One foot in the grave, One foot in the toilet: The Shilmayear in Review (2006 Edition, D&D Writeoff)
Jan 05 '07
The Bottom Line Lookin' for Heaven in 2007!
It's a bit funny -- until I actually started making a list of the best releases of 2006, I was convinced that it was an utterly unexciting year for music. Nothing huge had come out that I absolutely had to hear, the hype on bands spread so thin as to be virtually negligible, and what albums I did call my favorites were ones that were destined to be forgotten by generations to come. Then, I started a list, came up with about 30 albums that I wanted to put on it, and suddenly decided that "hey, this wasn't such a bad year after all". Then there was much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands, and finally, I whittled it down to about, um, 18-ish, 12 of them ranked (expanded to the 13 you see below on a whim). Don't ask about the numbers, just trust that it made sense at the time I wrote this. As always, many thanks to Demon and Drew for allowing me to punch myself in the head enough times to make a list come out my ear.
And so, without further ado, here come a bunch of albums that I really, Really liked this year:
Honorable Mention:
The Beatles - Love
I'm still a Beatles n-0-0-b. Maybe that's why Love fascinates me so much. What George Martin did on Love is create what he finds to be the ultimate Beatles megamix, complete with enough loud parts and soft parts as to befit the Cirque de Soleil show that he happened to be soundtracking at the time. What he did for me was to create a Beatles Mix that's A.D.D. enough for me to listen to it all the way through. 27 tracks, many of which are comprised of multiple songs, and many of them sound as vital (not to mention fully-realized) as the songs on any of the albums that follow this one in my little list. It's great to hear takes on my favorites like "Something" and "A Day in the Life", while discovering things I hadn't heard yet, like the really, really fun "Glass Onion". This probably would have made my "top albums" list, but I couldn't figure out whether it was a new album, or a reissue, or a best-of, or what, so it's showing up here -- still, it is quite lovable (ha! get it? lovab--oh, never mind).
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
Leaving this off the list hurts, but I have to finish this list sometime, and as much as I enjoy the album (and the five extra tracks on the limited edition), it hasn't totally grown on me yet. Of course, that's probably because my wife got it for Christmas and I haven't had the time to absorb it that I need, but what I've heard is pretty excellent. "Samson" is utterly beautiful, "Hotel Song" makes me inexplicably happy, and "Fidelity" sounds so much better on a CD than it does at 3 in the morning on VH1 with the volume all but muted. I may have found my new 'girl and a piano'.
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
Just couldn't do it. I love "Kick, Push", I love "Daydreamin'", I love "The Instrumental", heck, I even love "Pressure". Unfortunately, too many of Lupe's tracks make me a little sleepy, and as much as I want to push the album and all of its positive energy into the list proper, it just doesn't beat any of the albums that actually made it. Sorry, Lupe.
Outkast - Idlewild
This one I just wanted to throw on the list to shove it in the face of everyone who says it sucks. I got this on the same day I got my #1 album, and for about a week, I actually listened to it more than that album. Besides the utterly amazing "Morris Brown" and "Idlewild Blue" (which had to grow on me), is it so wrong to enjoy such little nothings as "Makes no Sense at All" and "Chronomentrophobia"? Is it so wrong to think "The Train" is at least as good as anything on Speakerboxxx? And damn, if Janelle Monae doesn't at least deserve a mention here for the incredible "Call the Law", I don't know who does. So here she is. So what if Dre and Big Boi might as well call themselves Big Oil and Water 3000 at this point? They still make fabulous albums that transcend the hip-hop label they're forced to carry.
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
This album takes me to an evil, sinister, quietly plotting place. Sometimes, that place is a nice place to be. I don't have any real good reasons for liking little Thommy's solo disc, but like it I do. So here it is.
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Leaving the Gnarls off the list hurts more than anything, just because when I first heard "Crazy", I thought the album would be a shoe-in for placement. "Crazy" is at least as good as everyone says it is (and is made better when you see the Top of the Pops version that was such a hit on YouTube). "Smiley Faces" is throwback done right. "Just a Thought" is existential angst at its most desperate. And "Who Cares?"...well, hell, I just like that song. And my two oldest children (2 and 4) love "Go Go Gadget Gospel", "Crazy", and "Gone Daddy Gone", which my daughter likes clapping and singing to (this is where you imagine daddy shilmafone explaining the lyrics to that one in a year or two). Problem is, I just couldn't really see putting an album with songs like "Boogeyman" and particularly "Necromancer" on the list. The disc is too uneven, it just...well...oh, what the hell...
