two-thousand six
well is been a long year full of many things. or maye its been a short year full of few things. it doesnt really matter. no one care about the year in rhetospect. the world events, or celebrity deaths or funny pet stories.
All that really matters in mid december of any year is Jonathan Discovery's favourite musical delights over the past 12 months.
i know its may still be early and i'm jumping the gun, but i want to have my list posted before pitchfork does so no one will think i'm a poser on a bandwagon. and after going through their favourite videos of 2006 today, i felt i need to figuratively "step on it". yes, yes, i'm a self concious neurotic fuck. enjoy my personal music taste everyone.
10. Blood Meridian - Kick Up The Dust
this album is a bit of a late addition to the list. I've only been listening to in for a few weeks now, but there's something about it. fittingly, the band many of the same qualities as black mountain or the pink mountaintops. but instead of sludgy 70's rock or lo-fi fuzz rock, it has more of a polished alt country theme.
9. Bierut - Gulag Okestar
i really dont know what to say about this album. other than the composition is amazing. after listening to it i kind of feel like i have just doen a tour of eastern europe and the middle east in the 1930's. no sure why. the gypsy accoridan, the bazooki, the klezmer horns....wand whatever else is there. its an adventure
8. Andre Ethier - Secondathallam
I saw Andre Ethier by accident this year opening for the sadies. i had no idea he would be there, all i knew was that his previous album was at the top of my playlist for the better part of this year. so when i got home to hear this new one, of course i fell in love again. christopher sandes wild saloon style piano behing those harsh sometime dylan-esque vocals and lyrics is very much my cup of tea.
7. Islands - Return To The Sea
this album was far more epic than i imagined it to be when i first heard that these 2 ex-unicorns where forming a new band. with a 9 minute opening track i had no idea what i was in for. i'm not sure if this album is one of my favourites because of its epic songs, or for its amazingly catchy happy numbers like rough gem. is that flute a bruce cockburn ripoff, or am i crazy? in any case, its prime.
6. Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
it's weird to think that the flaming lips started as a band in the year that i was born. they've been around for 23 years. after 23 years it seems that most bands lose something, or were effected terribly by the musical trends of a generation (ie:the 80's), but not the lips. they just keep doing what they do. though many hipsters tend to say soft bulletin was that last hurrah for the lips, you really can't discount this album. one of the easiest albums to enjoy all year.
5. Mathletes - Fort Awesome
there really is nothing like sardonic homemade music. the band's personel includes Joe Mathlete, Cassie O'Presets and Robot McGee. features songs about androids prefering to be toasters over humans, raisins, driving girls to target and grownupland. this album is more fun than an exploding circus. Joe Mathlete will also explain today's marmaduke comic in his blog if you so desire. its probably the best thing ever.
4. Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
its always a little scary listening to an album released by someone who has been dead for more than 2 years. not for supernatural purposes, but because you never know what some jerkass producer may have done to it. luckily rick rubin got this one completely right. the real beauty of this album is that its unfinsihed. some vocal takes seem more like rehersal takes, which gives it such an honest feel. when you hear that voice shake, its hard not to feel absolutely crushed. i would also like to say that mr cash has singlehandedly undone all the damage that was done by the movie "54" to the gordon lightfoot classic "if you could read my mind", and then some.
3. Rock Plaza Central - Are We Not Horses?
this is another album that i just started listening to maybe 2 weeks ago. it made it all the way to number 3 with good reason. at first it was a little odd. the vocals are so predominent in the mix that it throws you off gaurd a bit. but then, once your guard is down, you're in trouble. it sneaks into your blood. for me it reminds me of so much of my favourite music blended together. sometimes the instrumentation with sound like neutral milk hotel, sometimes the vocals with sound like the pixes. sometimes okkervil river. listening to this album would be best decribed by the scene in family guy where quagmire walks into the cartoon fight cloud. after he pops out of the cloud, he says "what the hell? did i just get laid?". yes. yes you did.
2. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
i have to admit, i wasnt sold on this album upon first listen. but as a decemberists fan i bought it anyway.but i still had trouble with it. maybe it was the fact that i had just quit my job at the box factory, but suddenly this album and i just clicked. i literally listed to it about 7 times that day. i just couldnt get enough. though i'm still frantically trying to hold on to my idea that its their second best album after castaways and cutouts, its very quickly overtakign top spot as their triumph.....wait there it goes. yes, its the best album they've done.
