This episode is part of the ongoing “Albums Of” series, where we look back at a specific year in music. This edition covers 2006 and features a full roundtable of veteran Dig Me Out Union guests: Chip Midnight, Eric Peterson, Marissa Buxbaum, Ian McIver, and Keith Miller. Think we missed an essential 2006 album? Tell us what deserves the spotlight, suggest it for a future episode.
2006 Was the Last Year Music Felt Like a Secret
Before the algorithm told you what to hear next, a year like 2006 mattered differently. The iPhone was twelve months away. Spotify wouldn’t exist for two more years. Twitter launched that year as a curiosity. MySpace was at its peak, complete with customized profile pages, song embeds, and the genuine possibility that a scrappy British singer named Lily Allen could be discovered on a social network and find an audience before a label even knew her name. Music lived in padded yellow envelopes from publicists, on eBay listings for import CDs, in LimeWire downloads tagged badly and ripped at 128kbps. You paid attention differently when music cost you something, whether time, money, or a slow connection and a prayer you hadn’t downloaded a virus along with it.
Twenty years later, that year deserves a serious look. Not just for the hits, but for everything that happened underneath.
The World That Made the Music
You can’t understand 2006 without understanding what it felt like to consume music in 2006. Google bought YouTube that year. Pluto lost its planetary status. Steve Irwin died. The second season of Metalocalypse aired. This is context for a very specific emotional temperature: the internet was everywhere but not yet in your pocket. Streaming was not yet a concept most people used. Discovery happened through MP3 blogs, Pandora playlists, Rhapsody subscriptions, and whatever your local radio station felt like playing at 2 AM.
For music listeners of a certain sensibility, 2006 was the last year the physical format still mattered as a ritual. Many albums from that year represent the last CD a listener bought by a particular artist: after that, it was iTunes, then streaming, then an algorithm telling you what was next. There is a specific kind of attention paid to music when you have committed to it with currency or time. A lot of the albums from 2006 carry that kind of weight because people listened to them that way.
It was also, as described on the podcast, “peak music corporatism.” Major labels were still enormous. Sophomore albums arrived under crushing pressure. Disney was running the cultural table with High School Musical. The indie scene was thriving underground while the charts were increasingly divorced from what genuine music obsessives were actually hearing. The gap between what was popular and what was good was wide.
Albums That Survived
Some albums from 2006 don’t just hold up: they sound better now than they did then.
The Damnwells‘ Air Stereo is a consensus pick for an album that never left rotation. Released in August 2006, it is a melodic rock record with genuine songwriting craft at its center. Never a commercial phenomenon, but for the people who found it, the album became the kind you return to annually just to confirm it still works. It still works. Top to bottom great melodies, emotionally grounded, not a wasted track.
Butch Walker‘s The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites remains a Los Angeles album in the truest sense: a meditation on performative leisure and the gap between the city’s promise and its reality. Walker was processing his status as an Atlanta expat in Hollywood, and the album sounds like a very specific kind of beautiful exhaustion. Its themes still resonate with audiences born after it was made.
Front Line Assembly‘s Artificial Soldier brought together several key lineup configurations of the Vancouver industrial band under one roof, including the late Jeremy Inkel on his first FLA album. For listeners in a certain underground electronics ecosystem, this is one of the more complete FLA statements in their catalog.
Then there are the discoveries that caught people off guard. Band of Horses‘ Everything All the Time was released on Sub Pop in March 2006 and became critically recognized relatively quickly. “The Funeral” is one of the better-known songs from that year. But for some listeners, the album didn’t fully arrive until years later. Discovering a record like this in 2022 and realizing you missed it for sixteen years is one of the odder pleasures of the streaming era: the archive is all there, and it’s never too late.
The community added to the pile: Amy Winehouse‘s Back to Black, The Decemberists‘ The Crane Wife, TV on the Radio‘s Return to Cookie Mountain, and The Tragically Hip‘s World Container all belong in any honest accounting of 2006’s strengths.
The Overlooked
The deeper argument for 2006 as a genuinely rich year lives here, in the records that got no traction at the time and remain largely unknown twenty years later.
The Fags‘ Light ‘Em Up is the kind of album that makes you want to argue with history. A power pop and hard rock record from the Horse/Sponge orbit, every song on it sounds like it should have been a hit. There is a raspy, hooky, high-energy quality to the record that represents exactly the direction rock could have gone after the post-grunge era: more melodic, more fun, less dour. It didn’t go that direction, and Light ‘Em Up became a document of a road not taken.
Miranda Sound‘s Western Reserve, produced by J Robbins of Jawbox and Burning Airlines, is a Columbus indie rock record with a two-singer dynamic that was unusual for its moment. It toured, played South by Southwest, had a following, and still never broke beyond its regional scene.
