The Music of 2006
I don’t know beans about music, but iTunes tells me I bought fourteen albums released in 2006. What follows is a end-of-year list for your amusement, but my rank and opinion (or my rank opinions, if that’s the way you feel) for a given album say more about me than they do about the quality of music.
#1 Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
If I’d started this website last year, picks 1 and 2 could’ve very well been Gorillaz - Demon Days, and Dangerdoom - The Mouse and the Mask. What do those have in common with Gnarls Barkley? DJ Dangermouse! Gaining widespread popularity with his Grey Album (vocals from Jay-Z’s Black album mixed over music from The Beatles White Album. Think about it.), he teamed up with rapper Cee-Lo to form Gnarls Barkley, the most awesome band in, well, in at least a year. I dare you to not love this album. It’s the catchiest thing you’ll ever listen to; you’ve probably been tapping your feet to the single Crazy and not known it. I can’t wait to see what Dangermouse does in 2007.
#2 TIE: The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers / The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
It seemed fitting that these two should tie. I wanted to like the Raconteurs more than I did, and I didn’t want to like The Decemberists.
The Raconteurs is Jack White, one half of The White Stripes, with some other guys, who I’m not familiar with. I went in with the wrong expectations, hoping for more White Stripes. Now one of the biggest complaints from all the “real” reviews I’ve read is that Broken Boy Soldiers doesn’t have its own sound, that it just sounds like White Stripes songs and that other guy’s songs got mixed up and put on the same album, with only a couple songs where they actually work together to create something new. That might be true, but it still wasn’t White Stripey enough for me. At least, not in the begining. By the end of the year I’d come to really love the whole thing, and I’m actually going to seek out some of that other guy’s music. As soon as I remember his name.
Meanwhile, The Decemberists were one of those bands that I’d never actually listened too, but I was pretty sure they were more like a cause people took up than a band people actually enjoyed. Notoriously indie*, they were one of those bands that all the kids who were too cool to use words like cool loved to listen to. I lumped them together with bands like Belle & Sebastian and that Surfer Stephen guy and filed them away in the “I don’t know anything about them but they’re probably pretentious and lame” part of my brain. Let me say plainly: My bad! The Decemberists are pretty awesome, and I’m sad that it took me this long to check them out. I’m still not listening to that Surfer guy though.
#4 Tool - 10,000 Days
Tool sneaks one final lopsided album into the top of my list. The first five songs are up there with the greatest work Tool has done to date. If you’re of the opinion that Tool may be the most talented band active today (and I am), that’s saying quite a lot. But they’re still Tool, and they still get bogged down with meandering–I dunno–sounds. Dialog over low humming noises and the bare minimum of sonic coordination to qualify as music with actual lyrics making appearances every ten minutes or so make up the second half of the album. That just shows how fantastic those first five songs are I guess, that 10,000 Days could make it this high in my ranking by sheer mathematical averaging.
#5 Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Wolfmother is the first album on my list (if you’re counting up from the bottom) to be fantastic from start to finish, a trend that almost applies to the rest of the albums from here up. A friend remarked that Wolfmother had the kind of sound he couldn’t even guess at the date for. Is this a new band kicking it old-school, or some forgotten classic rock…uh, classic? They’re funky and crunchy and suffer only a few minor missteps. Plus, there’s a flute solo, and if you need any further convincing, pick up Guitar Hero II. Really, any band good enough to be in Guitar Hero gets my blessing automatically.
#6 Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Radiohead albums used to be simple to categorize, there were two kinds: The Bends, and then everything else. The Bends is probably the single greatest album I own under any circumstances. Hail to the Thief complicated things by being nearly as awesome as The Bends, but we’re going to cheat and maintain the old dichotomy. The Eraser would be in the “every other album” category. I know, I know, this isn’t even actually Radiohead, it’s just Thom Yorke, but The Eraser sounds just as much like Radiohead as Kid A or Amnesiac. And just like those, like every other album but The Bends, there are some amazing songs mixed up with the ok stuff you don’t mind listening to while you wait to be further amazed.
#7 Muse - Black Holes & Revelations
Muse rocks pretty hard when they try. The first third of the album kicks it with some funky electronic flavor, and the last few songs on the album will make you wish you were a cowboy. Those are good things. The other thing Muse does is wail and scream till you’re ready to punch someone. Their lead singer has no restraint and goes completely over the top with his moaning and whining at the top of his lungs. You should skip those tracks. Enjoy the ones that are heavy on music, light on banshees, and you’ll want to kick in the door (any door, the next one you walk through, it doesn’t matter) crank the music, and start a party wherever you are.
