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The Tris McCall Report

Critics Poll XVII -- 2006

Readers, I'm so sorry I'm so obnoxious. My only accomplice my conscience. Uhh!

In 2003, you might remember that I was worried that my ballots were becoming boring. That year, I listed the same records that everybody else did. So by the time I got to this page, I felt like I was all talked out: I'd already discussed Elephant and The New Pornographers and "Hey Ya!", so where to go from there? Worse yet, it concerned me that I'd secretly capitulated to somebody else's logic -- that my critical clock had been synchronized to somebody else's time zone -- and that meant I might as well sign up for duty at one of those big reviewing sites that serve as a repository for Internet groupthink.

Needless to say, '03 was an anomaly. The next year a widely-despised album topped my ballot; while it's been critically rehabilitated since its release (well, a little), most still consider it lousy. Hell, the All-Music Guide gives it two stars -- which ought to be a mark of distinction right there, since you basically have to diss Stephen Thomas Erlewine's momma on record to get less than three and a half from that gang of runaway grade inflaters. Last year I picked every rock critic's favorite emo album (though it did terribly in our poll), but my Top 20 contained stuff like The Mind Of Mannie Fresh and C-Murder and the Negatones full-length.

This year, my favorite albums were ones that everybody hated. Not albums that were ignored or overlooked on release, or were too obscure for mainstream-indie critics to engage with; no, nothing as easy to rationalize as that. The albums I loved were mass-released on sizeable labels by name artists, and were greeted with tepid and occasionally hostile reviews. I have been a fan of my #3 since their first singles back in 1994, and I own and have played to death everything they've ever recorded. I truly believe that the album they released in 2006 is their best: the fullest realization of the experiments they've been conducting for more than a decade. Everybody else believes it's a total pile of crap. I think the artist who made my #1 album has finally stopped telling other people's stories and started telling his own, and that his vocals, synth playing, and beat programming have never sounded better. You probably think he's turned into an insufferable asshole.

I expect to get the first piece of mail calling me contrarian within five minutes of posting this page. I'm not going to defend my choices today, or tomorrow, but I am going to clarify my perspective in my closing essay. We all use different criteria when we pick our favorite albums, because we all want something slightly different from music. Some of us want to be inspired, some of us want to be educated, others want to be moved, others need something to run to, others want to identify with the protagonists of songs or hear evidence of social change, others want to rock out to a heavy guitar or dance to a big beat or feel like they're part of what's going down. Tomorrow I'll tell you what I want; you can tell me if you still think I'm off my rocker. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe you're crazy. Maybe we're crazy. Probably.

 

Album of the year

 

Single of the year

 

Best album title

The Night And I Are Still So Young, by The Heavy Blinkers.

Best album cover

I try not to vote for projects I'm involved with. But George Pasles's cover for Ticker Symbols is so consistent with the theme and feel of the album that I can't help myself.

Best liner notes & packaging

The Q&A session inside The Life Pursuit.

Most welcome surprise

Game Theory by The Roots. I'd written them off completely. They haven't fixed any of the major problems -- they're humorless, they have a weakness for ominous horror-soundtrack schlock, and their lead emcee is just okay. But President Carter told them not to worry about writing a single, and for once they forgot about the R&B hooks, stylistic detours, annoying instrumental solos and sociopolitical grandstanding, and delivered a coherent musical set. Game Theory is their best since Illadelph, easy. And Illadelph wasn't any better.

Biggest disappointment

Kevin Barnes. Look, nobody's saying he can't sell his songs to Outback Steakhouse if he wants to. It's still a free country, sort of. But those taking the zero-tolerance line here are missing the point -- it's not that we really expect broke indie musicians to be proper guardians of their own legacies anymore, it's that Barnes spent more than a decade bullshitting about his leftist credentials. He wrote "Forecast Fascist Future" and put out an album called If He Is Protecting Our Nation, Then Who Will Protect Big Oil, Our Children? with a nude caricature of a derrick-dicked George W. Bush on the front. He gave interviews in which he expressed his objection to the New World Order, so to speak. To turn around and take the money from a company that symbolizes the very worst in American overconsumption doesn't merely invalidate all of that -- it also shows you that talk is cheap, and that most of these "protest" indie singers would be the first ones to throw you under the bus if anything threatened their material comfort. Phil Ochs must be laughing in his grave.

Album that opens the strongest

Reality Check. First Juvenile shoots Birdman. Then he tells everybody in New Orleans to start selling crack. Then he takes you on a trip around Magnolia Projects. Then he introduces his crew and gives you his manifesto: "never ever turn my back on my city!" Then he watches some strippers twerk and gets excited. Then he gets a fish and shrimp po'boy and sits on St. James with the spirit of Sir Mix-A-Lot. Then he talks a little about rear ends. Then he brings on the whole Texas crew from 2005 for a victory lap. Then he delivers the best crack rap of the season. Only after that does the record slow down -- a bit.

Album that ends the strongest

Other People's Lives.

Worst song of the year

"Blindfold Me", by Kelis. I like her, too, but this was just awful.

