2006 Albums ----------- When I look at the picture below I'm struck by how many different ways I discovered these records. Some of these were the latest releases from acts I had been following for some time, but mostly they were completely new things. There are songs I heard on Sirius or XM satellite radio. There are things that were the hot albums on the indie music blogs of the day. There were small indie releases that were recommended by eMusic. There are 3 (!) albums that I discovered watching a UK music countdown show, repackaged as cheap filler content on the obscure US Cable network, HDNet. There is a album with a track I heard on a iMac commercial. Some of these were the top records on RateYourMusic, back when tastes were a little different there (more indie and mainstream). I was still using the AllMusic guide to do genre studies (in this case post-rock). There is an album I ran out and bought on the drive home from the local brewpub, where I heard it playing in the background. This is also the year where I have by far the most releases that I would like to own on vinyl that I do not. In many cases, these records never saw a vinyl release, and are obscure enough that one is not likely to ever happen. As a result, there is quite the unsightly stack-up of CDs on the side of the image. This almost encapsulates the unsightliness of the CD as a format. The art is too small to be appreciated, and no matter how well you tried to take care of those jewel cases they are scratched up and a little cracked. Many of those discs were bought at City Lights Records, where I had started to shop when my old favorite store, Mike's Movies and Music had closed. Many came from Amazon, in some cases imported from the UK (a new practice that I had adopted). One of these CDs, was imported from the UK by myself personally! More than anything I'm looking at the image below and feeling powerful waves of nostalgia. This was the music of my younger self. A person I can relate to, but no longer completely am. I glad that I can always revisit my former self though these albums. .. image:: images/2006.jpg :width: 900 :alt: My 2006 favorite albums .. raw:: html - *Beach House* by **Beach House** - Listening to this is quite startling knowing the band they are today. This is a much smaller, slower, and meandering record than what they do now. This slight record was certainly enough to get me interested back then, and I still really like it today. [*Memory*: I found out about these guys as an eMusic recommended artist. I remember Greg at city lights being impressed how ahead of the scene I was that time. I also remember buying my vinyl copy at Amoeba records in San Francisco in 2009 and being surprised that they were making vinyl reissues of relatively recent indie records.] - *The Life Pursuit* by **Belle and Sebastian** - It is hard to remember now, but this was a controversial record when it came out. The transition to straight ahead pop they had started on their previous record was now complete. Everyone missed the half-folk and chamber elements, and it was widely regarded as sub-par. I really enjoyed these back to basics pop songs back then, and now consider this their finest record. This was also the album when Stevie Jackson and Sarah Martin really started to play a larger, and quite welcome role in the band. The mix of the three primary vocalists had become the signature sound of the band. It was almost like they had become a more twee and gentle **New Pornographers**. - *Let's Get Out Of This Country* by **Camera Obscura** - The Scots understand indie pop like no other nation on earth. This might be the finest record in the whole genre. Back when hit indie records were a thing, this was one of the biggest. Everywhere from Pitchfork, Stereogum, NPR Music, and Spin wanted you to listen to this thing. Every service recommended it as a download, and it climbed the RateYourMusic charts in a way music like this can't anymore. Holds up. [*Memory*: This was the first real concert I attended in Rochester, NY. I remember walking down the German house in 2009, and being excited that I could see bands like this in the town I lived in. This would be the beginning of three great years of shows.] - *The Crane Wife* by **The Decemberists** - This was the start of a new phase for a band that always liked drama, but now were completely centered on telling grand stories. A little preview of the proggyness that would fully form on the next one, this was still mostly the indie-folk of the first three records. This whole record tells a story that I've never been able to follow, but it doesn't matter because the songs are so strong. A great guest spot by **Laura Veirs** on "Yankee Bayonet" as well. [*Memory*: I remember this being voted the top album of 2006 by NPR listeners and feeling a little bit old that my tastes aligned with that group. It isn't my favorite from the year any longer, but it is close!] - *Victory of the Comic Muse* by **The Divine Comedy** - After a couple more serious records, Neil Hannon allows himself a little levity again. One of the very last of his records for me to warm up to, it joins the rest of the catalog as a favorite. He is probably the most consistent artist I know of. [*Memory*: I think I had only heard this once or twice before buying the entire vinyl reissue series.] - *The Bright Lights and What I Should Have Learned* by **Duels** - A late entry in the UK indie scene, it is a mostly guitar based Brit-pop derivative sound with a sprinkling of the keyboards the USA kids were getting into. I think it was because this sat uncomfortably between UK indie and the contemporary mainstream sound that this didn't really find an audience despite being a really crisply put