NOTES: (1) Yes, I know. Not all of these albums were released
in 2006. These are the best albums I bought this year, not the best
that were released. I'm not hip enough to catch all the best stuff the
year it's released. (2) I didn't obsess over these rankings enough that
any meaningful distinction can be made between, say, number 22 and
number 21. Any given album is likely to be no better or worse than the
two or three albums in either direction. As the rankings get higher,
relative positioning means more.
5. American Analog Set – Set Free
Oh man, how I love this album. The most gorgeous, gentle songs I've heard in a long time. As a longtime devotee of the likes of Low and Red House Painters, this album scratches all the right itches for me. No fewer than three song of the year candidates (and that's showing a lot of restraint):
Born On The Cusp,
She's Half and
The Green Green Grass. Surprisingly, the one miss on this album is the cover of Codeine's
JR. I love Codeine immensely, so I don't particularly appreciate this rather uninspired cover of what was already one of my less-favored Codeine songs. But the rest of the album makes up for the misstep many times over.
4. Sun Kil Moon – Tiny Cities
My wife and I have been major Red House Painters fans since I first picked up
Down Colorful Hill on cassette from the $.99 cutouts bin in 1993. We faithfully bought each new RHP album over the years, but didn't transition with Kozelek to his solo stuff or Sun Kil Moon. At some point a year or so ago, my wife bought this and the first Sun Kill Moon album unbeknownst to me. I saw it lying around once or twice but never really listened to it. Then I started hearing songs off the album on XMU and went nuts for it. And it was right there under my nose the whole time. No one in the history of music, so far as I can tell, has mastered the art of the cover like this guy. He had a few misfires with RHP, but when he gets it right, it's out of the park. This collection of Modest Mouse covers is just extraordinary.
3. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
Sufjan Stevens combines childlike tenderness and honesty with an adult sense of sadness and regret in a way I've never experienced. The result is amazingly touching and full of emotional truth. He occassionally veers too far in one direction or the other, but when he gets it right it is unlike anything I've ever heard. If this were a consensus best of list, this album would clearly be number one as it is without a doubt the most universal and accessible album of the group.
Casimir Pulaski Day is one of the best songs of this or any other era.
2. Margot & the Nuclear So-and-So's – The Dust Of Retreat
I don't know quite what to say about this one. Everything about it is great, but that's not why it's here. This album touched me in a very deep and personal way this year. Every song was a perfect and necessary soundtrack to my life at one point or another over the course of the year. I offer no guarantees here. Someone else might listen to this and be completely unmoved. But on a purely emotional level, this was the most important album for me in 2006.
1. Pinback – Summer In Abaddon
Again, yes, I'm very much behind the times. This album was released in 2004. I'm lame. But I didn't listen to any other album as much as this one over the past year, and wasn't as impressed with any other album on a purely musical level, so it gets the top spot. No deep emotional connection here; just great, great music. Great, great, great music.
