2006 Albums: 11-15

15. Josh Ritter - The Animal Years
I know this isn't much of an indie-cred sort of pick, what choosing a folksy singer-songwriter and all, but I really like this album. I've been listening to Josh Ritter for a few years, after spending a semester in Ireland, where he is twice as popular as he is in his home country (the Irish band The Frames have invited him to tour with them numerous times). I've always thought he's three or four steps above your average guy with a guitar, crafting enduring songs with simple storytelling, integrity, and emotional sensitivity. He's had a few early-Dylan-derivative moments and the occasional boring patch of songs, but this is certainly his best album to date. He's learned to avoid platitudes at all costs, honing in on personal elements and experiences and the metaphors available within those stories. He has a literary bent without being heavy, a light touch, and the ability to maintain this kind of human-spirit positivity even while writing about the very political and angry subjects of these songs. This is all not to mention the music, which is folky in a way that I don't feel I'm being nostaligically manipulated. I think this is an excellent, excellent record.

14. Joanna Newsom - Ys
While I was getting the art for this album on Amazon, I scrolled down and picked through some of the reviews, just curious. I'm absolutely amazed how many people utterly hate and attack Joanna Newsom's music. People go way out of their way to call her awful and condemn the people who listen to her--and for me, this kind of overcompensation is always a good sign that an artist is doing something right--polarizing people is one quality of good art. True, there's such a thing as holding new/interesting/weirdness on a pedestal so as to forget about actual quality and intelligence in a work of art. But I think it's quite obvious that this isn't the case with Newsom. She's not playing a character and making her voice weird and trying to fool us all, and this album--its depth, its extended, complex allegories, its imagination--is proof. Those who didn't like Milk Eyed Mender, I could see a kind of sense to their suspicion of her voice and pretension (though I, for one, thought that album was beautiful and smart and so affecting). I've been desperately trying to listen to this album over and over in hopes that I could make sense of it by the time this list came around. I'm not there. But after listening to interviews (check out an NPR segment on All Songs Considered when she guest DJs--her picks are fascinating) I know Newsom is doing something incredible, and I don't really care to even discuss the concept of people "getting" it or not. She's making music without much precedent, and I'm happy that the indie scene--which doesn't usually listen to harpists and albums without drums or guitar--gives her a place to explore and continue to make music.

13. Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye
I never listened to Junior Boys' first album, so I came to this thing with fresh ears after reading a 9.0 Pitchfork review (which I think was a bit unwarranted, and the reviewer seemed to be rating it on very personal reactions to the album and not very objectively). That said, this album is so well crafted and compelling, and lives up to so many repetivive, abusive listening sessions, that I'm ecstatic over it. From the playful poetry of the lyrics ("you're high-staked /you're right-faked / floor creeps / and deep sleeps / you catch up / you young pup / you old dog / you bullfrog") to melodies and harmonies that clearly fell out of heaven (the chorus bit in "In the Morning" where they switch and go up on "too young") to the spick-and-span sound of the production, not a note out of place--it all adds up to smart, danceable album, which is a rare combination I'd say.




12. Various - Marie Antoinette OST
Am I allowed to write about this album? It's not really an album and, save a Kevin Shields remix here or there, none of this was new to 2006. But have you sat down and listened to this thing? Forget that it's a carefully sequenced group of selections on par with Sophia Coppola's mastery over every cinematographic element. The songs in this collection, once it was released, solidified a trend in my own listening habits: a growing amount of time I was spending listening to songs from the 80s, which is another thing that spun out of my Smiths obsession this year. Who knew how atmospheric 80s music could be? How naturally The Strokes could have fit in, not only to that context but cinematically into the 1770s (the moment they play in the film is spot-on)? While Marie Antoinette the film asked us to collapse centuries, in a anachronism-embracing feat, so the soundtrack makes a challenge of comparison within pop music, and it's suddenly not that challenging. I could argue for awhile why the auteur hand of Coppolla in picking the tracks for this soundtrack makes it aceptable as an album, but the point is I loved the way my trajectory into 80s interests this year was represented and confirmed with this film and soundtrack. So it may be weird that I'm putting it in my list, but now you know the reason. I guess it stands for that collective listening portion of my year.

11. Peter Bjorn and John - Writer's Block
Yes, I really like this album--I have from the moment I began listening to it, increasingly, until this moment as I put it on again to write this sentence. Once in awhile an album comes along and I simply like it, in a way that rarely happens. I'm not excited intellectually for some reason, or for a specific musical style, or vocal style, or apparent influence, or that it makes me dance. The whole thing just sounds familiar and it's immediately important to me. For that reason it's hard for me to say anything intelligent, because it's hard for me to seperate it into distinct parts. Kind of like I'm too close to it to get much focus. And I'm not usually much interested in unpacking it. I like it when this happens, and I like it to last, and so far with this album it has lasted, and I keep listening to it and it keeps making sense and feeling like it was made for me. I'm not really sure what Austin meant when he talked about the Belle-and-Sebastian-like elements, because to me the album doesn't sound overly happy or sappy, and I think it has a lot of interesting textural elements and sounds. But that's just me, and I'm clearly lacking objectivity when it comes to this pick. But I know it should be this high on my list.