The best CDs of 2006

2006 was a DIY year in music, and we’re not talking about a glut of homemade albums. The do-it-yourselfers were the fans, not the artists. We read each other’s blogs, listened to millions of songs online, shared our discoveries, and bought the music we liked rather than the music the suits tried to sell us. The Internet continued to weaken old distribution channels (goodbye Tower Records) and empower consumers (hello iTunes, eMusic, Obscure Sound, My-%Space), and blockbuster albums were nowhere to be found. Musical choices proliferated, and in turn diversity was the theme. That is reflected in the Globe critics’ lists of the best albums of the year, where there’s an abundance of great music but very little common ground.

Old-timers and upstarts alike flourished on this fertile playing field. Folk icon Bob Dylan released ‘‘Modern Times,’’ his masterful 44th album, and glam-punk pioneers the New York Dolls rex grouped to put out the surprisingly heady ‘‘One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This,’’ their first studio recording in 32 years. The incomparable Tom Waits cemented his role as this generation’s journeyman troubadour with a brilliant and unwieldy three-disc box set.

From across the pond, barely-out-of-their-teens rockers Arctic Monkeys stormed the world via word-of-mouth Internet explosion; ‘‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’’ went on to become the fastest-selling debut album in UK history. Fellow Brit James Blunt also broke big, thanks to his ubiquitous ballad ‘‘You’re Beautiful,’’ but didn’t (clever critics!) rate a spot on any of our writers’ Top 10 lists.

Stateside, garage-pop supergroup the Raconteurs burst out of the gate with an irresistible collection of candied speedballs. And the new duo Gnarls Barkley — an inspired pairing of producer Danger Mouse and singer-rapper Cee-Lo — gave us the gift of ‘‘Crazy,’’ a psychedelic soul-pop gem and the indisputable single of the year. Everyone liked it, and almost every band covered it.

While it didn’t make much of a dent on the charts, Cat Power’s ‘‘The Greatest’’ was a quiet triumph, and the earthy, soulful collection made it onto three of our critics’ lists. Also receiving multiple nods were the Dixie Chicks, who presaged the Democrats’ midterm Congressional sweep when they reclaimed their throne (surviving a massive backlash following criticism of the war) with this year’s beautiful, unrepentant ‘‘Taking the Long Way.’’

On the hip-hop front, Jay-Z retired from early retirement with a much-ballyhooed comeback disc, and Chamillionaire and T.I. had huge singles, but the far more exhilarating projects came from the Roots and Ghostface Killah, whose albums were relevant, literate, and inventive.

Those adjectives also apply to a trio of stellar releases from female singer-songwriters: Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis, alt-country sage Neko Case, and Boston’s own Antje Duvekot, who broke out of the local folk scene with this year’s debut, ‘‘Big Dream Boulevard.’’

File-sharing and downloading has been a boon, for obvious reasons, for musicians in far-flung locales. Among the notable releases that caught our critics’ ears were the Congolese supergroup Kekele, the French-African singer Mina Agossi, and the curiously named 29-piece Swedish collective I’m From Barcelona.

They’re all a click away.

JOAN ANDERMAN

Sarah Rodman

In no particular order:

The Dixie Chicks, "Taking the Long Way." Tune out the white noise and what remains is a killer collection of songs about personal truths both simple and complex. Written, played, and sung by three dynamite vocalist-musicians, produced by Rick Rubin , backed by a stellar array of instrumentalists, and co-penned by a crack team of writers -- including Neil Finn, Dan Wilson, and Sheryl Crow -- the music of "Long Way" will outlast the memory of the drama that preceded it.

The Raconteurs, "Broken Boy Soldiers." Jack White changed his Stripes for a spell and, with help from Motor City cronies Brendan Benson, Patrick Keeler, and Jack Lawrence, cranked out this short, sharp, and supremely tuneful collection imbued with psychedelic haze, new wave angularity, and classic rock energy.

Cat Power, "The Greatest." With her sultry murmur of smoke and ice, backed by an all-star band of Memphis soul cats that alternates between earthy roots music and fiery soul, Chan Marshall's got all four elements covered, and then some, on this aural embodiment of Sunday morning coming down.

Tom Petty, "Highway Companion." Forty years and still going strong.

