The Best Songs of 2006

9. "Chips Ahoy" by the Hold Steady

The lyrics of this song are exceptional. The only funny thing is that various critics have described Boys and Girls in America as unpretentious and unironic, which I think kind of misses the point. This song is extravagantly overwritten. The whole thing is artifice. It's not Bruce Springsteen, it's a ventriloquist with a Bruce Springsteen dummy on his knee.

8. "Walk in the Park" by Oh No! Oh My!

These guys are way more talented than skilled, more daring than disciplined, but this is a track off a first album so I have to hope they grow into their abilities a little bit. This is a pretty tune. Nothing to really think about. In fact, the attempt to make the lyrics interesting ("Nice day for a drive by shooting," etc., near the end of the song) inadventantly makes the song retarded. It's more badass to unapologetically write a song about pretty weather and talking to cute girls and going on pointless mini-adventures.

7. "The Greatest" by Cat Power

You know that one Richard Avedon photograph of Cat Power that ran in the New Yorker a few years ago? Where her pants are falling down so you can see her pubes, the lit cigarette she's barely holding onto hasn't been ashed for so long it looks like Marge Simpson's hair, and the only thing keeping the old Bob Dylan shirt she's no longer wearing in front of her boobs is bad timing? That just about sums up what's so great about this sloppy, smoky tune. Lyrically, it's a mess but you just want to listen to the sound swell over and over. Her voice is an instrument so beautiful, she should be sitting on Mount Olympus in a toga contemplating turning into a swan or a goat and fucking a mortal.

6. "Parentheses" by the Blow

This song is like futuristic, electronic doo-wop. The sound is deceptively complicated because of all the chirping and whatnot, but it touches purely on classic girl group emotions. It's like the "Locomotion" or "And Then He Kissed Me" meets R2D2. When you're not hating yourself for liking this piece of crap, you'll be trying to not allow your tears to short-out your MacBook every time it comes on.

5. "Like U Crazy" by Mates of State

This song just came out of nowhere. I wasted most of 2006 not even being aware that someone had already written the greatest you're-crazy-but-I-can-fix-you love song of the year--nay, of the oughts, to date! Every time I hear this song I want to sing along. It's so, for lack of a better word, romantic. I haven't told anyone how much I like this song because it's vaguely embarrassing, but I'm owning up to it right now. I listened to this song all afternoon, over and over, and it was by far the best thing I did today.

4. "Punks in the Beerlight" by the Silver Jews

Okay, this song technically came out in October of 2005. But to me, the last two months of 2005 barely count because I happened to be in Europe buying cocoa for a major American chocolate distributor at the time and I met a Swiss girl with hair to her waist who didn't even speak English so I was busy from October to just about oh the end of December having sex in a hayloft. So I have to include this song in 2006's list out of respect, because this song is that fucking good. Just when you thought that Dave Berman's drug addiction was going to ruin everything and the Jews might go the way of the, well, the Jews (circa 1944), everything comes together here. This song is like a philosophy, an apology, a warning, an announcement of the return of a great band. Plus, Malkmus is back on the axe. Just listen to the guitar in this song. It's like a switchblade dressed up as a cookie cutter that suddenly slashes your cheek when you're not looking. Then there are Dave Berman's lyrics. This guy is a bona fide genius. Sorry if that went over everyone's head. I learned that term when I was in Harvard Law School. It just means he's got credentials. Best single lyric of the millenium (to date)? "Ain't you heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews." Because it could mean so many things. And they're all true.

3. "Rough Gem" by the Islands

When I first heard this song, I couldn't understand why all other music has to be so boring, so for a while I listened exclusively to this track. I was happy. But this song's eccentricities are also it's weaknesses. Why are there boring parts in a 3 minute and 36 second song? They should have just made this a minute and a half if the best anyone could come up with was a boring-ass bridge. Still, the amazing melody that makes you feel all bright and cheery like someone just gave you a free Coca Cola is poppy enough to lift this ditty all the way to number three on one of America's most prestigous musical rankings.

2. "Your Blood" by Destroyer

Dan Bejar's lyrics are so far into the realm of annoyingly banal pretentious nonsense that they butt smack up against pure genius. To my taste, they're hit or miss, but when he hits, he hits home runs. This song sounds like what I want my folk rock to sound like: spacious and relaxed with beautifully supple piano and amazing, angular guitar fills. Reminds me of if Dylan stayed young this whole time instead of turning toad and perfected variations of the Blonde on Blonde sound.

1. "Wild Sage" by the Mountain Goats

This is the only song I know that's as well-written as a good short story, maybe a great short story. Everything you need to get you to the top of the mountain and nothing--not a word, note, or flourish--extra. Not the first song off Get Lonely that got my attention, but it became the one that I couldn't forget. John Darnielle's voice is unusually unabrasive here (as opposed to how harsh he can sound on some of the Mountain Goats' earlier lower-fi recordings) probably because of the exquisite, minimal Scott Solter production. (Solter also produced John Vanderslice's well-received but still underrated 2005 masterpiece Pixel Revolt). If you have to pick one song from 2006 to validate Earth's right to exist in some intergalactic court, where the judges are like weird alien frog things, choose this perfect gem from a mature songwriter at the peak of a remarkable career. (If you want more, revisit "This Year" off 2005's the Sunset Tree; it will surprise you with its awesomeness all over again).

Honorable Mention: Sorry there were only nine worthy songs all year. I had to stretch just to get this many. As always, fawning comments welcome, but please first try to wait 30 - 870 minutes so we don't bring down google's servers by all of us doing it at once.