This column is about the best indie albums of 2006. By which I mean, my favorite indie albums of 2006. The personal preference is implied, perhaps, but there are biases that have influenced the creation of the following list that must be disclosed before you read another word. I state the following in the spirit of fair play and transparency, so that the reader is equipped with the necessary information to properly assess my assessments. So that when a person reads this and says, “Whoever wrote this is an idiot,” they will do so with the assurance of having all the facts at their disposal.
PRE-LIST ENTERTAINMENT: A STATEMENT OF PERSONAL BIASES (POLITICAL, PERSONAL, AUTOMOTIVE, ETC.)
1. My memory of 2006, from a sociopolitical perspective, is mostly negative. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the decline of public faith in the federal government after the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, the foreboding (in retrospect) signs that the US housing market was untenable, the widening gaps in income and political unity — they all point to this being a dark, depressing period. (This is my political bias.)
2. My memory of 2006, from a personal perspective, is overwhelmingly positive. I met my wife in January that year, we were dating by March, and we were living together by October. I also started a new job that fall, and it signaled (in retrospect) the single most important and overall greatest pivot point in my writing career. It was also, for a time, an incredibly easy gig, with loads of down time. More than once, I snuck off to the parking lot at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday with a co-worker to smoke weed out of a bong made from an apple. (This is my personal bias.)
3. My most recent experience listening to many of these albums is last week, when I drove a total of 10 hours across the frigid tundra of western, central, eastern, and southern Wisconsin. I loaded my car with circa-2006 CDs and listened to them at full volume. This improved my opinion of virtually all of these albums, though some more than others. (This is my automotive bias.)
20. Girl Talk — Night Ripper
The most 2006 album of 2006. Night Ripper isn’t the record most responsible for mainstreaming mash-ups — in America — that was Danger Mouse’s “Jay-Z meets The Beatles” experiment The Grey Album from three years earlier. But Girl Talk does represent the height of the form. The cultural trajectory of a semi-clever DJ taking one popular song and combining it with another popular song began (in the popular consciousness) with Danger Mouse, peaked with Girl Talk, and then achieved simultaneous popular acceptance/aesthetic death with 2012’s Pitch Perfect. After that, it was damned to be a signifier of dated culture from the second George W. Bush administration.
But I can still feel traces of the same “a-ha!” rush I experienced upon hearing Night Ripper for the first time, the same way a war veteran can sense a missing limb lost in battle. It really was kind of mind-blowing to hear some dude with a laptop superimpose The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” with the Ying Yang Twins’ “Wait (The Whisper Song)” for about 20 or so seconds. Along with being a go-to party album, Night Ripper functioned in its time as a form of music criticism, an audio-thinkpiece that dismantled the barriers between rockism and poptimism, a vision of a utopian world where Boston’s “Long Time” gets down with D4L’s “Laffy Taffy.” It was also, essentially, a gimmick, and one that starts to lose its novelty even before the album ends.
19. The Walkmen — “Pussy Cats” Starring The Walkmen
The basic premise of Night Ripper — “let’s combine rock songs with pop numbers in surprising and harmonious ways, no matter their contextual differences” — points to larger conversations happening at the time in the indie world about whether guitar bands of questionable popularity were getting too much attention. The long tail of the post-Strokes “rock is back!” boosterism happening in the media was coming to an end, along with expectations that making that kind of music could result (at least) in something resembling a “middle-class” musician’s life.
This album, deliberately or not, was one of the more fascinating responses to all that. As a band from New York City, The Walkmen benefited from the public’s brief fixation on NYC guitar combos, and they even scored an indie hit in the middle part of the decade with the immortal “The Rat.” But by ’06, they weren’t exactly trying to capitalize on that success. That year they put out two albums — the Dylanesque A Hundred Miles Off and this bizarre tribute to Harry Nilsson’s famously drunken (and professionally ruinous) 1974 John Lennon collaboration. Composed largely of covers, Pussy Cats derailed Nilsson’s own career, and The Walkmen seemed to be courting a similar fate by doing an album-length cover of his self-destructive gambit. The Walkmen ultimately carried on and put out some of their best work after “Pussy Cats,” but the chaotic recklessness of this record still communicates a certain truth of that era to me.
