Music to Your Ears
2006's Six Great Things in Local Music—I know, I know. Somewhere in the history of journalism, someone said, "Let there be 10, or thy year-closing lists shall be struck from the hands of thy readers with lightning bolts." Quick! Drop your paper!

Flyer on the Wall
Step Right Up!
Simfonik Plague, Hit By a Bus and The Ya Ya Boom Project are more fun than a barrelful of elephants this Thursday, Jan. 4, at Ralli's Fourth Street Pub and Grill (free, 21-and-over). (LM)

Show Up!
A Day in the Life
Trip-hop and tra-la-la with Chloe Day
Chloe Day doesn’t know how to describe trip-hop. You might find that odd, considering she’s known throughout the World Wide Web for her trip-hop, goth and industrial music. Still, she knows it when she hears it.
Sonic Reducer
Solillaquists of Sound As If We Existed · Psalm One The Death of the Frequent Flier · Lady Sovereign Public Warning · Pigeon John ... And the Summertime Pool Party · Glue Catch as Catch Can · Dr. Octagon The Return of Dr. Octagon · Cut Chemist The Audience's Listening · Mr. Lif Mo' Mega · Murs and 9th Wonder Murray's Revenge · The Roots Game Theory
Hip-hop 10
Subjective. Inaccurate. Holy. A list of the discs that floated to the surface in 2006.
There is no order.
As hard as it was to cobble together a lineup of my favorite hip-hop releases of the year, it seems even more futile to arrange them first to last. These albums stand here for so many reasons: production, beats, lyrics, flow, freshness, aesthetic. I could arrange it and re-arrange it a hundred times for a hundred different reasons.