In 2006, now fully into my thirties, my life gradually solidified—I had a steady job, a good living situation and 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 my 100 Albums 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 mix CD, with Marit Bergman’s winsome yet exuberant “No Party” now finally on streaming services (it wasn’t when I put together an earlier version of this playlist in 2018.) The latter half below 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-Sufjan Stevens-Charlotte 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 indicating the year, 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. On the other hand, The Decemberists, TV On The Radio and The Knife are all defiantly 2006, summarizing an era when Pitchfork and Myspace ruled and practically no one knew what smartphones would portend in the immediate years to come.

2006: I’ve Got No Party To Go To

1. Marit Bergman, “No Party”
2. Neko Case, “Hold On, Hold On”
3. The BellRays, “Third Time’s The Charm”
4. Regina Spektor, “Better”
5. Hot Chip, “Boy From School”
6. TV On The Radio, “A Method”
7. Belle and Sebastian, “Dress Up In You”
8. Nellie McKay, “Long and Lazy River”
9. The Hidden Cameras, “Awoo”
10. Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins, “Rise Up With Fists!”
11. James Hunter, “People Gonna Talk”
12. Paul Brill, “Don’t Tell Them”
13. Camera Obscura, “If Looks Could Kill”
14. Emm Gryner, “Almighty Love”
15. Calexico, “Cruel”
16. Junior Boys, “In The Morning”
17. Pet Shop Boys, “Integral”
18. The Knife, “One Hit”
19. Gnarls Barkley, “Crazy”
20. Nelly Furtado, “Say It Right”
21. Ben Kweller, “Sundress”
22. The Decemberists, “O Valencia!”
23. The Radio Dept., “The Worst Taste In Music”
24. The Divine Comedy, “Diva Lady”
25. Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, “Crowd Surf Off A Cliff”
26. Ray LaMontagne, “Be Here Now”
27. Herbert, “The Movers and The Shakers”
28. Pernice Brothers, “Automaton”
29. Rodrigo y Gabriela, “Tamacun”
30. Sparks, “Dick Around”
31. Sufjan Stevens, “Star of Wonder”
32. Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Everything I Cannot See”
33. Scissor Sisters, “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’”
34. The Killers, “Read My Mind
35. Chris Isaak, “King Without A Castle”
36. Yo La Tengo, “I Feel Like Going Home”