Year in Music: 2006 - The Videos and the Producers

Best Video

It wasn't a very good year for the music video. Artist after artist gave us interesting but ultimately uninspiring, and unoriginal works. Everything reaked of "we've seen it before". However, these five videos did, in some way, manage to bring some wit and perspective to their songs while being visually inventive, and one of them, stood head and shoulders above the rest.


Crazy, Gnarls Barkley with Robert Hales (director)


Here It Goes Again, OK Go and Trish Sie (directors)


Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward, Jenny Wilson with Andreas Nilsson & Johannes Nyholm (directors)


Wolf Like Me, TV on the Radio with Jon Watts (director)


Young Folks, Peter Bjorn & John with Graham Samuels (director)

and the winner is: Here it Goes Again, OK Go and Trish Sie

Producer of the Year

Danger Mouse
Pieces of the People We Love, The Rapture (track)
St. Elsewhere, Gnarls Barkley (album)

Olof Dreijer
Silent Shout, The Knife (album)
What Else is There, Röyksopp (track)

Rick Rubin
12 Songs, Neil Diamond (album)
American V: A Hundred Highways, Johnny Cash (album)
Saints Are Coming, U2 and Green Day (track)
Stadium Arcadium, Red Hot Chili Peppers (album)
Taking the Long Way, Dixie Chicks (album)

David Andrew Sitek
Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio (album)
Show Your Bones, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (additional production/album)

Timbaland
Beg for It, Omarion (track)
FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake (album)
Get Down, Busta Rhymes (track)
Hey! (A Lil Gratitude), Bubba Sparxxx (track)
Ice Box, Omarion (track)
Let Me Luv U, Chingy (track)
Loose, Nelly Furtado (album)
Right Now, Danity Kane (track)
Wait a Minute, Pussycat Dolls (track)
Want It, Danity Kane (track)

The winner here seems obvious to me. No other producer did quite as much as Timbaland did. Sure, plenty of others were as ubiquitous (hell, if that were enough then Will.i.Am could win the whole damn thing) but no one created a marked sound like T. Mosely did. He not only resurrected Nelly Furtado's flagging career but did so for his own, rescuing him from simply being the best thing in 2003. Timbaland looked into his bag of tricks and pulled out the smoothest, funkiest tracks of the year that had you on the dancefloor all year long.

Tomorrow: Rock categories + the Hikka megapost