Hybrid‘s I Choose Noise was a British electronic album that pushed into orchestral territory, blending live orchestration with electronic construction. Eclectic, textural, and genuinely cinematic, it has spent twenty years being the answer to the question “what do you mean nobody knows this record?”
Further down the rabbit hole: The Jolly Jumpers‘ Mobile Babylon from Finland, a punky bluesy roots record with a specific kind of rough charm. Swedish hip-hop artist Kords‘ debut The Garden Around the Mansion, discovered through a search for Masta Ace guest appearances. Damone‘s Out Here All Night, a power pop and hard rock record that could have easily opened for Skid Row but called itself something else. The Shys, Bell Auburn, Peaches‘ Impeach My Bush.
The sheer density of overlooked material from 2006 is one of the more compelling arguments for taking the year seriously.
The Sophomore Slump Epidemic
2006 had a villain, and it was the follow-up album.
The Killers‘ Sam’s Town is the year’s poster child for sophomore stumble. Hot Fuss was a near-perfect mainstream pop rock album. Sam’s Town sounded like a band that had started believing its own mythology: the Bruce Springsteen gestures, the arena ambitions, the creeping grandiosity. It sold well. It also alienated a lot of the people who loved the debut.
The thesis around 2006 is that so many bands had arrived in the early 2000s fully formed, with strong debuts built over years of gestation. Bands like Interpol and Arcade Fire hit the scene with records that felt complete and confident. When the label pressure arrived for record two, a lot of those bands ran out of ideas, or lost their nerve, or overcorrected toward the mainstream. The result was an unusually high concentration of disappointing second albums.
The Mars Volta‘s Amputechture went so far into abstraction that even fans of the debut’s chaotic energy found it inaccessible. Gnarls Barkley‘s St. Elsewhere offered “Crazy,” one of the year’s most recognizable singles, but few listeners bothered with the album. Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Stadium Arcadium arrived under the shadow of a plagiarism settlement over “Dani California”’s similarity to a Tom Petty song.
The Dixie Chicks‘ Taking the Long Way is an interesting edge case: a post-backlash record made with Rick Rubin, still beloved for “Not Ready to Make Nice,” but harder to revisit in full twenty years later.
Muse, however, gets a robust defense. Black Holes and Revelations is the band’s last fully realized album, the one that successfully blended the bombastic singles (”Supermassive Black Hole”) with the album-oriented track (”Knights of Cydonia”). Everything since has been the Muse audience hoping they go back to this. They have not.
Late Discoveries and the Long Tail
Some of the most interesting 2006 conversations happen around records people missed entirely at the time.
J Dilla‘s Donuts was released on February 7, 2006, his 32nd birthday. He died three days later. The album is an instrumental hip-hop record assembled from samples, structured as an infinite loop, and regarded by many critics as one of the most influential hip-hop albums ever made. For listeners who came to it late, via streaming or recommendation, the discovery lands hard.
Cold War Kids‘ Robbers and Cowards is a more mainstream late discovery: listeners who found “Hang Me Out to Dry” years after the fact and had no idea the record was already twenty years old.
Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs‘ Under the Covers Vol. 1 is all 70s covers, low-key and beautifully executed, not trying to be clever or ironic, just two people who love the originals playing them with care.
What Did 2006 Mean?
Here is the open question that the roundtable keeps circling back to: was 2006 a genuinely great year for music, or does it feel that way because of the era it occupied?
There is an argument that 2006 music is invested in differently because of when it arrived. It was the last year before portable internet changed how people listened. Buying a record or paying for a download or even ripping a CD still represented a commitment. You spent time with albums because you had chosen them. That kind of attention creates different memories than what comes from a streaming playlist.
But there is also a counter-argument: the records themselves hold up. The depth of overlooked material, the quality of what survived, the surprising range from Finnish roots rock to Danish punk-jazz to LA power pop to Canadian industrial, suggests that 2006 was a deep, wide year regardless of the nostalgia factor.
The question is worth asking in both directions. What was 2006 for you? And, twenty years on, what from that year are you still listening to?
The comment section is open. Put your 2006 record in there.
