Top 13 albums of 2006.

Why 13?

Because I said so.

13) Dub Trio - New Heavy

Punk & Metal Dub Reggae.





12) Loose Fur - Born Again In The USA

- 3/5th's of Wilco comes back for the followup to my favorite album of 2003.





11) Citizen Cope - Every Waking Moment

- Another person who's last album was top 10, but just missed it this year.




10) Black Keys - Magic Potion

9) Nomo - New Tones

- Fantastic Afro-pop with massive horns.





8) Calexico - Garden Ruin

- Calexico seem to only get better with each album. Their versality never seems to amaze me.





7) Matisyahu - Youth

-Matisyahu finally gets it perfect when he gets my favorite producer (Bill Laswell) to produce his 2nd studio album.




6) Black Keys - Chulahoma

An EP of songs writen by Junior Kimbrough.





5) Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

- I can't remember the last time a band from the U.K. made my top 10. This album deserves the hype.





4) Mates Of State - Bring It Back

- This didn't start out as an album that I loved, but every song is completely infectious, and grows on you





3) Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

Certainly, I don't need to say any more about Gnarls Barkley.







2) Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom

1) Spearhead - Yell Fire

- After almost two decades of writing amazingly personal and tragic political protest songs, it was no surprise, in 2004, when Michael Franti decided to visit the Middle East. Not the safe, remote areas that the embedded reporters report from, instead going to the red zones of Baghdad and the war torn areas of the West Bank and the Gaza strip to uncover the human cost of war, protected only by his guitar and video cameras. What he returned with is not only one of the years best documentaries, "I Know I'm Not Alone", but possibly his strongest album to date, "Yell Fire!". Certainly the most danceable statement about the war in Iraq, Franti puts bubbling funk, reggae, R&B and rock into a melting pot, and consistantly pulls out upbeat and uplifting tunes, at once weighted down by the wrongs in the world, yet always celebratory in the knowledge that things can get better.