My favorite songs of 2006, part the last, plus invisible apologia after the jump.

“A Pillar Of Salt” | The Thermals | The Body, The Blood, The Machine | Sub Pop | 8/22/06 | 2:57 | buy disc/mp3s
It was hard to choose one top track off the Thermals’ monster concept record. I’ve gone with “Pillar,” which embellishes blitzkrieg boppin’ guitar and drums with some furiously fun New Wave synth.

There’s a little doominess in here, but it’s more of a tweaked, toe-tapping spin on Lot’s flight amidst the divine firebombing of Sodom & Gomorrah. It’s a safe bet that body-shame, a panicked getaway and the wrath of a vengeful G-d never sounded so danceable.

“Woke Up New” | The Mountain Goats | Get Lonely | 4AD | 8/22/06 | 2:56 | buy disc/mp3s
When tracks from Get Lonely started leaking to the Interweb over the summer, either Mountain Goats mainman John Darnielle or bassist Peter Hughes warned that folks too eager to hear the new record were actually inviting a bummer into their summer.

What we got come August: a concept album, subdued and softly-sung, about someone so messed up by the dissolution of a relationship that he can no longer function. The minutiae of daily life is amplified, almost unbearable; he can’t relate to people; he’s seeing things.

Yeah, a bit dark. I’ve loved each song on this record in party shuffle mode. But I’ve only listened to it top to bottom as an album a handful of times. All together as intended, it accumulated a kind, or intensity, of sadness that I just couldn’t let into my life this year.

“Woke Up New” is the moment in this cycle where a little optimism creeps in, although not quite as much as the title would suggest. The catchy chorus, “oh, what do I do/without you?” stuck with me, but what’s bounced around my head even more is the strange, sorry image of a man making coffee for two, then drinking it all to abide by a rule set by someone who’s no longer there. Its pathos is almost eerie.

There’s no happy ending in “Woke Up New,” but the last couple lines in the verse–the world beginning to bud, the hint of a future worth looking forward to–let in a little light.

(more…)

2006! Woo hoo!

“Sing” | The Dresden Dolls | Yes, Virginia | Roadrunner | 4/18/06 | 4:40 | buy disc/mp3s
I have to be in a particular mood to really get into the cabaret-rock created by Bostonians the Dresden Dolls. Nonetheless, their “let’s put on a show” spirit and pianist/singer Amanda Palmer’s messy candor, on record and over the Internets, charm me no end. They’re an endeavor I want to support, like, philosophically.

But there’s little qualification or doublethink when it comes to my affection for the closing tune on their record this year. Maybe I’m just a sucker for the power ballads. On my first few listens “Sing” was kind of a tearjerker.

I’ll take points off for the line about “the kid with the phone who refuses to sing,” because that just feels like an in-concert call-out, albeit deserved. Otherwise, there’s an incredible generosity of spirit to this song, in message and in execution. You can locate it somewhere between “sing for the president/sing for the terrorist/sing.”

When someone comes out against fear (I know, it doesn’t sound very bold there on the screen, but fuck it, in these times every little bit counts), when a performer invites, encourages, demands her audience to join in, to express themselves… well, I vote “yes.”

“Chips Ahoy!” | The Hold Steady | Boys and Girls in America | Vagrant | 10/3/06 | 3:09 | buy disc/mp3s
I’m a Hold Steady fan, so it was kind of a fig that a song off Boys and Girls would end up somewhere here. On “Chips Ahoy!” they bring the giant overdriven chords, the noodly organ and the hazed-out, gutter-born storytelling. They’ve even added in some gang backing vox to push the anthem button.

But the verse guitar is actually kinda the hook for me. Instead of their usual debauched classic rock pastiche thing, the heavy two-chord riffout recalls the Afghan Whigs, 90s alt-rockers close to mine own heart. It’s got the same bite and forboding that was their stock in trade.

The focus of yr random Hold Steady song will, on the surface, seem to be drink, drugs, good times gone bad, geographical references and self-consciously clever lyrical twists. In a way though, that stuff’s just set dressing.

The point of the chorus here, and really of the song en toto, is sketching out the distance between two people. “How ‘m I supposed to know that yr high if you won’t let me touch you?”–it’s more about the forbidden touch than the self-medication. You don’t need to have been dusted in the dark up in Penetration Park or whatever to relate.