Song of the year

"All Goes Out The Window", the fourth study in self-loathing on The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living. I read a Pitchfork review that called this song "sappy" and "feelgood". Sure, guy, just like Martin Luther's Three Treatises were "sappy" and "feelgood". If you don't hear this song (and this album) as a vicious assault on the human condition, well, you're not approaching it with the proper spirit. Or maybe you really do have no sins to burn away; in which case, God bless you. Honorable mention: OutKast's "The Train".

Best EP Release

Jaymay's Sea Green, See Blue, of course.

Best singing

Eleanor Friedberger. Look, most decent vocalists can sing something like "we'll pick berries and recline/ let's hit the road, friend of mine" and make it sound inviting. But how many people can sing "I've got a special category business/ down by the multifunctional Dr. Sun-Yat-Sen Memorial Rollerblade Rink" and make it sound inviting?

Best rapping

Nas. Always. I'd give it to The Game, but too many of his cadences were lifted straight from old N.W.A. records. Or, they were lifted from Nas.

Best vocal harmonies

The Futureheads. What, you don't like 90125?

Best bass playing

Archis Tiku of Maximo Park. Many of you voted for B&S's Bobby Kildea, and I'm totally with you there. That guy is aces.

Best drumming

Colin Brooks on Without Feathers. I don't think he's in The Stills anymore. What, are they nuts?

Best drum programming

Mike Skinner

Best synth playing or programming

Timbaland. I'm sure he's using Softsynths and not actual analog pieces, but he sure knows what to do with them.

Best piano/organ/electric piano playing

Emily Haines

Best rhythm guitar playing

Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai of Phoenix.

Best lead guitar playing

Lindsay Buckingham. Funny that the choice came down to two fifty-plus acoustic players this year: Buckingham's style is all look-at-me and California flash, and Bert Jansch's is understated, plaintive, and graceful. Jansch, a Brit, wrote songs about how America sucks; Buckingham, an American, wrote songs about how he sucks. That's why we're God's country, Europeans -- we understand your theological concepts better than you do.

Best use of a non-traditional rock and roll instrument

Tom Snow is right: I need to cashier this question during years when Joanna Newsom puts out an album. First runner up -- Charles Giordano for his accordion leads on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. The fashionable choice in this category has always been that tap dancer in Tilly & The Wall. I never thought her beats were that impressive, but I'll say this: I hope they got her a Gatorade after her performance on "Sing Songs Along".

Best instrumental solo

Gerald Menke, slide guitar, sitting in with The Glaciers on "Railroad".

Best instrumentalist

"A light in the wings hits the system of strings from the side, where they swing -- see the wires, the wires, the wires. And the articulation in our elbows and knees makes us buckle; we couple in endless increase as the audience admires."

Best arrangements

The Futureheads' News And Tributes: some of the best small-combo arrangements since the glory days of The Smiths.

Most thoroughly botched production job

Joe Henry on The River In Reverse. Allen Toussaint's piano isn't loud enough, some of the backing vocals are lousy, the bass sounds watery; the whole thing lacks a certain required impact. If T-Bone Burnett had done that record, it probably would've been in my Top 20.

Best production

Timbo on the singles, The Neptunes over the course of an entire album. No, not the Gwen Stefani joint, silly; Hell Hath No Fury.

Rookie of the year

The Glaciers.

Band of the year

Maximo Park. They should've won it last year, too.

Best lyrics (on an individual song)

"Monkey & Bear". It's like Philip Pullman, but without the annoying bits about particle physics and Paradise Lost.

Best lyrics (over the course of a full-length)

Paul Simon's Surprise. This was the easiest question on the whole Poll for me.

Best songwriting

Matthew Friedberger.

Best sounding album

Shearwater's Palo Santo. Can anybody help me get that sound for my next record? Jay? Nicola? Mr. Flannery?

Best concerts I saw in 2006

Best music video

Best guest appearance

Janelle Monae on "Call The Law". When's that full-length dropping, Purple Ribbon?

Sexiest people in pop music

Let's just say Tracyanne Campbell and leave it at that, okay?

Worst video

That unwatchable POS with the treadmills, by those four tools in OK Go. You've got a computer and an Internet connection; you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not posting a link. You can watch the five above instead.

Worst singing

Eric Matthews on Foundation Sounds. He never could sing for shit, but he used to disguise that by double-tracking his vocals, and doing funny voices, and hiding behind his flugelhorn. This time, he got rid of the bag of tricks. His audience went with it.

Worst rapping

Gwen Stefani. Yodel-ay-ee yodel-o.

Worst lyrics

The Long Winters, especially on "Rich Wife", the year's biggest groaner.

Worst lyrics by a good lyricist who ought to know better

Just about everything on Kingdom Come.

Worst song on a good album

"Army" by Immaculate Machine. This is the point where their youthful enthusiasm crosses over into gauche cheerleading. "Turn the counterculture into a fashion market? Well, we're not gonna join your army! We're gonna start our own! And we'll take power with our music!" (Marching sounds.) Oh, and poor choice of metaphor, guys.

