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The 100 Best Songs of 2006
The 100 Best Songs of 2006
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1 "Crazy" Gnarls Barkley
In a perfect world, Al Green could still sing collard-green soul gems like this one, but Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse stepped up with an instant classic, winning this year's "Hey Ya!" award for the song nobody even pretended not to like. Everybody tried to cover it (our personal fave: the Raconteurs') -- but nobody can hit the chorus like Cee-Lo, and nobody ever will.
2 "Steady As She Goes" The Raconteurs
The first single from Brendan Benson and Jack White's garage-glam band was a perfect dirty sundae of fuzz-box stutter, metallic zoom and pop-chorale candy. It is also a good reason to hope the Raconteurs are no one-album project.
3 "Ridin'" Chamillionaire
The song least likely to be played in Drivers' Ed.: Chamillionaire dodges the cops, riding dirty with a car full of thugs who don't care where they're rolling or if they get there in one piece.
4 "What You Know" T.I.
T.I. gets majestic with bass and synth strings booming like your car just flipped the corner. What you know about that? T.I. knows all about that.
5 "Vans" The Pack
Bay Area MCs the Pack broke out with this sleek, bare-bones ode to midpriced sneakers. Words of warning: "Lace 'em past the fourth hole, you some type of sucker."
6 "Thunder on the Mountain" Bob Dylan
So that's how you bring sexy back! Dylan slaps on a cowboy hat and greases up his favorite Chuck Berry guitar riff, one step ahead of the apocalypse and one step behind Alicia Keys.
7 "Smile" Lily Allen
This deceptively named ditty was '06's most gloriously bitter breakup song: Part Mike Skinner, part Gwen Stefani, part Blondie, the young Allen defined her very own bratty, musically adventurous style on "smile," a reggae-lite platter about the joys of an ex's despair.
8 "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)" Clipse with Slim Thug
Best line: "So proper/Hammertime gun-cocker." But the lyrics aren't really the point here -- the cuckoo-for-coconuts Neptunes steel-drum beat is.
9 "Dimension" Wolfmother
Aussie guys dig out their big brothers' worn vinyl copy of Master of Reality and let the brain-bludgeon guitars off the chain.
10 "Ooh La La" Goldfrapp
The kind of groovy dance number Kylie used to write, full of steamy, sweaty vocals and a fierce Sixties vamp.
11 "World Wide Suicide" Pearl Jam
The president -- "writing checks that others pay" -- gets it in this top-shelf blast of bad news and fighting spirit from the Seattle band that refuses to die.
12 "Read My Mind" The Killers
A shimmering singalong about love in the sticks. Ever wonder what Bono would sound like if he grew up in Vegas?
13 "Free Radicals" The Flaming Lips
Damn-near-genius space pop, inspired by a dream about Devendra Banhart trying to reason with a suicide bomber.
14 "Ghetto Story" Cham
This year's "Welcome to Jamrock" but darker, prettier, with descriptions of inner-city struggle supposedly strong enough to keep it off the radio in Jamaica.
15 "Miss Murder" AFI
The soundtrack to a goth-punk siege of your high school dance. Any cities that still had decent rock radio stations were hearing this punk-pop barnburner, a torrent of "whoa-oh-ohs" that charges right in with a monster chorus and doesn't stop.
16 "You Only Live Once" The Strokes
A sharp-twang cocktail of bravado and concession from the recently married Julian Casablancas sounds like he?s still mystified by the art of commitment but intrigued enough to try.
17 "Welcome to the Black Parade" My Chemical Romance
Singer Gerard Way and his eyeliner-rock brigade envision Teen Goth America as a salvation army. Get in step.
18 "Ain't No Other Man" Christina Aguilera
Aguilera digs up DJ Premiere for a zoot-suit-riot dance cut, all brassy horn samples and even brassier vocals.
19 "Get Myself Into It" The Rapture
Step aside, "House of Jealous Lovers"! Gangly funk punk stormed back, and steely-eyed hipsters found themselves forced to dance again.
