music 2006.

Time to wrap up 2006 with the ubiquitous year-end music list. It appears that I listened to a lot of metal this year. I'm fine with that.

Possibly more interesting than this list is where and how I found its contents. I bought a lot of physical CDs this year, mostly at Amoeba Music (everyone should be lucky enough to live near Amoeba), but also through Amazon and from labels and bands directly.

I found a lot of great records on emusic, who seem to finally be getting their shit together. They carry more and more good indie releases, and a bunch of them (Kaki King, Converge) are available on the same day as the physical CD gets released. Praise Allah. On the other hand, they just jacked up their rates, and finding new records there is slow and painful for some reason. And they won't return my emails about getting Wordclock releases up on day-of-release. Dicks.

I also snagged a few CDs through the ingenious Lala. Nothing I loved, as it turned out, but it's been a great way to hunt down releases I wasn't sure I wanted to plunk down $15 to try.

I listened to a lot, lot, lot of mp3s that friends gave me. In most cases, if I liked the record, I went and bought it. I'd prefer to have bought those releases directly from the band.

How did I discover records? Mostly through friend recommendations; occasionally through extensive painful emusic surfing; and every once in a while, from a music blog (I found Kaki King via largeheartedboy). I wish more music bloggers would describe the records they're listing off. I won't download a zillion random mp3s without any idea of what I'm getting into. In the past I've spidered the Pitchfork/Salon/etc mp3 sections and left them on repeat for a few days, but to date that hasn't yielded many (any?) keepers.

Related, a bit: sonicliving is fucking genius. Sign up, upload your CD collection straight from itunes or whatever, and get an email when bands you like are playing near you. Brilliant.

What did you listen to this year? How did you find it? (Did you buy a copy of the Plink remix CD?)

The Great

• 50 Foot Wave, Golden Ocean. Album of the year. Ass-kicking power trio rock, fronted by 40-year old mom of four (and Throwing Muses vet) Kristin Hersh. I love this shit. Great rock production too.
• Akimbo, Forging Steel And Laying Stone. Other album of the year. Ferocious riffy hardcore. Really, really grew on me after a handful of listens. I wish I was in this band.
• Lisa Papineau, Night Moves. Beautiful little pop songs. Lisa is amazing. Bradee had me play this over and over while she was in labor.
• Kaki King, Until We Felt Red. Sort of twee pop as played by real musicians. Smart, delicate, sonically nice, and sometimes a little gritty.
• Converge, No Heroes. fj83hnfr321fu7ghfsjdf

The Good

• Melvins / Big Biz, (A) Senile Animal. Exactly what you might expect.
• Scissorfight, Jaggernaut. More detuned sludge rock from New Hampshire.
• Cursive, Happy Hollow. Not as great as the last one, but still pretty great.
• Orla Wren, Butterfly Wings Make. Dreamy soundscapes. Nice.
• The Abominable Iron Sloth, s/t. Slow, screamy, downtuned to ridiculous.
• Alan Sparhawk, Solo Guitar. Long/slow/drony. Not recommended if you're looking for a Low record, obviously.
• Slayer, Christ Illusion. Sure. But I'd pay triple if they made this record without Protools. He's Dave fucking Lombardo, put away the drum samples.
• Muse, Black Holes and Revelations. I like it but I can't say I've listened to it much since it came out. I couldn't stop listening to the last one.
• Sulaco, Tearing Through The Roots. Spazzy tight hardcore. See also their previous band, Lethargy. They were Botch before Botch were.

The Meh

• Norma Jean, Redeemer. Stop singing.
• Blood Bros, Young Machetes. Stop screeching. Why does everyone love these guys?
• Trail Of Dead, So Divided. I guess they had to make a crappy record at some point.
• Califone, Roots & Crowns. I really love the self-titled Califone EP; it, along with the first two Court & Spark records, is all I want from "alt-country". But for me the other Califone records don't quite live up to the EP. This one isn't bad, but I still found it disappointing. Can't quite say why.
• Court & Spark, Hearts. Too dense, too much, too upbeat. See also the dj mute button post.
• Mastodon, Blood Mountain. There's nothing "heavy" here. It's like they took all the elements of metal and used them to make a fusion record. Nobody's leaning into it.
• Dresden Dolls, Yes, Virginia. Exactly the record I had hoped they wouldn't make.
• Om, Conference of the Birds. Metal jam band? I dunno. Total suck. Probably my most regretted purchase of this year.
• Helmet, Monochrome. Wow, terrible. Page Hamilton appears to have misplaced his testes. That saddens me.
• And a bunch of Brooklyn hipster bands that I listened to and immediately forgot. Whatever.