Day three of my 2006 faves rundown…

“Kick, Push” | Lupe Fiasco | Food & Liquor | Atlantic | 9/19/06 | 4:13 | buy disc/mp3s
Yes, this is the token hip hop inclusion. To review: yr humble editor is an old fart when it comes to the boom bap. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, G-d.

And I’m less concerned with “Kick, Push” as a document of the skater boi life than I am with its larger subjects: otherness, coming of age and those beautifully tentative moments of new love.

If I’m wrong on this please leave examples in the comment section, but it’s kind of a minor miracle to find a rapper talking about love in a way that’s neither sappy nor pornographic, and even, y’know, seems to recognize that a chica might be on equal footing with a dude, a person rather than the embodiment of one side or the other of the chickenhead/golddigger dialectic.

In other words, in a way that’s real.

With the not-so-controversial generalizations out of the way, let me sing the praises of the effortlessness of “Kick, Push.” It’s in no way tossed off or half-ass, but still cruises (yeah) along on a catchy horn hook and a breakbeat that feels straight outta my beloved Golden Age.

What’s more, Lupe F. doesn’t sound like he’s pushing any agenda other than repping for a life that means something to him. He’s certainly not frontin’ like he’s hard or overdoing it with wordplay, etc., etc. He’s just flowin’.

And that, my friend, is the definition of cool around these parts.

“There Goes My Outfit” (Acoustic) | The Dears | Gang of Losers | Arts & Crafts | 10/3/06 | 3:57 | buy disc/mp3s
This burner by Canada’s top Britpop band turned out to be my heartbreak beat of the year. It nailed me on listen one, and hasn’t really let go. I prefer the acoustic take that’s a “bonus” to U.S. listeners ahead of the full-band version on the proper record. (Really, what did you expect from me?)

I can’t say I’m clear on what exactly Murray Lightburn, the main Dear, is getting at line-by-line, but the feelings coalesce in the grainy widescreen. It’s in the words, in the forlorn riff that opens each verse, in the forcefulness of his vocal delivery. We’re talking breakup, betrayal and new lows by the second.

“Outfit” is more than a weeper though. There’s a push-pull between woe (”clearly this isn’t my life”) and a palpable, almost nasty defiance (”just admit/I’ve got you by the lapels”–a great line).

But weeper wins in the end, and this was the ace for tears in beers in this dying year.

“The Moon” | Cat Power | The Greatest | Matador | 1/24/06 & 9/12/06 | 3:45 | buy disc/mp3s
Chan Marshall, she who is Cat Power, made a record so good Matador had to release it twice this year!

(OK, in short, it was a revolutionary kind of damage control after a drink/drug/depression breakdown scrapped the initial tour to promote The Greatest. Once Marshall cleaned up–for a tour that wowed even naysayers–the label’s all, “Wait folks! It’s a new release again!”)

The parenthetical is extremely germane to my reaction to the record, to this song. Even though Marshall was probably in a rough place when it was written and recorded, it evokes for me her turnaround, something that really gives me hope. (I hope the newfound health and happiness stays with her.)

But, hey, the music stands up on its own. Backed by Al Green’s supporting players, Marshall pumped out a parcel of songs that pack rhythm and blues, coming on cool like summer music, but aching like autumn. “The Moon”–an appreciation of the satellite’s permanence and indifference overlooking man’s hustle, bustle and demise–stuck with me the hardest, but the whole disc simply kicks ass.

The rundown of my favorite songs of 2006 continues…

“On The Radio” | Regina Spektor | Begin to Hope | Sire | 6/13/06 | 3:22 | buy disc/mp3s
As documented earlier, I got past some initial prejudice about Regina Spektor and came to really dig Begin to Hope. “On The Radio,” with its bouncy beat, plucked strings and amiable feel, was the first Spektor tune to work its way into my heart.

The “November Rain” reference might’ve really fallen flat–too much kitsch not enough Soviet?–but it’s sung so lovingly that it’s clearly more an homage than a slight to St. Axl, who’s had a hard enough time this decade without indie rock chanteuses piling on. I mean, we all love GNR a little, don’t we?

By the same token, a young woman trying to take on the totality of life and experience in song (”this is how it works…”) risks awful, awful pretension. “On The Radio” isn’t the even the only song on this record to swing big like this, proffering words of wisdom.

Maybe I’ve just been thinking too much about life and death this year, or maybe I’ve been brainwashed by Spektor’s pixie-ish charms, but I love her ambition, and I think it’s pulled off with the right amount of humor and humility.

