The year just past was a geezer year, with many of my top spots occupied by oldsters. These spanned usual suspects Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, but they also included unexpected old whippersnappers like Cheap Trick, Bob Seger, and Sonny Rollins. The best new albums of 2006 were Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere and Frank Black's Fast Man Raider Man, the first disk I ever "got" by the former Pixies frontman.
Also dynamite: Madeleine Peyroux's Half This Perfect World, the sultriest release of the year. Some key duds: Jerry Lee Lewis's Last Man Standing and Christina Aguilera's numbingly narcissistic Back to Basics.
Another really cool album by an artist long MIA was After Hours (Columbia), former NRBQ stalwart Big Al Anderson's swinging oddity. On the jazz front, my favorite was Husky, from Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet. I also must cite Alejandro Escovedo's The Boxing Mirror (Back Porch), a brooding work that brought his battle with hepatitis C into the light.
Also memorable: Paul Shapiro's It's in the Twilight, a gorgeous helping of avant garage Jewish jazz on John Zorn's singularly rewarding Tzadik label. But you gotta cut, gotta select. It's called editing. My top 10 albums for 2006 are:
1. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere, Downtown/Atlantic. The best Parliament/Funkadelic update in decades, this weird hybrid dances great, sounds better and stars "Crazy," hands down the best single of the year. Don't miss the "Gone Daddy Gone" video.
2. Madeleine Peyroux, Half This Perfect World, Rounder. The smoky "Blue Alert" (by Leonard Cohen and Anjani Thomas) is the keeper, the original "Once in a While" suggests Peyroux is getting ever bolder as a songwriter and the killer version of "Everybody's Talking," makes her third "official" album her best. For sheer sonic beauty, it's the top production of the year.
3. Bob Dylan, Modern Times, Columbia. One of Dylan's most musical albums, it rocks like crazy, and there are times it's so romantic you swoon.
4. Frank Black, Fast Man Raider Man, Back Porch/EMI. This ambitious double album conjures Exile on Main Street in its darkness and unanticipated tenderness, but it's decidedly clear-headed and perhaps more diverse. Lotsa pedigree and legacy in the musicians, and a very modern point of view.
Article comments
1 - Mark Finkelpearl
Carlo,
If you liked Alejando Escovedo's work this year, you should be hip to his compadre Jon Dee Graham's 2006 work, "Full." If you're not hip to Jon Dee Graham, you should be. Click for more
All the best,
Mark F.
2 - Vern Halen
Escovedo did the Buick McKane album about 10 - 12 years ago, didn't he? Whatever happened to that project - or was it a one off?
3 - cc
Nice piece, but you've got an error: the Clapton album is with J.J. Cale, not John Cale. Very different Cales...
4 - Connie Phillips
Congratulations! This article was chosen as a Editor's Pick this week!