Ah, my last end-of-the-year Top 10 as a Creative Loafing staffer.
Get out your tissues.
Get out your own best-of-'06 list.
Or, if you're a total hipster douche bag, just get pissed that I left The Decemberists, TV on The Radio and Joanna Newsom off the roll call.
1. The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant)
Arguably the best bar band in the world and certainly the smartest. With their third record of anthemic riffs, Springsteenian vibes and multilayered lyrical narratives, The Hold Steady brought the rock back to indie rock with sweat and smiles. Here's hoping vocalist Craig Finn never runs out of seedy stories about bored kids and the trouble they get into, and guitarist Tad Kubler never tires of the power chords.
2. The Lawrence Arms: Oh! Calcutta! (Fat Wreck Chords)
This Chicago threesome has never fit into any of punk rock's myriad compartmentalized subgenres; instead, they've remained honest, original, intelligent and visceral over the course of seven years and six blistering, melodic full-lengths. This year's Oh! Calcutta! is the group's best effort to date and the best punk release of a year that saw more good ones than usual.
3. Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (Anti-)
She could probably put out 60 minutes of her singing to herself while showering and brushing her teeth and still land in my Top 10. But Fox Confessor is perfect, trademarked Neko Case — her evocative, poetic, vaguely Gothic take on countrified singer-songwriter fare remains inimitable and moving, and her writing chops are only getting better.
4. The Coup: Pick a Bigger Weapon (Anti-)
Revolutionary funk from Boots Riley and his crew of Northern California musical insurgents. The Coup is only nominally a hip-hop act — Pick A Bigger Weapon is, more than anything, an homage to the larger-than-life funk by the likes of Parliament, with alternately hilarious and scathing wordplay ladled over it. When you get sick of everybody at your political party standing around and nodding their stylishly coiffed heads to The (International) Noise Conspiracy, put this on and watch the dance floor fill up.
5. Murder by Death: In Bocca al Lupo (Tent Show/East West)
Dark-hued folk-rock with the same kind of whiskey-after-hours/cabaret-of-the-damned feel that made me love Firewater so much. These tunes are both compelling and timeless, part of a shadow-obscured songwriting tradition, but still something all their own.
6. Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals Starvation League: The Longest Meow (Bloodshot)
Some alt-country heavies grow and evolve by moving into more sophisticated experimental or chamber-pop territory; this year, Bobby Bare Jr. kept it fresh by getting downright weird. Recorded in 11 hours with the help of 10 friends — including members of My Morning Jacket and Lambchop — Longest Meow is an eccentric, catchy mix of left-field song ideas, live takes, odd (and occasionally homemade) instrumentation and Bare Jr.'s infectious nasally drawl. The project's spontaneous, carefree nature never hampers the quality of the tunes.
7. Riverboat Gamblers: to The Confusion of Our Enemies (Volcom/East West)
Another punk record that stood head and shoulders above the pack in '06, not only because it sounds great, but also because it isn't worried about sounding like anything else. From Denton, Texas, the Gamblers get by on attitude and everything that's good, loud, funny, fast and rude about rock 'n' roll. How can you not love a record that, in addition to totally smoking, also boasts song titles like "Biz Loves Sluts," "The Gamblers Try Their Hand at International Diplomacy," and "The Art of Getting Fucked"?
8. Planes Mistaken for Stars: Mercy (Abacus)
A surging, seething tidal wave of anger and regret. There's nothing darker or creepier than Planes' dense, pummeling post-punk, which allows dissonance to overwhelm its inherent tunefulness without completely obliterating it. Your girlfriend won't like it, but you won't be able to stop listening once she dumps you for someone who looks like one of the Madden brothers. Plus, there's nothing more disturbingly compelling than a band whose singer sounds like he's venting mouthfuls of his own soul.
9. Megan Reilly: Let Your Ghost Go (Carrot Top)
Lots of under-the-radar singer-songwriters, particularly women, have found great sounds at that place where indie rock, folk and country overlap. But there's just something singular and special about Megan Reilly's second album, a pervasive melancholy that brings her often deceptively small-sounding tunes to cinematic life and holds them all together to create something bigger than a collection of songs. That the songs themselves are uniformly tasteful and tasty — including the Dylan and Thin Lizzy covers — only enhances this front-to-back pleasure.
10. Mastodon: Blood Mountain (Warner Bros./Reprise)
I can't let the whole list go by without including at least one metal record, and this one is hands-down the best release the genre had to offer this year. Let's face it: Most metal sucks. It's all the same. But Atlanta's consistently (and rightly) lauded Mastodon continues to push the envelope in nearly every direction, from song structure to lyrical style to instrumental performance. I honestly don't care what this concept album's concept is, really; I just want to get crushed and have my mind blown at the same time, to hear a riff after drum fill after groove that I haven't heard a million times, and Blood Mountain more than delivers.
FIVE-WAY TIE FOR 11TH
My Morning Jacket: Okonokos (ATO/RCA); Doomriders: Black Thunder (Deathwish); Clipse: Hell Hath No Fury (Re-Up Gang/Zomba); Lucero: Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers (Liberty & Lament); Inkwell: These Stars Are Monsters (111 Records)
This article appears in Dec 27, 2006 – Jan 2, 2007.