20 "The Long Way Around" The Dixie Chicks
A heart-tugging guitar anthem for small-town girls with big dreams -- and the best ersatz Springsteen song in a year that was packed with them.
21 "SexyBack" Justin Timberlake
Probably the jam that drove Britney back to the gym. Justin brings sexy all the way back like a grown-ass man, in sync with Timbaland on a spaced-out Prince-style funk fantasia.
22 "Tell Me Baby" Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Chili Peppers mix socks-on-dicks-era crunch with a comforting pop sweetness that bursts into Hendrix-style flames when John Frusciante steps up.
23 "Fidelity" Regina Spektor
Russian-American Brooklynite breathes as much heartbreaking meaning and inflection into individual syllables as most singers give entire words.
24 "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen honors New Orleans' fight against nature and FEMA with an uplifting version of this Depression-era ballad, updated with heated new lyrics.
25 "When the Sun Goes Down" Arctic Monkeys
"I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" got more attention, but this was the fan favorite for a reason: a humble song about hookers on the dreary side of town that somehow turns into a singalong.
26 "Province" TV on the Radio
Gorgeous: Brooklyn band blends voices with guest David Bowie, bouncing off a wall of guitar feedback and burbling synth.
27 "Capillarian Crest" Mastodon
Nobody gets heavier than Mastodon -- the metal guitars hit you like you're playing buck-buck with Fat Albert.
28 "Level" The Raconteurs
A fever dream of sludgy keyboards, a doubled guitar part that'd make Boston blush and snarling traded verses between singers Jack White and Brendan Benson. What's not to like?
29 "Smiley Faces" Gnarls Barkley
Cee-Lo plays a wise R&B loverman amid a groove that sounds like Motown funk with dance-club appeal and a dash of psilocybin.
30 "Over & Over" Hot Chip
The genius late-night punk-disco club banger of the summer, all pumping bass and postcoital synth throbs and filthy guitar. We think it sounds like ZZ Top, but then we've never heard it sober.
31 "The Clock" Thom Yorke
Radiohead's singer makes tense, hermetic despair from tangled strands of looped guitar and insect-chatter percussion.
32 "Do It to It" Cherish
A perfect night out in Atlanta: Four R&B sisters pop their backs over a loping, unstoppable beat as they tip their hats to the Ying Yang Twins and Dem Franchize Boyz.
33 "Chillout Tent" The Hold Steady
Boy and girl go to outdoor festival, gobble too many mushrooms and wind up making out while hooked up to IVs. The verdict: "It was kinda sexy, but it was kinda creepy."
34 "When You Were Young" The Killers
This hard-rocking hit showed the Killers could make it without glitz and eyeliner. It also proved you could turn "he doesn't look a thing like Jesus" into a killer hook.
35 "Summersong" The Decemberists
"Rambling, where to begin?" wonders Colin Meloy in the first line -- a ravishing pause for reflection, like an Eighties power ballad decked out a la Fairport Convention.
36 "SOS" Rihanna
In case you hadn't guessed, you cannot front on this Soft Cell beat. And you also cannot underestimate the allure of green-eyed ladies from Barbados who get this much wiggle in their voices.
37 "Strange Apparition" Beck
The folk-rap changeling confronts a crisis of faith with dry wit ("Lord, please don't forsake me/In my Mercedes-Benz") and a salvation package of country funk and saloon piano that sounds like '68 Rolling Stones.
38 "Gin & Milk" Dirty Pretty Things
If you spent the summer hanging around sleazy punk-rock bars, this song was blasting the night you made out with your ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's bassist in the bathroom line. Not a pretty night, but a freaking great song.
39 "Dance, Dance" Fall Out Boy
Don't fight them: an irresistible number in which Patrick Stump spews at a cheating lover he'd still agree to take back if she'd just sleep with him again, damn it.
40 "Incinerate" Sonic Youth
The guitars do exactly what the title says, as the rejuvenated Youth kick out the jams in an ode to burning adult passions.
