Adams' top five albums of 2006

By Nate Adams
Collegian Staff
January 24, 2007

5) The Lawrence Arms’ Oh! Calcutta! – This album finds the Chicago punk trio growing up, both musically and lyrically, and departing from their distinct pop style for a more hard edge in their songs. While not as impressive or transcendent within the genre as their 2001 release Apathy and Exhaustion, The Lawrence Arms have nonetheless made the best punk album of the year.

4) Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere – Covering a myriad of topics (everything from insanity to schizophrenia to necrophilia), St. Elsewhere is full of funk heavy samples and soulful, smooth rhythms laid under a bed of Al Green meets George Clinton vocal work. From the full-on spiritual chorus of “Go Go Gadget Gospel” to the body moving bass of “The Last Time,” Gnarls Barkley deliver the most fun dance record in recent memory.

3) Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale – Even when Ghostface was nothing more than a member of the hip hop juggernaut The Wu Tang Clan, he was a tight lyricist and vivid speaker; Ghost could paint a picture with words like few others. Thirteen years since that first Wu Tang album and Ghostface Killah still maintains some of the tightest rhymes and most descriptive narratives in the rap world. The production is top notch; it’s full of ’70s horn samples and the kind of offbeat minimalism that made the first Wu Tang records so good. By looking back to look forward, Ghostface Killah has made the best rap album of 2006.

2) The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America – Lead singer Craig Finn and the boys of The Hold Steady remember a time when grand guitar solos and fist pumping anthems weren’t a bad thing, but the only thing. And on Boys and Girls in America, they want you to remember it, too. The album is full of Springsteen-inspired keyboards, pounding rhythm section and soccer stadium guitar solos. This is the kind of music the best bar band in the world would play. As if that wasn’t enough, songwriter Finn once again produces some of the best written rock songs in recent memory.

1) Man Man’s Six Demon Bag – This album is a work of tragic, violent beauty. By channeling the spastic, “anything can happen” feeling of Frank Zappa and the drunken pirate carnival songs of Tom Waits, these Philly natives are able to produce a soundtrack for the surrealism and absurdity of life. It is both a heartbreakingly personal album about loss and sorrow, and a moving, hopeful testimony to the power of love. It tells the story of falling in and out of love with brutal honesty and violent intensity. In a musical landscape full of photocopied acts and repetitive themes, it’s refreshing to hear something so truthful and original.

adamsn1@lasalle.edu