Top Songs and Artists of 2006
It's the end of the year, and everyone will be talking about what were the top songs and artists of 2006. I too have thought this through, and I have decided to put together some of my thoughts as to who and what were my favorite artists and songs of 2006. And what better way to do this than to start with my list of most played songs in iTunes from Christmas 2005 to Christmas 2006. Of course, this means that this is not limited to what was released in 2006, but to what I played between 12/25/2005 and 12/25/2006. Here goes...
Song | Artist | Album | Play Count |
Haec dies | Choir Of Westminster Abbey & Simon Preston | Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli & Allegri: Miserere | 103 |
Friday I'm in Love | The Cure | Wish | 93 |
Show You Love | Jars Of Clay | Who We Are Instead | 88 |
Write This Down | George Strait | Always Never the Same | 86 |
Irreplaceable | Beyoncé | B'Day | 85 |
Give a Little Bit | Goo Goo Dolls | Give a Little Bit - Single | 78 |
Disappear | Jars of Clay | The Eleventh Hour | 73 |
O magnum mysterium | Cambridge Singers & John Rutter | The Cambridge Singers Christmas Album | 72 |
Breathe (2AM) | Anna Nalick | Breathe (2AM) - Single | 70 |
Honestly (Single Version) | Cartel | Honestly - Single | 68 |
Lost Cause | Beck | Sea Change | 64 |
Everything | Delirious? | Glo | 63 |
Victime Paschali Laudes | Hortus Musicus | Gregorian Chant | 62 |
Photograph | Nickelback | All the Right Reasons | 60 |
Nothin' | Chris Rice | Exodus | 59 |
Already Dead | Beck | Sea Change | 57 |
Forever And For Always | Shania Twain | Up! (Green Album) | 57 |
Lamentations of Jeremiah I | Peter Phillips & The Tallis Scholars | The Tallis Scholars sing Thomas Tallis | 54 |
Five Candles (You Were There) | Jars Of Clay | Much Afraid | 53 |
Atlantic | Keane | Under the Iron Sea | 50 |
Missa Papae Marcelli: Gloria | Choir Of Westminster Abbey & Simon Preston | Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli & Allegri: Miserere | 49 |
Miserere | Choir Of Westminster Abbey & Simon Preston | Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli & Allegri: Miserere | 49 |
Sympathy | Goo Goo Dolls | Matt's Car Mix | 49 |
Same In Any Language | I-Nine | Elizabethtown | 49 |
Linger | The Cranberries | 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Cranberries | 46 |
Favorite Artist/Composer of 2006
Thomas Tallis - This man has clearly captured my attention. According to many historians, he remained Catholic in England during the so-called English Reformation, and yet still remained high in the service and opinions of the kings and queens of that time. He wrote music for the Chapel Royale, and composed many musical settings for both Catholic and Anglican liturgies. His music is haunting, moody, somber, and reflective. This is best seen in his masterful Lamentations of Jeremiah, which made my top 25 list. But even his more joyful settings, for example the Easter motet Dum Transisset Sabbatum, still preserve this somber and reflective quality. And of course, he can be a master at the technical aspects of music (as evidenced by his astonishing Spem in Alium). According to the thesis that Tallis was a Catholic, many of his musical settings also had political implications, being hidden calls for a return to the Old Religion. If you would like to check out his music, I especially recommend the album Tallis: Spem in Alium; Lamentations of Jeremiah; Church Music by the Kings College Choir and St. Johns College Choir for its uncanny ability to bring out this somber quality in Tallis's music.
Song Most Likely to Make the List Again in 2007
Show You Love by Jars of Clay - I have been known to play this song 15 times in a row while riding in my car. Even though it's not my favorite Jars song (that would go to Five Candles), it still is up there, particularly because I listened to it extensively during the time of my conversion to Catholicism.
Song Least Likely to Make the List Again in 2007
Irreplacable by Beyoncé - I think the reason why this made the list is that the day I downloaded it, I listened to it about 50 times. It's short, and it's catchy, and Beyoncé has a great voice (even if her message and her way of getting it across often leave something to be desired), but I just don't listen to her that much.
Trend of the Year
Classical Sacred Music - Of course, I've always listed to Christian music. As a child, CCM was my favorite musical genre. But, let's face it, most CCM leaves something to be desired (my apologies to Jars of Clay, DC Talk, and Delirious). Not to mention that most CCM is decidedly Protestant in emphasis. Often, this doesn't really bring up problems, especially because much of CCM is devotional in nature and Catholics and Protestants share much in common in the area of devotional life (in that we both worship Jesus Christ and the entirety of the Blessed Trinity, we both believe in and have a devotion to the Holy Gospels, etc.). However, occasionally there are problems in the theology of the music, and unfortunately I find listening to songs with aberrant theology to be more annoying than listening to songs with no explicit theology at all.
However, this year I have really taken a liking to classical sacred music: Tallis, Palestrina, different settings of Gregorian chant. Even the music composed for Protestant liturgies, such as some of Tallis' settings, doesn't often contain theological problems, as the songs come straight from the Bible or from ancient Catholic liturgical rites (i.e. the Sarum rite). My fascination with this style of music actually started in 2005. I was at a friend's father's concerts, and they played a setting of O Magnum Mysterium. I don't even know if this was the setting by Tomás Luis de Victoria, to which I have taken a liking. Nonetheless, I downloaded the song later in 2005, and was enraptured by its beauty. The trend was really cemented one day in 2006, when I was working from home. I needed something to calm me down, as I was upset for some reason, so I downloaded an album of chant by Hortus Musicus, and the deal was done. I was hooked to the beauty of classical sacred music, and have been ever since.
Most Surprising Feature of the List
The most surprising feature of this list is the conspicuous absence of all three of my favorite pop bands: U2, Radiohead, and Coldplay. None of the three came out with a new album in 2006 or the last half of 2005 (Coldplay's latest came out in June 2005). So, by this time I had moved on to other bands and musical styles. A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that there are rumors of a 2007 release for Coldplay and Radiohead, but I don't know whether these rumors have any substance or not. And U2 seems to be taking their time in making a new album, too. So, it's possible that this surprising trend might be reversed in 2007, but we'll see.
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