The shilmafone TOP 13!
13. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
If Gnarls Barkley deserves to be ranked anywhere on any list, it's at #13. That number just feels right for the duo, somehow. So there you go.
12. Beck - The Information
No, it's not my favorite Beck album by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a Beck album, and one that has grown on me rather than finding itself immediately likable. Seeing as I didn't hate it when it came out, that speaks well for its lasting power. "Nausea" is still a favorite of mine, with its garagist sorts of leanings, and "Cell Phone's Dead" is still fun as hell, even without its brilliantly underproduced video. Still, what continues to fascinate me most is the experimental "Dark Star", a quiet, nighttime, sinister bit of downbeat brilliance. That Beck can continue to find ways to sound original and fresh this far into a career where he constantly makes a point of doing just that is utterly astounding. It's no Guero, but it's not far off. And there are stickers. You can't beat stickers.
11. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
Just as uneven as the aforementioned Idlewild, perhaps, but the high points of this one stick with me more than the high points of the Outkast disc. The Black Parade is rambunctious, surprisingly artistic, and all-out ambitious. Sporting Rob Cavallo on production duties (the guy responsible for Green Day's brilliant American Idiot), My Chemical Romance manages to mash every single one of their influences and every single one of their grandest ideas into one little album. Queen is in here, Guns 'n Roses are in here, The Ramones are in here, and there was even one track where the shadow of Conor Oberst showed up. For the record, "Welcome to the Black Parade" would be my single of the year, if I had a 'top singles' list this year -- evoking Brian May and Billie Joe Armstrong in the same song just does it for me, I guess.
10. Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Overt artsiness is often a turnoff for me as far as music is concerned, but somehow, Liars made their overt artsiness accessible this year. Drum's Not Dead is a heavily metaphoric tale of the battle between ambition and conservatism, resulting in an album that careens wildly between drum-heavy vocal tracks and more ambient, lovely ones. Who wins the battle? Who knows? What results in an album that's never boring, even if you can't always figure out exactly what's going on. An aside -- how did this one manage to stay off PopMatters' Top 60?! List making is such a weird activity.
9. Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
The Mike Patton album of the year. Plus, it features all my favorite heavyweights from the indie-hip-hop scene -- Dose One shows up, Dan the Automator does his thing, Kool Keith Shows up, Odd Nosdam drops some beats, and Norah Jones talks dirty. No, she's not part of the indie-hip-hop scene, but it is just a little fun to see her show up for the ride (even if her song isn't exactly the greatest). A fun listen from a guy not exactly known for "fun".
8. Nas - Hip Hop is Dead
I'll admit, there wasn't a hip-hop album released this year that simply feels bigger than Hip Hop is Dead. Kanye, Jigga, Kelis, The Game, and, hell, even Will.I.Am show up for Nas' missive on the state of the industry, and every single guest (even Will!) actually manages to add to the proceedings. Dr. Dre produces a track, just for the hell of it. And Nas' rhyming skills...despite a couple of tracks (generally toward the beginning) that don't exactly portray the man at his best, once he finally gets going, there's no stopping him. It's epic, it's ambitious, and for the most part, it's utterly spot-on. I can't say this with any sort of authority, but I'm guessing it's his best set since Illmatic...and I'll probably end up listening to it more than that classic disc. If it wasn't so new, it might have climbed a little higher.
7. Camille - Le Fil
Not technically a 2006 release, but it was released this year in America, so it makes the list. Almost a cappella (ā la Björk's Medulla), it's the embodiment of how to bring some semblance of intelligence to pop music. She's got the emotions of Tori with the pop sensibility of Kylie, and she's not afraid to add mouth-farts to her percussion. How can you beat that?
