411 Music Ten Deep 11.27.09: Top Ten Albums from 2006

Posted by Andrew Moll on 11.27.2009

Ten Deep moves ahead with the Top Ten Albums from 2006! From Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds to Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor to The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America see what made the list and was number one in this week's 411 Music Ten Deep!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Hi, hello and welcome to the nineteenth edition of 411 Music Ten Deep. I hope everybody out there enjoyed their Thanksgiving festivities and spent some quality time with their families. Personally, I got to spend a good bit of the day at work, which is unfortunately becoming quite the pattern when it comes to major holidays. That's what I get for choosing to work in the service industry, I guess. The worst thing is, I will be missing my friends' annual Thanksgiving football game, being held later today, so I approach this column with the heaviest of hearts. Let's just get a move on and take a look at the feedback from the list of the Top Ten Albums from 2005:





Where is The Massacre (50 Cent)
Posted By: Ian (Guest) on November 20, 2009 at 01:52 AM

Erm, sorry, I missed this one when it came out.

arctic monkeys?
Posted By: kev (Guest) on November 20, 2009 at 12:57 PM

arctic monkeys?
Posted By: kev (Guest) on November 20, 2009 at 12:58 PM

arctic monkeys?oasis?
Posted By: kev (Guest) on November 20, 2009 at 01:00 PM

A comment so nice, he posted it thrice. But the Arctic Monkeys record came out in 2006, so if you want to see it mentioned, keep scrolling down a little bit and you just may find it.

TOTALLY agree with the number one pick. It's in my top 3 albums of ALL TIME. Seriously.
Posted By: Mikael (Guest) on November 20, 2009 at 01:07 PM

Wow, even I wouldn't go that far. Do you mean best hip-hop albums, or best albums of any genre?

Overall not a bad list.
For sure I would put either Hypnotize or Mezmerize from System of a Down on there.
Posted By: Tom (Guest) on November 20, 2009 at 10:50 PM

I was hoping somebody would mention SOAD; I listened to both these albums in preparation for making the list and, much like Toxicity, I just don't think they hold up all that well. If I had made the list at the end of 2005, then at least one of them would have been on the list.

decent choices, but not having Sufjan Stevens is a crime.
Posted By: city (Guest) on November 20, 2009 at 11:34 PM

This is someone else I hoped would get a comment. You can add Sufjan Stevens to the list of artists I irrationally hate. I didn't even give Illinoise a listen because I assumed it would just anger me. If somebody can fill me in on what I'm missing, please let me know.

On another note, a few people mentioned Common's Be, which is an album I have to admit I haven't listened to, but I'll definitely make up for that, so thanks for the tip.



Top Ten Albums from 2006



It was just three years ago, but I honestly can't remember a damn thing about 2006. I remember being in college and having a horrible summer job in a factory, but other than that it's mostly a blur. Except for the music, of course. A number of great albums came out in 2006, including a number of great hip-hop albums, some of which that would be in the Top Ten in some other years but just couldn't find a spot because of the depth of quality from 2006. In fact, let's look at some of those other great records that just quite didn't make the cut.


Some Honorable Mentions: J Dilla - Donuts; Mastodon - Blood Mountain; Mission of Burma - The Obliterati; Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam; The Pipettes - We are the Pipettes; Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped; Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo; Thom Yorke - The Eraser




10. Boris - Pink


Japanese metal trio Boris' album Pink arrived stateside in 2006 as a riff-heavy, fuzzed-out monolith of guitars. Few bands can match the sheer power that this band creates, as evidenced by the different yet equally heavy sounds that come up throughout the album. The opening track, "Farewell" is an homage to both Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine as a swirl of guitars help to mask hazy vocals for one of the loudest post-rock songs ever recorded. Of course, it leads right into the furious speed metal of the title track that's perhaps only topped by the manic storm of "Woman on the Screen," the loudest and fastest song the MC5 could have ever imagined playing.





These tracks have concerns for audio levels or for people's eardrums, as each instrument seems designed to distort as much as possible. From the brooding, plodding stomp of "Blackout" to the garage-trash of the superb "Pseudo-Bread," every note on the album is played at the loudest volume technology can allow and at no moment does that approach subsist. It would be easy to imagine the album wearing thin or being too much of the same, but smartly the band moves from textured rock and straight-ahead metal on the album, and also all on one track as with exciting eighteen minute finale "Just Abandoned My-Self." For anybody looking for a balls-out metal record, they'll find it in Pink; and for anybody looking for a band continuing to expand their sound and challenge themselves, they'll also find it in Pink.





