 "Photo: Courtesy Photo")
 "Photo: Courtesy Photo")
2006 came at the music world like a whirlwind. Breakthrough bass 'n' drums indie act Death from Above 1979 breaks up; the underground music community mourned the loss of Pedro the Lion (if you don't know who that is, find out so you can cry along with me); and to top it off, Van Halen went on hiatus. In addition to loss, we also witnessed the reunion of acts such as Blind Melon and Genesis. Even The Smashing Pumpkins patched up a few misunderstandings and reformed. If that paragraph moves you, and you don't care about the new Fall Out Boy album or Britney Spears' G.I. Jane haircut, then this is a 2006 album list for you: five picks from metal, rap, rock, indie, and something hovering somewhere around the territory close to classical.
JOANNA NEWSOM Ys 9 out of 10 "The meteorite is the source of the light, and the meteor's just what we see; and the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee." Joanna Newsom's album, unfolds sort of like a dream world. Joanna fills out her awkwardly beautiful voice with an even more beautiful harp underneath her every melody over pseudo-classical epics, the shortest of which still scraping the seven minute mark. Orchestras pace right behind Joanna's harmonies and sound like some of the softer moments of Fantasia. Every song- a journey, every passage in the lyrics- a full story, the likes of which usually not achieved in a full song by any other songwriter. She will never be in the billboard lists, but everyone should listen to this album. In the end, it's like an arranged marriage. You'll hate her in the beginning, but you'll realize its not her voice you hate, you're just jealous of her skill. And that's when you'll fall in love.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH Fishscale 7 out of 10 It's a Rap album. You know how that goes by now. Tracks fade into each othe. There's a rap here, a chorus there. Each album of this type only needs a few outstanding tracks to set it apart, and the key tracks on THIS one rip your face off and replace it with a mask, then put a 9 mill in your hand. "The Champ" is one unbelievable track. if any one song was going to get you amped to do anything, it's this one. The horns and guitar make you feel indestructible, while the rap itself brings you back home. "Kilo," a rap that very strongly eludes to drugs in both title and content. By that I mean that's the only subject matter covered in the lyrics. Nothing else. Nonetheless, the song is really impressive, and you even get to learn how many grams are in a kilo (it's a thousand, by the way). The chorus of women singing and the rap overlapping it all is really impressive stuff. The rest of the album is really a sort of let down. The beats done by MF Doom (of Danger Doom or Madvillian fame) are great, but overall they really lack. The album also contains the last Wu-Tang reunion, and even that isn't really up to par with 36 Chambers. All in all, 7 out of 10 is more than fair.
BORIS Pink 10 out of 10 This album is gold. Well, it's really pink, but its content is gold. The Japanese three piece rocks so hard that even the elitist Pitchfork media had to give it a great review. Somewhere between the brutality of bands like Dethlok and accessible rock, and touting riffs that sound like they came from a dumpster full of amplifiers, Boris is a band that will make an impression. The most notable song, the title track is completely insane, and it's all you really need to hear from the band to fall deep into their arms. Guitars rip faster than your pimped out Civic and the bass is loud enough to blow out the overpriced speakers you threw in it "just because you could". It was so intense I didn't even think that I couldn't understand the words, and not even because of their nationality. Pink is an album that doesn't need to beg for a 10 out of 10. It earns it all on its own, not even considering my crush on their guitarist (she's cute!)
SILVERSUN PICKUPS carnavas 6 out of 10 The Silversun Pickups… what is there to say about them. Imagine the Smashing Pumpkins meeting up with the Secret Machines. Now imagine them conceiving a baby (band that is) together. That band would be the the Silversun Pickups. There are a bunch of great songs off of this album, and they definitely rock as hard as you could ask them to, but they never leave the boundaries set up by their parents.
Maybe a really hard track? No. Maybe something that doesn't sound like it was ripped off of "Siamese Dream"? No. They really stick to what they know, and that is why they get the 6 out of 10. What's there is good, but there's just nothing new. And that, my fellow listeners, is a shame, because if they coupled their talent with some originality, they could be 'great'.
GIRL TALK Night Ripper 9 out of 10 While my roommate may play this album all too much, and dance to it all too drunk, it's still the best dance music out there right now. We all lived through the nineties (some of us wish we hadn't), and what dance song was the best? Which song really got your "booty shaking," or the "dance floor quaking?" In reality, it was all of them. Every top 40 hits of the 90s really get people moving, and nothing is better than knowing all the words to the album that you've never heard. Apparently if you sample 2PAc, Bow Wow, Boston, LCD Soundsystem, Neutral Mil Hotel, Weezer, Ying Yang Twins, Pharrell, Ludacris, Foo Fighters, and Busta Rhymes, you get a good album. All criticism of the album aside, it is unbelievable, and you have to listen to it at the club to understand. Official soundtrack of the night; 9 out of 10.
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