18. Secret Machines — Ten Silver Drops
Another “end of mainstream-ish middle-class indie-rock bands” era album. With 2004’s No Here Is Nowhere, Secret Machines made heavy-duty space-rock with bitchin’ Bonham-esque drum tracks that was catchy enough to garner space in the “$7.99 CD” rack at Best Buy retailers. Their second album, Ten Silver Drops, wasn’t quite as grabby — it toned down the Zeppelinisms of the debut in favor of a hybrid, sonically, of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Simple Minds. In a different time, it might have been a stepping stone to a bigger and bolder third album. But as it stands, Ten Silver Drops (in my household, anyway) endures as an indie-rock record that sounds like a major-label release, alternating between moody soundscapes and grippingly dour hooks that re-imagine AOR for the pre-streaming generation.
17. The Decemberists — The Crane Wife
Not technically an “indie” album, since this polarizing Portland band had just signed with Capitol Records before putting out their proggiest and most adventurous album yet. Here, again, was a sign of the times: One of our nation’s most famous and venerated record labels decided to do business with a band who centered their latest record on a nearly 13-minute, three-part medley called “The Island: Come And See / The Landlord’s Daughter / You’ll Not Feel The Drowning.” That was considered a commercial enterprise in the year of our lord 2006!
This was also around the time that a backlash was brewing against The Decemberists, who until then had been regarded (warmly) as a quirkily tuneful folk-rock outfit with literal pretensions or (less warmly) as kind of annoying but mostly harmless. After The Crane Wife, however, they became a signifier for the suffocating preciousness of indie rock in the mid-aughts. (The critic Carl Wilson zeroes in on that aspect of The Decemberists in his 2007 poptimism polemic Let’s Talk About Love, which otherwise is about the Celine Dion album of the same name.) At the time, this struck me as a raw deal, and that’s doubly true now. Without fully disputing their “kind of annoying” side, I do think a band like this garnering a Capitol Records-sized platform seems like an accident of history that should have been celebrated more in the moment.
16. Joanna Newsom — Ys
Of course, it’s not as though an indie artist had to be on a major label to make long, dense orchestral-folk songs. One of 2006’s most uncompromising releases, Ys makes The Crane Wife sound like a Noah Kahan record, with songs that range from seven minutes to 17 minutes. Newsom’s lyrics were as personal as any standard “confessional” folkie — the recent death of a close friend informs the album’s emotional tenor — but her unorthodox music and the epic length of her compositions put Ys far and away on its own wavelength. That is, unless you can think of another harp-centric indie-rock record accented by psych-baroque flourishes from the one and only Van Dyke Parks. If Night Ripper is the most 2006 album of 2006, this is the 2006 album that sounds like it could have come out a century earlier or later. (Or, somehow, earlier and later simultaneously.)
15. TV On The Radio — Return To Cookie Mountain
As the “return of rock!” thing was ending, an artier and quirkier version of NYC indie was on the rise. I understand that words like “artier” and especially “quirkier” come with a lot of baggage, but it didn’t seem that way in 2006. At that time, the arrival of something described like “another harp-centric indie-rock record accented by the psych-baroque flourishes from the one and only Van Dyke Parks” was viewed as fresh and inventive, rather than tiresome or (to use a term not yet in common use) “try-hard.” You could also, for example, call your record Return To Cookie Mountain and still be considered one of the hippest and most admired bands of your era. I liked TV On The Radio then, and I like them now. The only reason this isn’t ranked higher is that TV On The Radio is an A+ live band that makes B+ records. I will want to play the video of “Wolf Like Me” from The Late Show With David Letterman until the day I die. And I will always be slightly disappointed when I listen to the studio version.
14. Arctic Monkeys — Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
Here’s another personal bias I forgot to mention earlier: I turned 29 in 2006. If I had turned 19 that year, this record might be my No. 1. People of my vintage didn’t really come around on Arctic Monkeys until Alex Turner started dressing like the Fonz and making upscale Black Keys songs. But if I were young, drunker, snarkier, and angrier that year, this would still be my preferred Alex Turner overdrive.