1. The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
i really dont know what it is about this album that i love. the first time i heard it, it was like a breath of fresh air, or maybe like a kick in the head reminding me that music can still just fucking rock! sometimes there is just an album that sticks out in your mind and you cant stop thinking about it. not to mention the trying to figure out the apocolyptic/judeao-christian lyrics. in the past two years of doing this, there has been one album that just blows over the competition and is a clear-cut 1st place. last year, clap your hands say yeah, 2004, the arcade fire. the patern has not changed and the thermals win this year by a landslide.
odd that numers 1 and 2 are both based out of portland. still there are a few more albums who maybe didnt get enough praise. for example i might catch flak for not posting Joanna Newsom's Y's or Tapes n Tapes the loon. the main reason for this is due to my inability to fully absorb all these albums. either that or the just didnt make the cut. so here are a list of albums which i have listened to and enjoyed, but didnt make the favourites list.
Joanna Newsom - Y's
Tapes n Tapes - the loon
Bonnie prince Billy - the letting go
cat power - the greatest
pink mountaintops - axis of evol
swan lake - beast moans
mountain goats - get lonely
tap tap - lanzafame
sparklehorse - dreamt for light years in the belly of a mountain
there are probably more i'm forgetting. the same thing happened last year. i didnt absorb albums in time and thus missed out on some of the best albums of 2005. well i didnt miss out. i just missed them on last years top 10. infact i listened to them for most of 2006. i wish i could have put them in the top 10 this year it would have made it so much easier. but instead i am giving them their own little section. please love these albums. at bare minimum the first 5 would have made the 2006 top 10
1. antony and the johnsons - i am a bird now
2. jens lekman - oh you're so silent jens
3. turner cody - the great migration
4. cuff the duke - cuff the duke
5. deadly snakes - porcella
6. animal collective - feels
7. final fantasy - has a good home
8. edan - beauty and the beat
and as a final deal, here are some of my favourite individual songs from the year. i'm probably missing thousands but thsi is way too long already
1. okkervil river - president's dead
2. thermals - an ear for baby
3. decemberists - crane wife 1 & 2
4. grandaddy - disconnecty
5. mathletes - pinnochiobot
6. Johnny Cash - if you could read my mind
oh and one last thing.
i mentioned i was looking at pitchfork's favourite videos of 2006. now i dont watch a lot of videos, but there's no way that any other video could beat this one by ok go. watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnQgrKQzseo
if you made it this far, you must really love me, or care what i think about stuff. thank you.
-Jonathan
All that really matters in mid december of any year is Jonathan Discovery's favourite musical delights over the past 12 months.
i know its may still be early and i'm jumping the gun, but i want to have my list posted before pitchfork does so no one will think i'm a poser on a bandwagon. and after going through their favourite videos of 2006 today, i felt i need to figuratively "step on it". yes, yes, i'm a self concious neurotic fuck. enjoy my personal music taste everyone.
10. Blood Meridian - Kick Up The Dust
this album is a bit of a late addition to the list. I've only been listening to in for a few weeks now, but there's something about it. fittingly, the band many of the same qualities as black mountain or the pink mountaintops. but instead of sludgy 70's rock or lo-fi fuzz rock, it has more of a polished alt country theme.
9. Bierut - Gulag Okestar
i really dont know what to say about this album. other than the composition is amazing. after listening to it i kind of feel like i have just doen a tour of eastern europe and the middle east in the 1930's. no sure why. the gypsy accoridan, the bazooki, the klezmer horns....wand whatever else is there. its an adventure
8. Andre Ethier - Secondathallam
I saw Andre Ethier by accident this year opening for the sadies. i had no idea he would be there, all i knew was that his previous album was at the top of my playlist for the better part of this year. so when i got home to hear this new one, of course i fell in love again. christopher sandes wild saloon style piano behing those harsh sometime dylan-esque vocals and lyrics is very much my cup of tea.
7. Islands - Return To The Sea
this album was far more epic than i imagined it to be when i first heard that these 2 ex-unicorns where forming a new band. with a 9 minute opening track i had no idea what i was in for. i'm not sure if this album is one of my favourites because of its epic songs, or for its amazingly catchy happy numbers like rough gem. is that flute a bruce cockburn ripoff, or am i crazy? in any case, its prime.
6. Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
it's weird to think that the flaming lips started as a band in the year that i was born. they've been around for 23 years. after 23 years it seems that most bands lose something, or were effected terribly by the musical trends of a generation (ie:the 80's), but not the lips. they just keep doing what they do. though many hipsters tend to say soft bulletin was that last hurrah for the lips, you really can't discount this album. one of the easiest albums to enjoy all year.
