Five Highest Average Playcount of 2006

We used math, or math used us. After very little work, iTunes and I got together, and hashed out a top 25 in the middle of the year. Here are the top five, in descending order.

5) Belle and Sebastian The Life Pursuit

It is never pleasant to insult an album you have clearly listened to repeatedly. But than again, ab workouts are not pleasant either, and they are very good for you. Life Pursuit is yet another neo-pop album from High Fidelity favorites; it's adorable and sweet, like the old Gummi Bears cartoon. (Remember? They lived in a tree, and no one ever tried to eat them.) However, like real Gummi Bears, Pursuit becomes an exercise in tolerance the more you listen to it. Unlike previous Belle and Sebastian albums, Pursuit becomes, on multiple listens, an album that strips away the gloss on top of the songcraft, begging the question of whether these guys are serious or not. By the time you have mastered the childlike lyrics, you have overdosed on a level of saccharine that belongs on a Smoosh release. If anything memorable came out of this album that will last, it'll be an upcoming interview where B & S admit that they did not have much to do in the studio, so they recorded an album that's reminiscient of their best work--but lacking the soul and direction that remains unquestioned from that earlier, better sound. Then they will offer to sell you an old cardigan.

4. The Knife Silent Shout

Oh, for a return to those first few weeks hearing it. Like 2005's Silent Alarm, The Knife released an immediately accessible album that everybody loves when they first hear it, a rollicking post-punk post-dance art-pop laptop-Post what-the-hell "put that cat in here" album that is as stupid as it is irresistible. It is unlike anything else that has showed up in these first six months of 2006, and it remains (for the first 90 plays or so) endlessly enjoyable. It will not be until you figure out that, like Bloc Party, (or Madonna) that all these cats want to do is have fun, meaning they have, quite literally nothing to say that you start craving something that has a bit more meat on the bone. That does not mean you can't try to live on Silent Shout, and Silent Shout alone, but eventually, you're going to need some leafy greens.  Or else--well, we all know what happens without leafy greens, right?

3. Islands Return to the Sea

These kind of albums aren't supposed to be any good. Album's that grow on you, that are weird and silly, overly serious about themselves while being about Abominable Snowmen and happy Volcanos; hell, that's the very definition of goofball idiot music.  It should not be any good. It is not allowed. And therein lies the magic of Islands.  (And there is no "the," thank you very much.) Formed out of the ashes of the Unicorns, and I have the 'Islands (ex-Unicorns)" ticket that proves it, draped in all-white clothing, and dashed with a sprinkle of steel drums and Paul Simon's Graceland, Islands haven't just replaced the Unicorns meager output, they have rendered it moot. Bands aren't supposed to be this experimental and sound so happy at the same time. But that's the Islands for you--making music exciting again, while bucking the rules. It's just luck that the bands stayed together long enough to make it to a studio.

2. Band of Horses Everything All The Time

It's a point that's been made, and it's here again. Band of Horses aren't anything special. Everything All The Time isn't innovative. It is indy-rock gone alternative, meaning it is a standard-bearer for the masses. It's pop, it's the closest thing ironic t-shirts and facial hair have near the top forty, it the top forty wasn't full of Cristina and Shakira. But after you finish with cynicism, and you have stopped trying to turn your mom onto Scott Walker, you'll want something that is well-done, sweet, and isn't trying to hard. Unfortunately, Built to Spill did not step up to the plate. So here's to the new boss, same as the old boss.

1. Liars Drums Not Dead

Let's talk about a band that's trying harder at not trying, a band that's making an album that doesn't need listeners.  Let's talk about music that you can't explain.  Let's talk about music that makes you feel ashamed to like.  Let's talk reading critical acclaim for an album that you have a hard time believing anyone else likes, and you still have not figured out why you like it.  Let's talk about the sense of pride that comes when you find out that said album has a higher average playcount than everything else.  Let's talk about art.  Because that's what Drum is, it's music as art, maybe not even italics, but capital A-Art.

Giving the Liars the crown of best album of the year when there's still six months to go, when one is still waiting on the Roots and trying to stop dancing to Girl Talk is a stupid move, but nobody, not even the Islands, took chances and went to the level of the Liars in 2005, much less since January.  It's not that 2006 has been an awful year in music, it's that 2006 has been a bad time for albums that are different, difficult, serious work.  Everything that's been good (or great) has been in the entertainment genre.  Some of the best work of the year has been by guys like T.I., Lil' Wayne, The Knife and The Fiery Furnaces, yet all of those albums keep the fun at the forefront, even when they are bitching about Katrina.  Pushing the limits of what music is has not been on the radar.  Even the oddness of an album like Return to the Sea stems less from musicality--Islands are wierd because they have a strange frontman.  The same arguement could, in some circles, have been applied to the Liars; that is, unless you've seen them live.  Like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, the Liars are operating on a level of call and response type improvisation that is totally dead outside of the WIRE's circle of influence.  Don't get it twisted-the Liars have setlists, that's clear.  But they're three individuals bouncing ideas off each other, and if a metaphorical imagining of Oppenheimer's bomb crew is surfacing, it's not a sarcastic one.  No, the Liars are bringing the lab back to popular music. To top it off, they are doing it after everyone, (and I mean everyone) talked shit about their last foray into the field.  Testify.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

Comments

[andre]

i loved the gummi bears.

[Jachcrerageva]

http://www.hyip-catalog.com

I want to invest money online.
It is written that it is the program which helps make money online.

You invest online?

It really works?

This site:
http://www.hyip-catalog.com

[ESOLVEPOUTT]

How are you doing!

On what script it is made this forum works? We are measured with the friend are measured to make WWW project about mutual relations of men and women and to make for a Web si
te a this script.

How to do search of the necessary information?

I am necessary wish to find http://trav.infogroupusa.com/keystone-trailer-travel-zeppelin.html
but I do not know as to find.

I require your answer.

[Tucker Stone]

When the Spam comments are interesting enough, they will never get deleted.

"I require your answer."

You got it, ESOLVEPOINT. A little spot of "i love you, and i want to kiss you," Right HERE.

I will not be utilizing your travel services though, although I will allow your ad to stand as a testament to the powers of capitalism.