Pitchfork followed up its Stereogum-confusing singles list with its top-albums-of-’06 list today; heading the pack is Silent Shout, the admittedly spectacular album by icy Swedish duo The Knife.

THE GOOD: A mostly solid top 10, capped by Scott Walker’s insane The Drift. Is this the first time an album sampling a piece of meat being punched made the upper echelons of the ‘Fork’s chart?
THE BAD: Destroyer’s Rubies, which came out in February, gets this year’s “Forgotten Favorite” award–it placed at No. 18, behind the just-okay Sunset Rubdown and the soporific Band Of Horses.
THE WHAAA?: Can a list be surprising in its, well, unsurprisingness? Because this list feels like the definition of consensus–nearly every place was telegraphed by this year’s “Best New Music” and “Recommended” tags, even the Liars’ shocking-to-some No. 5 showing.

Pitchfork Feature: Top 50 Albums Of 2006 [Pitchfork]
Earlier: Year-End Analysis, Part II: Pitchfork Was Over “Crazy” Before You Even Heard It

It’s not online yet, but we got our mitts on Blender magazine’s year-end list (alas, you’ll have to wait to find out who hit No. 1 in their fifth-annual ranking of the Top 50 Greatest Musical Negligee sOf All Time). In summary: The 1-2-3-4 albums list went to My Chemical Romance, Arctic Monkeys, Bob Dylan, and Justin Timberlake; while the singles honors went to Gnarls Barkley, T.I. (“What You Know”), JT again (“My Love”), and Nelly Furtado (“Promiscuous”)

THE GOOD: Some genuinely surprising picks, both in the singles list (Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Cheated Hearts,” No. 6; Big City Rock’s “All Of The Above,” No. 10) and on the albums list (Todd Snider, No. 14).
THE BAD: Weird Al’s “White And Nerdy” (No. 76) is far better than the Fray’s certifiably white n’ nerdy TV-credits staple “Over My Head (Cable Car).” And we’ll need a complete inspection of the entire Blender staff’s iTunes play-count clockers to believe anyone there really thinks the Beatles’ drivelly nostalgia-trip Love (no. 6) and the Killers’ barely listenable Sam’s Club (no. 25) deserved mentions.
THE WHAAA? Big City Rock whosit now??

If you’ve ever browsed through any of the gazillion user-written music suggestions on Amazon.com, you’ve no doubt asked yourself, “Who are you, BobaFett@ttack, and why do you love Breaking Benjamin so much?” Today, MTV.com presents an overview of some of the site’s DIY year-end lists, along with commentary from the writers themselves, many of whom have handles like “CrazyMoose777″ or–we kid you not–”Chingy’s #1 Fan!!!!!!! Lil Romeo #1 Fan Too!”:

Username: “Pop_Fan01″
“I don’t really take the reviews of what people say seriously ’cause most of the time people who say an album sucks haven’t even listened to it; they just have something against the artist. I think Paris Hilton is a perfect example: People wrote such mean things but the album’s hot and they just don’t like her. A top-10 list to me [is made up of] the albums I listen to all the way through, daily.”

“Check Out These Albums Now!!!!”
» Christina Aguilera – Back to Basics
“I always love Christina and this album was so hot. Vocally she has such power and range and the songs are fun and/or emotional!”
» Paris Hilton – Paris
“This is actually a really fun album. Very catchy and vocally she can out-sing Britney at least!”
» Jessica Simpson – A Public Affair
“This is Jessica’s fun album. Not many ballads like we know her for but a lot of ’80s sounding dance songs and the ballads that are on the album are beautiful!”
he can out-sing Britney at least!”
» Pink – I’m Not Dead
“Her last album didn’t thrill me but this album is really good there are the fun sarcastic songs and the deep vocally amazing songs. Pink is worth the money!”
» Danity Kane – Danity Kane
“I really like this CD and if you ask a lot of stores underestimated how well it would do and sold out the first day it came out!”
» Rihanna – A Girl Like Me
“I wasn’t feeling her first album too much but these songs are all good. ‘Final Goodbye’ is my fave.”
» Trina – Glamorest Life
“Trina can really rap and this CD has her biggest hit ‘Here We Go Again’ with Kelly Rowland.”
» Cassie – Cassie
“It’s been a long time since I’ve like any Bad Boy artist but their girls are hot!”
» Pussycat Dolls – PCD
“Nicole used to be in Eden’s Crush and she got another hit with this CD!”
» Madonna – Confessions on a Dance Floor
“This CD is my calorie burning CD!”

