1TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
With Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio created an album that is impressive because it could have very easily been led astray as a pushy, excessive, overly ambitious experiment. Instead, it landed firmly as a challenging, radical adventure that meanders through the creative nuances of singer Tunde Adepimbe's passionate, alluring vocals, while syncopated drumming rhythms, horn riffs and staccato pianos punctuate the landscape. David Bowie's backing vocals on ""Province"" are excellent and his presence sends a clear signal about the levels at which TV on the Radio are impressing. On and on the album travels, to unexpected and unanticipated places with an unrestrained path for its blend of calm, creative, reflective, lo-fi and experimental sounds and lyrics. Return to Cookie Mountain is a more advanced and polished effort than anything else released this year, and it soundly deserves the top honors for 2006.
—Bridget Maniaci
2The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
The Hold Steady are the unlikely party band of the year. Their third album, Boys and Girls in America, matched their hyper-literate wit with their catchiest, most polished riffs yet. The band revels in an amped-up Springsteen essence, unleashing big walls of bar-band rollick and thunder amidst Craig Finn's cerebral tales of America's youth and their ""Massive Nights"" of debauchery at the ""Party Pit."" Finn crafts his fiery characters and references specific Minneapolis locales with such organic, lucid detail that they can't help but seem to be extensions of his own experience; everything is personal and yet somehow universal, getting to the heart of a generation drugged out and hell-bent for something, and at a complete loss to know exactly what. A tremendous moment is ""First Night,"" where the guitars are turned down and the piano up, allowing for the suffocated condition of the song's desperados to flow beautifully into the coda which gives the album its name.
—Ben Peterson
3Girl Talk, Night Ripper
Ludacris and Boston slug Hennessey in one corner. The Ying Yang Twins whisper over ""Bittersweet Symphony."" Noel Gallagher does a beer bong with Slim Thug while Ciara, Ratatat, Genesis, the Boredoms, Young Jeezy and Eminem stumble around drunk and disorderly. The party's scrawny host grins as he surveys the chaos. Welcome to Girl Talk's Night Ripper. And that was only the first track. Night Ripper steamrolled over copyright laws, embodied the eclecticism of the iPod generation and redefined what a DJ could do. Taking the mash-up mentality to its logical extreme, Night Ripper crammed over 200 samples into a 42-minute hyperactive, unhinged pop orgy. Each brilliantly sequenced track fuels the album's equal opportunity, ass-shaking appeal. Indie and mainstream music alike find a place in Girl Talk's deftly constructed mix. Audacious? Absolutely. Blasphemous? Definitely. One of the best party records of the decade? F@!$ yeah.
—Adam Dylewski
4Destroyer, Destroyer's Rubies
Dan Bejar, the man with the raspy voice who goes by the name Destroyer, comes to the table with an album perfectly suited for a late-night weekend drive through the neon glow of a city. The seat next to you probably should be empty, though, since you'll be hard-pressed not to sing along with the swerving pop hooks that drip from every track in Destroyer's Rubies. Bejar does not simply sit on his catchy pop tunes but pushes the envelope musically and stylistically. There's the two minute intro in ""Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever,"" the maracas, electric guitar and half-second voice delay in ""3000 Flowers"" along with a xylophone introduction in ""Watercolours into the Ocean."" To compliment the eclectic music, Bejar writes equally interesting, half-impenetrable lyrics that not only satisfy on the first listen but bring out something more every time.
—Christopher Guess
5The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium
The first double album ever made by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium, is an epic effort with 28 tracks running the gamut of musical styles. Originally conceived as a trilogy, it's easily the group's most ambitious effort and at first listen seems insurmountable. But length is the strongest feature of Stadium Arcadium—it's possible for each user to assemble a unique album of their favorites. ""Dani California"" and ""Desecration Smile"" offer alternative rock ballads, while ""If"" provides winding slide guitar solos and ""Slow Cheetah"" is held together by a gentle acoustic riff. There's also some exceptional supporting players. ""Warlocks"" has some inspired playing by the late Billy Preston, while ""Especially in Michigan"" incorporates Hendrix-style guitar playing by the Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. Twenty-three years into their career, the Chili Peppers can still hold their own against any younger band. It may be hard to get the right seat in this Stadium, but it's worth the effort.
—Les Chappell
6Joanna Newsom, Ys
If anyone thought female folk singer-harpists were on their way out, Joanna Newsom's 2006 album Ys put those fears to rest. The vocalist's stunning second full-length album has become a critic's darling, a name-drop for the indie college student and the aging hippie's folk-revival wet dream. The combination of Newsom's eclectic voice with sincere, poetic lyrics is more than enough to satisfy most listeners, but the addition of her harp-playing, which replaces the traditional folk singer's guitar, brings a level of innovation to her music that pushes the boundaries for all musicians who will come after her.
—Kristin Czubkowski
7Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That
Adopting a stripped-down style was risky for this French quartet given the homogenous state of today's indie-pop world, but they pull it off completely, exhibiting a melodic sound strangely akin to Supergrass, but poppier. The rhythm and chord progressions on songs like ""Courtesy Laughs"" and ""Sometimes in the Fall"" reference the Strokes without being derivative. ""Consolation Prizes"" very nearly matches the infectiousness of their career-boosting single ""Too Young."" Although they could be aptly compared to Ambulance LTD, Phoenix maintained enough of their earlier character to stand out in a modern context.
