Last week, we travelled back in time to 2006 and revealed the albums we were listening to in the first half of the year.
So before you delve into this article you can catch up on Part 1 here: Music in 2006: 20 Year Album Anniversaries (Part 1 – January to June) – Northern Chorus.
There are plenty more records celebrating 20 year anniversaries in 2026, including indie, rock, and pop royalty.
So it’s time to revisit now, starting with July and running month-by-month through the rest of the year to reminisce on the albums of 20 years ago…
If the first half of 2006 felt busy, July was the month that really showed its hand. In fact, it quietly stacked up four Mercury Prize–nominated albums in a single month. Guillemots’ Through the Windowpane remains a glorious, maximalist debut, while Muse went full apocalyptic stadium mode on their showpiece record, Black Holes & Revelations. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke’s The Eraser did the opposite, retreating inward with skittering electronics and fractured unease, while TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain felt like a band suddenly realising just how big and unique their ideas could be.
Elsewhere, noughties indie flagbearers, Razorlight returned with their incredible self-titled album, featuring the mammoth hit, ‘America’. Paolo Nutini arrived on the scene with debut album These Streets and those soothing Scottish tones captured the masses, while Lily Allen’s Alright, Still provided the year with its most sharp-tongued pop debut – catchy, yes, but also very British and very biting.
August leaned into confidence. Kasabian’s Empire was bigger, brasher and less interested in subtlety than their debut, while Bob Dylan’s Modern Times somehow made the case that late-career greatness wasn’t just possible but sustainable.
Peter Bjorn and John’s Writer’s Block arrived quietly, only to become unavoidable thanks to one whistled hook that would soundtrack the rest of the decade. OutKast’s Idlewild continued their left-field streak, blurring soundtrack, funk and experiment. Then Beyoncé’s B’Day, Christina Aguilera’s Back to Basics and Kelis’ Kelis Was Here all landed – huge pop moments, delivered with the kind of star power that felt worlds away from indie clubs, but impossible to completely ignore even if you tried.
September 2006 was stacked again. The Killers’ Sam’s Town saw them wrestle with Americana and ambition, while The Fratellis’ Costello Music delivered one of the finest albums of the noughties indie era; a no-skips, wall-to-wall indie masterpiece. Wolfmother went full retro fuzz on their self-titled debut, and The Black Keys’ Magic Potion kept their blues-rock raw and unpolished.
Basement Jaxx’s Crazy Itch Radio bounced between genres with typical abandon, Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds rewrote the rules of mainstream pop production, and The Lemonheads quietly returned with their self-titled album.
October might be the point where 2006 tips from busy into absurd. Beck’s The Information came with stickers, skits and a sense of playful reinvention. LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33 stretched dance music into something conceptual and oddly emotional. Badly Drawn Boy’s Born in the UK then wrestled openly with politics and identity.
But October also played host to some landmark, iconic release. The Black Parade, for example. My Chemical Romance didn’t just release an album; they launched a full-blown world, complete with uniforms, theatrics and melodrama turned up to eleven. Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black also arrived this month, effortlessly cutting through the noise with heartbreak, soul and songs that cemented their place in music history. There was also a self-titled debut from a new country singer in the shape of Taylor Swift. What happened to her?
November had a slightly stranger energy. Jarvis Cocker’s self-titled solo debut felt like a continuation of his observational storytelling, just without the Pulp banner. Tenacious D’s The Pick of Destiny leaned fully into silliness, while Love reworked The Beatles’ catalogue into something oddly cohesive and newly emotional.
Brand New’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me stood apart from almost everything else that year – dark, uncomfortable and endlessly dissected in the years since. Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come and Akon’s Konvicted rounded out the month, alongside the huge pop return of Take That, whose first album in 11 years landed with Beautiful World.
By December, 2006 was running on fumes but still had one last pop curveball to throw. Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape doubled down on glossy hooks and high-energy confidence, closing out a year that had already given far more than its fair share.
And with that, our journey through album releases in 2006 comes to a close. We’ll be back soon with our 10 year album anniversaries…
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