***What's that coming over the hill? It's the 2006 ILX ALBUMS POLL RESULTS***

I never got the "Crazy in Love" adulation, so I'm surprised that the 2006 album I keep revisiting is B'Day. It's obvious why – there wasn't a record that was more fun out last year. For the better part of it, Beyoncé is barking mad on it, hollering, yelping, straining her vocals to implore you to take her credit card, sit on mama's lap, get her bodied, get yourself an Audemars Piguet watch and a diamond cream facial, and in a flagwaving anthem of emasculation, she orders you to pull out your freakum dress. The album is an exhibition of Beyoncé in all sorts of over the top frenzies – jealous rage, sweaty lust, emancipation from poverty backed by a frenzy of horns, handclaps and sirens. And just when you can't take it anymore, she slips in the gorgeous ballads. To the left, to the left.
-Danzig

"B'Day" isn't revolutionary. It's not amazing. It doesn't have any truly mindblowing tracks. But it has one thing that separates it from most of the year's pop albums; like "FutureSex/LoveSounds," it's complete. There's really no filler, and the b-sides alone would make wonderful singles. Everything flows, and as a whole, it's rather addicting.
-Tape Store

This is pure coffee table for the most part but it's probably the apex of that (because it's not so forlorn ala 'Dummy' or whatever), in that it does sound great, predictably so, but better than I expected considering the attitudes that pervade them and my own low expectations/pessimism. I suppose this means it sounds impressive when playing in the background without you thinking too much about it. But engaging with it fully provides just as much reward as with any overtly upbeat and energetic pop album that attempts to stride both sides of the leftfield/mainsteam rift in this way.

There is interesting detail spread throughout, as I said above I think Gregory is totally on it production-wise. Eschewing this notion of (laptop) 'edginess' which I don't see as really relevant here, the sound here is glossy and rich but still sharp and deftly switches from warmth to coldness accordingly, to good effect. AG's voice still feels under-used at times and at times feels a bit obscured in the haze generated by 'Let It Take You' and 'Slide In' - maybe it's just that neutral key she drops into so regularly now, akin to Stevens during the verses of 'Some Girls', only naturally sounding much more adept here. She sounds more like herself on U Never Know more than anything else here perhaps, and this is maybe the only track that matches 'Deep Honey' for drama, or 'Crystalline Green' for that 'blown away' effect. Hard to escape that sense of 'Black Cherry afterthoughts' about the whole thing.

I say it's generally an 'up' sort of album but not in the same way the much more obvious and jaunty Robyn album is. It's still too strait-laced and cautious in this respect, but this 'strained joy' thing has worked for other artists (PSBs, Eurythmics) in the past albeit it in somewhat different ways so is not a massive flaw by any means.
-Sociah T Azzahole

When Supernature came out I was eagerly anticipating that it was likely to be a GA/CAGI (pre-CAGI, admittedly)-tastic stack of standalone succulent pop songs rather than expecting it to be the kind of record that was preoccupied with 'flow' or whatever (although obviously the two aren't mutually exclusive, and perhaps Chemistry has since illustrated this best); I would have been totally happy with something more disjointed and less cohesive or whatever than the previous two Goldfrapp albums, which I'd felt were both hampered a bit by the occasional, um, uneventful noodle. In the event I think Supernature is probably as 'flowy' as both predecessors, hence something like "Ride A White Horse" (my initial favourite on the album, still sounds entirely mighty now) stumbling a bit when singléd out in a half-arsed stylee and limping onto the radio and into the charts and off again very quickly for no particular reason.

I probably love this record infinitely more now than I did at first because I'm no longer listening for future singles (and I always do this with new albums by People Who Get In The Charts and it's self-defeating really) so I can bask in the heavy sparkly luxury of the whole thing and now it does sound like the best Goldfrapp album by a mile, and the album I wanted them to make (tighter, more dynamic, 'etc') and it doesn't matter that lots of it sounds the same as lots of the rest of it because the joy is in the aforementioned minor tweaks.

