30. Fall Out Boy, From Under The Cork Tree
The big one: Sugar We’re Going Down
Hg’s choice: Dance, Dance
This was the first year that Niece #1 came up with a band who I hadn’t heard of. Their first major single was steadily climbing the charts and they reminded me a bit of Blink 182. This album is notable in retrospect partly for its standard-issue long emo song-titles – e.g. the snappy and parenthesised Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows) – but mainly for the two singles Sugar We’re Going Down and Dance, Dance. I subsequently decided that Fall Out Boy were a great rite of passage, but actually a bit dull.
29. Gnarls Barkley, St Elsewhere
The big one: Crazy
Hg’s choice: Who Cares?
It’s been a while since this came out, which makes it a little hard to recall exactly how ubiquitous the single Crazy was at the time. You couldn’t turn on a radio without it being played, it seemed. It had an other-worldly quality that suggested it might be the more mature spiritual heir to Adamski’s Killer, with a similar ability to withstand repeat listens. The eclectic, eccentric album matches up to its own colourful, apocalyptic cover art, giving Outkast a run for their money, with occasional nods to Gorillaz and fond memories of trip-hop.
28. Panic! At The Disco, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out
The big one: Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off
Hg’s choice: I Write Sins Not Tragedies
More long song titles (my favourite of which is There’s A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought Of It Yet) and a surprisingly versatile and ambitious set of songs whose musicality frequently went way beyond that of their peers (e.g. FOB). My only criticism is that all that wordiness and virtuosity means that while the album as a whole comes across well, it can be very difficult to remember individual songs. There’s occasionally more than a hint of similarity between tracks. It’s an album that I always enjoy when I play it, but rarely find myself humming in the shower.
27. Lily Allen, Alright Still
The big one: Smile
Hg’s choice: Shame For You
I had a real love-hate relationship with this album. Mainly it depended on what mood I was in. Sometimes I found its lyrical dexterity and street-smart, seen-it-all, don’t-care insouciance very funny and attractive. Sometimes it just pissed me off. Musically it travels from the breezy, bitchy lilt of Smile to the lightweight oompah-stomp of Alfie, via the Manhattan-Transfer-with-a-hangover vibe of Shame For You. Listening to it again while writing this review, I realise that I like it a lot more than I originally realised when I stopped playing it at the end of the summer.
26. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium
The big one: Tell Me Baby
Hg’s choice: Especially In Michigan
Now here’s a fine example of a perfectly serviceable set of songs being ruined by the desire to give them all to us in one go. There’s not much wrong with any of the tracks on this album (though maybe I could have done without punk-funk workouts like Warlocks), apart from the fact that there are simply too many of them. Nevertheless, despite the appalling cover art there’s much here to preserve continuity with the superb predecessors Californication and By The Way (e.g. She Looks To Me, which could have fitted quite happily on either album).
Favourite Music Of 2006 permalinks:
Intro, 30-26, 25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 5-2, No. 1
St.Elsewhere was a bit hit or miss for me, a few good tracks but a couple real duffers (Transformers!). And I still can’t make it through Stadium Arcadium album… it’s just too “similar”.
Agree on Lilly Allen though, in the right frame of mind it’s ace.
Stadium Arcadium was my Dud Of The Year. An indigestible, interminable wodge of stodge.
I didn’t warm to Stadium Arcadium for a while, but it’s Niece #1′s favourite album of the year and she inflicted it on me every time she was in the car. Much like Outkast’s Speakerboxx/Love Below, I suspect a bit of judicious editing could coax a killer album out of it.