Some last thoughts and list of 2006. First looking back at this blog, here are the top five post of the past year by page views (a big thanks to MTV for rerunning the first two seasons of Beauty and the Geek that brought in about 100 searchers for each marathon it ran) :
1. First Impressions - Beauty and the Geek 2
2. Worst Albums of 2006
3. Her Face Is the Map of the World (KT Tunstall album review)
4. Oddsmakers: The Hearst Rapist
5. Worst Songs of 2006
One cool addition to iTunes this year was the ability to add your reviews to each album. Unfortunately there isn’t a minimum amount of word you must write as many reviews on the site are less than a sentence. But then there are people like me who write lengthy reviews for others to read and I copied the ones I do for this site can add them on iTunes. Here are the top five most helpful reviews I put there (click the review title to read it on my site or click the album title to go to its iTunes page where you can buy it or just give me another helpful vote if you like):
1. The Final Word in the Final Sentence (Eyes Open - Snow Patrol)
2. Girl Go Ahead Let Your Hair Down (Corrine Bailey Rae - Corrine Bailey Ray)
3. It’s Not a Silly Little Moment, it’s Not the Calm Before the Storm (Continuum - John Mayer)
4. This Sounds Like Disco Tetris (The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani)
5. There’s No Stopping Curiosity (Sing-a-Longs and Lullabies from the Film Curious George - Jack Johnson and Friends)
As for the artist that made the most impact in the last year here are the ones that showed up most on my Best of lists (for those lists, click on the Best of 2006 label at the bottom of this post):
1. KT Tunstall (Best Songs - 11, 31, 97; Best Albums - 2, 28; Readers Poll - 11) - Tunstall started the year garnishing a rare [Extreme] rating on my Terror Alert Scale and even through in an acoustic album late in the year to boot. Yeah her music has been co-opted by some crappy television shows but that in no way takes away the fact that she produced one of the best pop albums in years.
2. Johnny Cash (Best Songs - 2, 52; Best Albums - 7; Best Videos - 1; Best Mash Ups - 1, 8; Reader’s Poll - 15) - As a long time fan, A Hundred Highways was a great swan song (although Rick Rubin says there may be one more after it) giving a song that not only stands up with any song from the American Recording era, but with anything his back catalog with God’s Gonna Cut You Done.
3. The Killers (Best Songs - 10, 94; Best Albums - 48; Best Videos - 6, 12; Reader’s Poll - 4) - I gave the guys a lot of crap this year on not living up to their own hype, but they did give us the best rock song of the year and two iconic videos.
4. Rhymefest (Best Songs - 25, 68; Best Albums - 10) In a year that wasn’t kind to hip hop (maybe Nas is right) with the failed comeback of Jay-Z and Lupe Fiasco not living up to the hype, this MC, who helped Kanye West write Jesus Walk, just may be the one to resurrect hip hop, well that’s if people start listening to him.
5. Gnarls Barkley (Best Songs - 1; Best Videos - 3, 19; Best Mash Ups - 4, 14, 23; Reader’s Poll - 1) No one has done so much with just one song, a song that is inching closer and closer to the top of the One Hit Wonder pantheon.
Since 1996 I have made a CD of my favorite music from the past year and here is the CD I have made from this past year but I like to put songs in reverse order as so they are counting down to the best song. This CD clocks in at 78:07 (for links to the songs and the full top 100 check out: The 100 Best Songs of 2006).
1. Over My Head (Cable Car) - The Fray
2. Save Room - John Legend
3. The Saints Are Coming - U2 & Green Day
4. Nothing Left to Lose - Mat Kearney
5. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
6. Smile - Lily Allen
7. Not Ready to Make Nice - Dixie Chicks
8. Hips Don’t Lie - Shakira & Wyclef Jean
9. Fidelity - Regina Spektor
10. Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
11. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree - KT Tunstall
12. When You Were Young - The Killers
13. I Will Follow You into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
14. Hurt - Christina Aguilera
15. Leave the Pieces - The Wreckers
16. One - Mary J. Blige & U2
17. How to Save a Life - The Fray
18. Boston - Augustana
19. Waiting on the World to Change - John Mayer
20. God’s Gonna Cut You Down - Johnny Cash
21. Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
Looking ahead 2007, I'm predicting Lily Allen to be the break out star of next year. Her first single Smile has gotten some buzz behind it so look out for the release of her album stateside later this month. Just remember when she is huge, you heard it her first. Although keep in mind I haven't correctly predicted the next big thing since Hootie and the Blowfish.