(also it feels less drama-school-hats than Black Cherry really, which is a good thing)
- Alex in Doncaster

Has a short Israeli girl ever sounded this sexy? Her voice is its own bombastic instrument; exploding at the edges and consuming the audience. She pouts, winks, drinks glasses of red wine, and then does something with her mouth that marries dozens of voice styles together at once.
-Mordechai Shinefield

It's all in the lyrics. Quick turns or phrase, biting wit and insightful observations. Not bad for a debut album and a songwriter who was only 18 when he wrote most of the songs.
-lawrencerock

You're missing the point if you look for the reasons for their success in the music, which is as has been said meat and potatoes indie. What struck me when I heard them on the radio was the words, lots of words, in an unusual (for pop music) and appealing accent and telling stories, not yr usual Coldplay platitudes. They're kind of an Eminem or Streets with guitars. They're not my cup of tea but that's where their appeal lies I think.
-Bidfurd

In terms of pure sound, nothing in 2006 rivalled techno goddess Ellen Allien's collaboration with ex-boyfriend Apparat: these immaculately crafted tracks with their gorgeous textures and restless, propulsive rhythms made for some dizzyingly dreamy head music. This was the default Sunday morning record of 2006, the perfect accompaniment to sitting back, sipping tea and watching the sun rise as we came gently down; it was also the default DJing tool, with 'Way Out' an inevitable anthem at most parties. Its constant presence throughout 2006 - more than any other, this was an album I lived - was immensely satisfying.
-lex pretend

Nelly Furtado conquered the world in 2006, simultaneously releasing 3 singles to burn up the clubs in different corners of the globe – the kids in America got to grips with the quadrasyllabic word "Promiscuous," Latin America got the tongue-waggingly unrelenting reggaeton of "No Hay Igual," and the rest, the straight up chunky sing along pop of "Maneater." And then she turned around and released 3 beautifully understated ballads to those respective markets. 6 amazing singles already and there are supposedly more coming. And there are plenty more to mine: "Showtime" is lovely, "Do It" is pure '80s Madonna. Criticism that Furtado's "I'm Like A Bird" personality has gone out the window in favour of an anonymous muse to Timbo's beats is silly and prudish – I've watched plenty of interviews with Nelly Furtado and let me tell you we should be glad that her personality got left behind: it's really annoying. And it definitely comes through albeit briefly through the painful interludes that are thankfully only seconds long. And for those who lament that Nelly's been cynically sexed up, listen to the ballads on Loose. They are glorious. Loose was eventually overshadowed when FutureSex/LoveSounds came out, but Justin blew his load prematurely and his cockiness got old quickly: Who still listens to "Sexy Back?" But the songs here are uniformly strong and memorable, except for the one about God.
-Danzig

After 30-odd listens, it's held up suprisingly well. Among the best of the year. The music is steeped in both the sounds of the '70's and the Texas hill country. It's refreshingly sincere and straightforward, and the songcraft is impeccable throughout. The album's *slightly* frontloaded, but considering a couple of these songs (Roscoe, Young Bride) are among the best that ANYONE has released this year, I'm not gonna complain.
-cosmo vitelli

2006 was a banner year for Boris. Adding majestic shoegaze to the doom and deceivingly intricate riff-rock the band had mastered years ago, Pink was one of the most consistently-cited examples of 06's upward trend for so-called hipster metal. Yet it was as outside of this movement as part of it--too unironic and too essentially foreign, Pink is simply a joyous homage to the many forms that rocking the fuck out has taken over the years. Free of agenda and refusing to acknowledge conventional wisdom's line between smart and stupid, Pink was certainly one of 2006's most immediate releases, and may well be its most timeless.
-Call All Destroyer

A lot of people get hung up on the " abstraction" of the post- nite flites work, don't you think?. But sadly forget the emotional simplicity of what he does, as he always states he's "pairing" the text down to a feeling.. Just as they do in the French chanson or German leider tradition, were words and enunciation articulate unsaid expeiences. Walker sings through the feelings of others as if they were inside him, exorcising all the horrors he's watched and read. He conveys the souls of the unspoken victims through his compositions ... people who are victims of poltical/state control. Take for example the ironically titled Patriot 91...

He conflates the narratives of the Nazis third Reich and the fourth reich of the good old USA. The " highway of Death" with incinerated bodies ... "shock and awe"... christ you can hear him close to tears when hes sings "Aryanuary"... Scott Walker knows the score of what is politically going on right now on in front of our very eyes. How our planet is being turned into a global corporate fascist state, and how this very state is trying to destroy the human spirit.

