bear: Yellow House
One of those bands you must give some time. And then you will find yourself listenig to them everytime you go to bed. Out of seasons and time.

Feel free to tell me what you think about it...and why don't you write your own Top 15 in the comments? It would be great. Thanks to all those who have stopped by in this year.
Happy 2007, everyone.

5 comments:

Satan_My_Lord said...

well, we don't share any favorite albums for 2006 but that's ok. here is my list in no ranking order

Faithless(to all new arrivals)
Satyricon(diabolicum,now)
The Raconteurs(broken boy soldier)
Bruce Springsteen(we shall overcome, the seeger sessions---a major surprise from an artist i don't really like)
Covenant(skyshaper)
Black Heart Procession(the spell)

cheers!

Anonymous said...

Number one album for 2006:
The Drift-Scott Walker

Anonymous said...

Satan_My_Lord said...

well, we don't share any favorite albums for 2006 but that's ok....

this comes from a blogger that shares 1 single mp3/day

alvega said...

The only one from your list I really couldn't find was 'Julie's Haircut: After Dark, My Sweet'...
Loved The Decemberists above all others.

Anonymous said...

Joanna Newsom's Ys all the way for me.