LEAH'S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2006.
1. Joanna Newsom - Ys
I have a pretty short attention span. As far as music goes, I’m usually unable to sit and listen to a whole song longer than five minutes long. This is why it’s so impressive that singer/songwriter/harpist Joanna Newsom’s newest release, Ys, can completely hold my interest through all five long tracks, averaging around 12 minutes long each. The lyrics tell intricate, beautiful, obscure stories; they are full of “thee”s and “genteel”s and references to Sisyphus and the Pharisees. Newsom deftly plucks the harp strings to accompany her uniquely childlike voice that sounds exceptional to some, and just plain annoying to others. But I am one of the exceptional ones and, to be honest, just don’t understand anyone who disagrees – Newsom, in all her glory and wonder, has created a gorgeous, sweeping album that deserves to be on every ‘Best Of’ list last year.
2. The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
Even though it’s only reached the 2nd spot, this is the one album that I really just haven’t been able to stop listening to since I got it. While perhaps not as accomplished as number 1, this is just a really solid, fun album. There are fast songs, there are loud songs, there are quiet songs (the liquor-centric “Citrus” is one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard in a long time). The Hold Steady are being hailed as one of the best live acts touring right now – the ‘hardest working band in show business’. Songwriter Craig Finn is known for his intelligent, complex lyrics that tend to focus on religion, being young, and, above all, sin. Throughout the album, evident on each track and lyric, Finn is true to the typical rock mentality: it really is all about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
3. TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain
In addition to having the best and most whimsical album name, TV on the Radio’s third full-length release is one of the most singularly distinctive and inimitable albums released all year. It seems impossible to try to describe TV on the Radio’s sound; you can’t separate the guitars from the electronics from the singing. These 11 tracks are instead about each song as a whole, and how they all fit together and within one another. Return to Cookie Mountain creates a haunting, evocative, unique sound unlike anything any other artist is doing.
4. Be Your Own PET – Be Your Own PET
Be Your Own PET is amazing. A bunch of 18 year olds from Nashville who are not filling out college applications like the rest of us, but instead are touring the country, opening for Sonic Youth. Who wouldn’t be jealous of that? Their music is loud, thrashing, exciting, piercing punk rock; singer Jemina Pearl alternately screams, wails, and croons with a power that draws frequent comparisons with Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ frontwoman Karen O. Already playing opening for big bands and playing at big festivals (I caught their 30 minute set this past summer at Bonnaroo), Be Your Own PET is snatching all the attention they can - and they even deserve most of it.
5. Sonic Youth – Rather Ripped
Rather Ripped shows a noticeable jump for Sonic Youth in terms of overall sound. Instead of the grand, fuzzy, orchestrated messes that they are usually known for, Sonic Youth’s new album is different; it is noticeably tighter and more concise. Even so, each track manages to remain interesting, and the old Sonic Youth trademarks of whining, feedback, and repetition are still evident. Although the second half of the album is slightly less impressive and pulled together than the first, Rather Ripped remains an important mark in Sonic Youth’s career.
(I didn't write anything for the next five, but here they are, in case anyone was curious:)
6. Beck – The Information
7. The Flaming Lips – At War with the Mystics
8. Built to Spill – You in Reverse
9. Tapes ‘n’ Tapes – The Loon
10. Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope
(N.B. Only the Be Your Own Pet and Flaming Lips photos are mine; the rest were found on Google images...but hopefully soon I will have some of my own Hold Steady pictures, since I'm seeing them next week...!)
