I don't like Islands or Unicorns. Both albums have a couple good songs and a bunch of forgettable shit.

Swans is an insanely good song. Would definately vote for that on a tracks list. Pity the rest was mostly shitty sea shanties.

Islands have "Humans" and "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby".

Unicorns have "I Don't Wanna Die" and "Jellybones".

Here we go. Just have to set it and forget it, otherwise I'll keep shifting things around forever and ever.

1. Clearlake – Amber
2. The Raconteours – Broken Boy Soldiers
3. Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis
4. Placebo – Meds
5. Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere
6. Beck – The Information
7. Cat Power – The Greatest
8. Sondre Lerche – Duper Sessions
9. Calexico – Garden Ruin
10. Thom Yorke – The Eraser
11. Richard Ashcroft – Keys to the World
12. Asobi Seksu – Citrus
13. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
14. Uusitalo – Tulenkantaja
15. Girl Talk – Night Ripper
16. The Flaming Lips – At War w/ the Mystics
17. Pearl Jam – Pearl Jam
18. Graham Coxon – Love Travels at Illegal Speeds
19. Scissor Sisters – Ta-Dah
20. The Rapture – Pieces of People We Love
21. M. Ward – Post War
22. The Pernice Brothers – Live a Little
23. Ellen & Apparrat Allien – Orchestra of Bubbles
24. The Streets – The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
25. The Arctic Monkeys – Whatever They Say I Am I’m Not

I was utterly stunned w. my number one. Made a rough list off the top of my head a few weeks ago, and began to review the albums. Amber was about 12th, but as I revisited and listened more and more, it just kept creeping up the list. This afternoon after going through it once again, I just said "fuck it" and put it at the top. For what its worth, there isn't a single album on my list that I would consider a "classic" in my book. Just a lot of solid stuff, but nothing terribly earth shattering that blew my mind this year.

oh shit, I remember that Clearlake album. And Calexico too. Fuck, I'm redoing my list really quick before Andrew sees.

Amber on the top of any list is a damn crime against humanity.

I kept bumping it down from around 25, until it disappeared.

I liked it when it came out, but I have no real desire to listen to it again now. Except It's Getting Light Outside, and maybe Neon.

Fuck, what a great song.

Nothing stellar, but it's solid.

hahahaha.

We started in the same place, but ended up at opposite ends of the spectrum. What it came down to is that Amber is the only album on my list that i would consider every song to be at least "very good" with the majority to be "excellent". Everything else in my list has at least one clunker here or there.

To be honest, the first 2/3 of Jarvis is my favorite of the year, but the last 1/3 (except Quantum Theory and Running the World) is just too slow. Plus I can't abide by the 30 minutes of silence Cocker just slapped on there. Drives me insane.

All in all, there wasn't anything this year that just blew me away front to back. Amber has some great stuff (as much as anything else on my list) and never really bottoms out like the others in my top-5. Since I'm ranking albums, that was enough to give it the top spot on my list. Terribly exciting? Nope. Accurate? As accurate as I can get these damn lists to turn out.

The second half of Amber definitely "clunks"



Exactly.

Questions for Mitchell:

1.) I listened to a couple of Plan B tracks earlier in the year and nothing grabbed me. What track should I be searching for that will pique my interest?

2.) If I thought "Trains to Brazil" was just "meh" - will I like the rest of that Guillemots album?

1. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
2. Girl Talk - Night Ripper
3. Lupe Fiasco - Food and Liquor
4. M. Ward - Post War
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
6. Grandaddy - Just Like the Fambly Cat
7. Islands - Return to the Sea
8. Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis
9. Destroyer’s Rubies
10. Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
11. Ghostface - Fishscale
12. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette
13. Plan B - Who Needs Actions When You Got Words
14. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
15. Drive-by Truckers - A Blessing and a Curse
16. Ratatat - Classics
17. The Lovely Feathers - Hind Hind Legs
18. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
19. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
20. Built to Spill - You in Reverse
21. Neil Young – Living with War
22. Sparklehorse - Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain
23. Pants Yell! - Recent Drama
24. Man Man - Six Demon Bag
25. Cursive - Happy Hollow
26. The Beatles - Love
27. Clinic - Visitations
28. The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
29. The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
30. The Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics
31. Jay Z - Kingdom Come
32. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
33. Graham Coxon - Love Travels at Illegal Speeds
34. Loose Fur - Born Again in America
35. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
36. The Blow - Paper Television
37. Cat Power – The Greatest
38. Danielson - Ships
39. Prince - 3121
40. Rhymefest - Blue Collar
41. The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
42. Trae - Restless
43. Walkmen - A Hundred Miles Off
44. Jason Molina - Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go
45. Yo La Tengo - I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
46 - 50: FOR SALE

Why Does This Man Look So Happy?





'Cause he's sittin' at the top of "DrJimmy's Official List of The Best Albums of 2006" (congrats, Spence, I knew you could do it!!)



1. Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming
2. M. Ward - Post-War
3. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
4. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
5. The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
6. Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
7. Beck - The Information
8. Lily Allen - Alright, Still
9. The Brother Kite - Waiting For The Time To Be Right
10. Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
11. Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
12. Band of Horses - Everything All The Time
13. The Antennas - Sins
14. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
15. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
16. Grandaddy - Just Like The Fambly Cat
17. The Annuals - Be He Me
18. The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth
19. Danielson - Ships
20. Tom Yorke - The Eraser

i don't know if my non-mitchell opinion will matter, but i thought "trains to brazil" was by far the best song that album.

ha ha ha! i get it!! the joke is that you don't like my favorite album of the year, so, using the band name and album title, you're ridiculing it through a clever play on words!!

Finally--somebody gets me.

You complete me, Dr. Jimmy.

ball sack, I was working from my p4k list, removing things that didn't apply here, but forgot to add love is all. would have been #3 for me. ah well. other people should vote for it.

" aNd tHeReS tHiS lItTl e
b oY insIdE
hE's b I g aN D dU m B
aNd A lItT l e sCaRed"

weedle weedle weedle weedle
weedle weedle weedle weedle

aNd i'm s O rRy foR eVeRything
fOR rUnNinG oVeR tHaT sQuIRrel
aNd tRyInG tO bE daviD boWie
aNd fOr tHe tRy hArD hIsTrIoNiCs


heheh just having fun. I was listening to the Sunset Rubdown album while cruising around Yellowstone and it just didn't click for me. All I could think was that this dude needed to relax, maybe take a trip to the countryside or get a massage. Sometimes though, the things that turn me off the most end up becoming stuff I like six months to a year later.

Keep at it then,
i'm with Dr. J on this one.

I wasn't sure where to put this, so I'm putting it here for maximum clickage. Call it "Bobzilla Pimps His Favorites, part one." At least the ones with the low profiles, including ones I've tried being evangelical about before. They're all great, so ignore me at your peril.

The Foundry Field Recordings – Prompts/Miscues

I know what you're thinking: Ohlookanotherindierockalbum. Hear me out guys. Hear them out. There's something smart about The Foundry Field Recordings, a Columbia Missouri quartet and their first album. It's reflected in song titles like "Warning Raids Over Kiev" and "Clones Were Made For Them, But Not For Us". Those songs are apparently part of a rather thin album-length concept about the perils of society or something. But the "concept" doesn't interfere with the songs themselves, which if you try not take the lyrics too literally, are for the most part are excellent. It's a largely upbeat, guitar driven affair, with sweet vocals, augmented at times by strings and horns. Comparisons to Grandaddy aren't unwarranted, although FFR are a bit more grounded musically. Even the "field recordings" part of their name is only evident on a couple of songs.

Juana Molina – Son


I think somebody posted this in a recent thread (as a comparison to Charlotte Gainsbourg, perhaps?), but it bears repeating. Son was my first exposure to Juana Molina, who is an Argentinian electro-folk female singer, and can safely be described as sounding quite like no one else. At least no one else I've ever heard. But this is a beautiful album, speaking to me in odd ways, which is probably the only way it can speak to a guy with just a couple of years of high school Spanish. It's also one of those albums that sounds better and better upon further listening. It's the equivalent of walking through a field of flowers on a warm summer's day, even in the chilly days of fall, complete with the humming and buzzing and whirring of birds and insects. Sleeve/album cover of the year too.

De Rosa – Mend

Another blink and you missed it post from me earlier this year. De Rosa are a Scots trio (on album; they've since expanded to a quartet) from the always reliable Chemikal Underground stable (Delgados, Arab Strap). Several months on, I'm still at a loss as how to best describe them, except that I can't get enough. It's a basic guitar/bass/drums line-up, but with some well-placed string textures too. De Rosa are capable of bouncing with Franz-type energy on "On Recollection", or revving it up like 100 Broken Windows-era Idlewild on "Camera", but there's some compelling acoustic, mid-tempo moments as well. Very literate lyrics and sturdy song construction earnestly delivered with a pronounced burr. "Cathkin Braes" is one of the best songs I've heard this year.

More to come.

If Sunset Rubdown was relaxed, there'd be no point in listening to it.

That Juana Molina album is likely to place in my top 20, maybe even top 10. Just great, I really dig the way some of the background noise sound foreboding in a way. Will grab the rest of the stuff, cheers.

albums i still would like to hear before making my final list:

Beach House - Beach House
Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes
Peter Bjorn and John - Writer’s Block
Malajube - Trompe L'Oeil
Oxford Collapse – Remember the Night Parties
The Blow - Paper Television
Howling Bells - S/T
Annuals - Be Me Me
Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis

and those are just the ones off the top of my head, there's probably more...

at what point do you just give up and say "fuck it, if i end up loving it more than others in my top 50 early next year, so what"?

do you want links for some of those?

that would be kind of you sir cleavage

writers blog

http://ritmono.blogspot.com/

more stuff on that blog too

gracias

I can't believe I'm not seeing Regina Spektor in more lists her album is an amazing beautiful piece of work with some truly moving songs on it. The album seemed to get a bad reputation because it wasn't as "weird" as her last album. While it is true she doesn't blurt out as many strange sounds into the microphone on this album(there is still some of that) these songs don't really need it. In fact it would downright spoil some of these songs. That's not to say she's lost any of her playfulness it's all still there in the lyrics and the music only now it's honed it's no longer just a gimmick it's a craft that she uses to great effect when it's needed but she also knows when to let the songs stand on their own. Her vocal delivery on this album has reached new heights not only is her voice in top form but she's really been able to give it that sense of emotion that is lacking from so many other singers she really puts her heart into the delivery and it shows. I could go on like this all day and I haven't even hinted at the great string arrangements, beautiful piano playing, infectious melodies and all around musical goodness. Begin to hope will be at the top of my list and I'd beg everyone here to at least consider it.

