2006 in a Nutshell

The older I get, the more I dislike the holiday season. The stress, the noise, the gift giving, the gift receiving. But December offers another Christmas for me, another special treat. The overwhelming conglomoration of top 10's, 20's, 50's and 100's! I freaking live for this. Suddenly I'm ranting like a sports fan over right choices, wrong choices and surprising choices. Below, for the convenience of my two readers, I've compiled some of my favorite best-of lists for quick consumption.

Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of 2006

We bloggers may bitch and moan about Pitchfork and their choices, usually the BAD reviews and low scores, but occasionally we even gripe when they don't give a great album it's much deserved but highly elusive 10.0 score. But all the same, when these Chicagoans crank out a best of (such as their 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s) we fall all over ourselves trying to consume the music they claim to be the greatest. I look over every list shamed when they post something I've never heard of (Grizzly-who? They sound like the Animal Collective??? DAMMIT!) and overjoyed when they list something I know and love (That's right y'all! Beach Boys is number 1 from 1966 to the twenty-double-ought-six!) So naturally I took this years top 50 and have actively sought out samplings of every album so I too can be a music know-it-all snob! Here's the top 5:

• One) The Knife - Silent Shout


• Dos) TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain


• Tre) Joanna Newsom - Ys


• Qua) Ghostface Killah - Fishscale


• Five) The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America

Also peep out Pitchforks Top 100 Tracks of 2006 especially because they link legal mp3s and streaming audio and video for nearly all of the tracks. There's no less than 50 legal mp3s to nab over there friends, and nab I did!

Stylus Magazine's Top 50 Albums of 2006

Not quite as omnipresent as Pitchfork, but still a worthwhile authority on all things music (and film!) is Stylus Magazine, which is the second music site I turn to for reviews. I favor this list because of the presence of a few acts that I really really liked that were sadly overlooked by Pitchfork, by which I mean Final Fantasy. Here's THEIR top 5:

• One) Ghostface Killah - Fishscale


• Dos) Hot Chip - The Warning


• Tre) Joanna Newsom - Ys


• Qua) TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain


• Five) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

Prefix Magazines Best Albums of 2006

Kudos to Prefix as well for hooking readers up to some streaming samples from each album. There's nothing like finding out that you're uncool just because you've never heard Herbert's "Scale" and then have no remedy. I'm not saying I want everything for free, but we've got an expectation these days that we can at least SAMPLE and album before we throw down near-twenty dollars.

• One) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury


• Dos) TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain


• Tre) Herbert - Scale


• Qua) Liars - Drum's Not Dead


• Five) Joanna Newsom - Ys

NPR's All Songs Considered Best Albums of 2006

I always consider NPR's music to be a little more ear-friendly. Not that it's better, it's just that they're less likely to throw Masonna onto the programming list. Their territory lies halfway between the boomers' tastes (ie, Bob Dylan's "Modern Times" fairs well here) and the most boomer friendly of indie rock (ie, is anyone at all shocked that a protest album by the Decemberists topped all?) The fun twist on this show is that, well, it's a show. Rather than read list after list, it's an hour of music fun, while Bob Boilen coaxes the voting listeners to push Regina Spektor into the top ten. He also brings in DJs and critics from around the country to include their top 10's. The only downside, it's pretty rare for Boilen to actually play a song in its entirety. Here's the top 5 as determined by NPR listener's everywhere (and FYI, I voted for He Poos Clouds which received no props...):

• One) The Decemberists - The Crane Wife


• Dos) Neko Case - The Fox Confessor Brings the Flood


• Tre) Bob Dylan - Modern Times


• Qua) M. Ward - Post War


• Five) TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Meta Critic's Best of 2006

I love MetaCritic because I figure, it every single critic loves it (if that's the case) then I must also. If you haven't perused this site, it simply sums up the reviews for a single album (film, tv show, video game or book) and gives it a numerical score averaging all the numbers and stars. Every year they set up a little best of accumulating the top ranking product of each medium. I have made a habit of seeking out and hearing the top ranking albums from the site because, well, if EVERYONE loves it, maybe I will to. Here the top 5:

• One) Ali Farka Toure- Savane


• Dos) Tom Waits - Orphans: Bawlers, Brawlers and Bastards


• Tre) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury


• Qua) Bob Dylan - Modern Times


• Five) Joanna Newsom - Ys

Another fun feature of the MetaCritic 2006 roundup is their OWN compilation of Best Of lists from every publication from Pitchfork to Rolling Stone, plus a list of each album on the page and how many times it appeared on the compiled lists (I'll save you the search trouble... TV On The Radio made the most appearances, followed closely by Joanna Newsome and Ghostface.) Disturbing is the number of times (3) the Red Hot Chili Peppers appeared on these lists. Jibbly-jibbly...

A'ight, I'll make my own top 5 or 10 tomorrow... in the meantime, lay yours down here or on your own blog for end-of-year good times!