2006 Top-Five Northwest Releases

In the spirit of an earlier post in which we asked you to vote for your top-five albums of 2006 via KEXP, Seattlest would now love it if you'd narrow it down to your top-five Northwest albums via Three Imaginary Girls. In addition to letting your voice be heard, the girls are promising that every ballot cast will be entered into a drawing for a "prize pack of fun imaginary goodies."

We admit, this one was a lot harder simply because it's a Northwest-bands-only list. Yeah, there were plenty of Northwest releases this year, but the best? And who, what or where constitutes "Northwest"? TIG says to think Washington, Oregon, Vancouver, and parts of Montana, but that tells us that we should include most of Idaho (hence our Built To Spill vote). But what about artists who used to be local, like Neko Case? She's still listed on some Northwest lists like Easy Street Records, though, she hasn't lived around here for years.

After much head-scratching, here's our top-five Northwest releases for 2006:

1. The Long Winters - Putting The Days To Bed

2. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

3. Built To Spill - You In Reverse

4. Common Market - Connect For

5. Heather Duby - Heather Duby

Even now, looking at that list, we know we're missing something. Help us out Seattle.