The 20 '06 Appendix

In case you didn't get here from there, here's a link to my article about my 20 '06 mix, 20 songs from my 20 favorite albums, local and national, of '06. This here's the appendix, and some fancily pantsed stuff that links you to the mix, I hope:

Here are the lists, in ranked order, which I actually put some thought into.

Top Ten National Records of 2006

1. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House
2. Midlake, The Trials of Van Occupanther
3. Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
4. Crystal Skulls, Outgoing Behavior
5. The Knife, Silent Shout
6. Band of Horses, Everything All the Time
7. Boris, Pink
8. Islands, Return to the Sea
9. Snowden, Anti-Anti
10. Small Sins, Small Sins

Top Ten Local Records of 2006

1. P.O.S., Audition
2. Mouthful of Bees, The End
3. Kill the Vultures, Careless Flame
4. Haley Bonar, Lure the Fox
5. The Plastic Constellations, Crusades
6. Jeremy Messersmith, The Alcatraz Kid
7. The Danforths, Look Out for Wolves
8. Dosh, The Lost Take
9. One for the Team, Good Boys Don't Make Noise
10. Awesome Snakes, Venom

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Subtle, For Hero: For Fool :: The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America :: Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That :: Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor :: Jeremy Enigk, World Waits :: Destroyer, Destroyer's Rubies :: Duplomacy, All These Long Drives :: Adam Arcuragi, Adam Arcuragi :: Rhymefest, Blue Collar :: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Broom :: TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain :: M. Ward, Post-War :: The Alarmists, A Detail of Soldiers :: Jelloslave, Touch It

And you know what? I'm probably forgetting some local releases in the honorable mentions, so I'll come back and fix that up, too.

Happy 2006.

The Current's Top 89 of 2006

Why 89? Oh, I just figured that out. Anyways, if you're like me, you probably enjoy making lists of favorite things, and this has been a banner year for killer albums. It's going to be hard to write up a year-end article with only ten slots, but I'm going to try to keep it to that. Anywho: vote early and often.

it's the most wonderful time of the year

by which i mean time for year-end lists. woo-hoo! what satisfies a giant music dork quite like ranking things? you get all the excitement of sitting, being quiet and writing things down. yes, top tens have it all.

top ten albums of 2005:

1. why? – elephant eyelash
2. broken social scene – s/t
3. feist – let it die
4. m.i.a. – arular
5. spoon – gimme fiction
6. new pornographers – twin cinema
7. halloween, alaska – too tall to hide
8. the mars volta – frances the mute
9. death cab for cutie – plans
10. the hold steady – separation sunday

i can't really tell if this is final. i don't think that top 5 is gonna change much, but i'm hemming and hawing over the bottom 5. i also loved the wolf parade disc, and fourtet and board of canada both made great discs this year. i'm working on a local top ten as well, which i'll put up in a little while.

i've also been thinking about songs that have particularly stood out. in this age of playlists and itune, it seems to me that songs are rising in importance vs. albums and there have definitely been great songs on not completely fantastic albums, like "perfect speed" from 13&god's album.

i dunno. hip-hop? anybody? sims's disc is gonna be on my top ten for local albums, i know. part of the problem with this is remembering what the hell came out this year. so i implore you: post some top tens of albums, songs, haircuts, bars, shows or whatever else you feel like.