The Top 10 Albums of the Year

#1: The Roots • GAME THEORY

The Roots didn’t release Game Theory planning to top the charts with hit singles, but instead assembled tracks that complement one another, the sum greater than its parts. The result is an album darker and tighter than anything they’ve done before—tighter because the tracks flow so well, and because they’ve cut the skits and filler that have dragged down past efforts.

The short tracks may have something to do with the Def Jam story: When the Roots signed on, Jay-Z told them to make a Roots album, just the solid Roots album he knew they were capable of. And that’s exactly what they did—a Roots album, but with zero indulgences. It’s arguably their best yet, which for a group that’s been around 14 years is both surprising and thrilling. We can wonder what’s next, but in the meantime we’ve got a brooding masterpiece laid down by a powerhouse at the top of its game.

—Evan Winchester

#2: Liars • DRUM’S NOT DEAD

Drum’s Not Dead is about two personas named Drum and Mt. Heart Attack, and their competing Apollonian and Dionysian character traits intelligently structure an album that careens between soporific hypnotism and throbbing terror. It’s not an easy listen by any standard, and initial repeat spins are likely driven more by puzzled curiosity than anything else. This album doesn’t exactly reveal itself over multiple rotations—you eventually just succumb to its weight. You fall into its fast-moving current, not understanding, just reacting. Liars’ violently primal aesthetic has a fascinating inscrutability that consistently beckons the listener deeper and deeper into their sinister moonlit landscapes. It’s a spooky ride that inexplicably ends with a frail love song—a confounding and somehow perfect ending to a raw and somehow beautiful record.

—Robert Bergin

#3: Joanna Newsom • YS

When Joanna Newsom’s first album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, debuted, music critics were quick to either criticize or praise her ethereal, prepubescent voice. Two years later, Ys (pronounced “ees”) has taken the avant-garde folk scene in a direction it has been waiting to go in since the ’60s—music that will be remembered for generations as having risen above her contemporaries like Devendra Banhart and Chan Marshall of Cat Power.

Newsom’s voice and lyrics, even her famed harp, have taken on a greater maturity throughout the new record, while still maintaining their child-like aura. Songs like “Emily” and “Only Skin” go over the ten-minute mark, not to bore any listener with repetition, but only to add to the epic nature of Ys. It concludes with as much beauty as it begins with, offering a sense of release and closure that is hardly matched by any other artist. Simply put, Ys is the most gorgeous album of the year.

—Caroline Partamian

#4: TV on the Radio • RETURN TO COOKIE MOUNTAIN

The name says it all: The avant-garde indie band’s music exhibits brilliance on both a visual and aural level, mixing howling vocals and looping instrumentals to find the way to musical nirvana.

Imagine sleepwalking on a frozen river holding a diamond-encrusted gun. An explosion sends spirits flying about, surrounding you. Their howling voices describe a cruel future, igniting both your heart and brain in a fiery blaze, but there is no pain except from the venom of the spirits' ominous words. Welcome to Cookie Mountain.

Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio’s second full-length, generates bold anthems underneath a darkened halo of political melancholia. Fueled by the vocal firepower of Tunde Adebimpe and mixing maniac David Sitek, this album is a near-perfect synthesis of accessible experimentalism.

—Nathan DeRemer

#5: The Mall • (EMERGENCY AT THE EVERYDAY)

This record is like a shock-and-awe introduction to the Oakland/San Francisco underground—the distorted vocals, disco drums and flailing keyboards on this 22-minute full-length record take no time in warming you up to the forged-in-warehouses sounds of the Bay. It hits hard, fast and with such determined force that the first listen takes your breath away, and the second still feels like an exhilarating ride through the minute-long blasts of fury that make up the Mall’s debut.

Talking about the band’s history is pointless—the only thing that matters is that this band is just as good as the buzz surrounding them, and this album is all the evidence needed to see why. Listening to the record again, moments of beautiful melodicism pop up from the chaos, like the gorgeous piano outro that closes the album. It’s around that time that you realize that this just might be the loudest record you’ve heard all year.