Guster, "Ganging Up on the Sun." The Tufts-spawned pop rockers morph into grown men before our ears on this finely crafted and appealingly diverse collection.

The Roots, "Game Theory." Jay-Z welcomed the rap collective into his kingdom and let his subjects have their way. That way is dark, twisty, and full of lyrical dread, balanced by sweet soul hooks and buoyant beatbox rhythms.

Vince Gill, "These Days." An ambitious, all-originals four-disc set features the gifted country singer and guitarist branching out into soul, gospel, rock, bluegrass, and torch songs. With help from a huge team of duet partners, there's not a dud in the entire bunch. Beyond impressive.

Peeping Tom, "Peeping Tom." Mike Patton takes a break from hypnotizing noise addicts with this comparatively straightforward electro-metal-funk-hip-hop freakout. Plus he got Norah Jones to repeatedly coo a four - syllable curse word; for this, and the elastic vocals, heavy grooves, and Rahzel's mouth music, we love him.

Arctic Monkeys, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not." The hype may have died down, but it's still believable. This Brit quartet creates a near-perfect debut for a teenage rock band full of piss, vinegar, and, most important, great songs.

The Lemonheads, "The Lemonheads." Evan Dando grabs two new 'heads and acts as if no time has elapsed since 1996's "Car Button Cloth" on this collection, which is by turns winsome and wicked rocking.

Joan Anderman

In no particular order:

Bob Dylan, "Modern Times." After nearly a half-century on the job, Dylan is peaking again as rock's deep wordsmith, commanding songwriter, and all-around mystery sage. On his 44th album -- a burnished, grizzled gem -- he turns time inside out, blithely twisting centuries of tradition into biting contemporary commentary.

Ghostface Killah, "Fishscale." The Wu-Tang Clansman ventures into territory where few rappers dare to go: his late 30s, the early '70s (via gloriously obscure soul samples), and a world of elaborate rhymes that smack of stream-of-consciousness screenplays more than familiar urban braggadocio.

Dixie Chicks, "Taking the Long Way." Because three nice girls from the South who were supposed to make nice didn't. Because it's warm and sunny on the outside and powerful l y defiant at the core. Because in a world of irony and image-mongering the Chicks are humble, clear-eyed, and plainspoken.

Arctic Monkeys, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not." They're poster boys for the grass-roots Internet hype machine but, more important, they're four alarmingly evolved English upstarts who came up with a killer mash of Britpop, alt-rock, and punk. The year's unqualified rush.

Cat Power, "The Greatest." The fragile, maladjusted waif who can hardly stumble through a song onstage went to Memphis and made a thoroughly incandescent Southern soul album. It will restore your faith in the human spirit.

Dr. Dog, "Takers and Leavers" (EP). There's a place in the world -- a fabulously shambling, hook-filled place -- for a motley crew of '60s pop worshipers with severe ADD and zero fashion sense.

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, "Rabbit Fur Coat." The former child star made a country-laced pop record that sets surgically enhanced, spiritually bereft, self-destructive Los Angelenos adrift in an ether of strummed guitars and bluegrass harmonies. Gorgeous and haunted.

Black Keys, "Magic Potion." The blues are not only alive and well but thrillingly hard and new in the unlikely hands of two 20-something childhood friends from Akron, Ohio.

Regina Spektor, "Begin to Hope." In the world according to this fearless and idiosyncratic singer-pianist, Shakespeare and an overdose belong in the same song, and such quirky, lovely tuneage spreads like rainbow balm on the oft-deathly pale singer-songwriter genre.

Elvis Perkins, "Ash Wednesday." Scheduled for worldwide release in February, Perkins's long-percolating debut -- inspired by the loss of his father to AIDS and his mother to the 9/11 attacks, and released independently this year -- is a case study in transposing unimaginable anguish to masterful verse and chorus.

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com.

Scott Alarik

1. Antje Duvekot, "Big Dream Boulevard." The fastest-rising Boston songwriter since Dar Williams shares Williams's fearlessness about probing life's darkest corners. Duvekot is also an eloquent and inventive melodicist.

2. Bruce Springsteen, "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions." A rollicking, muscular homage to Pete Seeger and the American folk songs he's championed. Hopeful, brash, arms wide and welcoming, this is the American spirit the world wants to love.

