2006: Music

2006 is one of my favorite years in music, sporting some fantastic songs and even better albums. My Chemical Romance, and Brand New released some of the best albums in their genre for the decade (We need a name for this genre because “emo”, “AltRock”, “PopPunk”, etc. don’t really do it justice. I say PAR for Pop Alt Rock). We also saw the full spectrum of pop and rock hail some great songs like “When You Were Young” from The Killers, “Stop This Train” by John Mayer, “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley and “Stolen” from Dashboard Confessional.

Picking a favorite album was easy because #1 was a shoe-in, but their was a high quality of albums from John Mayer, Damien Rice, The Decemberists, and +44 to just name a few. However, #1 is an album that in my mind, is right up there with some of the best works in history.

The Format: Dog Problems

If the Beach Boys had grandkids it would be The Format. On their 2003 debut, Interventions & Lullabies they showed their affinity for thoughtful, if at times childish, lyrics, catchy melodies, and a sound deeply rooted in pop sensibility.

After being dropped by their major label, and lead singer Nate Reuss being dumped by his first great love, the band and its lead singer was in turmoil. However, as all great artists do, that pain was turned into something beautiful. The band decided to eschew the normal means of the music industry and release their next album on their own, and in July 2006 Dog Problems was released.

Dog Problems is a journey of a man (and at times his band) through the downfall of a relationship and career, the acceptance that must come before one can move on, and the perseverance through all of this shit to come out better on the other side. Combine all of that with some of the best melodies this side of The Beatles and a sound full of wonderful classical orchestration mixed with the rock sound that dominated the decade.