13. Sonic Youth — Rather Ripped
Speaking of turning 29 in 2006: I was exactly the kind of person who was excited about a new Sonic Youth album. Remember when we got a new Sonic Youth album every few years? When we had it, we didn’t appreciate it. And now that it will probably never happen again, it seems like a very precious commodity. Is it fair to classify aughts-era Sonic Youth as “underrated”? It seemed that way at the time, after the poor reviews given to 2000’s (pretty good, actually!) NYC Ghosts & Flowers. After that came a trilogy of records that represent the band’s most consistently tuneful and accessible work. And in the wake of 2002’s Murray Street and 2004’s Sonic Nurse, Rather Ripped just might be the most tuneful and accessible of the bunch. Whereas the two predecessors lean more on extended jams, this album is composed mostly of punchy and melodic rock songs. (Only two tracks approach even seven minutes.) Listening to Sonic Youth in this period, they seemed like a reliable classic-rock band that would just keep on putting out quality albums and playing kick-ass shows forever, like Manhattan’s answer to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
12. Magnolia Electric Co. — Fading Trails
Alas, that didn’t happen. And the sense of loss continues here. Jason Molina died seven years after after this album was released, and another seven or so years after that his influence on current indie singer-songwriters seemed obvious and widespread. But in 2006, Fading Trails had a bad reputation. Molina and his band had been working in various studios with multiple producers on a massive box set of new material that would eventually be released in 2007 as Sojourner. But Molina’s label Secretly Canadian, presumably antsy for more product, took nine songs from those sessions and compiled a snappy 28-minute album, to Molina’s ultimate dissatisfaction. But no matter the backstory, Fading Trails is his most immediate effort, offering an invitingly sad-eyed country-rock gateway to his voluminous catalog.
11. Midlake — The Trials Of Van Occupanther
The kind of record where if you bring it up to a 48-year-old indie-rock fan in 2026, that person will smile and either offer up a fist pump or a back slap. However, if that person is at least 10 years younger or at least 10 years older, they will have no clue what you’re talking about. Midlake was a Texas band who sounded like they were from the English moors of the early 1970s. They made witchy-sounding folk rock that evoked pre-Stevie & Lindsey-era Fleetwood Mac and The Wicker Man. And The Trials Of Van Occupanther was their big moment. It’s a record I can confirm sounds incredible if you are smoking weed out of an apple bong at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday.
10. The Strokes — First Impressions Of Earth
The quintessential “long tail of the post-Strokes ‘rock is back!’ boosterism” album. Naturally, it was made by The Strokes themselves. I listened to this record a lot in 2025 for reasons that will be made clear later this year. So, chalk this up to more personal bias and/or musical Stockholm Syndrome. But First Impressions Of Earth has as many very good-to-great songs as Is This It or Room On Fire. The problem is that it has an additional four to six more songs that aren’t very good-to-great, though the clutter stops being a bug and becomes a feature with repeat listens. But as an historical document — and as an album that captures what it felt like to live in 2006 — First Impressions Of Earth is absolutely essential. I point to the caustic “15 Minutes,” Julian Casablancas’ spin on “My Way” — both the Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious versions — where he offers his own epitaph: “‘Cause today, they’ll talk about us / And tomorrow, they won’t care.”
9. Phoenix — It’s Never Been Like That
In the annals of Phoenix-dom, this is known as “the one before the big one.” Released three years later, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix represents the band’s popular pinnacle, due to the signature singles “1901” and “Lisztomania.” But I still prefer It’s Never Been Like That. It might not have the hits, but it has lots of should have been hits. Side one, for instance, features a perfect run of songs, from “Napoleon Says” (the best Strokes song of 2006) to “Consolation Prizes” (second best) to “Long Distance Call” (third best) to “One Time Too Many” (my favorite song on the entire record).
8. The Knife — Silent Shout
Confession time: I never heard this album until last week. I was aware of it at the time — it was Pitchfork’s No. 1 album of the year. But I did not buy it, illegally download it, or get a free copy from a publicist. And those were the three ways I heard new music in 2006. This was the window of time between illegal downloads becoming untenable (unless you wanted to shred your laptop with malware) and streaming music being widely available (which didn’t happen until the 2010s). So, this was possibly the last time when you had a good excuse to not hear an album everybody was talking about. In this case, I was missing out, because this album rules! It sounds like Max Martin if he listened exclusive to Bauhaus. And it hits especially hard if you are traversing the frigid tundra of western, central, eastern, and southern Wisconsin in mid-January.
