2006 was not a great year for music for me. Not a lot of my favorite artists came out with albums, and several that did had disappointing ones (like Shawn Colvin). Plus my iBook is running out of disk space. So this was, compared to the past two, rather hastily thrown together (forgetting one artist I was planning on definitely including), and I'm not too proud of it. I didn't have time to print out a track list when we exchanged CDs, so here it is, for what it's worth:
1) Jack's Mannequin - "Holiday from Real (a capella)." A couple of weeks ago, I saw the video for their really catchy song, "Dark Blue." They're nothing especially original. I guess you'd categorize them as piano-driven emoish pop, kinda like The Fray, Five for Feeting, and Keane. But when I heard this song, which was from an EP they released for free on the web as a Christmas present to their fans, I just had to include it. I mean, c'mon. An absolutely beautiful a capella song that features the line, "She lets me drive her car so I can score an eighth from the lesbians out west in Venice." I've posted the original here, in case you hadn't heard it before and want to compare.
2) Naked Barbies - "Living Independently." Not a 2006 song. In fact, it's back from 1998. But as some of you know, Erika and I are getting divorced after a five-year marriage, so the lyrics of this song hit pretty close to home for me, and I listened to it a lot, and it makes me cry.
3) Kate Havnevik - "So:Lo." Discovered her via Grey's Anatomy, which featured "New Day" at the end of one of the episodes. That was actually an awful song to use, because the beginning technoish percussion makes you think it's the soundtrack preparing you for a fast-paced action scene. But it was a good song and grabbed my attention. Alas, I wasn't so impressed with the album (currently only available from her website), but I thought this iTunes Music Store exclusive was an excellent song.
4) Blue October - "Congratulations (featuring Imogen Heap)." Introduced to them this year by both Jenn and my brother. This probably isn't the most indicative of their sound, but you've probably heard "Hate Me" by now anyway. I considered including that one, but I picked this mostly cuz of...
5) Imogen Heap - "Speeding Cars." A B-side from the "Goodnight and Go" single. I know I included her on last year's mix, but this song was too good (although it was a close one between this and "Glittering Cloud"). Plus it went well with the Blue October song, of course.
6) Richard Cheese - "Creep." Introduced to his music via Rich's 2005 mix. Hilarious stuff, especially this one. I just love how it sounds when he quickly sings, "What the heck am I doing here."
7) Tori Amos - "Dolphin Song." Tori released a box set last year, which contained a few unreleased tracks. This was the best one. Pretty typical Tori, I suppose, but I love her, and I love dolphins, so here it is. Worship her.
8) Ben Folds - "Rockin' the Suburbs (Over the Hedge version)." William Shatner. 'nuff said.
9) Secret Machines - "Lightning Blue Eyes." Saw an article somewhere that mentioned their song, "Alone, Jealous, and Stoned" and had to check them out. For the most part, they're pretty unremarkable (including that song), but I liked this one. But I prolly would've dropped it in favor of Muse had I realized I'd left them out.
10) Damone - "New Change of Heart." I take the light rail to the SJSU campus, and the Santa Clara light rail station is closed for renovation. So a few days ago, I was walking to the Paseo de San Antonio one instead and stopped along the way to browse at Border's. I'd completely forgotten about that Border's cuz the Paseo stop was closed last semester (or two?). Anyway, I was rocking out to my iPod Shuffle (to stuff for this CD) when the batteries died. Greatly miffed, I put it away, but then started rocking out to what was playing over the speakers. I suppose things happen for a reason. So I asked the clerk who it was, and she said it was Damone's "Now Is the Time." When I came home, I sampled the rest of the album (via Allofmp3.com, as always) and found that I liked this song a little better. To be sure, they're nothing original. Basically, hard-rocking' pop punk with a female vocalist. But I like it, and they seem to be fairly obscure, so here they are.
11) Tool - "The Pot." When I heard that 10,000 Days was coming out, I knew I'd include a track off of it no matter what. While it's no Lateralus, it's still Tool being Tool. They rock hard, include loads of odd time-signatures, and use lyrics that take a while to decipher. It's probably obvious why I picked this song, but of course there's a deeper and political meaning there. "Vicarious" and "Jambi" are also excellent songs.
12) Snow Patrol - "Hands Open." Everybody knows who these guys are now (even Erika is hooked on "Chasing Cars" cuz of Grey's Anatomy), so I'll just say that the only reason I bothered including them was this song's cute reference to the next guy...
13) Sufjan Stevens - "Chicago (Adult Contemporary version)." Only here cuz of the previous song. I haven't given Avalanche a long listen yet, but this was my favorite of the three "Chicago" versions. Guess it means I'm an old fogey.
14) Angels and Airwaves - "It Hurts." Yeah, they didn't even come close to living up to the ungodly amount of hype that DeLonge put out, and are essentially a pretentious version of blink-182 that rips off U2 guitar riffs. But I still like the sound, and although my situation doesn't exactly fit this song, I found myself playing it over and over again nonetheless.
15) Front Line Assembly - "Buried Alive." I finally started watching horror movies over winter break. I used to snobbily eschew them, but I guess they can be pretty fun. I was trying to track down one of the songs from Saw and never found it, but in the course of looking for it, I discovered this electro-industrial band. Good stuff for when you're angry. 2006 was kind of a rocky year for me, in case it wasn't obvious.
16) Regina Spektor - "Samson." Discovered her as she was making the talk show rounds (I sometimes TiVo those if one of the guests is a celebrity crush of mine), and the lovely and quirky "Fidelity" is getting some airplay (it's a cute video, too). This one is a more straightforward love-song ballad, but the Biblical reference makes it special. It's not clear whether Samson is the Samson to me and who the narrator is supposed to be. The most straightforward reading is that he's not, and it's just a metaphor. But I prefer to believe that he is Samson, and maybe she was the woman who loved him before Delilah. Or maybe it's even an alternate timeline where she prevents him from appearing in the Bible (or imagines it as a what-if). Note, this makes a big difference in the emotional content of the line, "And the Bible didn't mention us. Not even once."
17) Plumb - "Real Life Fairytale." A good song to cheer me up. And my life did seem like a real life fairytale for a while there. Introduced to "them" (it's just Tiffany Arbuckle) by my brother the Christmas before last. It took me a while to realize that it's Christian rock, but hey, I don't discriminate.
18) Jewel - "Where You Are." After her odd foray into Britney-style pop, she returned to her folkish roots for her excellent album, Goodbye, Alice in Wonderland. This song really stands out for me (and was one of the first songs I picked for this mix) because of its hypnotically languid groove that's the perfect canvas for her to paint with her gorgeous voice. Possibly her best song ever. The "choose me" section gets me every time.
And goddamn, I only realized while writing this that I left out Muse. I was planning on including "Map of the Problematique," but I kinda rushed in throwing this together and never added it to the playlist. Ah well, I'll just post the song here and write about them anyway. I first noticed them when I saw their "Hysteria" video on MTV, but when I checked out the rest of Absolution, not much else caught my ear. I saw them again at The Download Festival at Shoreline, and had to check out their new album, which I think is much stronger. I love the catchy "Starlight" so much that I made it my cell phone's ringtone, but as it's gotten some airplay, I decided to opt for this one instead.
Only, I forgot to include it. I'm such a moron.
