Best Rock and Country Albums of 2006

I still haven’t heard Bob Dylan’s “Modern Times” or Bruce Springsteen’s “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” because I’m trying to boycott Sony products. If I had, they might have landed at the top of my list of best albums of 2006. Still, I heard a lot of great rock and country albums this year, many of them with poignant story lines.

(I’ll take a look at my favorite jazz, blues, soul, reggae and world music albums later in the week.)

1) Ray Wylie Hubbard: “Snake Farm.” I loved Hubbard’s last album, “Delirium Tremolos.” I think “Snake Farm” is even better. His bluesy mix of country and rock filled with clever lyrics makes this my favorite album of the year.

2) Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint: “The River in Reverse.” I almost always love Costello’s albums (his collaborations with Burt Bacharach are the only ones I don’t particularly like.) The musical pairing of Costello with Allen Toussaint, one of the great American musicians and arrangers of our time, resulted in great music with a powerful message of hope for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

3) Alejandro Escovedo: “The Boxing Mirror.” Escovedo has long been one of our most literate songwriters. “The Boxing Mirror,” his first album since near-fatal fight with Hepatitis C, is especially reflective. It’s both tender and harsh. And the former punk musician turned alt-country rocker still knows how to turn a song upside down with his biting guitar licks.

4) PJ Harvey: “The Peel Sessions.” These recordings made for the late John Peel’s radio show are even better than the original versions of the songs.

5) Soundtrack: “Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man.” Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, the Handsome Family recorded versions of Cohen’s songs that might even improve on the master’s originals.

6) Teddy Thompson: “Separate Ways.” I think Richard and Linda Thompson’s son has the best male voice in rock and pop. The fact that both of his parents and Rufus Wainwright make appearances on the album make this one a keeper.

7) Hank Williams III: “Straight to Hell.” I doubt that the Louvin Brothers would have approved of their song “Satan is Real” being used as the lead-in for “Straight to Hell.” But I’m willing to bet that Hank III’s grandfather would have loved it.

8) Nikki Sudden: “Truth Doesn’t Matter.” This might be a sentimental pick because Sudden died in March. But though “The Truth Doesn’t Matter” isn’t as consistent as his “Treasure Island” album, it contains the same melancholy vocals and rebellious spirit.

9) Ray Davies: “Other People’s Lives.” I’ve always thought that Kinks albums hold up even better than the early Beatles and Rolling Stones records. And though the Stones sounded great on “A Bigger Bang” last year, their lyrics were trite and silly. Davies updates the Kinks’ sound with some of his most acerbic songs ever.

10) Jon Langford: “Gold Brick.” This album includes rock with a folk sensibility for everyday working stiffs.

11) Rosanne Cash: “Black Cadillac.” In the months before she recorded this album, Cash lost her father, Johnny Cash; her step-mother, June Carter Cash; and her mother, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin. She drew on those losses to record one of the most emotion-filled albums I’ve heard in a long time.

12) Ian McLagan: “Spiritual Boy.” This tribute to McLagan’s old Small Faces running mate is filled with love. McLagan’s simple approach to the songs reminds me why I love rock ‘n’ roll.

13) Built to Spill: “You in Reverse.” When I wrote about this album in April, I said it sounded like Phil Spector took some unreleased tracks from The Cure and juiced them using his famous Wall of Sound production techniques. There are some damn good ballads, too.

14) The Figgs: “Follow Jean Through the Sea.” the album is filled with straight-ahead rock that makes me want to dance.

15) Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3: “...tick....tick...tick.” I like Wynn’s solo work better than the stuff he recorded with the Dream Syndicate. This album did nothing to change my mind.

16) Eef Barzelay: “Bitter Honey.”

17) Tom Waits’ “Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards.”

18) Some Girls: “Crushing Love.”

19) Yo La Tengo: “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass,”

20) Neil Young: “Living with War.”