#8 Jay-Z - Kingdom Come
This is the kind of rap music I enjoy. It goes without saying that Jay-Z is a skilled rapper, but he surrounds himself with talent and produces fantastic songs. This album is almost completely upbeat, for lack of a better word; the whole track list is energetic and just fun. His lyrics are well crafted and executed, but I need more than that for rap music to ring my bell. This is where Jay-Z sets himself apart from, say, Ghostface Killah; Jay-Z’s music makes every track come alive. White as I am, I can’t help but nod my head or tap my feet as I listen. Jay-Z delivers an album full of the kind of rap music I usually have to search to find.
#9 Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
Wu-Tang Clan member and accomplished solo rapper, Ghostface Killah actually released two albums this year, “More Fish” being released only shortly before I compiled this list. I think one of his albums should be enough for me though. Praised everywhere I looked as one of the best albums of the year (not just best rap album or something), curiosity got the best of me. I like plenty of rap/hip-hop/whatever we’re calling it now, but I’m still particular about it, and Ghostface isn’t all I hoped for. He’s got a few phenomenal songs, and he’s obviously very good at the rapping part, but I need some “phat beats” backing up my “flow”, and Fishscale doesn’t deliver on that front. The oft cited diversity of his songs, while commendable compared to the stupifying lack of depth most hip-hop and rap displays, still isn’t enough to hook me on the rest of the album. I can’t relate to tales of his disfunctional family as a child any more than I can relate to cocain deals gone wrong that end in gun fights. Bravo to him for having something to say, but that doesn’t make it my cup of tea. I’ll still be listening to some of these songs years from now, but the whole album didn’t live up to the hype I heard.
#10 David Gilmour - On An Island
David Gilmour’s latest solo album still sounds unmistakably “Pink Floydian”, but it doesn’t cover the musical range Pink Floyd did. Island is mostly slow, dreamy, lullabye sorts of songs. They’re all beautiful, but in a quiet peaceful way, and every time you have to remind yourself you’re not actually listening to Pink Floyd, the limited range of the album will be emphasized. It doesn’t seem fair to hold Gilmour responsible for recreating all of Floyd’s sound in every thing he does, but let’s be honest: Pink Floyd is the reason most people will buy this CD.
#11 Audioslave - Revelations
I haven’t really warmed to Revelations yet, but it took me time to grow to like Audioslave’s other albums. Beyond the singles that get radio play, nothing tends to grab my attention on my first few trips through the albums, and so far that’s the case with this one. The singles are great though, and while nothing else stands out yet, it’s all easy to listen to. This much talent in one group sounds good even when they’re being unremarkable.
#12 Foo Fighters - Skin and Bones
Dave Grohl may be my favorite musician, period. I have nothing but respect for his ability, but I’ll admit that I don’t like everything the Foo Fighters do. There’s a lot of “good, but not great” filling out the albums between the phenomenal rock I love so much. In fact, I’ve only listened to the acoustic disc of their latest studio release a couple of times; I prefer Grohl shouting his heart out over a wall of sound to the acoustic sound. That means a live acoustic CD isn’t really up my alley, Grohl-wise, but you can’t stop Dave from being awesome. He manages to sound powerful even when quiet, and that was almost enough to bump this album up to #11. Almost.
#13 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
I probably didn’t need another RHCP album, and I definitely didn’t need a double album. The radio single was catchy, and it’s not like RHCP are bad, but it doesn’t really feel like they’re trying to do anything beyond making more RHCP albums. If they’re the love of your life, musically, then go for it, I can’t say I haven’t done the same. There are bands you get attached to and, think about this, you like them more than you like their music. Now that usually makes you like their music more, almost legitimizing your overall interest, but they’re just not as great as you think they are. Nothing wrong with that really, but don’t expect everyone to share your zeal. The Chili Peppers are making music for the people who were going to buy the new Chili Peppers album anyway. That they’re still very talented musicians means they’re going to put together something at least reasonably good, but why would you pick this over something else?
#14 OutKast - Idlewild
I’ve already talked about this once. It’s boring, and it’s got almost none of the appeal that make OutKast unique. It’s knocked them down a notch for me, I’m not going to buy their album without listening to it somewhere first. It makes me sad.
*Until this album, actually