5. Mathletes - Fort Awesome
there really is nothing like sardonic homemade music. the band's personel includes Joe Mathlete, Cassie O'Presets and Robot McGee. features songs about androids prefering to be toasters over humans, raisins, driving girls to target and grownupland. this album is more fun than an exploding circus. Joe Mathlete will also explain today's marmaduke comic in his blog if you so desire. its probably the best thing ever.
4. Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
its always a little scary listening to an album released by someone who has been dead for more than 2 years. not for supernatural purposes, but because you never know what some jerkass producer may have done to it. luckily rick rubin got this one completely right. the real beauty of this album is that its unfinsihed. some vocal takes seem more like rehersal takes, which gives it such an honest feel. when you hear that voice shake, its hard not to feel absolutely crushed. i would also like to say that mr cash has singlehandedly undone all the damage that was done by the movie "54" to the gordon lightfoot classic "if you could read my mind", and then some.
3. Rock Plaza Central - Are We Not Horses?
this is another album that i just started listening to maybe 2 weeks ago. it made it all the way to number 3 with good reason. at first it was a little odd. the vocals are so predominent in the mix that it throws you off gaurd a bit. but then, once your guard is down, you're in trouble. it sneaks into your blood. for me it reminds me of so much of my favourite music blended together. sometimes the instrumentation with sound like neutral milk hotel, sometimes the vocals with sound like the pixes. sometimes okkervil river. listening to this album would be best decribed by the scene in family guy where quagmire walks into the cartoon fight cloud. after he pops out of the cloud, he says "what the hell? did i just get laid?". yes. yes you did.
2. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
i have to admit, i wasnt sold on this album upon first listen. but as a decemberists fan i bought it anyway.but i still had trouble with it. maybe it was the fact that i had just quit my job at the box factory, but suddenly this album and i just clicked. i literally listed to it about 7 times that day. i just couldnt get enough. though i'm still frantically trying to hold on to my idea that its their second best album after castaways and cutouts, its very quickly overtakign top spot as their triumph.....wait there it goes. yes, its the best album they've done.
1. The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
i really dont know what it is about this album that i love. the first time i heard it, it was like a breath of fresh air, or maybe like a kick in the head reminding me that music can still just fucking rock! sometimes there is just an album that sticks out in your mind and you cant stop thinking about it. not to mention the trying to figure out the apocolyptic/judeao-christian lyrics. in the past two years of doing this, there has been one album that just blows over the competition and is a clear-cut 1st place. last year, clap your hands say yeah, 2004, the arcade fire. the patern has not changed and the thermals win this year by a landslide.
odd that numers 1 and 2 are both based out of portland. still there are a few more albums who maybe didnt get enough praise. for example i might catch flak for not posting Joanna Newsom's Y's or Tapes n Tapes the loon. the main reason for this is due to my inability to fully absorb all these albums. either that or the just didnt make the cut. so here are a list of albums which i have listened to and enjoyed, but didnt make the favourites list.
Joanna Newsom - Y's
Tapes n Tapes - the loon
Bonnie prince Billy - the letting go
cat power - the greatest
pink mountaintops - axis of evol
swan lake - beast moans
mountain goats - get lonely
tap tap - lanzafame
sparklehorse - dreamt for light years in the belly of a mountain
there are probably more i'm forgetting. the same thing happened last year. i didnt absorb albums in time and thus missed out on some of the best albums of 2005. well i didnt miss out. i just missed them on last years top 10. infact i listened to them for most of 2006. i wish i could have put them in the top 10 this year it would have made it so much easier. but instead i am giving them their own little section. please love these albums. at bare minimum the first 5 would have made the 2006 top 10
1. antony and the johnsons - i am a bird now
2. jens lekman - oh you're so silent jens
3. turner cody - the great migration
4. cuff the duke - cuff the duke
5. deadly snakes - porcella
6. animal collective - feels
7. final fantasy - has a good home
8. edan - beauty and the beat
and as a final deal, here are some of my favourite individual songs from the year. i'm probably missing thousands but thsi is way too long already
1. okkervil river - president's dead
2. thermals - an ear for baby
3. decemberists - crane wife 1 & 2
4. grandaddy - disconnecty
5. mathletes - pinnochiobot
6. Johnny Cash - if you could read my mind
oh and one last thing.
i mentioned i was looking at pitchfork's favourite videos of 2006. now i dont watch a lot of videos, but there's no way that any other video could beat this one by ok go. watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnQgrKQzseo
if you made it this far, you must really love me, or care what i think about stuff. thank you.
-Jonathan
posted by Jonathan at 7:40 PM
2 comments
