The Best of 2006: Music

RICHARD HARRINGTON

1. Arctic Monkeys, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not." Young frontman Alex Turner is to his generation of Brit lads what Ray Davies and Pete Townshend were to theirs in the '60s: an exuberant, astute articulator of youthful energy and anxiety, as the group's March 27 show at the 9:30 club confirmed.

2. Corinne Bailey Rae, "Corinne Bailey Rae." Another bright debut, with Rae's neo-soul 'n' folk vocals offering mesmerizing meditations on love's ache and awe, with good-company echoes of Billie Holiday, Erykah Badu and Norah Jones and a thoroughly charming presentation at the Birchmere on Aug. 20.

3. Wolfmother, "Wolfmother." A thundering fun house retro blend of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath (with dashes of Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple). The young Australian power trio serves loud, heavy, delightfully unrepentant blues-based rock.

4. Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy." The song and the single of 2006 sounded timeless from the moment it appeared. A deep soul classic featuring Danger Mouse's visionary production and Cee-Lo Green's ecstatic/anguished vocals.

5. AC/DC's "Back in Black" meets Audrey Hepburn. When the fashion and style icon did her bohemian nightclub dance in Stanley Donen's 1957 film "Funny Face," who'd have guessed that, nearly 50 years later, it would mash up perfectly with an AC/DC song and a Gap campaign for skinny black pants for the coolest commercial on television?

6. The return of T Bone Burnett, at the 9:30 club, May 30. His first concert tour in 20 years to support "The True False Identity," his first album since 1992. Burnett's songs were smart, political, moral, intense, challenging, uplifting and sometimes downright scary. Bonus release: "Twenty Twenty: The Essential T Bone Burnett," a two-disc, three-decade, 40-song retrospective.

7. Sorry, the autumn of WHOSE years? After a mighty good 2005, Bob Dylan continued the streak with "Modern Times," chock-full of thoughtful, haunted, beautifully crafted roots-inspired originals and the most intriguing show on satellite radio (XM's "Theme Time Radio Hour").

8. YouTube.com. The greatest repository of ready-to-share, fan-based pop music history, providing often rare visual and audio witness to the wacky, the weird, the wonderful and the gloriously imperfect -- as well as the thoroughly embarrassing and absurd. Get it while it lasts -- the lawyers are getting ready to take the wind out of this sail.

9. My Morning Jacket. The Louisville rock quintet managed a double dose of magic with "Okonokos": It was one of the best concert recordings in years, as well as a mesmerizing concert film and DVD that confirmed MMJ as one of the great live bands working today. Ironically, the band's late November shows at the 9:30 club had a hard time living up to the high standards of "Okonokos."

10. Tori Amos. The quirky Rockville-bred singer-songwriter got audio and video retrospectives from Rhino. "A Piano: The Collection," packaged in a plastic keyboard, gathers 86 tracks on five discs, including a wealth of rarities, while "Fade to Red," a two-disc DVD, is an almost complete collection of 19 amazing, sometimes disturbing Amos videos, with Amos proving both charming and loopy on the commentary track.

CATHERINE LEWIS

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1. Mastodon, "Blood Mountain." Heavy and aggressive, this album finds the Atlanta metal quartet at its finest: dizzying, chaotic and pummeling through some of the year's most frenzied melodies.