The 40 Best Albums of 2006

30. The Dears, Gang of Losers
The Dears are proof that John Hughes movies and Tom Petty were right -- even the losers get lucky sometimes. On their third studio album, they spin irascible outsiderdom into ultimately triumphant songs that are inspired by, and completely worthy of, the Smiths. Frontman Murray Lightburn carefully mixes a feisty sense of entitlement with a desperate longing to be loved: "We can't go home," he emotes, "till we know we're gonna win." When his vulnerable bravado is backed by a cache of such passionate tunes, it becomes a stirring statement of purpose. J.M.

29. Tapes 'n Tapes, The Loon
All of the relentless, completely fair comparisons -- to the Pixies' raucous bark, Pavement's indolent cool, Modest Mouse's restless energy -- reveal only a fraction of this album's charms. Buzz built outward from Minneapolis because Tapes cannily recombine classic indie-rock DNA into new, playfully familiar species. And because twitchy, fuzzy, white-college-guy rock hasn't been this easy to enjoy since its mid-'90s zenith. Also, and it gets too little credit for this: The Loon is way loonier than it first seems, with injections of cross-eyed country, bits of blues, and whatever else yields the band joy. J.M.

28. Thom Yorke, The Eraser
Radiohead minus most of Radiohead still thankfully sounds like Radiohead: Squint and you won't know spasmodic singer Thom Yorke's warm, cool solo songs from his band's terrifically click-clacking recent albums. Surprisingly approachable and ingratiating despite its backbone of claustrophobia and anxiety, The Eraser pulls off a neat trick, making the dour almost danceable and weighty weirdness not only palatable, but impossible to turn away from. On Yorke's folded map, bedroom electronica and outsize modern rock sit close together, not worlds apart. J.M.

27. Girl Talk, Night Ripper
Hit singles leak so quickly these days that a DJ's biggest competition is shuffle mode. But Gregg Gillis turns our band-of-the-day age on its head, splicing hundreds of Top 40 gems into samples that last no longer than the songs' shelf lives. With the niche theory of The Long Tail now gospel, there's something both funny and deep about the way he brings cultures together: Nas feels the Pixies' paranoia, Trina gets a riot grrrl shout-out, Houston rappers settle down in The OC, and the only thing standing between you and world unity is the RIAA. M. MAERZ

26. Boris, Pink
Remember when you were a kid and wondered what "psychedelic rock" was? What guitars sounded like when the players were "on acid"? Then you finally listened to that sort of thing and, well, went back to your video games and hip-hop records. But this veteran Japanese cult trio, sublime like the Grand Canyon, is the ferociously heavy answer to all that, moving from Harley backfires to ambient quasar emissions to obscure punk seven-inches on eBay (or Soulseek). This is what you always hoped, say, Cream were like before you actually heard them. JOE GROSS

25. OutKast, Idlewild
Big Boi and André 3000 may be personally estranged, their splashy Depression-era musical may have been a fat ho-hum, and this record may have fizzled commercially. But they're still OutKast, the most artistically inventive group of the decade, and many of the songs here brim with their usual elan. "Mighty 'O'" has both members spitting heat; "The Train" is a touching Big Boi rumination; André's "Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me)" struts bittersweetly; and "PJ & Rooster," a lively hip-hop/soul/jazz throwdown, pops like some of their classic material. Now about that movie... C.A.

24. Pernice Brothers, Live a Little
Chinks are beginning to show in singer/ songwriter Joe Pernice's bitter armor, and concessions to happiness, or at least pleasant wistfulness, suit him staggeringly well. Instead of being totally shattered, his glass now simply stands half empty: The joy of love's tricky terrain pushes its way to the surface via sun-dappled Beatles-isms, elegant arrangements, and lyrics whose doubt feels optimistic instead of just beautifully resigned. The Pernice Brothers' breeziness has felt at times like hooky deceit, but here they deliver a perfect soundtrack for partly cloudy (or is that partly sunny?) days. J.M.

23, The Roots, Game Theory
On their seventh studio album, these Philly vets no longer care if a hip-hop band, as a sum of its parts, will ever be as significant within the genre as, say, Lil Wayne. Gone too is their self-imposed burden to revolutionize something, anything. Instead, we get a peerless jazz-funk beat machine, pissed and depressed, creating a suite of intensely glowering songs to match their can-stop-will-stop mood. Black Thought's rhymes -- now "beyond jaded" -- have never stung like this, with his litany of social ills and oil-for-food jibes coming in coherent flurries. And on the moving and melodically nimble "Clock With No Hands," he strains to resolve regret, paranoia, and hopefulness. The answer: You can't depend on anybody but yourself. More proof that good art damns good intentions. C.A.

22. Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
Well, at least they never promised they'd die before they got old. In fact, Sonic Youth never promised anything more or less than constant renewal and vivid guitars. So their 20th release extends the most comfortable hot streak in rock history, locating a few more nooks in a self-invented sound that no one else inhabits. "Incinerate" sounds like the sure-shot alterna-hit they forgot to write in the mid-'90s; "Do You Believe in Rapture?" finds its bliss through what lesser hands would just render as muddy noise; and the splintered-guitar kraut-rock workouts they've spent much of the '00s exploring go agreeably soft-focus on "Pink Steam" and "Jams Run Free." Here's to aging gracefully. MICHAELANGELO MATOS

21. The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
The kids of the album title may be too high to have sex or too dehydrated to keep drinking, but in the Hold Steady's hands, that's still enough to cause grown-up listeners to suffer crippling nostalgia. Haven't I heard this before? rock riffs turn frontman Craig Finn's eulogies of lapsed Catholics and strung-out Midwesterners into bittersweet anthems. But where some would stop at "I love this girl," Finn adds, "but I can't tell when she's having a good time." Plunging you into an immediately familiar teenage wasteland, these 11 songs won't ever let you leave. PHOEBE REILLY