My other prediction is the demise of American Karaoke as it will get thrashed in the ratings by Let's Rob Mick Jagger (be sure to check out my contest and watch the show tonight at 9:00 on ABC). Okay maybe wishful thinking but before the latest crop of karaokers hit the stage I had a chance to her a couple of Katharine McPhee's new songs and, well, I'm less than impressed. She's trying to be Mariah Carey but the only problem is that Mariah Carey is still around and does a much better job at being Mariah Carey. There was one decent song out of the bunch, Love Story and you can take a listen for it yourself below.
Very rarely do I ever do I start watching a show after it’s started, twice to be exact. The second time was when I stayed tune to watch the post-Super Bowl Alias. They had me sold with Jennifer Garner prancing in her underwear to Back in Black so I instantly queued the seasons I missed and watch them at mass. Unfortunately the show didn’t live up to the hype and I have yet to see the last season. But the only other show that I started watching during its run definitely lived up to the hype and that is why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
The main reason why I skipped the show in its initial run was mostly because of the horrendous movie of the same name with Dylan McKay and Pee Wee Herman in his first acting appearance since, well, he opened the Video Music Awards. So there was no way after wasting and hour and a half of my life watching the movie would invest a whole hour every week for the a serialize version. But after all the praise the show received, I got a second chance when FX bought the syndication rights and started airing the show from the beginning around the start of the fifth season.
So every weekday for two hours I watch obsessively until I was fully caught up in about two months. And then the withdrawal started, going from ten episodes a week to just one was a big jolt. What really drew me into was the writing with it’s overly sarcastic characters and enough pop culture references to keep you scouring the internet each week to figure out the one’s you didn’t catch. The writing was so good it was even able to hind Sarah Michelle Gellar
’s sub par acting skills (and before anyone what to argue that fact, go rent Simply Irresistible, The Grudge, or any of the Scooby Doo movies, then try to argue). And while all the fanatics fawned over the Buffy/Angel pairing, I gravitated more to Xander and the follies of his love life. Although sometimes those follies hit too close to home but luckily I never ran into a Vengence Deamon (that I know of).
But what drove the show year in and year out were the annual Big Bad’s who would make Buffy’s life miserable every year. It seemed that every Big Bad was badder than his or her predecessor. Well until we got to the nerd trio in season six, but what they lacked in scariness they definitely made up in comic relief. And who would have guessed in season six that Andrew would be the most entertain part of the last season as well as a great guest spot on Angel the following year? Thanks to the greatness of the Big Bad’s, one of the best scenes ever was the closing season of season seven’s premiere with Spike being haunted by all the other Big Bad’s.
Speaking of Spike, there is another great aspect of the show in that you never knew when a character would pop up again. Not even death kept some characters from making more appearances most notable Harmony who was actually more entertaining dead than alive and of course the previously mentioned Andrew who went from an obscure character from season one’s brother to the best part of the last season.
Unfortunately it’s not all fond memories for the show as Buffy remands the main reason why I avoid spoilers when I learned way too early that Tara would die causing Willow to become the Big Bad at the end of season six somewhat ruining that season for me. But the good definitely out weigh the bad with some iconic episodes like Hush where everyone on the show lost their voice for most of the episode. It’s weird to think that the show is now a decade old (well technically it will in March) but the episodes have aged well even with all the pop culture references and that is why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the first induction into the SHoF for 2007. Unfortunately the Buffyverse has been on hiatus since Angel ended a year after Buffy and a Faith based show and Spike centered movies have since failed to go past planning stages but it was recently announced by Joss Whedon that he will doing a season eight of the series in comic book form so look out for that.
As I write this, you can currently get all seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Amazon.com for 19.97 (that’s $0.91 per episodes of seasons 2-7) and below are my three favorite seasons. You can also download the first two seasons at iTunes.