I know I'm no sombie taste maker nor do I possess any level of skill when it comes to describing what I'm liking and feeling about an album but please don't hold my poorly worded post against the album just give it a listen and make up your own mind.

Heres a Full album Fish

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/d5d4ob

Here's a one song sampler but really this album deserves a full listen.

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/gxd7up

Here's one of the album tracks live just her and the piano...good stuff. Sorry I don't know how to add youtube directly into the post so you'll have to follow the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aI-NB4pEtc

I completely agree with Petras (Begin To Hope clocked in at #9 for me). This is really cute, interesting pop album that goes in some pretty places. I prefer this album to Soviet Kitsch, and hope it does well this year.


But, it probably won't.

i'm pretty sure it's in my top 50

it's not my favorite of hers, but i too am surprised it's not at least mentioned a bit more

Regina will make my list too.
Maybe top 25-ish.

the problem with Regina is that she never breaks through into genius territory. she just sits firmly in the realm of the "very good."

i want her to be better, but she's not complying, the bitch.

Lol... what's the opposite of a "backhanded compliment"? A front-handed insult? That doesn't seem to make sense. We need to look into this. Suggestions anyone?

'Begin to Hope' strikes me as... cute. Not much more. Certain songs (the singles mostly) jump off the speakers, but I find it difficult to go start-finish with the album.

Again, I fear I may be shutting the gate after the horse has bolted but, lists aside, this deserves a wider audience so I’m going to post it anyway. I’ve heard Psapp’s music described as ‘clunktronica’ and the term goes someway towards capturing the duo’s intricate, endlessly inventive pop-mosaics.

Psapp – The Only Thing I Ever Wanted



Track Listings
1. Hi
2. King Of You
3. This Way
4. Needle & Thread
5. New Rubbers
6. Tricycle
7. Hill Of Our Home
8. The Words
9. Make Up
10. Eating Spiders
11. Upstairs

My non-non-Mitchell agrees pretty much with this.

RE: Plan B. If "Kidz" and "Sick 2 Def" aren't doing it then the rest probably won't.

Two track sampler from "Disciples of Califorina" by the the Skygreen Leopards. Fans of Dylan, Young and early Wilco need apply:


hzzp://www.rogepost.com/dn/m4i6


1. Disciples of California
2. Places West of Shawnapee

Young sure, but Dylan/early Wilco? Skygreen Leopards are much more on the Vashti Bunyan side of the folk spectrum. Insouciant, breezy, lightly psychedelic...and no trace of country/roots influence.

Figurines "Skeletons"

more people should listen to this and subsequently vote for it.

Woah....country/roots are all over this record.

What a sad list will come of this.

Really? I'm sure you know the album better - I've only heard a few of the tracks (and some past Skygreen Leopards) - but I haven't caught any of that, at least not in the Dylan/Guthrie sense or the early Wilco sound.

this album: meh.



Who is this M. Ward and why should scarymuppet care?

otm.

Here comes another list with what looks like 30 lines of random words strung together.

I feel like this album depreciates over time... the only song that really holds up is 'Race You'. Overall it's pretty solid indie-rock... but not worthy of anything outside a 40-50 sort of placement.

I humbly disagree. It's great to go back to. Everything sounds so familiar.

re: Figurines - I was real excited when I put this album on and heard "Race You" and subsequently disappointed to find that the rest of the album consisted mostly of anonymous Built to Spill-lite indie rock. Harmless, but just.

As for M. Ward: it's like Conor Oberst matured 30 years and learned how to play guitar really well. Hmm...that doesn't really do justice. Matt Ward's, simply put, is honest music. He may err occasionally on the side of bland, but his music is really pure, unaffected by trends, hype, &c. Personally, I think Post-War is his best work yet and definitely worth checking out if you're at all into alt.country or singer/songwriter type stuff. I'd love to hear him and Lucinda Williams together. Unfortunately, Post-War is also the type of album that won't fully make sense until next year. I.e. it would probably rank 10-20 places higher if this list were composed 6-12 months later.

Hey, Scarymuppet, you'll probably like M. Ward. Download his album.

Seeing as the link still seems to work....



http://www.sendspace.com/file/m612tf

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth, will be in my top 5, maybe top 3.

That might sound a little weird, but I'd like to second that description. As generic as it might seem to call something 'honest', it really applies to M. Ward moreso than most artists I can think of. Influenced by everything except conventions of modern music... the man just loves his guitar.

He's a lot like Chan Marshall in that respect.