9. Liars - Drum's Not Dead


Liars were part of the great NYC post-punk wave at the beginning of the decade, issuing an album, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Mountain on Top that gave the group some hype. One experimental album about German witchcraft later and the band decided to try what had worked out so well for David Bowie and Iggy Pop: they went off to make music in Berlin. They emerged in 2006 with Drum's Not Dead an even more experimental concept album about the creative process, personified by two characters: Drum (the assertive and productive side) and Mt. Heart Attack (the apprehensive and self-doubting side). How much of that matters when actually listening to the album depends on the listener, but it's tough not to get caught up in the give and take, between the two sounds representing each side. Tribal drums, shimmering guitars and falsetto vocals abound throughout the album, making for a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere.





There's a beauty to the darkness on many of the songs like "A Visit from Drum," "Drum Gets a Glimpse," and "The Wrong Coat for You Mt. Heart Attack," but especially the remarkable album closer "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack." It's a gorgeous track that is the perfect ending to an album of such noise and impressiveness; the light sound and sparseness is matched by the heartfelt lyrics as Angus Andrew sings the simple but effective line "I can always be found." In fact, simple but effective describes the album pretty well; despite the admittedly pretty pretentious concept and experimental tendencies the band makes it work with drums, guitars and vocals. They use those tools in the right way to create not only a unique mood, but an art album that manages to be emotional as well.





8. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain


Challenging the idea that art rock is incapable of actually rocking, TV on the Radio's second full length expands on many of the ideas and sounds featured on their Young Liars EP and previous album Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. The band, and especially producer/guitarist Dave Sitek, creates an atmosphere full of emotions, where love really is a battlefield of sorts, and singer Tunde Adepimbe positions himself as an outsider to it all. His full-throated voice combines with Kyp Malone's falsetto to milk the most out of lines like "Love is the province of the brave." Sitek uses everything he can to make the album great, using sitars, saxophones, samplers, stunted beats like on "I Was a Lover" and even enlists David Bowie for backup vocals on "Province." For most bands, that could mean an unholy mess, but this band is too good to let that happens; the tracks may be dense and loaded but it's never too much to handle.





When I say that the band still knows how to rock that applies to rough tracks like "Blues from Down Here" and the closer "Wash the Day," but those tracks are well contrasted by beautiful work like "A Method," which harkens back to some of the doo wop that was featured on Desperate Youth. But the album is highlighted by the raw and primal "Wolf Like Me" a standout track is funky, sexy, edgy and full throttle all the way. Art band or not, few groups could rock this well during the decade; it's also not always easy for a band to be simultaneously animalistic, ("Charge me your day rate/I'll turn you out in kind/When the moon is round and full/Gonna teach you tricks that'll blow your mongrel mind") and sensual, ("Feeding on fever/Down on all fours/Show you what all the howlin's for"), but the band makes it work.Return to Cookie Mountain is an impressive feat but also an accessible work that has plenty of tricks up its sleeve.





7. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale


It's nice when an artist admits that not everything they've done has been of high quality. Case in point: Ghostface Killah atones for Bulletproof Wallets and The Pretty Toney Album when, at the beginning of "The Champ" when a voice tells him that "you ain't been hungry since Supreme Clientele." It sure seems like Ghostface got the message since Fishscale shows with a renewed sense of purpose and plenty of swagger to spare. The album's first real track, "Shakey Dog" makes this abundantly clear with its descriptive and detailed narrative of a botched narrative that sets Ghostface apart from any other rapper. It's not all down to him though since he gets some help from Raekwon, the rest of the Wu-Tang and even Biggie, plus he nabs some killer beats from the likes of MF DOOM and J Dilla. But the album still belongs to Ghostface and the cinematic sequences he describes so well.





Drugs are a dominant subject, with a high grade type of cocaine giving the album its title, and make up the lyrics to tracks like "Kilo, "Big Girl" and "Underwater." Some of the album's other great songs, though, deal with other subjects like the nostalgia some people have towards being spanked as a kid, on "Whip You With a Strap," or dealing with infidelity on "Back Like That," his collaboration with Ne-Yo. By putting his charm, charisma and natural storytelling talents to good use, Ghostface proved that coke rap could reach the far corners of the musical spectrum and just be a great rap album for everybody that doesn't pander in anyway. As he puts it himself, "My arts is crafty darts/While y'all stuck on ‘Laffy Taffy?'"