3. Various, "Friends of Old Time Music: The Folk Arrival, 1961-65." These archival concert tracks of masters such as Mississippi John Hurt, the Stanley Brothers, and Bill Monroe form a precious, wildly beautiful document.

4. Kris Delmhorst, "Strange Conversation ." Delmhorst creates song settings of poems by Byron, Rumi, e.e. cummings, and others. Given its epic ambition, it's a wonder what a snug, lovely album it is.

5. Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, "Daybreak: Fáinne An Lae." Danu's singer establishes herself among the finest vocalists in Ireland. Her dusky mezzo is so comfortable, it's easy to miss that she's a superb technician.

6. Paul Simon, "Surprise." When he's got things he really wants to say, Simon can work the machinery of the song as well as anyone. Powerful yet lilting ruminations about family and mortality, holy war and private peace.

7. Various, "The Harry Smith Project." Smith's seminal folk collection is reinvented by Beck, Wilco, Beth Orton, Lou Reed, and others. Rawboned and sexy, playful and primal.

8. Mark Erelli, "Hope & Other Casualties." The local songwriter's most politically explosive album is also his most personal. And that's exactly why it's so persuasive.

9. Gordon Bok, "In Concert." The Maine folk treasure's glorious bass-baritone is frayed and weathered now, like a favorite old winter coat. But he wears it wonderfully and may be folkdom's best ballad guitarist .

10. The Kennedys, "Songs of the Open Road." The modern folk-rockers pay jingle-jangle homage to their roots, covering Bob Dylan, Stephen Stills, and others. Their "Eight Miles High" is so lucid, you'd think the Byrds weren't stoned when they wrote it.

Jeremy Eichler

In no particular order:

"Neruda Songs" (Peter Lieberson), Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano. Boston Symphony Orchestra. James Levine, conductor. (Available Tuesday.) These luminous songs are settings of the intimate love sonnets of Pablo Neruda, composed by Peter Lieberson to and for his wife, the extraordinary singer Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died this year at age 52. The BSO sounds excellent in its first recording under Levine, and Lieberson sings with unequaled radiance, depth, and honesty.

"Kafka Fragments" (Gyorgy Kurtag), Juliane Banse, soprano; Andras Keller, violinist. This expressionistic, dream-haunting work for soprano and violin contains some of the most persuasive music written to date by the eminent Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag. Each brief fragment is a setting of a text from Kafka's letters or diaries. The two men lived through different eras of modern catastrophe, but their spirits unite in this music to form a kind of seismograph of the 20th century, registering its inner tremors and wild eruptions with extreme sensitivity and, at times, uncanny beauty.

"Ainadamar" (Osvaldo Golijov) , Dawn Upshaw, soprano, and other soloists; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Robert Spano, conductor. Osvaldo Golijov, the Boston-based Argentine-American composer, created this deeply moving flamenco-infused opera whose title translates as "Fountain of Tears." It tells the story of the Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca, his life, his legacy, and his death at the hands of Fascist forces. Premiered at Tanglewood in 2003, it is a richly lyrical work that has been substantially revised and now finds its way onto disc with wonderfully impassioned singing by Dawn Upshaw and fellow soloists.

"The Dharma at Big Sur" and "My Father Knew Charles Ives" (John Adams), Tracy Silverman, electric violinist; BBC Symphony. John Adams, conductor. These two eloquent works from the American post-minimalist master John Adams conjure the mist-enshrouded vistas of his New England youth and the rugged beauty of his adopted California home. If you caught the BSO's recent performances of Adams's nativity oratorio, "El Nino" -- or even if you didn't -- these works make for great continued listening.

Symphonies Nos. 40 and 41; "Idomeneo" ballet music (Mozart), Musiciens du Louvre. Marc Minkowski, conductor. While Mozart had not exactly been underserved on disc, the anniversary year brought forth dozens of new recordings. Toward the top of the pile is this disc of familiar symphonies performed by Marc Minkowski and his period instrument band, Musiciens du Louvre. It offers rewarding, state-of-the-art performances -- lithe, trim, and full of vigor.

"Clemenza di Tito" (Mozart), Alexandrina Pendatchanska, soprano; Mark Padmore, tenor; RIAS Chamber Choir; Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. René Jacobs, conductor. One benevolent effect of the big Mozart year was channeling its energies down less-trod Mozartean corridors. Locally, Opera Boston mounted a production of this final Mozart opera while the reliably fine conductor René Jacobs made this deluxe recording. It is fresh and forceful enough to prompt reconsideration of the work's second-tier status among Mozart's operas.