Alas, the year-end list from Roommate_Of_Pop_Fan01–tentatively titled “What I’m Listening To When I’m Not Chloroforming Myself To Sleep”–was not available at press time.

Paris Hilton: Critics’ Fave? A Look At Amazon Users’ Top 10s [MTV.com, but from the easier-to-read VH1.com]

The “Best Of 2006″ parade o’ opinions continues, and today, the country’s two biggest newsweeklies release their lists (sadly, neither publication used their foreign-news connections to solicit contributions from well-known international music critics):

THE GOOD: Even though Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor was a sales-register stiff, it wound up on both lists; hopefully the year-end critical push will convince Atlantic to keep him around for a while. And Time‘s inclusion of TV On The Radio and Joanna Newsom alongside the Dixie Chicks and Bob Dylan will no doubt prompt our parents to make some jarring spontaneous-shopping choices.
THE BAD:: We understand the need to acknowledge every genre, but Newsweek selecting Kingdom Come (easily the weakest album of Jay’s career) and Time including the Vince Gill four-disc set felt like demo-appeasing throw-away entries.
THE WHAAA?: Time‘s No. 1 choice is the “dangerously smart” (not to mention “ceaselessly overrated”) Arctic Monkeys; Newsweek praises that last Flaming Lips record, which even the nerdiest Lips fans we know tend to shrug off dismissively.

Review: The Best Albums of 2006 [Newsweek]
10 Best Albums [Time]

Pitchfork released its Top 100 Tracks of 2006 list today; it’s led by Justin Timberlake’s “My Love,” and its top ten actually features two hip-hop songs, a stat that’s no doubt making Stereogum’s comment section scratch its indie-shaped noggin. Pitchfork also was quick to let people know that Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” is, to them, totally 2005. Adorable, right? But wait, there’s more:

THE GOOD: A pretty inarguable top 5 (Timberlake, The Knife, T.I., TV On The Radio, and Peter, Bjorn & John); multimedia supplements, in case you need help parsing the writers’ overheated blurbs.
THE BAD:: The top 20 is littered with picks that seem to be surrogates for best-album nods–Joanna Newsom at No. 9, double-dips for Clipse, The Knife, and Hot Chip. Ah, well, at least there wasn’t a groundswell of support for “Chillout Tent.”
THE WHAAA?: We were going to save this for Pick Of The ‘Fork, but it was just too good: “‘One More Try’ embraces its own superficiality with restraint and simplicity, and in doing so becomes a powerful prophylactic against all things anguished and complicated.” Congratulations, My Robot Friend: You’ve officially written a Magnum opus.

Pitchfork Feature: The Top 100 Tracks of 2006 [Pitchfork]

…And the best-of-the-year lists keep on rolling in. Some notable music-blog entries:

- The Marathonpacks list is a frustrating read: Not because it’s bad–actually, this is one of the better round-ups we’ve read this week–but because it reminded your Idolators that the M’s excellent Future Women came out this year, and that we completely forgot about it when putting together our own lists. [Marathonpacks]
- Gorilla vs. Bear includes the Knife, J Dilla, and Grizzly Bear. But aren’t they sort of biased towards that last one? [Gorilla vs. Bear]
- On Chromewaves, all the Top 10 entries get their own sports cards–but since it’s a Canadian site, the cards are from O-Pee-Chee, not Topps. [Chromewaves]

As the 2006 year-in-music critical polls continue to roll in, our cranky kvetching continues to roll out. Tomorrow we’ll look at some blog choices, but for now, let’s go to the old-media staples:

- The Rolling Stone singles list predictably puts “Crazy” on top, whiffs by landing J.T.’s “My Love” at No. 50, and finds room for oddball choices like James Kochalka Superstar and Oakley Hall. One of many quibbles: As much as we love the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” didn’t that come out last year? [Rolling Stone]
- NPR’s All Songs Considered list: With the exception of Regina Spektor, we could have called all of these. [NPR]
- After seeing how many members of the Sound Opinions crew are crushing hard on Jenny Lewis, we can only imagine that her on-air appearance was full of lots of giggles, sighs, and “Do you like me?” mash notes. [Sound Opinions]
- Though New York‘s music coverage sometimes drive us batty–enough already of the grade-school teachers talking about how much their kids love Sufjan–their sorta-review, sorta-round-up gets points for name-checking the Essex Green. [New York]