Crappy album you listened to a lot anyway

Cannibal Sea by The Essex Green. A few fun tracks, but it's mostly great-sounding adult-alternative filler.

2006 album you listened to the most

The Moonlight Never Misses An Appointment

2006 album that wore out the quickest

The Crane Wife

Song that got stuck in your head the most this year

"When I Look In Your Eyes", the faux piano-jazz track from Idlewild. I understand that OutKast's stock was long overdue for a market correction. But everything that was written in praise of The Love Below actually applies much better to this year's model. First of all, Andre's singing on Idlewild is much improved; he's still not Sinatra or even Cee-Lo, but he's projecting personality now, and not just stylized weirdness. Also, the jazz-fusion productions, which were hit or miss on TLB, are now pretty damn convincing -- or at any rate they feel like they're as convincing as Andre wants them to be. What I found so strange about the critical roasting of Idlewild was that artists from Richard Swift to Jolie Holland have been laboring to incorporate Thirties jazz into their pop music, and have been praised for efforts that are pretty damned superficial. OutKast did it with real skill and understanding -- and while they were doing it, they had some extremely interesting things to say about the whole project of historical reclamation. If "When I Look In Your Eyes" sounds artificial, that's because Andre and Antawn are too smart to try to pull the wool; they're giving you an OutKast version of Depression swing, day-glo and plastic, cartoonish and intentionally two-dimensional.

Thing you don't know, but you know you should

Lily Allen

Man, I wish I knew what this song or album was about

Palo Santo. Sorry, Angie. Shearwater does make resonance, but not quite enough that I ever feel grounded in the songs when I'm listening to them. It mostly blows right by me.

Album that felt most like an obligation to get through

Gomez's How We Operate. I'm hoping it was just a misstep, and not the beginning of the end of a great band.

Most romantic song

"Let's Get Out Of This Country", or maybe Jaymay's "Gray Or Blue".

Funniest song

"Fake Streets Hats". The funniest moment of any song is in Tim Fite's "I've Been Shot", but I can't describe it to you. You'll know it when you hear it.

Most frightening song

Something off of Knives Don't Have Your Back; maybe "Crowd Surf Off A Cliff" or "The Lottery", or "Reading In Bed". None of those songs are scary on their own, but taken together, it's a flipbook filled with images of encroaching specters. Something scary and unidentifiable in every frame, you know?

Most inspiring song

"Massive Nights". Whoah-oh-oh!

Most moving song

Every year I name some g-rap song in this category. What would my momma think? This season is no different: it's "Hello New World" by Clipse. "I, like you, had to come from up under the basement/ Just like you, had Satan trying my patience". Maybe it's the way Pusha T says it; it gives me the chills every time. Oh, if you listened to The Mechanic and The Mother, the most moving thing anybody did on record this year was The Path. But that's not really a song.

Saddest song

"Benton Harbor Blues".

Best cover

Maximo Park doing John Lennon's "Isolation".

Song that would drive you craziest on infinite repeat

"Walk It Out". Or, anything by Regina Spektor.

Most consistent album

It's Never Been Like That, by Phoenix. Nine very good songs, and one decent instrumental.

Most vertiginously inconsistent album

Loose

Most convincing historical recreation

Sam Roberts probably doesn't want to hear this, but man, does his band sound like The Dead from time to time -- especially on "The Resistance".

Song/album that should have been shorter

"Why You Hate The Game". Right when Just Blaze (who, incidentally, is my runner-up for Most Overrated) stops blathering on, you think the album's over, but then that song-killer from Floetry shows up to make coffee percolator noises for three more minutes. Yuck.

Song/album that should have been longer

Missing Songs by Maximo Park.

Album that turned out to be a whole hell of a lot better than you initially thought

Boys And Girls In America

Most overrated artist

T.I.

Album that was the most fun to listen to

Pablito's Way

Thing you feel cheapest about liking

Hinder's "Lips Of An Angel". Just the kind of schmaltzy melodrama I go for.

Hoary old bastard who should spare us all and retire

Flavor Flav

Young upstart who should be sent down to the minors for more seasoning

Cold War Kids

2006 album you'll probably re-evaluate in 2007

Hell Hath No Fury. Every time I listen to it, I like it better. That's bound to change eventually, isn't it?

Most overplayed song

"Our Country", if you're a fan of televised sports at all. "From the East Coast/ To the West Coast/ To that Dixie high-waaay back home..." and now back to Brad Radke getting lit up like 57th Street on Christmas Eve.

Place the next big pop music boom will come from

Let's see... we did Houston in '05, and Oakland this year. My guess is that we're about to follow Clipse to Tidewater Virginia (Norfolk, Virginia Beach), DC, and Baltimore.

Will still be making good records in 2016

Joanna Newsom

Will be a one-hit wonder ("Chicken Noodle Soup" doesn't count)

Jibbs

Biggest musical trend of 2007

Beat replacement. Like "Vans", only nuttier.

Best album of 2007

The Renaissance

 

Poll album results

Poll singles results

Poll miscellany

Postscript

Check out my Critics Poll ballot for 2004

 

Two great European narcotics -- alcohol and e-mail. I know which one I prefer.