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.