Quartets Nos. 3, 7, and 8 (Shostakovich), St. Lawrence String Quartet. It was Shostakovich's year (his 100th birthday) as well as Mozart's, and his symphonies and quartets both received renewed attention. One of the best releases came from this superb quartet, whose readings of these modern chamber works are by turns harrowing and electrifying.

Piano Sonatas Op . 109, 110, and 111 (Beethoven), Mitsuko Uchida, piano. The pianist brings her signature sensitivity and responsiveness to these transcendent late Beethoven sonatas. A good starter recording of these works, if you don't own one already.

Piano Sonata in E-flat Minor (Dukas), Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano. This musician has made a career of seeking out the forgotten gems of the pianistic past. His brilliant performance of Dukas's mammoth and technically daunting Piano Sonata was one of the more enjoyable discoveries of 2006.

"Keeping Score," Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Icouldn't resist slipping some DVDs onto my list, as this ambitious documentary series from the San Francisco Symphony has recently produced three enjoyable introductions to the lives and music of Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Copland. Tilson Thomas is a terrifically charismatic guide, whether he's strolling through European palaces or just sitting at the piano, banging out chords, singing along, and explaining how it all works.

Siddhartha Mitter

1. Ali Farka Touré, "Savane." Knowing he was terminally ill, the undisputed master of Malian guitar blues came out of Niafunké, his remote village on the Niger river, to record one last album. Even without the poignant context, this may be his finest.

2. Patricia Barber, "Mythologies." Tales from Ovid liberally reimagined by the Chicago pianist and singer, who infuses both music and lyrics with a contemporary edge that's at once witty and empathetic. A work of deep intelligence and no small beauty.

3. Kekele, "Kinavana." The Congolese supergroup Kekele curates a remembrance of the 1950s, when rumba crossed back from Cuba to Congo, birthing one of the richest traditions in world music today. Brimming with joy and seemingly effortless.

4. Mina Agossi, "Well You Needn't." Backed by just drums and bass, the Paris-based, French-African singer distills standards and her own quirky compositions to a rhythmic rare essence. A powerful stage presence, she makes deconstruction funky.

5. Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra, "Boulevard de l'Indépendance." The kora, West Africa's 21-string lute, in all its glory: performed by its finest living master, fronting a phenomenal and unusually large band of Malian string, percussion, and horn aces. A landmark, and a party.

6. Heather Headley, "In My Mind." A striver's ethic pervades in Headley's songs of love, loss, and spirituality; this is grown-folks R&B the way it should be, impeccably produced, unapologetically mainstream, and delivered in a voice to fall in love with.

7. Cassandra Wilson, "Thunderbird." Working with T-Bone Burnett, Wilson traverses the artificial boundaries of jazz and blues to take on big-sky, open-road Americana. The wind and the prairie suit her well; the album has real drive but each song leaves a trace.

8. Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri, "Simpático." Latin jazz shorn of gimmicks or stereotypes. Trumpeter Lynch has one foot in the Latin school and one in the post-bop tradition; he lends this generally smoking set angularity, melancholy, and the thrill of the unexpected.

9. Kudu, "Death of the Party." Organically grown in the East Village underground, Kudu represents the best of the global wave of joyously bitchy electro-pop, in which wildly divergent musical references are incorporated into a restless collage.

10. Sean Jones, "Roots." As consummate an exploration of the gospel side of jazz as we've heard in years, and a strong statement of intent from a young New Orleans-raised trumpeter who's been anointed by no less an authority than Wynton Marsalis.

James Reed

1. Joseph Arthur, "Nuclear Daydream." This year's winner for best opening line -- "The needle says she'll tell you when she's through" -- was also a spectral meditation on addiction, hope, and love (and losing it).

2. Sibylle Baier, "Colour Green." With just an acoustic guitar, Baier, a German actress and painter, recorded this album at home between 1970 and '73 after her husband and children went to bed. Sung in a voice strikingly reminiscent of Nico (well, a clean Nico), her lone album of sad-eyed vignettes was finally released this year.