Walker is fighting against that horror with this music, and reflects the mirror of our cruelty back to our faces whether in Treblinka or in Iraq. He is touch with the violence and the 'sublime' just as Goya or Picasso were, or in cinematic terms as Passolini, who was exploring the same idea of corporations/fascism in Salo.

He is one of the most vital as well as humble artists working today and should not be ignored.

Christ, I went on rant there. But it would nice if people focussed on the work, rather than lazily quip it's "Inacessible".
-PaulBaran

i think it's her strongest set of original songs, even though there are a few in the later stretch that run into her problem of melodic and lyrical vagueness. the first 8 or so tracks are all pretty strong, and i love the last one ("the needle has landed"). i like that it's less self-consciously twangy, more noir-pop. i don't think you can really call it a country or alt-country album at all. the gospel song is great. she and kelly hogan really need to do a gospel album.
-gypsy mothra

Yes, this album makes the statement "Yay! drums and feedback exist" and that is a big part of its appeal. I think they switch it up a little.. they play on the notion of "inspiration" (in fact, that's what the whole album's about if you listen!) and kind of twist it around into an ambivalent mess, but it's such a thoughtful mess that it seems more like a conversation.
-snnhy

"What a dream of an album Yellow House is. Summery, shimmering, light as air, yet grounded enough in solid song-craft that it never floats off into the ether. Which is the problem with most alt/lo-fi/fractured Americana/folk/psych groups and artists who worship at the altar of Wilson/Parks or whatever forgotten author of teenage symphonies to God knows what is being touted and resurrected this week. They sound pretty and create aching wisps of reverential fluff, but they go in one ear and out the other. Grizzly Bear's melodies stick with you. Now a four-piece ? Grizzly Bear?s 2004 debut Horn Of Plenty being recorded by the duo of Christopher Bear and Edward Droste ? the band makes drifting sand-pop (the album was mostly recorded in, yes, a yellow house off of Cape Cod) where sound and instruments waft in and out of the room like ghosts. There is guitar, a brush on a drum, banjo, strings, horns, and pianos that reverberate or tinkle or act as percussion. There are gorgeous side-two-of-Abbey Road vocal harmonies and there are lone voices lost in the weeds. There is a lot to take in ? the ambient live noise and various fx adding to the mix ? and yet Yellow House never feels crowded or messy. It?s hypnotic and intimate but never cloying in its intimacy. You never feel the hot breath of desperation. Only the cool breeze of delight in invention. The album makes you wish that more indie acts would take the time to learn how to make their songs breathe -to live with and inhabit their songs until they are sturdy and can stand on their own without crumbling- instead of just trying to turn their record collections into gold."
-scott seward

can't believe nelly doesn't have her own thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pBo-GL9SRg

more interesting to me than this list is the evolution of ilx and ilxors

there's a really strange and almost frightening blend of raw and paranoid opinion, sometimes with one or the other expressed in the extreme by someone, sometimes both expressed by the same person in the same post.

also nelly furtado

xp NO I HATE GIRL TALK THEY MASH LOVELY AALIYAH UP WITH HORRID INDIE
― lex pretend

<3

not sure if that was at me Karl, but I probably shouldn't post when I'm wasted.

i lurked here 15+ years before making my first post a year or so ago

oh no, it wasn't ross! actually i'm not sure hat that was about (i have the same posting problem)
when you bumped the thread, the first thing i did i was go back to the beginning and re-read it. for some reason i decided it would be funny to call out nelly furtado, just because i haven't heard anyone mention her in several years. i don't really know her tbh. man my jokes are great! but yeah i didn't even see your post til i had already crapped my post out.

oof. weekday nights are brutal

there's a really strange and almost frightening blend of raw and paranoid opinion

makes me think of this bit from [i]the rest is noise/i] about schoenberg and mahler:

The Mahlers regularly invited [Schoenberg] to their apartment near the Schwarzenbergplatz, where, according to Alma, he would incite heated arguments by offering up 'paradox of the most violent description'.

haha cool Karl, best regards :)