In 2006, now fully into my thirties, my life began to solidify—had a steady job, a good living situation, I even met the person I’d eventually marry. Music too remained a constant, even if none of the albums on my original year-end top ten endured to point of warranting their own entries in this project (the one that did, I didn’t hear until its American edition came out the following year.)
Starting this year, I began making best-of mix CDs to send out to friends, a ritual I kept up through 2010 (and briefly revived in 2015.) Most of the first seventeen tracks here appeared on that first mix, with a few substitutions—“Dress Up In You” remains one of my ten favorite Belle and Sebastian songs, while my original choice of “The Blues Are Still Blue” would now barely crack the top fifty. Also, Swedish pop star Marit Bergman’s ebullient “No Party”, the original lead-off track (and rightfully so) is currently not on Spotify, so I’ve embedded its video above.
The latter half of this playlist is full of songs that have endured, from massive hits (Gnarls Barkley, Scissor Sisters) to barking-mad obscurities (please listen to the Herbert song all the way to the end) and everything in between. I would apologize for that Rodrigo y Gabriela-Sparks-Gainsbourg sequence for inducing whiplash if not, even by 2006, iPod shuffling hadn’t already conditioned us into listening to music that way.
Also, if someone were to locate a copy of this playlist decades from now without knowing the title, I’d like to think due to the timeless nature of such tracks as “Be Here Now”, “Crowd Surf Off A Cliff” and “I Feel Like Going Home”, they might not immediately deduce what exact year all these tunes came from.
Click here to listen to my 2006 playlist on Spotify
1. Neko Case, “Hold On, Hold On”
2. The BellRays, “Third Time’s The Charm”
3. Regina Spektor, “Better”
4. Hot Chip, “Boy From School”
5. TV On The Radio, “A Method”
6. Belle and Sebastian, “Dress Up In You”
7. The Hidden Cameras, “Awoo”
8. Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins, “Rise Up With Fists!”
9. James Hunter, “People Gonna Talk”
10. Paul Brill, “Don’t Tell Them”
11. Camera Obscura, “If Looks Could Kill”
12. Emm Gryner, “Almighty Love”
13. Sufjan Stevens, “Dear Mr. Supercomputer”
14. Nellie McKay & Cyndi Lauper, “Beecharmer”
15. Calexico, “Cruel”
16. Junior Boys, “In The Morning”
17. Pet Shop Boys, “Integral”
18. Gnarls Barkley, “Crazy”
19. Art Brut, “Formed A Band”
20. Ben Kweller, “Sundress”
21. The Decemberists, “O Valencia!”
22. The Radio Dept., “The Worst Taste In Music”
23. The Divine Comedy, “Diva Lady”
24. Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, “Crowd Surf Off A Cliff”
25. Ray LaMontagne, “Be Here Now”
26. Herbert, “The Movers and The Shakers”
27. Pernice Brothers, “Automaton”
28. Rodrigo y Gabriela, “Tamacun”
29. Sparks, “Dick Around”
30. Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Everything I Cannot See”
31. Scissor Sisters, “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’”
32. Chris Isaak, “King Without A Castle”
33. Yo La Tengo, “I Feel Like Going Home”
Haunted Jukebox 