together record with some interesting sounds. Weirdly, this sounds a bit like the kind of "mindie" music that was about to become very widely popular in the USA. [*Memory*: I found out about these guys by watching "London Live" a repackaging of a UK countdown show that was filler material for an early HDTV channel called HDNet. The performance of the song "Animal" had an really fresh, dance-able sound that seemed to anticipate what was about to come in North American Indie.] - *Tuesday Wonderland* by **Esbjorn Svensson Trio** - In the 2000s jazz experienced a new kind of fusion, this time with indie and experimental rock music. These guys made several of the most important records in the movement. The startling **Radiohead**-esque "Fading Maid Preludium/Postludium" bookends a set of music that is only slightly more in line with conventional Piano jazz. The releases after this would get a little too difficult for me, and this is the one where the balance between artistry and accessability was most to my liking. [*Memory*: I was spending so much time looking for music, that a fairly obscure record like this one was coming at me from multiple angles. A featured album by NPR music, I was also hearing this on the Beyond Jazz channel on XM radio. I think one of the reasons I like my favorites so much from this era, is that I really picked them from a large number of things I had heard.] - *S/T* by **Electric President** - One of the records that followed on from the gentle indie-electronic sound of **The Postal Service**, but this one was much slower and more somber. I also like how these guys played around with song structure, there are bridges and unexpected transitions everywhere. This was really interesting stuff that never found the audience it deserved. [*Memory*: I had been a subscriber to Sirius Satellite radio since the summer of 2003, and it had become a primary influence on my listening. I had always heard that XM had a much wider playlist, but didn't really have a full appreciation until I heard some XM jazz programming during an Orange Bowl trip in early 2006. I immediately subscribed upon my return, and "Good Morning, Hypocrite" from this record was one of the first tracks I heard on their indie station, XMU. I can almost still picture that song title in the saved track list on my portable XM receiver sitting on the dash of my old Purple Dodge Neon. I miss the old XM.] - *Bitter Tea* by the **Fiery Furnaces** - This is one of those records where I never understood the prevailing opinion. Somehow this is perceived to be the impenetrably difficult and dense follow-up. If anything this takes the experimentation and proggy-ness of **Blueberry Boat** and adds back in the strong pop component of the early stuff. Things like "Waiting to Know You" do an amazing job balancing the weirdness with the sweetness. I like this record way more than 95% of the human population. [*Memory*: This was the time when you could buy an unpopular record on vinyl at a steep discount. I don't know if I even paid 10 bucks for a nice new copy of this.] - *Just Like the Fambly Cat* by **Grandaddy** - It took me a while, but I came to appreciate the last record from the first tenure of these guys. Some serious punk aggression (especially on the hardcore homage "50%") has been added to the usual low-key, often downtrodden psych-pop. This would have been a great statement to end on, and I haven't liked what has come since nearly as much. [*Memory*: I listened to this a lot on headphones around the time I lived in my little Park Ave apartment. I still like to crank it through cans every now and then. The fuzz sounds great that way.] - *Yellow House* by **Grizzly Bear** - I didn't like this very much when it first came out to great acclaim. I connected much more with the next record, which featured far more conventional songs. I think after I had that blueprint to follow, I could better appreciate this more abstract work. [*Memory*: This was strangely difficult to hear for a massive indie hit. It wasn't on eMusic, and I don't recall ever seeing the CD appear at City Lights (or Best Buy). It was also out of print on vinyl for a shockingly long time, until I got the re-issue that came out in 2022.] - *Knives Don't Have Your Back* by **Emily Haines** - [**2006 FAVORITE**] - A stunning piano based singer-songwriter record, that is completely unlike anything else I have ever heard. I really think she saves her very best stuff for the rare solo releases, and this outclasses anything from **Metric** by a fair margin. The production on this record is quite exceptional as well, and the dreamy mix really adds a lot to the impact of the top notch lyrics. [*Memory*: I became aware of this album via a post of the excellent video for "Doctor Blind" on Pitchfork. The artist is strolling through an empty department store in a creepy scene that really complements a fairly profound song about the over-prescription of anti-depressants.] - *The Day I Turned to Glass* by **Honeycut** - A delightful anomaly: hip hop influenced indie rock made by a classically trained cellist. I don't think this ever found its audience, and I'm not sure it really has much of one. I really like it though. Listening today, it sounds a bit ahead of it's time and it fits in well with what is going on in the frontier of R&B. [*Memory* I discovered this ] - *Howling Bells* by **Howling Bells** - I had been enjoying this record for the better part of a year when someone pointed out to me that it is a bit of a country record. They were right. It is dark kind of country made by Australians, but country nonetheless. This was back when the Bella Union label seemed like it was trending towards some sort of modern day 4AD, and this fits