10 days and this year is over.

I’m proud (and sickened) to say that I listened to over 120 albums this year. And I mean REALLY listened to them. Enough to pick a song I liked best from each one.

I narrowed 120+ albums to 14 favorites. Why 14? Because that’s how many mp3 albums would fit on a cd-r this year.

Here they are (with comments from the peanut gallery in parentheses):

1. Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope (the bonus tracks from this album are every bit as important as the album)

2. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (this is their “The Queen Is Dead” in terms of sound and putting their equation together)

3. Mates Of State - Bring It Back (same bouncy happy pop, this time with big arrangements and some of their best lyrics ever)

4. Cat Power - The Greatest (Chan + Memphis Soul = something that I just want to listen to again and again)

5. Robyn Hitchcock - Ole! Tarantula (Robyn’s best band album since the breakup of The Egyptians in 1993).

6. Starlight Mints - Drowaton (this was my first taste of The Mints’. Hard-hitting, fun and clever indie-pop)

7. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere (Danger Mouse + R ‘n B soul singer = so so good.)

8. Bruce Springsteen - The Seeger Sessions (my friends hated this record. I just can’t pass up this much energy.)

9. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House (I didn’t hop on this bandwagon until last month. Wow, I’m glad I didn’t miss it. Brilliant indie-folk)

10. Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways (I kept coming back to this record throughout the year. I love the song selections, and the fact that it is the Man In Black’s last gasp.)

11. Talkdemonic - Beat Romantic (PDX all up in the hizzee finally. I love the compositions. Drums and bloops and bleeps. MMMMM)

12. The Weepies- Say I Am You (two songwriter lovers move into the big-time with this release. Hello fame and fortune!)

13. Dan Bern - Breathe (I love the songwriting too much to leave this one out. Something is missing, dunno what.)

14. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (I love this voice too much to leave this one out. A few songs are meh.)

Mix Me A Molotov had a fun year. Thanks to Stereogum for hipping us to new music, to Large-Hearted boy for letting us know when it was being released, to VH1’s Best Week Ever for featuring us in a post, to Fred for commenting on a post about my favorite now-defunct band Pooka, and to all of you for reading. I hope I get a chance to make a few more posts before year’s end, but if I don’t, I wish you very happy holidays and we’ll see you in 2007!

Sincerely,

John B. Jones

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2006 at 7:08 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.