7. My Morning Jacket — Okonokos
This, on the other hand, is one of the two or three albums I played the most in 2006. (Again, it’s the apple bong of it all.)
6. Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins — Rabbit Fur Coat
My No. 1 album of 2006, as determined by me at the end of 2006. At this point, it’s not even my favorite Jenny Lewis record. (That would be On The Line, which I’ll be discussing in 2029 for my “Favorite Albums Of 2019” column.) But it still has a very warm place in my heart, both as a “time and place” record (no other album is more closely associated in my mind with moving to a new town with my wife) and as an impeccable slice of country-soul with some of my favorite Jenny Lewis songs (“The Charging Sky,” “You Are What You Love,” “Rise Up With Fists!!”). This record is also responsible for me liking Jenny Lewis solo albums more than Rilo Kiley, a position that seems more contentious in 2026 than it did in 2006.
5. The Hold Steady — Boys And Girls In America
A no-brainer No. 1 album of 2006 for me in 2011, 2016, and (probably) 2021. But this record hits different now that I’ve recently pivoted from a “gonna walk around, gonna walk around, gonna walk around and drink” lifestyle. Now, I view this album like that one college friend you can only hang with every year or two. Any further exposure will wreck your liver, your marriage, and your more critical promises.
4. Grizzly Bear — Yellow House
I am living more of a Grizzy Bear-type lifestyle these days. I aspire to the interpersonal equivalent of this album’s perfectly rendered harmonies and carefully composed instrumentation. Though I doubt I will ever have my shit together to a Yellow House-level degree. To be honest, this is my least favorite of Grizzly Bear’s “essential” albums — I prefer Veckatimist and Shields, as those are generally harder hitting “band-sounding” efforts. (I would even take 2008’s fantastic Friend EP in a Grizzly Bear draft.) But we are talking about one of the finest American bands of the late aughts, and any preference I might have for later work should not be confused for criticism of an otherwise excellent record.
3. Cat Power — The Greatest
For the longest time, I mentally docked this album a few points in deference to Cat Power loyalists who viewed it as a “too easy” stab at mainstream acceptance. These gorgeous slabs of Memphis soul set against Chan Marshall’s smoky, mesmerizing voice couldn’t approach the emotional catharsis of Moon Pix, I was told. But as much as I like Moon Pix, this record arrived at first listen like it had already been in your collection for 30 years. Which felt improbable when I was 29 but now seems like the hallmark of an instant classic that immediately creates a sweetly pained melancholy whenever I put it on.
2. Destroyer — Destroyer’s Rubies
The most “middle-aged indie dude” thing about me is that for many years from the past quarter-century, I can make an impassioned case that Dan Bejar made one of that year’s best albums. He’s the indie-rock mainstay who keeps rising in my personal power rankings, which I think is true for three reasons: 1) He makes good-ass music; 2) His albums don’t always make sense the year they were released, and they often don’t even seem all that likeable at first; 3) The second reason reminds me of all my favorite artists derived from the ’60s and ’70s. Destroyer’s Rubies is the Bejar album that most invites comparisons to the off-brand Bob Dylan and Van Morrison albums to which salt-and-pepper-bearded fellows like myself gravitate. It has the sound of Street-Legal and the soul of Common One. And if that means something to you, you’re probably confused as to why this isn’t at No. 1.
1. Band Of Horses — Everything All The Time
If you can drive across Wisconsin in January and not come out raving about how well this goddamn album holds up you are made of sterner stuff that I am. (Did I say “hell yeah” to an empty passenger seat when “Weed Party” came on? Do I have two ears and a heart?) Though I can’t just chalk this up to automotive bias. I think about Everything All The Time like cinephiles regard Midnight Run. The sort of well-made, sturdy, incredibly likeable, accessible, and endlessly entertaining work of popular art they just don’t make anymore. What Midnight Run is to studio action comedies, Everything All The Time is to beard-y, brawny, big guitars, big emotions, big-ticket indie. You can listen to it a million times and it doesn’t lose its charm. Or at least that’s my assumption. I’m currently on listen 981,123. I’ll let you know when I get through the remaining 18,877 spins.