right in with that. "Setting Sun" is one of my favorite songs of all time. [*Memory*: I really struggled to acquire this record. This was another band I discovered on HDNet's "London Live" show. Their performance was a little rough, but I liked it enough to DVR it and watch it over and over again. I remember waiting for a 2007 US release that didn't happen, and I couldn't find a way to import the disc from the UK on Amazon. Eventually I would buy a copy from HMV on my first trip to london in March 2007 and hand carry it back to the USA myself.] - *Return to Sea* by **Islands** - I like this even more than the much loved **Unicorns** LP, as the more serious tone does it for me. Plenty of whimsey still here, but the epic indie-pop of "Swans (Life After Death)" was a welcome expansion of the wounds used by that prior band. Even "Rough Gem" manages to be silly in a far more epic way. This is big indie-pop. [*Memory*: Another XMU discovery, the expanded playlist of my new satellite radio service was expanding my music collection.] - *Silent Shout* by **The Knife** - The kind of music only Scandinavians can make properly. Creepy atmospheric, yet highly melodic and certainly not the least bit danceable. This is the electronic music of calm reflection in a dark room. [*Memory*: This was the first time I can remember resisting a Pitchfork hype record out of principle. When I finally relented, it was very clearly an amazing record.] - *Everything Wrong is Imaginary* by **Lilys** - The Elephant6 adjacent band from Philly ends on a very high note. The superior of the two records to come out of their third phase. The sharply produced shoegazy indie-pop on offer puts to shame the myriad of new bands working in this territory at the time. [*Memory*: After this record came out I assumed it was the start of a glorious comeback for this guy. I didn't realize it was the end.] - *Someone to Drive You Home* by **The Long Blondes** - Very derivative of the long history of post-punk and new wave, but the execution is perfect. In retrospect this can almost be seen as the period on the post-punk revival. This is where the new wave revival and imaginary 80s began. [*Memory*: I have always been unable to process exactly how much I like this record for some reason. When it was getting good press back in '06 I was so resistant to it. When I reviewed my candidates when making this list, I was tempted to leave it off. After half a listen I was rushing off to find a vinyl copy on discogs.] - *One More Drifter in the Snow* by **Aimee Mann** - Probably my favorite Christmas record that isn't *A Charlie Brown Christmas* (which trancends the genre for me), a great collection of traditionals and originals. This captures the warm but somber mood that I associate with the holiday season, much like that jazz classic. [*Memory*: Around 2019 I created a playlist of my holiday favorites, and this is the traditional first album on all versions of that compilation.] - *Pretty Little Head* by **Nellie Mckay** - Another double album genre experiment, this time on an indie label, where this belongs. Less white girl rapping, and what remains is well done. The genres here are more looking back on Broadway and cabaret music, with some alt rock thrown in. [*Memory*: One of the first records I remember buying on eMusic. It was very surprising to see her on an indie, though it certainly made far more sense than this kind of thing being on Columbia. I had started using the eMusic platform in 2006 and its subscription based buffet was becoming very influential in my tastes.] - *You Are There* by **Mono** - Post-rock was a very tired scene by 2006, and these guys were one of the last great bands to emerge. Somewhere between the shimmering guitars of **Explosions in the Sky** and the chaotic strings of **Godspeed You! Great Emperor** maybe the last listenable combination of elements left to cover. Their finest record, with their definitive track "Moonlight". [*Memory*: This album, and particularly the track "Moonlight" was one of the great rediscoveries while making this list. I streamed it during a morning walk during a review of the albums on the bubble for the year. I probably streamed it half a dozen more times that day.] - *Black Holes and Other Revelations* by **Muse** - This was the record that would finally break these guys in America, more due to better promotion than any shift in sound or quality. Still very big alt-rock music, with perhaps a bit more of the **Queen** style theatrics. The hit "Supermassive Back Hole" introduces a funky kind of groove that would hit at the broader template that would be used in the next few records. Looking back, this probably was the peak of their first era, and it makes me a little sad since I don't like their new direction quite as much. [*Memory*: Another time when I got to feel a bit ahead of my time thanks to the expanded playlist of satellite radio.] - *Bring Me the Workhorse* by **My Brightest Diamond** - I became aware of Shara Nova through her work with **Sufjan Stevens** and **The Decemberists**, which led me to her solo catalog. Her debut is a subdued, and often moody record. At times it feels like a gentler, more classically trained **PJ Harvey** album. I don't listen to this as much as her later work, but it is still a great one. [*Memory*: In the early days of my vinyl collecting, I could still buy back stock first pressings of records that weren't big sellers. That is how I got this one around 2010.] - *He Poos Clouds* by **Owen Pallett** - I became aware of this record on the Pitchfork best of 2006 list, so I gave it a download on eMusic. They compared it to **Andrew Bird**, but aside from the violin, I don't know why. This is some very out there, art-rock