3. (tie) Peter Bjorn and John, "Writer's Block," and Love Is All, "Nine Times That Same Song." Another Swedish rock invasion swept these shores, with Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks" (love that whistle solo) as the unofficial anthem. Meanwhile, Love Is All rounded up its sneering post-punk singles for the year's best dance album. Pogoing encouraged.

4. Tom Waits, "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards." An album for every mood and season, Waits's encompassing three-disc set had it all: rockers, tear jerkers, and oddballs. For neophytes and diehards alike.

5. Spanky Wilson and the Quantic Soul Orchestra, "I'm Thankful." Another '60s soul singer got some belated love on this collaboration with the UK-based Quantic Soul Orchestra. One listen to the funkified "A Woman Like Me" and you'll wonder why it took so long.

6. M. Ward, "Post-War." When the drums kick in on "Poison Cup," it's like a dream for longtime fans: M. Ward on a bigger budget but with his penchant for spare, dusky Americana kept intact.

7. Lady Sovereign, "Public Warning." It was a big year for the self-proclaimed "biggest midget in the game," and club anthems didn't get any catchier than the frenetic title track. As the British MC says throughout the album: "Make way for the S-O-Vveee!"

8. Black Fiction, "Ghost Ride." All this year's talk of a "freak folk" movement eluded this San Francisco band, whose trippy debut skipped along with creepy Southern Gothic tales. Imagine Will Oldham with a drum machine.

9. Mike Andrews, "Hand on String." From the man behind the soundtracks to "Donnie Darko" and "Me and You and Everyone We Know" came this burnished gem of electro-acoustic songs that sound best at 2 in the morning.

10. Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton, "Knives Don't Have Your Back." Metric's fierce frontwoman went solo with a collection of introspective piano ballads that were just as searing and politically minded as her previous work.

Jonathan Perry

In no particular order:

Rick Berlin, "Me & Van Gogh." It may have taken 30-plus years for veteran Boston singer-songwriter Rick Berlin to make his masterpiece, but it was worth the wait. "Me & Van Gogh" is an intimate, idiosyncratic collection of verite snapshots and cocktail-napkin sketches that together make up a tender, grandly tormented portrait of people wounded by dreams and bruised by experience. Berlin's spare, bold brush strokes of piano and conversational cabaret croon vividly illuminate this singular work.

Neko Case, "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood." Alt-country's greatest siren continues to up her ante with another collection of prismatic jewels that sound beamed in from another era and dimension. This time, the members of Calexico and the Sadies and the Band's Garth Hudson help Case draw fresh lifeblood from the creaky ghosts of an old, weird America populated by tent show revivals, foggy mountain spirituals, and the red-eyed wolves that creep and keep to the dark.

Cat Power, "The Greatest." A masterfully captivating album from Cat Power (a.k.a Chan Marshall) that finally achieves the artistic potential we've always heard about but grew weary of waiting for amid her onstage meltdowns and concert no-shows. Recording in Memphis and backed by some of that city's classic soul architects, Marshall casts her creosote-and-charcoal voice against a lushly dark backdrop of piano-based songs about heartbreak, love, and wonder.

Drive-By Truckers, "A Blessing and a Curse." "Feb. 14," the raucous opening track on the latest Drive-By Truckers triumph, kicks off the festivities with flying flower vases in a domestic squabble, and things don't improve much from there. That's the beauty of these Birmingham, Ala., hell-raisers. They've grappled with everything from Southern pride and guilt to busted marriages and dead rock stars and made you not want to miss one moment of their psyche-blasted free fall. Maybe that's because the Truckers sound like Crazy Horse and Lynyrd Skynyrd on a bender as they're crashing into a ditch.

James Hand, "The Truth Will Set You Free." In a world of rhinestone cowboys and overblown egos, Texas-born James Hand is the real deal, a hard-living honky-tonk hero whose talent, not ego, is as big as his home state. Cut from the smoke- and drink-stained cloth of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, and George Jones, the 50-something Hand speaks the plain truth where he finds it: in truck stops and barrooms, but most of all in his bracing brand of country and western music.

Ray LaMontagne, "Till the Sun Turns Black." Sophomore slumps are easier to beat when you have a voice as simultaneously earthy and otherworldly as Maine singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne's. On this beautifully bittersweet, string- and horn-dappled follow-up to 2004's breakthrough, "Trouble," LaMontagne continues to explore finding his place in a world as lonely as it can be lovely (in his hands, at least).

