Sad but true: along with the favorite CDs of 2006 there were also the disappointing, the uninspired, and the flat out bad ones...

[10] AFX: Chosen Lords
The enigmatic electronica/IDM genius Richard D. James is merely spinning his wheels here, churning out nondescript, monotonous "limited edition" singles with little of the manic glee or introspective moodiness heard in Aphex Twin's best work, such as Come To Daddy and drukqs.

[9] Diana Krall: From This Moment On
What should have been a no-brainer return to form after her tepid foray into singer/songwriter territory on The Girl In The Other Room, Diana Krall's new album of tried-and-true jazz standards backed by a big band never really gets off the ground. While her previous collaboration with the Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Christmas Songs, was a charmer, From This Moment On has too much polish and not enough sparkle and swing, and the tunes just kind of sit there. If you try to please everyone...

[8] Louis Andriessen: Writing To Vermeer
I can't imagine why Mr. Andriessen's new opera Writing to Vermeer is garnering so much praise — maybe "you had to be there." On CD, however, it's a grating, annoying, and self-consciously postmodern trial to endure... in fact, I finally had to just give up about halfway through the second disc. Life is too short, after all.

[7] Four Tet: Everything Ecstatic [Films & Part 2]
If you start releasing everything you've ever recorded, you'll eventually end up with a few shitty albums. That's what happened to Kieran Hebden with Everything Ecstatic Part 2, a pointless and unnecessary collection of throwaways and outtakes that will be listened to once by die-hard Four Tet fans and then never played again. And as for the mostly amateurish, grotesque, silly, and/or irritating "films" on the DVD, the less said the better...

[6] Amorphous Androgynous: Alice In Ultraland
Whatever they're calling themselves these days, Future Sound of London, a.k.a. Amorphous Androgynous, continue their regrettable and mind-boggling descent into laughable neo-psychedelia. Their previous misadventures into this territory, The Isness and The Otherness (get it?), at least benefited from Max Richter's luxurious production, but Alice In Ultraland expands upon the worst elements of those albums — jangling guitars, noisy sound effects, awful vocals — to create a really bad trip. I don't know what FSOL is smoking, but I sure hope they stop soon...