Best of 2006

Another year of me doing a terrible job of keeping up on pop culture. Hey, why don't you pay me to go to movies and listen to CDs? Then I might be better at it. In the meanwhile, I spend an awful lot of time catching up on the flicks and albums I missed from previous years. But alas, I did catch some good stuff this year and so without further doodoo I present...

KLJ's 2006 Highlights:

Best Albums
The Coup- Pick A Bigger Weapon

The Coup kill with their follow up to Party Music. They're not afraid of controversy and controversy is a hard thing to stir up these days. What's great about front man Boots O'Reily is that he never seems to be going out of his way to be shocking as he praises the folks who steal and resell from corporate retailers, or raps about Bush and Hussein taking care of one another's carnal debt, it just sound so natural flowing from this talented MC. Click here to buy it.

Belle and Sebastian- The Life Pursuit

Hands down the best B&E album and the best album of 2006 period. When you end a sentence by saying "period" do you have to put a period? Click here to buy The Life Pursuit

TV On The Radio
Return To Cookie Mountain

Wow. One of the most unique sounds going in pop music today, TV On The Radio knows no bounds, and I was pretty sure that there weren't enough good songs about werewolves.

Best Movie
Little Miss Sunshine

Okay, so it borrowed, heavily from the Chevy Chase classic Vacation. The list of great twists NOT borrowed from Vacation still makes this more original than any other flick out this year. Fantastic movie with great performances all around. Allen Arkin just keeps getting better as he gets older. If you don't know what I mean go grab a great flick of his from a few years ago called The Slums of Beverly Hills and then go back to the beginning and watch the amazing Catch 22. I love this guy. Buy the Little Miss Sunshine DVD here.

Best DVD
Saturday Night Live Season One

The best cast ever for Saturday Night Live was the first cast and we can finally enjoy them on DVD without having to piece together a bunch of "Best of" discs. It's all here, including the amazing musical guests and the rough start. It's fascinating watching the Not Ready for Prime Time Players get up to speed which doesn't happen until show three or four. Of course watching this great old footage makes it even harder to stomach the direction SNL has gone in the past decade. Yuck! Check out this amazing set for sale here.

Best New TV Show
Ugly Betty

I discovered this new take on the telanovela from Spanish TV a few days before New Year's Eve. It doesn't hurt that producer Selma Hayek (we're in love, she just doesn't know it yet) is featured on the show, but she takes a back seat to Betty who is one of the most engaging characters to grace the little tiny screen with terrible reception even after I stick a safety pin in the cable port and attach a hanger to it, in a long time (yeah, I got to get cable).

Talk Show
Okay, so I saw this new latenight show hosted by a geek and it's just called Talk Show with (insert geeks name). I loved it like I loved the first season of Conan O'Brian and now I can't find any information on it. HELP.

CHECK BACK LATER FOR MY MOST LOOKED FORWARD TO IN 2007 LIST.