Great, ignored albums of 2006 spill over into 2007

By Joe Pelone
Collegian Editor
January 31, 2007

With exceptions made for parties, bad romantic comedies and something else that I haven’t thought of just yet, I hate being late. When it comes to things like work or class, tardiness upsets my schedule and makes me look like a careless jerk. But try as I might (and sometimes I do try, sometimes), I still end up hesitantly walking into something like Dr. Stephen Smith’s Studies in British Literature 1800-1900 class at least a few minutes overdue. The class has only met twice and I’ve already made a record of delaying my education by about 16 minutes, 22 seconds.

But while seeing that hint of disappointment in my well-bearded professor’s eyes causes me regret, there is something else that creates in me far greater mental anguish – writing “best of” lists. Last issue contained a “Top 10” written by me, dictating what I thought were the 10 best albums of 2006. I made an honest effort, but I knew that the piece was already a fallacy before it even came back from the presses.

As Frank Visco pointed out in his own top 10 list of the year’s best films, it’s near-impossible to craft a perfect ranking. Personal taste aside, there’s just too much art being created to experience in a lifetime, let alone a year. But I am young and stupid, so I ignored that thought and wrote the piece anyway. While January 2007 gives way to February, I already know, deep down in my meaty meat bits, that there are at least three 2006-released albums that I didn’t hear until well after the fact. For shame!

1. Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out of This Country

A Scottish indie pop band that’s been kicking out the (soft, orchestral) jams since 1996, Camera Obscura has drawn a heck of a lot of comparisons to other pop classicists like Belle and Sebastian or even The Smiths. But on Let’s Get Out of This Country, Camera Obscura sound only like themselves, having turned out 10 delicious pop tracks in under 40 minutes. The album is almost evenly divided between peppy ditties and slower, more intimate numbers.

But regardless of the tempo, Camera Obscura delivered a great record. Lyricist Traceyanne Campbelle is a stellar composer, jotting down and singing out songs that are compactly catchy yet still deeply moving, not unlike The Beatles’ back catalogue. Be sure to check out the Camera Obscura review on p. 17, too.

2. Nellie McKay – Pretty Little Head

As vinyl enthusiasts can attest to, the digital revolution has removed listeners from the music listening experience. There’s a certain amount of involvement in something as simple as flipping a record over that draws a fan closer to it. One has to actively pursue the music; he or she has to stay in one room with a record player, adjust the RPMs accordingly, etc. While devices like the iPod are certainly much more convenient for the audiophile on the go, they also detract slightly from the experience.

It is with this attention to detail which vinyl commands that Nellie McKay released her 63-minute-long Pretty Little Head as a double album. Granted, a compact disc can hold up to 80 minutes of audio, but by breaking the album up, McKay also allows the listener to take pause and reflect on the first disc before continuing to the second. This is a good thing, as she freely rips through pop rock, jazz, showtunes and… yodeling… with well-crafted abandon.

Every bit as snarky as Ben Folds and as whacky as Regina Spektor, McKay offered up a smooth collection of confessions and criticisms, honoring her mother’s hard work as a single parent in a few tracks and attacking corporate consolidation and mass marketing in others. It’s cute liberal propaganda. Extra props for the duet with Cyndi Lauper on “Beecharmer.”

3. Prince – 3121

The soul strutting of 2004’s Musicology was prematurely dubbed Prince’s “comeback album.” It was merely “good,” delivering the Artist’s best work since maybe the middling Diamonds and Pearls from 1991. But 2006’s 3121 is the man’s true return to form, freely experimenting with techno, R&B, hip-hop, pop, rock and Latin music, combining all of the genres into a collection of 12 super sexy songs.

The album certainly harkened back to Prince’s ’80s heyday. He continued his self-indulgent art of doing duets with himself on the title track, speeding up his voice on one track to sound more feminine alongside his own natural voice.

The synthy “Lolita” reveals a new side of Prince. He’s been a Jehovah’s Witness since 2001, and this new religious perspective has influenced his music. If this were 1983, “Lolita” would have been about having lots of underage sex. But the dude’s got a conscience now; he just can’t pull that kind of thing off anymore, which is nice of him in a legally-obligated way. Instead, Prine spends the duration of the song telling his young lady friend to cool it with her lusty, youthful dancing. It’s just not right, man. “Lolita” may very well be the first Prince song about abstinence.

But Prince still found time to get down, thanks to ballads like “Te Amo Corazón” and “Incense and Candles.” In between the two, the hippin’ and a-hoppin’ of “Black Sweat” makes the lovin’ extra-funky.

Another stand-out track is “Fury.” The song’s funky rock proves that, for all of the jokes about Prince’s effeminate image, the man can still shred better than most Swedish metal guitarists. Catchy, infectious and groovin’ to near-dangerous levels, “Fury” updates the old adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” by adding the same new wave touch applied to such ’80s Prince hits as “1999” and “Let’s Go Crazy.”

All of the genre-hopping Prince does on 3121 seems remarkably cohesive. While each song has its own identity, the flow from something like “Incense and Candles” to “Love” is completely natural. Unified eclecticism seems like a contradiction, but Prince pulled it off with 3121.

While gushing about how much I love Prince [Editor’s note: I love Prince!], I finally remembered what else I don’t mind being late for – good albums. I can’t say yet if the three albums discussed here would have entered my top 10 of 2006, but I can state their awesomeness (please see above). While I missed the boat by a bit on something like Camera Obscura, the end result is that I still found Let’s Get Out of This Country on my own, willingly popping their disc into my CD player and absorbing their catchy jams.

Discovering music is thrilling, which, in addition to rendering this article veer slightly away from its original stated intention, makes my soul-esque parts slightly better and brighter in the process. I still haven’t heard all of the great albums released in 2006 – the ska mastery of Streetlight Manifesto’s Keaseby Nights is still sitting on my desk – but I am looking forward to what 2007 will bring, with albums promised from Against Me!, The Weakerthans, Say Anything and many more.

pelonej1@lasalle.edu