When my esteemed colleague the Co-Assistant Music Editor – Under Junior Assistant Music Editor, and he knows it – at Blogcritics.org magazine, DJRadiohead (not his real name you understand), was asked to perform the laborious and thankless task of compiling the official BC Magazine Best Albums of 2006 I knew that I wouldn’t agree with any of the choices. Not because they are wrong but simply because I have better taste than… well certainly better than the DJ’s, who is - as he himself will admit - the sniveling, weasly Peter Pettigrew to Guster’s Voldemort. (Side note: This is all good natured teasing on my part — I absolutely adore DJRadiohead, he is the best of men! Guster, however, are the Voldemort of music and they have DJR under their spell.)
So with that in mind I began to think of all the albums I had gotten this year. It has been a lean year in the fabulous albums category, that’s for sure — whether that’s because record labels aren’t getting it, that we don’t want that middle of the road, homogeneous, committee-chosen crap, or that the few actually talented artists out there either didn’t release albums this year or what they did release wasn’t good enough. So here is Assistant Music Editor A.L. Harper’s list of the ten best albums of the year – in my humble but professional opinion.
10. Veneer - Jose Gonzalez
Listening to Veneer is like dreaming with your ears. Acoustic guitar so softly played, so bare, everything else just seems like unnecessary clutter. Perfectly plucked Spanish guitar, haunting, exhaled vocals, and naked lyrics. What more do you need in a dream? Every track is stunning, honest and exposed music. If this album has any weakness it is that the first half is slightly stronger than the second but when something is so good there just isn’t a bad.
Veneer is a must-have for lying in front of a fire reading a book, or lying in the bathtub with a glass of wine, or lying in the garden in my hammock on a warm breezy summer afternoon, or for dancing, swaying back and forth, wrapped, naked, in the arms of your lover. I can’t think of a time when you couldn’t enjoy Veneer.
9. No Disassemble - Slow Runner
This debut album from the South Carolina-based band Slow Runner sounds like Grandaddy’s grandson. With a retro-swish sound and look, they are a hard band to pin down. Slow Runner are what happens when Star Wars fans grow up and get funky. They sound like the movie The Iron Giant looks. Retro - late ’50s, early ’60s - beat poet, with a bit of Johnny Number Five thrown in. The odd sounding bleeps, blips, and bloops that are scattered throughout the album give the tracks a funky sound and unique charm.
No Disassemble has a mature, hot-buttered-toast sound that maintains its interesting twists and elegant feel right to the end. No Disassemble is a fantastic album that will only grow on you with time. Interesting, cultivated and truly unique from beginning to end.
8. I Will - MoZella
Since the success of artists like Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux there have been many imitators. MoZella could be, at first glance, mistaken for such an imitator but that would be a purely shallow observation. MoZella’s debut album I Will reflects the romance and jazzy smoothness of Norah and Madeleine with the pop/hip-hop of Nelly Furtado and the energetic soul sounds of Macy Gray. It is original, fresh, intelligent pop music.
This strong, smooth album is filled with jazzy beats, soulful vocals, and beautifully crafted lyrics and is an excellent departure from the cookie-cutter pop of Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears or Mariah Carey. I Will is accessible but still a departure for those of you wanting to experiment musically, just a little bit. An album you must have!
7. Soft Machine - Teddybears
Teddybears — formerly grindcore-punk group Skull out of Sweden — this year released their US debut album Soft Machine. With its diverse mixed-and-matched genres ranging from punk to reggae, all enhanced with electro-pop dance beats, it is one of the most original albums out this year. It has an interesting array of featured vocalists – including Neneh Cherry (elder sister of Eagle Eye), Mad Cobra, and Iggy Pop (his best work in years). And the three best tracks released by anyone this year.
Soft Machine with its clean danceable beats, fun pop hooks, bouncy pop rhythms, high energy lyrics, and tons of synth harkens back to all those summer pool parties and BBQs. Soft Machine is everything that pop music should be — funky, fresh, frolicsome, danceable and intelligent. It’s pop like only former punk rockers could make it. It is a fantastic dance/pop party album.
6. Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
Peeping Tom is what happens when one of the planet’s most talented, busy, and eclectic musical artists decided to bring trip-hop into the 21st century. This album is Mike Patton’s latest offering – yes THE Mike Patton of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, and Tomahawk fame – but with a twist. It’s not just him, oh no, it’s Patton with various other musical artists – most considered rather eccentric or brilliant in their own right. They include (to name a few): Odd Nosdam, Rahzel, Dan the Automator, Massive Attack, Kid Koala, and, bizarrely, Norah Jones.
The resulting album is groovy, ghetto-tech eclectic. Peeping Tom is the most accessible album Patton has made since his Faith No More days. Patton makes use of the strongest talents of his assembled collaborators, while at the same time allowing them freedom to stretch their artistic muscles, resulting in works that are diverse and accomplished. And it proves that Patton is still capable of making something to be enjoyed by the masses.