6. Girl Talk - Night Ripper


Throw Elton John, Sonic Youth, Ying Yang Twins, Hall & Oates, Nirvana, Ludacris and countless more into a blender and what do you get? Night Ripper, of course. Girl Talk's third album and first foray into the world of mashup party host, Night Ripper is a stunning achievement and proof that no, mashups aren't quite as easy as putting two songs together and seeing what happens. Gregg Gillis, the man behind the music, perfectly cuts pieces of different tracks and knows just the perfect places to put them for maximum effect. There are entertaining moments, exciting moments, danceable moments, and even emotional moments, like the combination of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" and Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy" on the track "Smash Your Head."





Oddly enough, the album plays as one continuous track, so it's difficult to pick out just one track to listen to; this is notable because Girl Talk is the perfect artist for the iPod generation, a generation of music fans more concerned with individual songs than they are with full records. But for all that Girl Talk may represent, Night Ripper in the end is a party album meant to be heard by as many people simultaneously as possible. It also not only has a surprisingly high replay value, but Gillis would repeat the trick again a couple years later. Although, the most impressive thing about Night Ripper? Gillis never got sued because of it.





5. Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor


The anticipation for Lupe Fiasco's debut album, and the hope that he would be the savior of hip-hop, could have crushed Food and Liquor, but Lupe is too smart, too mature and too talented to let something like that happen. His first full-length made people take notice with its lush production and intelligent, literate rhymes that are unique to him. Taking rap's thematic conventions to task on tracks like "Hurt Me Soul, ("I had a ghetto boy boppa/Jay-Z boycott/'Cause he said that he never prayed to God, he prayed to Gotti/I'm thinking golly, God, guard me from the ungodly") and on "Daydreamin'" (Now come on everybody, let's make cocaine cool/We need a few more half naked women up in the pool"). Lupe proved he was different from every other rapper in the business, but not just because of his point of view, but also his amazing talent.





His is a natural flow that isn't always present on debut albums; but Lupe isn't a normal rapper. I can't think of another rapper that could successfully write and then deliver a song like "American Terrorist" and make it sound so easy. Not all of the songs on the album work quite as well, especially the album's twelve minute closer that consists of nothing but Lupe shouting out to various people, but luckily any missteps are more than made up for by "Kick, Push." A true, bona fide love song, "Kick, Push" is unabashedly sweet and heartfelt as it details a love story based around teenage skateboarding. The track was an instant classic and provides the type of joy that's too often missing from not only hip-hop, but popular music as a whole. It didn't mean that Lupe could save hip-hop or anything, but that was never his goal in the first place; instead he made his own kind of album that fulfilled his expectations without worrying about anyone else's.





4. Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds


From the moment FutureSex/LoveSounds' first single was released, it was clear that Justin Timberlake and Timbaland were so far ahead of everyone else in pop music that no one has even bothered to attempt to recreate what the two of them (along with Timbaland's production protégé Danja) made here. It's a modern disco album filled plenty of weirdness and off-kilter beats that makes the songs sound as arty as they are catchy making for a pop album that sounds like no other. Of course, Timberlake also knows that the operative word in the album's title is "sex" and he infuses many of these songs with plenty of sex appeal, most notably that aforementioned lead single "SexyBack." A pulsating dance track that evokes the spirit of Prince and James Brown, "SexyBack" is overtly sexual in its lyrics and mood, but it all fits perfectly with the electro-funk vibe the song gives off as it sets the stage for the rest of the album.





That overall theme of sex and love intertwined and opposed is a part of almost each song on the album, save for the simplistic anti-drug song "Losing My Way," making FutureSex/LoveSounds seem almost like a concept record. It would be one thing if it was just "SexyBack" that dared to take a sonic and lyrical leap of faith, but Timberlake instead crafted an entire album of daring pop music. He's also smart enough to use his voice to his advantage, as he delivers with his falsetto on "What Goes Around…/…Comes Around," while also delivering a near-perfect pop song with "My Love," a track that expertly captures his desire to be a pop star while also changing directions. He had the perfect man in the studio to help him do so, as this is almost as much Timbaland's album as it is Timberlake's. Together they made a pop album that reached beyond genre constraints that made Timberlake the definitive pop star of the decade.





3. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not


I don't live in England so I wasn't overcome with the hype surrounding the Arctic Monkeys and much blogged and MySpaced about EPs and singles that announced the band's arrival. So it's with that ignorance that I heard Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not for the first time in 2006. Sure, I was aware of their immediate and somewhat insane popularity in the UK (NME named he album the fifth greatest British album of all-time the same month it was released), but living an ocean away from it all meant I could take in the music for what it was. Luckily I was greeted with a collection of great guitar rock that details those Saturday nights out on the town with great and literate details for a twenty year old like lead singer Alex Turner was at the time. His very first words on the album are, "Anticipation has a habit to set you up/For disappointment," and they're quite proficient considering the state of the band at the time. But Whatever People Say I Am has no disappointments on it.





Turner's self-awareness and witty lyrics ("There's only music so that there's new ringtones") make for a compelling listen, sounding incredibly world weary for a man just out of his teens. But his observations about bouncers, riot vans, music critics and other young musicians are precise, smart for a singer of any age. Those observations are backed by a hyper guitar attack, an updated version of the type of guitar rock that England has always embraced. Thankfully, the Arctic Monkeys aren't just an Oasis rip-off; hits like "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" and "Fakes Tales of San Francisco" have plenty of attitude and hooks. An album this good deserves to be a hit in any country.





2. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury


"These are the days of our lives/And I'm sorry to the fans but them crackers weren't playing fair Jive." And so goes the story of the Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury. Stuck in purgatory for two years after a corporate merger found the duo on Jive Records, the album finally came out in late 2006 after numerous lawsuits and mixtapes to pass the time. But no amount of tapes could prepare listeners for the brilliance that is Hell Hath No Fury; instead of glamorizing their coke dealing past, brothers Malice and Pusha T detail it all in matter of fact terms on top of wonderfully non-flashy beats courtesy of the Neptunes. It's easy to see why Jive wasn't eager to release the album since it offers no moment where the coke dealing is made to seem fake or dramatized; it's all realistic and straight forward.





The sparse and distant beats are so different from the pop genius that Pharrell and Chad had produced up to that point, since there are no obvious hooks, no attempts to crack Top 40 Radio. The group's rhymes are so good and descriptive though, they don't need any extra fills. A track like "Hello New World" will never be a big hit, but its spacey beats, it's a perfect track for an album like this. That song also contains the maybe all-too-real line, "I ain't coming at atcha quote, unquote ‘Famous Rapper'/Who turn positive, try to tell ya how to live/But this information I must pass to the homies/If hustling is a must, be Sosa, not Tony." It's that lack of sugar coating that makes Hell Hath No Fury such a fascinating album, along with the best and most effective beats the Neptunes have ever devised. There are no crossover attempts, few guest spots, and no skits; this is the Clipse's complete story with no distractions, warts and all.





1. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America


I'm hesitant to label The Hold Steady as the "best bar band in America," nor am I eager to name Craig Finn as the heir to the throne of Bruce Springsteen. Granted, many great Hold Steady songs describe bar life and bar people looking for a good time, or provide a bookish take on middle class life. But The Hold Steady are so much more than that; they simply may be the best rock band America has produced this decade, with this album being their absolute best. The genius part of Finn's songwriting is that he realizes that search for a good time often ends in disappointment, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying anytime soon. As the opening lines of the album go, "There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right/Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together."





But while Finn's characters may have to deal with that kind of sadness, the riffs and hooks present all over the album have a joy and hopefulness to them. Whether singing about a girl with an innate ability to pick horses ("Chips Ahoy!"), delivering a poignant tale about a girl stuck in a relationship ("You Can Make Him Like You"), or detailing love at a concert on the brilliant "Chillout Tent" which features the great line, "They started kissing when the nurses took off their IVs /It was kinda sexy, but it was kinda creepy." The big chords and inspirational keyboard lines make this album a must-listen for any rock fan, with the added bonus of entering Finn's world of characters, drugs and late nights out. Few albums this decade better capture the idea and spirit of classic rock and roll, while at the same time delivering some modern greatness to the classic rock canon.



That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.