60-'06: Overlooked

In anticipation of the annual year-end list (coming the final two weeks of this month), here is a collection of ten overlooked songs not included in last year's list. These are tracks that either got a raw deal at the time or simply weren't heard until after the calendar changed.

"Eternal Flame" - Joan as Police Woman
"Fidelity" - Regina Spektor
"Gimme Some Motivation" - Delta Spirit
"Kelly" - Van She
"Last Request" - Paolo Nutini
"Luscious Life" - Patrick Watson
"Man Must Dance" - Johnossi
"One Father, Another" - Parenthetical Girls
"Speak to Me Bones" - Land of Talk
"Young Folks" - Peter Bjorn and John

Top 60 of '06: 10-1

MP3 - [right-click/save-as] (18 MB)

1. "The Funeral" - Band of Horses
Two Seattle boys with a strong tune sense and lips that need kissing something fierce make a gloomy downer that sulks like Tonight's the Night-era Neil Young, then gets epic like the Arcade Fire.
2. "Postcards From Italy" - Beirut
3. "Our Hell" - Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton
4. "Hospital Beds" - Cold War Kids
5. "Crazy" - Gnarls Barkley
In a perfect world, Al Green could still sing collard-green soul gems like this one, but Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse stepped up with an instant classic, winning this year's "Hey Ya!" award for the song nobody even pretended not to like. Everybody tried to cover it, but nobody can hit the chorus like Cee-Lo, and nobody ever will.
6. "The Greatest" - Cat Power
The strings are breathtaking and the backing vocals are ethereal, but it's Chan Marshall's eerily aching voice that makes this soar.
7. "Your Eyes are Liars" - Sound Team
8. "Omaha" - Tapes 'n Tapes
9. "Roscoe" - Midlake
10. "Nature of the Experiment" - Tokyo Police Club

They're not from Tokyo, they're not cops and the only club they could get into is probably the Strokes Fan Club -- but these mods score with a gloriously dumb garage-punk thrash-terpiece.

Top 60 of '06: 20-11

MP3 - [right-click/save-as] (19 MB)

11. "Steady, As She Goes" - the Raconteurs
The first single from Brendan Benson and Jack White's garage-glam band was a perfect dirty sundae of fuzz-box stutter, metallic zoom and pop-chorale candy. It is also a good reason to hope the Raconteurs are no one-album project.
12. "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" - CSS
Five Brazilian girls (plus one dude with an excellent handlebar 'stache) rock their spaz-disco hit describing the perfect date.
13. "Wolf Like Me" - TV on the Radio
14. "Put Us Back Together Right" - Headlights
15. "And I Was a Boy From School" - Hot Chip
16. "Fake Tales of San Francisco" - Arctic Monkeys
17. "Knife" - Grizzly Bear
18. "Sundress" - Ben Kweller
19. "Rise Up With Fists!!" - Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins
20. "Black Swan" - Thom Yorke

Top 60 of '06: 30-21

MP3 - [right-click/save-as] (16.5 MB)

21. "Well Thought Out Twinkles" - Silversun Pickups
If loving Smashing Pumpkins is wrong, then Silversun Pickups don't wanna be right: bombastically dreamy alt-rock that surges from a whisper to a shriek.
22. "O Valencia!" - the Decemberists
True love takes a hit in a bullets-and-hot-rods adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, fueled by spangled folk-rock guitar and garage-combo organ.
23. "Smile" - Lily Allen
This deceptively named ditty was '06's most gloriously bitter breakup song: Part Mike Skinner, part Gwen Stefani, part Blondie, the young Allen defined her very own bratty, musically adventurous style on "smile," a reggae-lite platter about the joys of an ex's despair.
24. "The Wonder" - Figurines
25. "You Only Live Once" - the Strokes
A sharp-twang cocktail of bravado and concession from the recently married Julian Casablancas sounds like he's still mystified by the art of commitment but intrigued enough to try.
26. "Us Ones in Between" - Sunset Rubdown
27. "Love Train" - Wolfmother
28. "We Share Our Mother's Health" - the Knife
29. "Fire Island, AK" - the Long Winters
30. "Strange Apparition" - Beck

The folk-rap changeling confronts a crisis of faith with dry wit ("Lord, please don't forsake me/In my Mercedes-Benz") and a salvation package of country funk and saloon piano that sounds like '68 Rolling Stones.

Top 60 of '06: 40-31

MP3 - [right-click/save-as] (18 MB)

31. "Free Stress Test" - Professor Murder
32. "When You Were Young" - the Killers
This hard-rocking hit showed the Killers could make it without glitz and eyeliner. It also proved you could turn "he doesn't look a thing like Jesus" into a killer hook.
33. "Phenomena" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Karen O gets hot for a dude who's "something like an astronomer," while Nick Zinner's space-punk guitar rocks like a hip-hop DJ on the cut.
34. "All Fires" - Swan Lake
35. "Hang On, Girl" - Favourite Sons
36. "She Doesn't Get It" - the Format
37. "House Fire" - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
38. "Los Angeles" - the Rosewood Theives
39. "Funny Little Frog" - Belle & Sebastian
40. "The Other Side" - Scissor Sisters

Top 60 of '06: 50-41

MP3 - [right-click/save-as] (17 MB)

41. "Chaos" - Mute Math
42. "Parachute" - Sean Lennon
43. "Quiet as a Mouse" - Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
44. "Naive" - the Kooks
45. "Adventure" - Be Your Own Pet
46. "Painter in Your Pocket" - Destroyer
47. "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" - Jet
48. "Chinese Translation" - M. Ward
49. "Song with a Mission" - the Sounds
50. "Starlight" - Muse

Top 60 of '06: 60-51

MP3 - [right-click/save-as] (19 MB)

51. "Wrong Choice" - the Lovely Feathers
52. "Long Distance Call" - Phoenix
53. "Bonnie Brae" - the Twilight Singers
Reportedly written in New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina, and featuring backing vocals by Ani DiFranco, "Bonnie Brae" sounds like Greg Dulli is weathering the storm and emerging stronger on the other side.
54. "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, & Wives" - Voxtrot
55. "Get Myself Into It" - the Rapture
Step aside, "House of Jealous Lovers"! Gangly funk punk stormed back, and steely-eyed hipsters found themselves forced to dance again.
56. "Two Sides" - Controlling the Famous
57. "God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)" - El Perro del Mar
58. "Save Yourself" - the Colour
59. "On a String" - the Changes
60. "Tearing Up the Oxygen" - Maritime