that is heavily influenced by contemporary classical music. I liked bits of it at the time, I love it now. A complex and difficult album, and a first class performance and recording. [*Memory*: This along with **Shara Nova** was my gateway into contemporary classical. It was very sneaky how they got me to accept the complex sounds by wrapping it in pop songs.] - *Writer's Block* by **Peter, Bjorn, and John** - "Hey Google, play the hipster whistling song." This was the first time that an indie artist made a song that felt like it was designed for commercials. This was the genesis of mainstream indie (or mindie as Carles liked to call it). That does nothing to tarnish an outstanding indie pop record, and really it only helped to elevate the status, and increase the production of great indie-pop records. [*Memory*: I heard (the now legendary) "Young Folks" for the first time when it was playing in the background of Otto's Pub and Brewery, my hangout at the time. I stopped at Best Buy on the way home, hoping to find a CD copy. I came home with what would become one of my favorite records of the year.] - *We Are the Pipettes* by **The Pipettes** - In the mid 2000s, there were constantly new genres of indie that were going to be the next big thing, but produced a few big records before fading away. "Pre-Beatles pop-music" was such an animal, and the 60s girl groups were an obvious place find inspiration. In retrospect this does seem like the kind of gimmick that wouldn't last long, but what a glorious debut record. They sing in an untrained but pure tone that sounds great together. The pop songwriting is great, especially on the classic "Pull Shapes". [*Memory*: Yet another band that I discovered on HDNet London Live. It was such a surprise to see such an out there concept get any attention at all. I remember having Greg at City Lights order me a copy of their first US EP, and him asking me "so is this like a 60s girl group or something?" Kinda, but not exactly in a way that really, really worked for a short time.] - *Operation: Mindcrime II* by **Queensryche** - What a huge surprise. A sequel to one of my favorite albums of all time arrived, and it was far better than I could have imagined. A remarkable return to the classic sound of this band, we now know it mostly a Geoff Tate solo album. It would have been impossible to achieve the same high level of the original, but this is about 75% the quality, which is still very, very good. More than anything it takes the story to a new place, that somehow makes the first record more interesting from a narrative perspective. [*Memory*: I hadn't thought much about these guys in years when I heard that this was coming out. Thanks to this record I would re-engage with their back-catalog and they would become one of my all-time favorites.] - *In Rainbows* by **Radiohead** - For a long time I saw this album as two stunners ("Nude" and "Reckoner") and bunch of filler, but my perception has changed. I now can hear this as a whole statement, and it holds up to their albums leading up to this one. That said, this is the last one that I truely think works as a complete work. My opinion has very much changed on this record during the course of this project, and has motivated the most significant revision of my personal music narrative to date. [*Memory*: It is obviously very difficult to separate this record from how it was released. This was the first time a major artist released an entire studio album as a "pay what you want" download. Is that why I undervalued it for so many years, perhaps. Now it graces my vinyl collection in physical form.] - *Classics* by **Ratatat** - Instrumental rock that is very much not post-rock, this whimsical record is more like the modern **Ventures**. One of those bands where every album is very similar, and I only end up caring about their very best effort. [*Memory*: In 2007, I went on a bus tour of the Irish countryside north of Dublin. I remember a rich doctor was there with his wife and adult son who was wearing a Ratatat shirt. Why do I remember this, I don't know. I've got nothing else for here.] - *Hello Everything* by **Squarepusher** - His records had been expanding to include more and more elements, and the title of this one seems to recognize a peak had been reached. After this he would bite off a bit more than he could chew, but the eclecticism works out well here. The jazz influenced electronica of "Planetarium" is a particular favorite, and probably the high point for this guy. [*Memory*: I found out about this artist on XM Beyond Jazz, where I heard "Modern Jazz Guitar". The early XM was a great platform, and while I am still a happy customer of the modern SiriusXM, I miss those old stations with their edge case genres, and massive, handcrafted playlists.] - *A Lesson in Crime* by **Tokyo Police Club** - Sometimes a band's first work is their best, and in this case it is a 17 minute long EP. The rawness and rough edges are a positive here, and it is almost like they ruined themselves by started to understand what they were doing. This is pure garage, the sounds of kids who don't completely know how to make rock music, but do so pretty effectively anyway. The songs are strange and wonderful, particularly the charmingly amateurish science fiction of "Citizens of Tomorrow". They would never come close to this again. This is my favorite EP of all time. [*Memory*: I saw the band play an opening set as "the next big thing" in a packed to the gills basement club in Temple Bar Dublin. They played the EP in sequence and nothing more. They pulled a girl up from the crowd to sing the one line of female vocals from "Nature of the Experiment". A buzz band at their peak, and I was glad to be there.]