20/ Wolfmother – 'Wolfmother' (Island)
Forget the endless labelling of Wolfmother as just another Led Zeppelin tribute band. Yes, they may overplay the big riffs and big muffs occasionally but when it boils down to it their debut effort is all about letting your hair down and rocking out with your air guitar. And who doesn’t like to do that every now and again?!
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19/ Hot Club de Paris – 'Drop It Till It Pops' (Moshi Moshi)
We couldn't get enough of the Moshi Moshi trio this year. Their debut is the perfect mixture of intricate guitar and three part harmony vocals plus the best songtitles around ('Your Face Looks All Wrong' still makes us chuckle even after the 2000th time). Expect them to go from strength to strength next year.
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18/ ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – 'So Divided' (Interscope)
Conrad Keely may have won the award for 2006’s most pissed-off frontman (the music business sucks was the essence of his rant), but the latest Trail Of Dead album cared not for industry point-scoring, occupying itself instead with attempting to make every other record this year sound like it’d had been recorded in a baked beans tin by comparison. Operatic, medieval-tinged and surprisingly camp, it was rock as rock should be: messy, loud and quite clearly insane.
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17/ The Young Knives – 'Voices Of Animals And Men' (Transgressive)
Containing some of the catchiest singles heard all year the Oxford trio’s debut is a wonderful slice of eccentric indie-pop. Much more than the chopping guitars of the signature tracks the album contains some brilliantly poignant slower numbers that provides a meaty filling to the pop crust.
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16/ Two Gallants – ''What The Toll Tells' (Saddle Creek)
Ramshackle and raw yet atmospheric and expansive, 'What The Toll Tells' had it all. The San Franciscan duo had already whetted our appetites with their debut 'The Throes' and here they gave us a masterclass in deepthinking Americana. Great on record, completely mesmerising live in Gigwise's esteemed view.
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15/ Love Is All – 'Nine Times That Same Song' (Parlophone)
Would any year in music be the same with out a brilliant slice of indie-pop from Scandanavia? We think not! 2006's standout offering was the Swedes eleven track blast of perky hooks, screeching sax and breathless vocals. Some albums are just instantly likeable - with 'Nine Times That Same Song' it was love on first listen.
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14/ Joanna Newsom – 'Ys' (Drag City)
Divided opinions are what Joanna Newsom does best and ‘Ys’ has love/hate written all over it. If “cosmic avant folk” is your thing then the second offering from the Californian harpist is definitely for you. Only five songs, some twenty minutes long, make up a record so expansive it nearly stupefied our reviewer into stunned silence for life. It may be hard work to start with but its definitely worth ploughing through.
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13/ Kasabian – 'Empire' (Columbia)
A band member down and a conscious decision to ditch the electronic-tinged sound of their debut, things looks a tad ominous for Kasabian before the release of ‘Empire.’ Fortunately, armed with their newly-found retrogressive sound the Leicester lads created yet another confident, gutsy work that propelled them to arena-filling status. You could almost forgive Tom Meighan for his egotistical rants.
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12/ Yeah Yeah Yeahs – 'Show Your Bones' (Polydor)
Surpassing their impressive debut ‘Fever To Tell’ was always going to be a damn tough call – fortunately though with ‘Show Your Bones’ Yeah Yeah Yeahs excelled themselves. Sexy, sassy and at times brimming with attitude, filth and an almost punk ethos, Karen O and her cohorts created a more cohesive work that is surely going to stand the test of time.
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11/ Thom Yorke – 'The Eraser' (XL)
Thom Yorke’s debut solo effort was such a personal foray into the Radiohead frontman’s unhinged psyche, it almost made you feel guilty for intruding. Played entirely by the man himself, ‘The Eraser’ is intensely minimal work that subtly draws you in. Coupled with the paranoid observations and pertinent wordplay and it soon became clear that this was an album to parallel the work of Radiohead themselves.