41 "Me & U" Cassie
Cassie ain't necessarily the most gifted singer in the world, but none of the world's most gifted singers have done an electro tune this spellbinding lately.
42 "Origin of Species" Chris Smither
Folkie makes delicious fun of the "intelligent design" crew, singing about a God who sits "back in the shade/While everyone gets laid." Required listening for Biology 101.
43 "Tony the Beat" The Sounds
The world can never have enough sexy Swedish synth-pop bands, that?s for sure. The Sounds know their way around a nasty beat, and they ride this one with more bounce to the ounce.
44 "Hustlin'" Rick Ross
Trunk-rattler of the year: Big, narcotic beat and slo-mo flows from an ex-dope man who manages to get away with rhyming "Atlantic" with "Atlantic."
45 "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" Chris Brown
Usher didn't drop any new panty-dissolver R&B ballads this year, so Brown stepped up to the plate, doing for "U Make Me Wanna" what "Run It!" did for "Yeah!"
46 "Hang Me Up to Dry" Cold War Kids
Indie rock with a little sex: Nathan Willett howls like a country bluesman as the other three Kids elbow their way through a mess of art-damaged funk.
47 "Cheer It On" Tokyo Police Club
They're not from Tokyo, they're not cops and the only club they could get into is probably the Strokes Fan Club -- but these mods score with a gloriously dumb garage-punk thrash-terpiece.
48 "He Said, She Said" Shawnna with Ludacris
On this mix tape, a greasy beat sets up lyrics that would make Blowfly blush: Ludacris plays a hilariously over-the-top ass hound, while ****-buddy Shawnna goes on about double-jointed *****.
49 "Chasing Cars" Snow Patrol
Channeling Coldplay and starry skies, U.K. quintet Snow Patrol deliver a radiant ballad for Molly Ringwald girls and the nice guys who love them.
50 "My Love" Justin Timberlake
The loverman slow jam of the year, thanks to Justin's fluttery vocals and Timbaland's stuttery beats.
51 "Black Sweat" Prince
A tune that finds Prince at his horniest and most inspired, brandishing the world's best falsetto over a killer bump-and-glide beat like James Brown and vowing to make her scream "like a white lady."
52 "Makedamnsure" Taking Back Sunday
A knee-crumbling emo anthem so masterfully formulated that you'd have to be a heartless bastard not to wipe away a tear as you holler along with its love-sucks chorus.
53 "O Valencia!" The Decemberists
True love takes a hit in a bullets-and-hot-rods adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, fueled by spangled folk-rock guitar and garage-combo organ.
54 "Kilo" Ghostface Killah
The hottest song about the metric system ever. Ghostface and Raekwon rhyme about lowlife dealers hooked on cranberry Snapple as a Sesame Street-style soul chorus delivers the goods.
55 "Nausea" Beck
Beck writes like a man overwhelmed -- "I'm a seasick sailor/On a ship of noise" -- but vocally he hangs ten on this choppy-water collage of Marc Bolan-style strum and Kraftwerk electronics.
56 "Promiscuous" Nelly Furtado with Timbaland
Timbaland has never jacked the 1980s as shamelessly as he does here -- it's easy to imagine the Force M.D.'s or Gregory Abbott singing over this, and that's a compliment.
57 "Love Me or Hate Me" Lady Sovereign
"I ain't got the biggest breastesses, but I write all the best disses": A defiant theme song that hews to the theory that no insult can hurt if you say it about yourself first, all while bubbling with Atari electro effects.
58 "Idlewild Blues" Outkast
The supercatchy soundtrack cut drags hip-hop into the Cotton Club: Amid a dusty, swinging riff and party-people whoops, Andre 3000 channels both old blues records and his id, transmitting heartache through swishy croons and swishier scats.
59 "Bossy" Kelis with Too $hort
The lady makes demands. Kelis continues her amazing roll with this fierce hip-hop dominatrix anthem. Nas, be very afraid.
60 "Phenomena" Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Karen O gets hot for a dude who's "something like an astronomer," while Nick Zinner's space-punk guitar rocks like a hip-hop DJ on the cut.