—Grady Hunziker
8Art Brut, Bang Bang Rock & Roll
One of the most frequent, if unfair, criticisms of indie rock is that it's too self-serious. Not content to merely shake up that belief, Art Brut's Bang Bang Rock & Roll dealt it a crippling headbutt. Over a band that sounds like a pop-punk take on the Fall, singer Eddie Argos takes rock 'n' roll's most prominent clichAcs and blows them up into outsized pronouncements about single-handedly bringing peace to the Middle East and how many times he's seen his new girlfriend naked (twice). Thankfully, Bang Bang Rock & Roll never sounds sarcastic or overly glib. Art Brut had so much fun deflating everyone's pretensions, they made it impossible to not want to join in.
—Matt Hunziker
9Lady Sovereign, Public Warning
The U.S.A. made way for the S.O.V. in 2006, making the English rapper one of the most unlikely pond-crossing successes in some time. Lady Sov didn't exactly stick to hip-hop stereotypes on her debut full-length—rapping about accidentally killing her hamster and doing ""the Tony Blair"" dance, and devoting an entire song to attacking women with fake tans—and American audiences rewarded her for her uniqueness. Her video for ""Love Me or Hate Me"" became the first video by a British artist to ever hit No. 1 on TRL. The erstwhile Louise Harman declared, ""I can't dance and I really can't sing / I can only do one thing and that's be Lady Sovereign."" Apparently, that one thing is working for her just fine.
—Dan Wohl
10Thom Yorke, The Eraser
Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke's debut solo album The Eraser felt as if it was the electronica album that should have been attached with Kid A and Amnesiac. Along with samples of tossed Radiohead tracks, treated pianos and various Intelligent Dance Music-inspired blips, Yorke and long-time Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich eliminate the droning reverb that often accompanies Yorke's vocals for a more stripped-down effect. Besides the stellar music that Yorke makes out of about everything he touches, The Eraser is layered with the dark, gloomy lyrics that Radiohead fans have come to know and love. The haunting ""Harrowdown Hill"" is the perfect example of the how dark Thom Yorke's soul can get.
—Brien Barrett
11Cold War Kids, Robbers & Cowards
Thus far into the 2000's, the hipster blues genre has been a formidable trend in pop music, and more importantly, an exaggerated tip of the cap to the blue collar towns of the Midwest. But then a quartet from scenic Fullerton, Calif.—hardly a quintessential haven for the blues—formed Cold War Kids, a band whose Robbers & Cowards has given them the right have their name mentioned in the same breath as the Black Keys and the Greenhornes. Headed by the Memphis Minnie-meets-Mick Jagger vocals of Nathan Willett, Robbers & Cowards suggests nobody is safe from heartbreak—not even in your multimillion dollar mansion.
—Andrew Dambeck
12The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soliders
Part White Stripes and part Greenhornes, it was hardly surprising that the Raconteurs pulled off one of the best albums of the year. Broken Boy Soldiers proved that the melodic beats and a gentle buzz inspired by classic rock never go out of style—the album only gets better with each listening. The Raconteurs lived up to their name by telling a new, unique story within every track. From straight up rock to slower ballads to blues, a sense of continuity is maintained throughout the entire album. The end result is proof that the Raconteurs are equal to, if not greater than, the sum of their parts.
—Erin Lemke
13Bob Dylan, Modern Times
When Dylan released Time Out of Mind in 1997, people were so shocked he made a good record they gave him a Grammy for encouragement. With 2001's Love and Theft, Dylan shocked people by releasing an album on par with his greatest classics. With this year's Modern Times, Dylan shocked the world by still being alive, turning into a skeletal elder statesman of blues, country and folk along the lines of Son House. Dylan gives us easy-rockin' numbers like ""Thunder on the Mountain,"" bluegrass stompers like ""Rollin' and Tumblin'"" and ""Workingman's Blues #2,"" an achingly beautiful paean to the proletariat and a sad meditation on the America that has left them behind.
—Joe Lynch
14Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds
There are no better words to sum up Justin Timberlake's sophomore album than its title: FutureSex/LoveSounds. The album is a collection of varying sounds and beats and was full of kink and romance. The infectious trance-like ""SexyBack"" and the soulful ""My Love"" both rocked the airwaves. In addition, JT's use of preludes and interludes enhanced the tracks on FS/LS by incorporating unusual elements such as beat-boxing, sitar imitation and clashing percussion. These progressive attempts established Timberlake as a legitimate music artist and made FutureSex/LoveSounds one of the most innovative albums of the year.
—Eunice Abraham
15Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
Begin to Hope launched Regina Spektor into another realm as her wit, charm, lyrical truths and musical talent have resonated among her loyal fan base and introduced her to a new audience. Spektor was able to blend her raw, unabashed solo talent with a full band. The record is an expressive kaleidoscope of Spektor's trials and tribulations, with lyrics and music that stand out while ringing true to listeners. With fame at her fingertips, Spektor did not lose her fire and flare as an artist, making Begin to Hope a solid testament to who Spektor is as a dynamic, passionate musician.
—Beth Wick