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10/ Arctic Monkeys – 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' (Domino)
They came, they played, they conquered and it had nothing to do with Myspace. The Sheffield four piece were quite possibly the most talked about new band of the decade and their debut album didn’t disappoint. It sold by the bucket load and the Arctic Army just got bigger and bigger as the year went on. 2007 will see them play to 100,000 people over two days. Not bad for four lads who couldn’t play a thing only a few years back
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9/ Hot Chip – 'The Warning' (EMI)
For anyone who had Hot Chip down (with Prince) as geeky London fashionista-magnets looking for new ways to sequence their drum machines, ‘The Warning’ didn’t do much to dispel the slyly-funky image first established on 2003’s ‘Coming On Strong’. What this second album did do was expose a not insubstantial serving of soul and a previously hidden emotional centre in their electronica oddities. Now not only were they slaying clubs on the likes of ‘Boy From School’ Hot Chip were making us dance, albeit wistfully, at their tales of electro-tinged nostalgia.
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8/ The Long Blondes – 'Someone To Drive You Home' (Rough Trade)
From a city filled with Monkey wannabees came Kate Jackson and her band of thrift store music makers. At the start of the year they were rightly hailed the best unsigned act around, thankfully Rough Trade had the good sense to sign them up, put them in the studio and put out an album filled with sassy guitar pop. Giddy stratospheres were most definitely reached.
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7/ TV On The Radio – 'Return To Cookie Mountain' (4AD)
As if referencing Super Mario World wasn’t enough to seal TV On The Radio’s sophomore effort in the pantheons of greatness, ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’ was a record that sealed the Brooklyn band’s genius: a splintered, initially incomprehensible and inexplicably poignant opus that got better and better with each and every listen. It seems to be the only record that every list-maker can agree on this year. This is because it is quite amazing.
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6/ Tapes 'n Tapes – 'The Loon' (XL)
Seemingly from nowhere in February Minneapolis' finest rose to be the most hyped new US act of the year. They came already armed with a self recorded album full of career defining singles such as 'Cowbell' and 'Insistor' while there wasn't a moment of filler in sight. The only problem they may have is bettering it in the future.
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5/ Guillemots – 'Through The Windowpane' (Polydor)
Not a bad year for the trans-national bird lovers. A debut album of sheer, uplifting beauty that was praised to the high heavens and resulted in a Mercury Prize nomination (Even if they did get beaten by those pesky Monkeys!). Go listen to ‘Trains To Brazil’, it’ll make you smile for a week.
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4/ The Flaming Lips – 'At War With The Mystics' (Warners)
Almost a quarter of a century into their career and The Flaming Lips still manage to sound fresher than most new bands treading the boards today. A different brew to their previous opus ‘Yoshimi Battle The Pink Robots’, ‘At War With The Mystics’ full of wide-eyed wonder, searing tunes and intrinsically human lyrics. All hail Wayne Coyne and co.
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3/ Muse – 'Black Holes & Revelations' (Warners)
The album Muse always threatened to make, ‘Black Holes & Revelations’ is a space-prog masterpiece from the dark funk of lead single ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ to the standout ‘Maps Of Problematique’. Not only has it won them critical acclaim but also enough fans to sell-out Wembley twice over. Huge!
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2/ Cansei De Ser Sexy – 'CSS' (Sub Pop)
Taking the award for the most fun you could have in thirty minutes during 2006 the Brazilian sextets debut is still on high rotation in the Gigwise office. From the irresistably catchy 'Lets Make Love...' to the sleazy posturing of 'Art Bitch' it was a Tom Tom Club enthused hoot all the way. Having penned a new major label deal in the UK CSS look set to go nuclear in 2007.
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1/ The Knife – 'Silent Shout' (Brille)
Despite the radiance of The Knife’s previous two outings, no one was quite expecting such a masterpiece as ‘Silent Shout.’ Karin and Olaf Dreijer created a dark electronic tour-de-force that played on the listener’s emotions to devastating effect. In 2006, The Knife proved that you can be experimental and still produce amazing music. Inimitable and unquestionably sheer genius.
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Check out the top 50 singles HERE
- December 19, 2006