SER's Top 10 for 2006

Very hard to select this year. Many near misses. In the end, the thread linking most of my favorite records of the year together were artists playing to their strengths, somehow seeming to have fun while creating works of considerable heft... it was, for me, the year of the Playful But Deep Record.

And as usual I probably won't hear the real best records of this year until 2007.

1) Sonic Youth, "Rather Ripped"
2) Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3, "Ole! Tarantula"
3) Neko Case, "Fox Confessa Bringz tha Flood"
4) Art Brut, "Bang Bang Rock and Roll"
5) Mission of Burma, "The Obliterati"
6) Bob Dylan, "Modern Times"
7) Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twin, "Rabbit Furcoat"
8) Califone, "Roots & Crowns"
9) Glossary, "For What I Don't Become"
10) Tom Verlaine, "Songs & Other Things"

VERY near misses, approximate order:

11) Yo La Tengo, "...Your Ass"
12) Ray Davies, "Other Peoples' Lives"
13) Gram Rabbit, "Cultivation"
14) Cold War Kids, "Robbers & Cowards"
15) The Long Winters, "Putting the Days to Bed"
16) Tanya Donelly, "This Hungry Life"
17) TV on the Radio, "Return to Cookie Mountain"
18) Neil Young, "Living with War" (kept out of Top 10 by inclusion of irritating choir and decision to tour this record with CSNY instead of, like, any other band ever)
19) Band of Horses, "Everything All the Time"
20) The Church, "Uninvited, Like the Clouds"

Probably the best 2005 record I didn't hear last year:
The National, "Alligator"

Probaby the best 2007 record I've already heard this year:
Bloc Party, "A Weekend in the City"

Ten artists whose records I had never heard until this year and may be better than most or all of the above, God bless the Blogosphere:

1) The Slits
2) The Pop Group
3) The Au Pairs
4) A Certain Ratio
5) Comsat Angels
6) Delta 5
7) The Long Ryders
8) Kleenex / Lilliput
9) Wreckless Eric
10) Rip Rig + Panic

Tragic irreplaceable musical loss of the year, James Brown's last minute grab for the spotlight notwithstanding: Grant Mclennan.

-SER