“LoveStoned/I Think She Knows (Interlude)” | Justin Timberlake | Futuresex/Lovesounds | Jive/Zomba | 9/12/06 | 7:24 | buy disc/mp3s
Sometimes it’s a little tough for me loving Justin Timberlake’s music. I end up interrogating myself. Am I listening because he’s sort of the approved pop star of the undie intelligencia (except when he ain’t)? Is my fave-of-year nod to “LoveStoned/I Think She Knows” some sort of contrarian thing, when everyone else is bananas for “My Love”?

I plead guilty, give up, and submit to you that “LoveStoned,” if you can bring yrself to forgive a goofy lyric here or there, comes the closest in its loose-limbed feel and almost improvised spirit to rekindling the charms of Justified without simply rehashing old territory.

Let me further submit, that “I Think She Knows,” and seriously perk up those ears around 4:55(!), is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard this year. That vaguely indie-ish processed guitar, the borderline glitch-pop beat, something about the combination fucking floors me. It’s almost too much when the spacey keyboard comes in around 5:42.

It’s been said better elsewhere, but dude’s come a hell of a long way, and certainly far enough to pack away the cheese of his boy band past. I’ll be paying attention when his next joint hits.

This is a week for reflection about the year almost ended. Thus, my 2006 round-up, mightily constrained by my budget, listening patterns and mood… It’ll be a few songs a day, no particular order, other than starting today with music I discovered through other blogs. Thanks for reading, and enjoy…

“Trains To Brazil” | Guillemots | From the Cliffs EP | Verve/Fantastic Plastic | 3/14/06 | 4:03 | buy disc/mp3s
The backlash may’ve already overcome folks’ affection for this U.K.-based outfit, who swing from some fairly tiresome experimentation to total maximum pop bliss.

As you might’ve guessed, this one comes from the pop side of the Guillemots spectrum, wonderfully recalling that sweet spot where Dexy’s and the Cure overlap. As peppy a song of mourning as you’re likely to find, it’s buoyed by soaring vocals, insistent rhythm work and some red hot horn action.

“Trains To Brazil” served me regularly as a nice counterbalance to my morose existential dread issues. What I’m sayin’: “Can’t you live and be thankful yr here/see, it could be you tomorrow or next year.”

“On A Freezing Chicago Street” | Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s | The Dust of Retreat | Artemis | 3/28/06 | 3:02 | buy disc/mp3s
Boston’s Indy’s own Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s make a throwback style of indie pop that’s both wistful and gritty. Holding aside the egregiously long, Wes Anderson-referencing band name and occasional mean-spirited moment, their music feels pretty comforting to me. They sometimes bring to mind the best moments of Buffalo Tom’s fragile side–Buffalo Tom were awesome, watch this space for evidence later on–but with prettier arrangements.

To continue our theme of death (etc.), the part of this song that particularly connects for me is the borderline accusation, “And Sarah screams, ‘Yr every breath is a gift./If you weren’t so selfish then you might want to live.’ ”

It’s funny to find an affirmation in a lowlife character study, but I takes what I can where I gets it. That’s the way it shakes down sometimes.

“Oregon Girl” | Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin | Broom | Polyvinyl | 10/24/06 | 2:25 | buy disc/mp3s
So yeah, about egregiously long band names… All is forgiven, though, because “Oregon Girl” is a propulsive, sugary piece of pop/rock. Shy-guy vocals go anthemic and emotive (but not emo) in the service of a naive little song of devotion to a long-distance love.

Basically, this is the kind of thing Rivers Cuomo would’ve written before he was abducted by aliens around 1998, so I’m gonna guess it’d go over in a big way on Tralfamadore too.

“Corazon” | Bishop Allen | January EP | self-release | c. 1/31/06 | 4:43 | buy disc/mp3s
I repped for this one before, but “Corazon” stuck with me all year, standing up to obsessive “repeat button” play, so it belongs on this list.

Bishop Allen saved the best for first in their “EP of the month” 06 project, setting a love song to a piano against some strolling moderate rock that goes big in the right parts.

Anybody who can so intensely sympathize with objects facing obsolescence–and indeed, in various corners the music industry, the compact disc as a medium and even the rock band as a format have been eulogized lately; but hey, we all expire eventually, right?–well, they’re alright by me.