11 December, 2006

The Best Albums of 2006

How can you say this was a bad year for music?

10. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
mp3: "That Teenage Feeling"



It's pretty special to display a soaring, physical voice in songs as tender as Ms. Case's.

9. M. Ward - Post-War
mp3: "Post-War"



Post-War is the most thoroughly enjoyable M. Ward album yet, perhaps because he's never seemed so urgent.

8. Liars - Drum's Not Dead
mp3: "Drum Gets A Glimpse"



What happened to all the Liars love? This is a thick, often difficult album, but it's never too much. Respites are placed perfectly throughout the pummel: "Drum Gets A Glimpse" and "The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack" may be the most forward-looking, unconventionally beautiful moments on record this year.

7. Joanna Newsom - Ys




Ys is a sprawling, involved masterpiece. Masterpiece. It demands more time.

6. The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
mp3: "New Monster Avenue"



Without a doubt the saddest record I listened to this year, Get Lonely never relents. The music is sedate, almost disconnected, the voice is broken and the story never brightens-- it's as if the album is set to the nether-hours of slight light and perfect dark. It's terrifying if it hits you right.

5. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
mp3: "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)"



I'm amazed that they can keep going bigger while continuing to get better. "The Crane Wife 1 & 2" is my favorite Decemberists song yet-- no small feat.

4. Parenthetical Girls - Safe As Houses
mp3: "The Weight She Fell Under"



This is a brave album, a scary album. It's full of boys and girls and jealous mothers, and blurred lines. It's one of the most moving things I heard all year.

3. The Knife - Silent Shout
mp3: "Silent Shout"



Silent Shout was a mind-expander. This year found me tearing headfirst into electronic and dance music, inspired in no small part by this exhilarating, cavernous record.

2. Josh Ritter - The Animal Years
mp3: "Girl In The War"



This was my favorite album of the year at the halfway point, and I'm delighted and a little surprised that it's held up this well through another six months of repeated (and repeated) listens. Ritter's crafted a compassionate, breathing record full of weight ("Thin Blue Flame") and grace ("Girl In The War"). Also, I think Brian Deck has become my favorite producer.

1. Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
mp3: "Like A Child"



It was pretty clear from the outset that this was a special album. I still lose my breath in all the right places.

***

So that's the list. Some albums, like Sufjan's Avalanche, didn't make the cut because I listened heavily to one side of the record and neglected the other. Others, like Boys And Girls In America, I just didn't know what to do with. That record fits on here somewhere, I just can't tell where.

It looks like switching to the new Blogger left you unable to leave comments on the previous posts (and I know you had comments). Hopefully this one works.

Happy Holidays kiddos!

by brian at 12/11/2006 09:51:00 AM leave a comment (16)

08 December, 2006

Josh Ritter's Best of 2006



The most interesting year-end lists, I believe, come from the artists themselves. It's always seemed like a revelation to learn what the musicians I admire listen to, and brings up the strange connection between making music and knowing music. Josh Ritter, as you probably know, is a favorite of mine-- I'm happy to share with you his 2006 Artist Discoveries:

The National, "Alligator"
This may have come out in 2005, but we spent all of 2006 in the van listening to it. Great album and great words.

Dawn Landes, "Fireproof"
Dawn's great - saw her at a UK festival this summer and she blew my mind. This is an album she made herself.

Guillemots, "From the Cliffs"
This was the soundtrack to my drive to and from my brother's wedding in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State. The melodies are almost supernatural.

The Raconteurs, "Broken Boy Soldiers"
I love this record because it feels so tip of the tongue. Less a finished polished thing than the act of creation being recorded in real-time. "Blue Veins" is classic, and "Store Bought Bones" is hilarious. At least to me...

The Kooks: Inside In/Inside Out

Thomas Fraser.
This guy died in 1977, but I've just discovered him. He lived in the Shetland Islands in the North Sea, fourteen hours by boat north of mainland Scotland. At his home he recorded thousands of songs on reel to reel tapes: cowboy songs, reels, Jimmie Rodgers songs, things generally not heard north of Northern Virginia some how implanted in the middle of nowhere. It's pretty riveting.

John Prine
Live show - Los Angeles, Oct 27, 2006
John Prine is the great technicolor battleship of modern American rock. He has never been in or out of style, he has just floated through decades of good and bad times, writing songs with lyrics that seem to me like looking through the curve of a half-full coke bottle. John Prine gives me faith that if I do what I do and keep doing it, I can do it for as long as I want keep doing it. That's hard to do!

Bob Dylan, "Modern Times"
"Love and Theft" is my favorite Dylan record ever. "Modern Times" follows in the same vein, but while "Love and Theft" was the fighting rooster, "Modern Times" is the old pasture stud. It's full of experience and seems content.

Hilary Hahn, "Paganini and Spohr Concertos"
Hilary put these two rivals on the same album which I don't think has ever been done and which displays her brilliance as a violinist as well as her sense of humor. I think Hilary is way more rock than most rockers.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
I'm a runner and I've found audio books to be my favorite running companions. I fly through those suckas. "Team of Rivals" has two great things going for it: it's a really novel and engaging approach to studying a such well known figure, and its REEEALY long. Some books are too short to run to.

Movie: "The Departed"
It reminds me of my years in the Boston mafia. The characters I met, the parties, the good times and the bad. All those memories...

Love and Theft his favorite Dylan album? Now that's interesting. And a good call on Alligator, regardless of the release date. What I'm most curious about, though, is this Thomas Fraser character. Some cursory googling led me to these sound clips, and I'm already hooked:


Learn more about the man here.

Here's a special Ritter song, one of my favorites, a b-side from the Girl In The War single:


Visit Josh Ritter here, and buy the terrific Animal Years here. Don't forget to check out the B+A Top Songs of 2006, where you'll find another J. Ritter gem.

by brian at 12/08/2006 02:35:00 PM leave a comment (1)

07 December, 2006

Songs of the Year

Eleven of my favorite songs from the past year, in alphabetical order.


I listened to "Browns Town" more than any other song this year, according to iTunes. It's by far the smallest song on a list that leans more toward the flamboyant and the epic, so its comfort is really no wonder.


Forget the Arcade Fire taking their sweet time. "Mattresses Underwater" tells me that Colour Revolt has their shit together. Best upset-youth song of the year.

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 1 & 2

When a band pulls off "epic," two things happen in the time-space continuum. First, eleven-minutes-twenty-seconds becomes infinite. Second, eleven-minutes-twenty-seconds is gone before you know it.


The Pipettes' girl-group blitz got me moving, but when that ended it was this creepy Spector sound I came back to.


It's undeniable that this sweeping, ten-minute song works well, touching on be-wary ground with grace and compassion. But that it also worked in the context of The Animal Years-- that's another matter.


I'd go with "In The Morning" as my favorite song of the year-- It's that sexy.

Kelis - Bossy (Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix)


This is a late entry, a song that snuck up on me in the last couple weeks. I think the draw here is the interesting mix: flamboyant synths, manly vocals, and stupidly sweet lyrics.


This song is a tease.


I don't know what's more satisfying: Ms. Nasty's fresh voice singing even fresher lyrics, or the sound of Will Oldham having a blast.


It felt so, so good to hear this on the radio and see this on tv-- that's how much I'm rooting for Spektor. "Fidelity" is a special song, with appeal beyond anything else I've heard this year. It's also my ringtone (I've only ever bought one ringtone), so maybe that tells you something too.

by brian at 12/07/2006 05:45:00 PM leave a comment (5)