—Tyler McCauley

#6: Man Man • SIX DEMON BAG

Man Man’s Six Demon Bag expertly straddles intersections—between the childish and adult, the nervy and composed, adornment and nakedness—music with heavy drums, deep, shouting voices and lots of dusty instruments. The songs often sound like Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa with a Tom Waits sensibility, but they also have a strange power that’s subtle and exacting. Listen to this album while you walk around anywhere, and things will seem more complex, ancient and intricate—and you’ll feel braver as you perceive them, as if you were simultaneously the youngest and oldest that you’ll ever be. Bandleader Honus Honus sounds frighteningly honest when the brisk, blaring horns drop out and he intones that “you should always run with a loaded gun in your mouth.”

Of course, there are parts of it that don’t hit with the same force, which is only natural—the trick Six Demon Bag is attempting to pull off here is complicated, but when it works, it’s devastatingly wonderful.

—Jonathon Atkinson

#7: Bob Dylan • MODERN TIMES

Listening to a Bob Dylan album is like downing shots of good, hard liquor. The first one always burns going down. Each one after though, simply convinces you that fermentation is the greatest discovery ever. Modern Times, Bob Dylan's 44th album, is no exception. After a five-year dry spell, this ten-track cocktail of country and blues reminds us that Bob Dylan is as relevant in 2006 as he was in 1966.

Dylan’s raspy voice is initially abrasive, but closer listening reveals that in terms of strength and musicality, its in fantastic shape. The expertise of his band is unrivaled. Modern Times’ rapid, rolling pace hits you hard. Tracks like “Levee's Gonna Break” reflect current social troubles and forecast future ones. Modern Times shows us that Dylan still possesses the remarkable ability to capture the subconscious worries of our times.

—Linda Truong

#8: Gnarls Barkley • ST. ELSEWHERE

Gnarls Barkley, the inspired spawn of rapper-turned-singer Cee-Lo Green and producer DJ Danger Mouse, bestowed 2006 with one of the year’s most inescapable singles and a debut album that was beyond criticism. If the hammering bass of the duo’s first single, “Crazy,” isn’t instantaneously recognizable to you, then one could only assume that you’ve spent the last seven months barricaded in a soundproof booth.

Yet, while heavy rotation has heralded the demise of many a hit single before it, “Crazy” is such a pitch-perfect song that its sheer ubiquity only made it more enjoyable.

In fact, “Crazy” is but one part of an equally superb whole. From Danger Mouse’s sultry production to Cee-Lo’s devilishly soulful vocals making sweet sonic love to your eardrums, St. Elsewhere offers both nostalgic pop sensibilities and marvelously fresh eccentricity. It is this masterful combination of timelessness and invention that is the genius of St. Elsewhere.

—Sofia Salazar-Rubio

#10: Arctic Monkeys • WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY I AM, THAT'S WHAT I'M NOT

While trying to get my hands on scalped tickets to a sold-out Arctic Monkey’s show last march in London, I was mugged by two “scalpers” and left without any pounds. Needless to say, this was not the best of news. Riding the tube back home with only an iPod, I turned on Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not and stumbled upon one of those post-catastrophe realizations: who needs live music with an album this strong. With lyrics that drip of wit, master of observation Alex Turner provides a unique perspective into youth culture—life’s grim, drunken hook-ups at the indie-club aren’t all they are made out to be, make the most out of life with satire. Brash and energetic, the aggressive “take no crap from no one” aesthetic shines and redefines the dance punk genre for generation MySpace. The gems on this album provide that visceral wow-is-me feeling that live music just wishes it could achieve.

—Max D. Baumgarten

#10: Sonic Youth • RATHER RIPPED

Having your band turn a quarter century old, getting inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, and having your back catalogue time-capsuled in shiny deluxe reissues—for most bands these are signs that the well has dried up and that you might as well put your guitars in storage and hit the tennis court with Michael Stipe. Thankfully, Sonic Youth is one of those bands that just won’t (and shouldn’t) quit, even as their name gets more and more ironic, and even as their legacy continues to be preserved before they’ve said all that they have to say.

Rather Ripped was nothing if not an affirmation that Sonic Youth are still in it for the long haul. Louder, brasher and just flat out more fun than anything they’ve done since 1990’s Goo, Rather Ripped is a welcome return to form for those fans who still need a “Teen Age Riot” to get them out of bed.

—Sean Manning

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