61 "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" CSS
Five Brazilian girls (plus one dude with an excellent handlebar 'stache) rock their spaz-disco hit describing the perfect date.
62 "Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)" The Rakes
A herky-jerky art-rock jam that's pointy and pretty in all the right places, courtesy of some seriously gangly U.K. boys.
63 "The Funeral" Band of Horses
Two Seattle boys with a strong tune sense and lips that need kissing something fierce make a gloomy downer that sulks like Tonight's the Night-era Neil Young, then gets epic like the Arcade Fire.
64 "Put Your Records On" Corinne Bailey Rae
A breezy, wickedly catchy summer jam that could light up both a house party and a wine-and-cheese soiree.
65 "Penny on the Train Track" Ben Kweller
Inspiration for wistful young men. Imagine a Weezer tune written by Fats Domino: sloppy-drunk piano pounding with a locomotive engine rhythm and wide-eyed lyrics.
66 "Ballad of Bitter Honey" Eef Barzelay
"That was my ass you saw bouncing/Next to Ludacris," sings nerdy indie guy Barzelay in the voice of a hip-hop video vixen. The best folk song ever about "hoochie skanks."
67 "Deja Vu" Beyonce with Jay-Z
Not "Crazy in Love," but it'll do: a powerhouse that felt like a Marvin Gaye-Tammie Terrell duet for the hip-hop generation.
68 "Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts" Arctic Monkeys
It probably got left off the album because it sounded too much like the Libertines, but this superbly jealous, wiggly pub-rock cut from the I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor EP is well worth seeking out.
69 "Trouble" Jay-Z
Maybe if Jay leaked this one first instead of "Show Me What You Got," the heads would have given him a warmer welcome-back cheer. One of the nastiest Dr. Dre beats in years, and Jay doesn't let it go.
70 "I Gotcha" Lupe Fiasco
Backed by a prime Neptunes shuffle tagged to a jazzy piano riff, Chicago newcomer Fiasco gives his tongue a workout while his brain works overtime. One of the year's most lovable hip-hop tracks.
71 "Let Me Know" Yeah Yeah Yeahs
This spare acoustic B side to "Gold Lion" could have been a children's play song: Its lazy martial rhythm and Karen O's vocals circle endlessly back upon themselves. Perfect for jumping rope or nodding out.
72 "Louisiana" The Walkmen
A joyful, laid-back homage to summers spent driving down South at sunup, from a band that specializes in a peculiar mussed-up impression of Blonde on Blonde Dylan.
73 "Pushover" The Long Winters
Guitar troubadour surrenders to his girlfriend with two and a half minutes of rootsy sweetness, and you can't help but surrender too.
74 "Just Drums" Tapes 'N Tapes
Minneapolis rockers get you "reeling in fog, kneeling in fog" with brittle, brutal guitar work in the service of an off-kilter groove.
75 "Before He Cheats" Carrie Underwood
Country-jukebox fave of the year -- the American Idol sweetheart is reborn as a psycho stalker, slashing her man's tires outside the honky-tonk.
76 "Fire Department" Be Your Own Pet
Four wild-eyed skater-punk teens from Nashville stomp the bejesus out of a Buzzcocks guitar riff that's older than they are.
77 "Trapped in the Drive-Thru" "Weird Al" Yankovic
We thought R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" was beyond parody until we heard this "Weird Al" joint, which chronicles a couple's struggle to get dinner.
78 "That's How I Got To Memphis" Solomon Burke
Just a warm, weathered voice calling out for a departed lover: Burke's version of this Tom T. Hall tune is the best song from his excellent new covers disc.
79 "It's Going Down" Yung Joc with Nitti
"Meet me in the club/It's going down": More proof of the power of a pure, synthy snap beat and a singsongy rhyme.
80 "I'm Free" Pimp C
A tweaked sample of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin' " makes a perfect hook for this lovable, slow-rolling celebration of the Houston MC's release from prison.