6. Coldcut - Sound Mirrors
Strange development on this year's list: Lots of albums with myriad guest stars. Coldcut's starts with a collaboration with the awesome Jon Spencer (he of the Blues Explosion) and Mike Ladd (who I've never heard but rhymes a bit like Beck), and manages to corral appearances from Roots Manuva, Robert Owens, and Saul Williams, among others. The result? An album by a couple of electronic dinosaurs that sounds of its time and utterly listenable. Plus, after kicking our behinds all over the place for half an album, they rein things in and turn their album into the ultimate chillout experience (mostly). It's an album with variety and consistency of vision -- a rarity in any genre, much less electronic music.
5. The Mars Volta - Amputechture
You either appreciate The Mars Volta or you don't, but that doesn't mean you can't be taught. It clings to song and structure like an action movie hero clings to the ledge on a skyscraper, occasionally falling off but rescued by the most fortunate of coincidental (or not) developments, but it maintains this listener's interest just fine. Plus, I've come to love the almost comically high-pitched voice of Cedric Bixler-Zavala, and listening to him for 77 minutes is a treat. John Frusciante shows up to do his thing, and everybody's happy. The end.
4. Akron/Family - Meek Warrior
Technically, this is an EP, but I don't care. The darlings of my list last year are back with their only proper release for 2006, and it's a doozy. In seven songs, they tackle nigh-unlistenable noise in an utterly thrilling way (complete with a four-part a cappella chorus tossed into the middle), they lull us into complacency with utter beauty for a couple of entire songs, and they bounce us around like a ping pong ball for the rest of the album. By the time the hymn-like mantra that is "Love and Space" shows up, you're just exhausted enough to totally appreciate the song even if the voices aren't perfect and the song is nothing if not repetitive. Somehow, it sounds like transcendence for three minutes, and then it ends, and you've recovered just enough to push play again.
3. Coil - The Ape of Naples
Another release that technically showed up in 2005, but I wasn't able to track it down until '06, and it was a late-December release anyway. The Ape of Naples is a brilliant eulogy for the too-early-passed John Balance, the Coil album to cap the 25 or so years that Balance and Peter Christopherson made beautiful (or noisy, or dangerous) music together. Mostly a quiet, meditative affair, it's an album that sums up the group's career nicely, alternately revisiting the past with takes on "Teenage Lightning" and "Amethyst Deceivers" and acknowledging the presence (closer "Going Up" is the perfect song for Balance's passage from this plane to the next). The circumstances of Balance's death were regrettable -- still, his musical career speaks for itself. The Ape of Naples is his tribute. Rest in Peace, John.
2. Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
Rock 'n Roll is NOT DEAD. Thank you, Pearl Jam. "World Wide Suicide" was an utterly incredible single, "Severed Hand" wins the battle of the deep tracks, and the band has not written a ballad as affecting as "Come Back" in years and years. This is the album where I finally came to accept Matt Cameron as a true member of the band, and it's the album on which I could once again accept that when they're on, Pearl Jam rocks harder and better than anyone else around. Welcome back, boys.
1. The Roots - Game Theory
I've been trying to craft a review for Game Theory since September. Pretty soon, I may just have to get it over with -- I may have to realize that I'm never going to finish a review that attempts to live up to the quality of this album, because I just don't write that well. Game Theory is the embodiment of discontent, personal and public, governmental and celestial. It's congressional upheaval, it's Katrina-inspired outrage, it's dedication to a lost loved one. And somehow, it sounds like an album, a statement of...well, of something. Black Thought knows. ?uestlove probably knows, because he knows pretty much everything. Everyone involved sounds urgent, everyone involved wants to say their piece. It's about hunger -- the word I always seem to return to when I'm trying to describe the greatness of Game Theory -- and the album has it in spades. It's got better beats, better rhymes, and a better attitude than pretty much everything else out there right now. It has to be #1.
* * *
...and that's all I've got. Normally, this is where I'd send shoutouts to my favorite people on Epinions, but you know who you are. I love y'all. You're the reasons I'll never be able to wrest myself from this wretched addiction. You're the reasons I check my comments sections four or five times a day. You're the reasons I try to get better. With any luck, I'll be able to meet more than one of you this year. I hope you don't think me too much of a slacker for not naming you, but I'd hate to forget one of you like I did last year.
This has been the shilmayear in review. 'Til next time, shilmafone OUT.
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Member: Just Another Mike
Location: Buffalo, NY
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