Episode Highlights
Intro: Album format explained, transitioning from 90s to 2000s “Albums Of” series
00:00: Opening theme and episode intro
00:51: The “Albums Of” format explained, 20-year lookback on 2006
03:44: Where were you in 2006? Roundtable begins with Eric, Marissa, Keith, Ian, Chip
03:56: Eric in Minneapolis, Triple Rock Social Club, Scandinavian rock scene
05:15: Marissa at SUNY Purchase, British Invasion, Franz Ferdinand, Muse, early social media
07:00: Keith in Indianapolis, Pandora, overnight Wendy’s shift, WTTS radio
08:11: Ian in Canada, disposable income, record store, eBay habit
13:00: 2006 context: Twitter launch, Google buys YouTube, Pluto declassified, Steve Irwin dies
16:23: J and Tim were in a band together, deep iTunes investment
11:55: Reddit post read aloud: “Describe 2006 to someone who has no memory of it” (the MySpace/LimeWire poem)
19:33: Albums that stood the test of time: roundtable begins
20:23: The Damnwells, Air Stereo, Chip’s #1 of 2006 via Triple Fast Action connection
21:49: Front Line Assembly, Artificial Soldier, Ian’s pick
24:22: Butch Walker, The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites, Marissa’s pick
26:00: The Damnwells echoed by Keith, discovered via WTTS radio
27:43: Branded Women, Cities and Seas (Finland), Eric’s pick
28:43: The Illuminati, On Borrowed Time (Toronto, one-and-done band), Jay’s pick
31:10: The Tragically Hip, World Container (Bob Rock, controversial in Hip fandom), Tim’s pick
34:23: Patreon community picks: Amy Winehouse, Decemberists, TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pearl Jam
35:16: Lily Allen discovered on MySpace; first mention of Taylor Swift debut on the podcast
36:39: Underappreciated and overlooked albums: roundtable begins
37:08: Hybrid, I Choose Noise (British electronic, orchestral), Marissa’s pick
38:49: Jolly Jumpers, Mobile Babylon (Finland, punky bluesy roots rock), Eric’s pick
39:42: Peaches, Impeach My Bush, Ian’s pick
40:33: Chip’s four picks: The Shys, Model Actress EP, Bell Auburn, Damone Out Here All Night
42:34: Kords, The Garden Around the Mansion (Swedish hip-hop), Keith’s pick
43:53: The Fags, Light ‘Em Up (Horse/Sponge orbit, power pop), Jay’s pick
46:43: Miranda Sound, Western Reserve (Columbus, J. Robbins produced), Tim’s pick
48:52: Patreon overlooked picks: Humanzi, Morning Runner, Destroyer’s Rubies, Sam Roberts Band
50:48: Albums that don’t work anymore: segment begins
51:13: The Killers, Sam’s Town, sophomore slump poster child
52:10: The sophomore slump epidemic of the 2000s discussed
53:12: “Peak music corporatism” named, labeled pressured follow-ups
53:44: Ministry, Rio Grande Blood; Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium, Tom Petty controversy
55:24: Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way (Rick Rubin, post-backlash)
56:31: Jay: Tenacious D Pick of Destiny; Mars Volta Amputechture
58:07: Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere: “Crazy” known, album unknown
59:08: Muse, Black Holes and Revelations defended as last great Muse album
01:03:32: Late discoveries from 2006: segment begins
01:03:56: Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, Under the Covers Vol. 1, Eric’s pick
01:04:53: Cold War Kids, Robbers and Cowards, Keith’s pick
01:05:33: Ivory Wire, Nobodies (Dovetail Joint successor), Marissa’s pick
01:06:54: Goldfrapp, Supernature (late 2005/early 2006 NA release), Ian’s pick
01:08:28: Band of Horses, Everything All the Time (Chip didn’t discover until 2022-23)
01:09:43: J Dilla, Donuts; Getatchew Mekuria and The Ex, Moa Anbessa, Jay’s picks
01:11:29: Final round: anything we missed?
01:11:53: Ian: Tool 10,000 Days, Lacuna Coil, Gary Numan Jagged, Weird Al Straight Outta Lynwood, Depeche Mode, KMFDM, Nitzer Ebb reformed
01:15:17: Keith: Fratellis Costello Music, The Zutons, Pink Spiders Teenage Graffiti, Gothic Archies, G. Love
01:16:47: Eric: The Pipettes, Long Blondes, Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, New York Dolls, The Thermals The Body The Blood The Machine (”best punk record of the aughts”)
01:19:54: Chip: Veruca Salt IV (Louise Post), Warrant Born Again, Army of Anyone, Wolfmother debut, In Flames Come Clarity
01:23:18: J: Priestess Hello Master, The Sword Age of Winters, Iron Maiden A Matter of Life and Death, Earl Greyhound Soft Targets, Danko Jones Sleep is the Enemy, Gossip Standing in the Way of Control, The Sounds Dying to Say This to You
01:33:53: Tim: Prince 3121, Secret Machines Ten Silver Drops, Pretty Girls Make Graves Elan Vital, Cursive Happy Hollow, Silversun Pickups Carnavas
01:38:28: Outro and thanks to all guests; comment invitation
Have a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.