5. Meds -Placebo
Brian Molko’s voice is distinctive, alluring, and totally compelling. The nearly-legendary band Placebo have those same qualities. They are the perfect match really; I don’t think that Molko would fit with any band in the such a uniquely seductive way. Meds, Placebo’s first completely new album since 2003, sees them return to their more unpolished indie rock roots and avoid the radio friendly tracks of their last album.
Meds is thick with Placebo’s goth/punk influences like Bauhaus, Sonic Youth, The Pixies, and particularly David Bowie – but what artist alive today hasn’t been influenced by Bowie? This sleek album has the synthesizer-driven melodies that Placebo are famous for and Molko’s essence-of-goth lyrics and still maintains a raw but emotionally mature feeling. Meds isn’t a departure for the band but it is a beautiful example of why they don’t need to deviate from their ultra cool style.
4. The Beauty of Letting Go - Green River Ordinance
Fort Worth, Texas-based Green River Ordinance (GRO) are the next big band-on-the-block. GRO are intelligent, diverse, dynamic alt/pop/rock with plenty of heart and soul and they inspire me in a way that few rock bands do. GRO’s warm, intense, emotive rock and roll tunes illicit feelings in me that are all at once sexual and joyous, passionate and compassionate. With an alt.rock-power pop sound that will make you think of Third Eye Blind, Nickelback or Matchbox Twenty, GRO are truly the next legend-band in the making.
GRO’s debut album The Beauty of Letting Go is in turns warm, intense, romantic and passionate. Their lyrics are a bit country with a pop twist but still rock and roll and somehow maintain an ardent passion and emotional intensity. Their music is guitar driven indie rock with a smooth river of Texas flowing through the heart of it. This album is easily the best album from an unsigned artist released this year. It is so good that is the only album from an independent artist on my list.
3. I’m Not Dead - Pink
Pink is the original pop/rock chick that wannabes like Kelly Clarkson and Ashlee Simpson have been vainly attempting to emulate. But no one does it like Pink and with her fourth album I’m Not Dead, you can see why. This album is all things P!nk: in your face, ballsy, bluesy, poignant, ironically funny, self deprecating, and OTT — never has an album referred to masturbation so frequently. Not that I’m complaining, I love masturbation. It is also her best album yet.
With tracks that range from the hilarious “Stupid Girls” and “U + Ur Hand”, the danceable and sexual “Centrefold” and “Fingers”, to the full-on Pinkness of “Cuz I Can” and “Leave Me Alone”, add to these diverse and fun tracks like the poignant, emotive “Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self” and “I’ve Seen The Rain” (written by her father, a Vietnam vet, about the war) and you have a complete fantastic album.
But it is the stripped down track “Dear Mr President” that raises this perfectly judged comeback album head and shoulders above anything else this year. With lyrics like “How can you say, ‘no child is left behind’ / we’re not dumb and we’re not blind”, “You’ve come a long way, from whiskey and cocaine” and “What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away/ what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?” The legendary lesbian folk rock duo Indigo Girls sing backing vocals to reinforce this sad statement on President Bush’s idea of family values. This amazing track alone makes this one of the best albums of 2006.
2. About Face - The Working Title
I love The Working Title and I love their debut album About Face. I loved this album the first time I listened to it and I have never stopped loving it. In fact my ardour grows with every listen. I sometimes force myself to put About Face away and listen to other albums but it never lasts more than a few weeks. It is just that good.
The Working Title blend guitar melodies with the husky, sensual, hands-down-my-panties vocals and the soul-stirring, passionately emotive lyrics of frontman and lyricist Joel Hamilton. Hamilton’s raw, earthy voice finds your inner erotic being and holds you in its ardent, intense embrace, with the help of his powerful lyrics, for the entire album. From the very first track they begin to get under your skin with their mature, impassioned, carnal indie rock sound. About Face is an alt.indie.pop.rock album that you will want to listen to while lying on your bed in the pitch dark, music blaring, eyes closed, wearing nothing but your underwear. And I’ve been doing that all year!
1. Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
But in the end, the album of the year is undoubtedly the fourth outing from the Scottish-based Snow Patrol, Eyes Open. They made it to the top with a perfectly balanced album that is rockier and more mature then the last. After the success of their career breaking third album Final Straw some doubted that they could do it again. But they did, and in a way that makes it perfectly clear that they are on top to stay.
Eyes Open is a triumph of the lyric writing magic of frontman Gary Lightbody, whose seemingly endless supply of romantic insecurities and shortcomings provides him with more than enough passionate and deeply emotive material to seemingly fill four or five more indie-rock-anthem filled albums. Eyes Open is an epic album filled with guitar-driven melodies and Lightbody’s passionately reflective lyrics. It’s proof that Snow Patrol are more than another British indie rock/pop band. They are in a stellar class all their own and completely untouchable this year.
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