One of the coolest musical innovations in recent memory is the mash-up. For those that may not be familiar with the term, it can best be described when you take the vocals from one song and place them over the instrumental from a different song. The artform didn’t get as much press this year as it has in past years but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great new mash-ups floating around the internet. And since last year’s list (see Best Mash-Ups of 2005) still brings in decent traffic here naturally I would do another list this year. I tried to give credit to the creator of the mash-up, but due to some poor labeling, some have gotten lost and I even had to create a name for a few mash-ups that I discovered nameless. Also some of these songs may have been created ealier than 2006 but this is a list of songs I’ve found this year. Please do not ask for me to send you any of these songs because for legal reasons I cannot confirm or deny that any of these songs actually exist not that I would illegally download copyrighted material even though that material has been altered from any version that could be bought anywhere. If you want the unaltered album version of the songs, on the second line I will list the main songs that make up the mash-up:
1. Johnny Cash's Allstar Band's Gonna Cut You Down - DJ Schmolli
Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down (vocals), Led Zeppelin - When the Levee Breaks (drums), Beastie Boys - Sabotage (bass), Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever (guitar), The Beatles - Come Together (lead guitar)
2. Regulate Dust in the Wind - DJ Erb
Kansas (Dust in the Wind) vs. Warren G (Regulate)
3. Light Your Fat Bottom on Fire - Aggro1
Busta Rhymes (Light Your Ass On Fire (Radio Mix) - Light Your (Explative Deleted) On Fire) vs. Queen (Fat Bottom Girls)
4. Crazy Times - Team9
Gnarls Barkley (Crazy) vs. Prince (Sign O' the Times)
5. All of My Sublime Life - Aggro1
Foo Fighters (All My Life) vs. Sublime (Doin' Time)
6. Papa Was a Clock - Go Home Productions
The Temptations (Papa Was a Rollin' Stone) vs. Coldplay (Clocks)
7. Always With You - Divide & Kreate
Willie Nelson (Always on My Mind) vs. U2 (With or Without You)
8. Hurts Like Teen Spirit - Dangerous Orange
Johnny Cash (Hurt) vs. Nirvana (Smells Like Teen Spirit) vs. Blue Oyster Cult (Don't Fear the Reaper)
9. The Money Song - team9
Hard-Fi (Cash Machine) vs. Jay-Z (Money, Cash, Hoes)
10. Walk Away and I'll Wait - Aggro1
Kelly Clarkson (Walk Away) vs. Van Halen (I'll Wait)
11. For the Love of C.R.E.A.M. - DJ BC
Wu-Tang Clan (C.R.E.A.M.) vs. The O'Jays (For the Love of Money)
12. Kelly's Smelly Behind - Divide & Kreate
Kelly Clarkson (Behind These Hazel Eyes) vs. Nirvana (Smells Like Teen Spirit)
13. Casbah Wonder - Dunproofin'
Stevie Wonder (Uptight (Everything's Alright)) vs. The Clash (Rock the Casbah)
14. Crazy Wish - DJ Nicky T
Skee-Lo (I Wish) vs. Gnarls Barkley (Crazy)
15. Smokey and the Yeah! - Pheugoo
Usher (Yeah!) vs. Jerry Reed (Smokey and the Bandit Theme)
16. Relm and Josie with Attitude - Relm
N.W.A. (Something 2 Dance 2) vs. the Outfield (Your Love)
17. Summer Digger - (Artist Unknown)
Mungo Jerry (In the Summertime) vs. Kanye West (Gold Digger)
18. The Next Fool's Gold - Hi-Fi
The Stone Roses (Fool's Gold) vs. Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg (The Next Episode)
19. I Wish My Doorbell Rang - Sam Flanagan Mix
Skee-Lo (I Wish) vs. The White Stripes (My Doorebell)
20. Water Lilly (Extended V3) - Sam Flanagan Mix
Lily Allen (LDN) vs. The Stone Roses (Waterfall)
21. Michael Feels Like Green Onions - corporation
Michael Jackson (The Way You Make Me Feel) vs. Booker T & the MG's (Green Onions)
22. U Been Throwing It Away - StvD
Kelly Clarkson (Since U Been Gone) vs. Genesis (Throwing it All Away)
23. Crazy, as She Goes - The Legion of Doom
Gnarls Barkley (Crazy) vs. The Raconteurs (Steady, As She Goes)
24. Dirty Deeds Will Rock You - Aggro1
ACDC (Dirty Deeds) vs. Queen (We Will Rock You)
25. In My Hazel Eyes (Kelly's Playing in the Cold) - Bobby Martini
Kelly Clarkson (Behind These Hazel Eyes) vs. Coldplay (In My Place)
This year I was able to give a listen and review almost all the albums thanks to the record companies doing something right for the first time in years by letting fans listen to albums even before they are released. So here are the best albums I heard this year. And where most other music blogs unroll their best albums of the list full with artist you have never heard of, here is my list of pretentious free albums (okay the list is actually only 82% pretentious free, just had to put the Artic Monkeys on my list). Click on the album to buy the album in iTunes. If you like feeling the CD in your hands check out this list at My Amazon Store (including last year's list). Also if you want to read my orginal review, click the link below the album's name. Agree with my list? Disagree? Feel free to list your favorite albums of the in the comment section:
