bEST ALBUM of 2006

Every year, the month of December means something special to the music world. Although it's hip to hate lists, all of the hipsters do it. Music publications, critics, bloggers, know-it-alls, and what not, get to assemble their list of best albums. Pazz and Jop, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and other top lists all become points of reference for music fans to find new music, and for hipsters to check to see if they were right. 2006 seemed to consistently stream new music into our ears, with much anticipated albums by The Flaming Lips, TV on the Radio, Beck, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Pearl Jam. We didn't get the expected Radiohead album, but we got a pretty good one from Thom Yorke. Guns 'n' Roses didn't release Chinese Democracy yet, but does anyone really expect that to happen. New bands like Man Man, Band of Horses, and Love is All came out of nowhere to please listeners everywhere. Lists have become popping up all over the web. Rolling Stone has Bob Dylan's Modern Times sitting at the top of their best 50, while Spin places TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain at 1. Other albums landing various number 1 spots are Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America, The Knife's Silent Shout, and Joanna Newsome's Ys. And of course, all of England will have The Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not at the top of their lists. None of these will win the 2006 Grammy for Album of the Year, because none of them are even nominated, not even Dylan. And Billboard's music awards seemed pleased giving their awards to such titans as Nickleback, Mary J. Blige, and Carrie Underwood. Ouch.

So, to continue the trend of music junkies making lists, here are...