My Favourite albums of 2006

I have actually managed to buy and listen to a lot of new music this year, although there seems to be a surfeit of it around at present. As usual, every magazine end-of-year list has been deeply unimaginative and chart-based, so here's mine, albeit similarly unimaginative and chart-based (but at least subjectively quirky and personal, hmm - there's something oddly homo-erotic in list-making; what with all the phalocentric boastful comparisons etc)

1. Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics Try Free radicals mp3


2. Thunderegg - Open Book Try I'm A Fool Again mp3


3. Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers


4. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not


5. Kelley Stoltz - Below The Branches Try Memory Collector mp3


6. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere


7. Bob Dylan - Modern Times


8. Dresden Dolls - Yes Virginia Try Dirty Business mp3


9. Viva Voce - Get Yr Blood Sucked Out


10. Holden - Chevrotine


11. Archie Bronson Outfit - Derdang Derdang Try Cuckoo mp3


12. Howe Gelb - 'Sno Angel Like You


13. Martha Tilston - Rope Swing


14. Circulus - The Lick on the Tip of an Envelope Yet to be Sent Try Swallow mp3


15. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat


16. Decembrists - The Crane Wife


17. Jenny Wilson - Love and Youth


18. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood


19. Vetiver - To Find Me Gone


20. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
    
    

Compilations and reissues? I suppose Thunderegg's Open Book tops the list, but also enjoyed the Nigeria '70 compilation tho' can't recall if that was this year and if anyone fancies buying me the Forever Changing: the Golden Age of Elektra 1963-1973 box set, well, please don't restrain yourself...

But it's a bad idea to write these lists in early December, as I would now want to include the Jarvis Cocker 'Jarvis' (Xmas present), Snowglobe's 'Oxytocin' (Recent recommendatino from Will and Jen) and Destroyer 'Destroyer's Rubies' (Recent random web purchase) in the list.

And the track of the year? This was the one that captured my heart in about week three, and then stayed there....

• Jenny Lewis - Rise up with fists mp3

with the Charlotte Gainsbourg (& Air) 'the song that I sing', Flaming Lips 'the WAND', Raconteurs 'Steady as she goes' and Belle & Sebastian's 'For the price of a cup of tea' fleshing out my top five.

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