1. Continuum - John Mayer
It's Not a Silly Little Moment, it's Not the Storm Before the Calm
2. Eye to the Telescope - KT Tunstall
Her Face Is the Map of the World
3. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions - Bruce Springsteen
Oh Mary Don't You Weep
4. Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
The Final Word in the Final Sentence
5. Taking the Long Way - Dixie Chicks
It's Been Two Long Years Now Since the Top of the World Came Crashing Down
6. Stand Still, Look Pretty - The Wreckers
The Radio's Playing Old Country Songs
7. American V: The Hundred Highways - Johnny Cash
He Said "John Go Do My Will"
8. The Believer - Rhett Miller
Sex in Wartime Is Sweeter Than Peace
9. Modern Times - Bob Dylan
Sing a Little Bit of These Workingman Blues
10. Blue Collar - Rhymefest
Who Rapper You Know Before His Album Drop Is a Grammy Winner
11. 9 - Damien Rice
She May Rise if I Lay You Down
12. Once Again - John Legend
Tonight I Wanna Groove and Let the Music Make You Move
13. Nothing Left to Lose - Mat Kearney
All I Had Was Just a Vision, All I Had Was My Ambition
8. Whatever They Say I Am I'm Not - Artic Monkeys
(Never Goot Around to Reviewing, Sorry)
15. Hip Hop Is Dead - Nas
If You Asking Why IS Hip Hop Dead There's a Pretty Good Chance You're the Reason it Died
16. Corinne Bailey Rae - Corinne Bailey Rae
Girl Go Ahead Let Your Hair Down
17. Broken Boy Soldier - The Raconteurs
You've Found a Friend That Knows You Well
18. The Road to Escondido - J.J. Cale & Eric Clapton
If You Can't Hear the Music, Turn it up Loud
19. Stadium Arcadium - Red Hot Chili Peppers
California Show Your Teeth
20. Game Theory - The Roots
I'll Make it Hotter Than Shaft in Africa
21. Bleeding Heart Graffiti - Nina Gordon
I Will Sing This Song and All My Friends Will Sing Along
22. The Greatest - Cat Power
No Wind or Waterfall Could Stop Me
23. Ten - Brian McKnight
When Was the Last Time You Were Truely Satisfied
24. Living with War - Neil Young
Let's Impeach the President for Lying
25. Like Blood for Honey - Holly Brook
Though I'm Young and Cynical it's Not My Only Crime
26. Love Their Country - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Yippee-I-Yay Yippee-I-Yo
27. Who I Am - Alice Peacock
Trust the Power in My Voice
28. Acoustic Extravaganza - KT Tunstall
I Don't Have to Raise My Voice
29. High & Mighty - Gov't Mule
Musings From the Back 9: Music Edition II
30. Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
If I Keep Holding Out Will the Light Shine Through
31. Food & Liqour - Lupe Fiasco
Come in Hip-Hop We've Come to Resurrect You
32. Both Sides of the Gun - Ben Harper
The Only Songs to Sing Are Those Sung Again
33. Highway Companion - Tom Petty
If You Don't Run You Rust
34. Nightcrawler - Pete Yorn
Walk Me Out in the Morning Sun
35. Revelations - Audioslave
The Orginal Fire Has Died and Gone but the Riot Inside Moves On
36. Bird on a Wire - Toby Lightman
You're a Flower Blooming in the Desert Sunshine
37. Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George - Jack Johnson and Friends
There's No Stopping Curiosity
38. Year of the Dog… Again - DMX
We Gon' Get it, Get it Started Again
39. Move by Yourself - Donavon Frankenreiter
Don't Stop Doing What You Believe In
40. Coming Home - Lionel Richie
You Feel it, I Feel it, Let's Not Pretend
41. On the Outside - Starsailor
I Hear Them Screaming on the Radio
42. Feedback - Jurassic 5
We Would Say Our Rhymes to the Beat Right
43. Till the Sun Turns Black - Ray LaMontagne
Musings From the Back 9: Music Edition II
44. When Your Heart Stops Beating - (+44)
The Past Is Only the Past with the Lights On
45. Kingdom Come - Jay-Z
When I Come Back Like Jordon Wearing the 4-5
46. Show Your Bones - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Sometimes I Think I'm Bigger Than the Sound
47. The Evolution of… - Robin Thicke
Don't See the World Through Someone Else's Eyes
48. Sam's Town - The Killers
Nobody Ever Had a Dream Round Here
49. Under the Iron Sea - Keane
Love Is Just a Lyric in a Children's Rhyme
50. Loose - Nelly Furtado
I've Been Hurt by My Past but I Feel the Future
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and received everything you wanted and more so everything you needed. My festivities were damped a little at hearing the news that we lost one of the greats earlier today, James Brown. He was a little before my time but he left his stamp on the music during my formative years as he was a staple among rap sample in the early years. I was supposed to see him live back in college but unfortunately the concert got canceled as he was arrested a couple days before for beating his wife. But for all his pitfalls he will always be remembered as the Godfather of Soul leaving us with some great music, my personal favorite being Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.Foe more on the life of James Brown check out: "Godfather of Soul" James Brown Dead at 73
