Music of 2006

Well, since it's Boxing Day... there's not much to do here in the office and frankly, I don't really want to do a "how's life doing" post at the moment, I thought I would do my annual Best Song of the Year award.

Previous Winners List:
1996: Lightning Crashes by Live
1997: Building A Mystery by Sarah McLachlan
1998: Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls
1999: The Future is X-Rated by the Matthew Good Band
2000: Stand Inside Your Love by the Smashing Pumpkins
2001: The Space Between by the Dave Matthews Band
2002: A Beautiful Thing by the Tragically Hip
2003: Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes
2004: Chicken Payback by the Bees
2005: Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) by Arcade Fire

These are all excellent tunes and 2006 had quite a few of them as well. Generally, how I calculate my favourite song of the year... I have to have bought the CD in which it is on AND it has to be released in 2006. Now, a lot of great singles that came out in 2006 would have had consideration if I actually wanted to buy those CDs. I didn't really... so they really weren't good enough to make it onto the consideration list. Let's review what I've purchased this year...

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Not listed on said list, Immaculate Machine's "Transporter."

Yes, I did add Gwen Stefani's new disc, The Sweet Escape... it was only $11 at Best Buy, so I thought, 'why not?' I did enjoy her first solo outing and despite the annoyance of the first single, I thought I would get it anyways.

Well, the discs with tracks that immediately come to mind would be:
Snow Patrol's "Eyes Open" with Chasing Cars
The Raconteurs' "Broken Boy Soldiers" with Store Bought Bones
Arctic Monkeys' "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" with Fake Tales of San Francisco
The Tragically Hip's "World Container" with Luv (sic)
Damien Rice's "9" with 9 Crimes
Dirty Pretty Things "Waterloo to Anywhere" with Gin & Milk
Fratellis' "Costello Music" with Chelsea Dagger
Kasabian's "Empire" with Shoot the Runner
Killers' "Sam's Town" with For Reasons Unknown
Tokyo Police Club's "A Lesson in Crime" with Nature of the Experiment
Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Show Your Bones" with Phenomena
The Subways' "Young For Eternity" with At 1am

Like I said, it was a pretty good list of tracks for the year... and a few of these weren't even singles for radio or TV play (not like TV stations play music videos anymore).

Now, I'd really hate to be overly predictable and hopefully a few of those candidates come as a surprise, although none of them should. Now, I've got somewhat of a soft spot for seeing bands live and seeing the songs that I wanted to see the most... sadly, only twice in that list does that appear. This is how I'm gonna calculate my decision.

Both the Tragically Hip's "World Container" with Luv (sic) and the Subways' "Young For Eternity" with At 1am each were both awesome live. I mean, awesome! But with the concert of the year, in my opinion, under their belts and an absolutely awesome rendition of it... The Subways take the crown for 2006 with At 1am. I recommend this track so highly... it's quick, it's effective and damn catchy.