81 "Temperature" Sean Paul
A sweaty sugar-shot hit anchored by the reggae-pop star's zippiest beat yet.
82 "London Bridge" Fergie
A true original! Well, not exactly -- just the Black Eyed Peas' token blonde ripping off "Hollaback Girl" with a boombastic rhythm track. But it does the trick.
83 "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further" Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint
Toussaint wrote this funky plea for charity and unity in 1970 for Lee Dorsey. The urgency is greater in this explosive rock 'n' soul version, cut in New Orleans four months after Katrina.
84 "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage" Panic! At the Disco
Sporting a title taken from a Chuck Palahniuk novel, "Difference" has what Panic! do best: churning riffs, an explosion of syllables from Brendon Urie that takes the place of a guitar solo, and hypercatchy non-hooks ("Trophy Boys! Trophy Wives!")
85 "Well Thought Out Twinkles" Silversun Pickups
If loving Smashing Pumpkins is wrong, then Silversun Pickups don't wanna be right: bombastically dreamy alt-rock that surges from a whisper to a shriek.
86 "The Saints are Coming" Green Day and U2
Billie Joe Armstrong and Bono rescue a tune from Scottish punk band the Skids and turn it into a redemption song for New Orleans. Also, check the live recording from the Superdome.
87 "U +Ur Hand" Pink
The title reads like a snippet from a nasty text message, and the huge, sexy song follows suit: Pink walks into a bar and tells a horny jackass he'll have to get himself off tonight.
88"The Greatest" Cat Power
The strings are breathtaking and the backing vocals are ethereal, but it's Chan Marshall's eerily aching voice that makes this soar.
89"Show Me" John Legend
Legend proves he's more than a mellow piano dude with this fragile Jeff Buckley-ish tune, powered by a burbling, Hendrix-style guitar riff.
90"Britney's Silver Can" James Kochalka Superstar
Kochalka, a very funny moonlighting comic-book artist, makes the definitive tune about Britney's rough past few years.
91"Buttons" The Pussycat Dolls
Pretty much all you could ask for from a horny-girl-group hit: snaky synths, hot chorus, Snoop cameo. That, and girls begging you to help them undress.
92"I'm Shipping Up to Boston" Dropkick Murphys
Punk vets do for The Departed what the Ronettes did for Mean Streets, revving up a sea chantey and making it sound like a tavern full of scurvy pirates.
93"Saving Grace" Tom Petty
Petty roars on, getting his ZZ Top on with this roadhouse stomper. Welcome back, old friend.
94"Stuntin' Like My Daddy" Lil' Wayne and Birdman
One of the Country's best MCs (Wayne) and his patron Bridman keep New Orleans on the hip-hop map with a synth-bouncec track that puts extra grease in your grits. "Cash money still the company," says Birdman. "And, *****, I'm the boss." Don?t argue.
95"Don't Feel Right" The Roots
Black Thought sounds fierce on this banger about the world going to hell in a handbasket while riding a dark ?uestlove beat.
96"If I Was in El Dorado" Oakley Hall
Imagine the Band if they were twenty-first-century New York kids. A steady-rollin' rave-up that wanders off into the tall grass of a long, loose jam.
97"Automatic Lover" Teddybears
Scandinavian ex-punks drop a vocoder-driven electropop number. Think music for robots that's so sexy it'll make your laptop sigh.
98"Take Control" Amerie
Ms. "1 Thing" shows she has something else in her pocket. Why didn't any rock bands have a guitar riff this cold in 2006?
99"Baby Let's Have a Baby Before Bush Do Somethin' Crazy" The Coup with Silk E
Introducing War on Terror sex: "Bombs going off everywhere. . . . But I still got some love to share." The sweet soul helps.
100"Skinny Boy" Amy Millan
Singer from Canadian indie-pop outfit Stars applies angel-voiced cynicism to delicious Mazzy Star-style tune. Best line: "You've got lips I could spend a day with."
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Source: RollingStone
Cassie is like the best robot EVER! XD
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16th December 2006, 11:15 PM
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