Jeffrey & Jack Lewis, "City & Eastern Songs." Like the term "emo," lame genre constructs such as "anti-folk" are kind of, well, icky. Thankfully, in New York comic book artist-cum-singer-songwriter Jeffrey Lewis's case, the music is much less so. On this charmingly cracked collection of lo-fi daydreams about transient lives and pop culture, Lewis (who writes and records with his brother Jack) casts a sharp eye toward life's little absurdities and in-between moments with sardonic yet self-deprecating humor.

Midlake, "The Trials of Van Occupanther." How many albums take, as their thematic premise, wistful young hermits dwelling in forests before the turn of the last century and pining after brides-to-be who won't have them? Midlake's elegantly arranged concept album of soft-focus, Grandaddy-esque folk-rock is so pastoral, so comely, that you don't really mind the fact you're not sure what it all means.

New York Dolls, "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This" and ''Private World: The Complete Early Studio Demos 1972-73." Hell hath frozen over. Led by singer David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, a re-camped New York Dolls released their first studio album in 32 years. It sounded seedier than the Stones have in ages. Meanwhile, "Private World," a separately released two-disc set of raw early demos, offers a crucial look at a band in its gloriously primal prime, when it set a template for punk, glam, and (we forgive you, guys) hair metal.

Various, "The Best of Studio One Collection." Like Chess was to blues and Stax/Volt was to soul, producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's Studio One label was to reggae. This seminal box set brings together a slew of reggae's most important, bedrock grooves (many previously unreleased on CD), remastered from Studio One's original master tapes and presented in a handy format for your next party.

Christopher Muther

1. Hot Chip, "The Warning." A sleepy-voiced Al Doyle offers earnest lyrical insights ("I'm everything a girl could need/ There's nothing in this heart but me") to dance beats that produce equal fits of rump shaking ("Over and Over") and melancholy finger tapping ("No Fit State").

2. I'm From Barcelona, "Let Me Introduce My Friends." A gleeful 29-piece Swedish collective that, as Kapellmeister and ringmaster Emanuel Lundgren explains, is inspired by love and vacation. The band's debut feels like a big campfire sing along for grad students and Muppets who are not afraid of banjos and kazoos.

3. Charlotte Gainsbourg, "5:55." It took Gainsbourg 20 years to recover from the disturbing "Lemon Incest" collaboration with late father Serge and finally record a new album. Under the guidance of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich , Gainsbourg collaborates with Air and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker on beautiful, ghostly songs such as the tart "Little Monsters."

4. The Pipettes, "We Are the Pipettes." A breathless updating of Phil Spector's girl group ambitions, this time with three saucy Brits who recall Petula Clark's charm and Trac e y Ullman's brassiness.

5. Brazilian Girls, "Talk to LaBomb." If Astrud Gilberto made an album with Beck (a dream we'll never give up on), it would sound very similar to this sharp, sexy electro-bossa gem.

6. Camera Obscura, "Let's Get Out of This Country." Heartbreak should never sound this fun, but Tracyanne Campbell makes affairs of the damaged heart as breezy as a birthday party on "Lloyd, I'm Ready to be Heartbroken." The comparisons to fellow Scots Belle and Sebastian will never stop, but "Country" was the finest album out of Scotland this year (sorry, Stuart Murdoch ).

7. The Ark, "State of the Ark," and Scissor Sisters, "Ta-Dah " Both bands staged musical seances to revive the pre-disco glam movement of the 1970s. Lurking behind the thick bass lines and hot pants are sharp, hilarious lyrics.

8. Amy Winehouse, "Back to Black." Imagine Holland-Dozier-Holland writing songs for the Supremes about rehab and buying weed, and you have Winehouse's pitch-perfect "Back to Black."

9. Hidden Cameras, "Awoo." At the risk of sounding like the kind of mother who gives her kids low self-esteem: R.E.M., why can't you make a record like this? The Hidden Cameras are totally kicking you to the curb.

10. Beck, "The Information." It's "Mutations" on antidepressants, and 2006's best Sunday brunch record.

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, an incorrect CD title was listed in a story about the top recordings of the year in Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section. The Kennedys' 2006 recording is "Songs of the Open Road.")