2006 was a year in which the elder statesmen of rock muscled their way back into our collective consciousness. Dylan's Modern Times proved fresh and jaunty, Neil Young hollered about our need to impeach the president, Bruce Springsteen went back to American folk roots and Johnny Cash recorded an unwitting epitaph that befitted his legend.

Even the Beatles released a new album.

In indie circles it was The Year of The Silly Name, with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah merely encouraging the likes of I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

Although dying out, there was still the inane use of the definite article in bands' names, hence we got more bands such as The Rapture and The Immediate.

Lads, what the feck do those names mean?

Best Live Performance A three-way tie between Republic of Loose at the annual Hot Press Awards, Metallica at the RDS and The Fall at the Village. The first gig confirmed Pyro and co as the most funloving motherf***ers in Irish music, the second featured a complete run-through of 1985's Master of Puppets album and the Fall just blew us away.

Best Festival I spent most of the Electric Picnic listening to Jinx Lennon in the Leviathan tent and riding a carousel horse while trying not to vomit so my favourite performance of the summer was Eddi Reader at the Earagail Arts Festival in Donegal, after which she sang in the hotel bar until the wee hours of the morning.

Perfect.

Best Single Director: 'Reconnect'. The understated cool of this single made it the most ubiquitous homegrown song of the year: you can still hear it on every other TV link and, unlike Peter Bjorn and John's 'Young Folks', it still isn't annoying.

Best Irish Act The strength of Irish music this year is reflected by the fact that Fionn Regan, Director, Duke Special, Republic of Loose and many others can reasonably hope to achieve international success in the next year or so.

While Snow Patrol have shown the way, bands like the Frames and Bell X1 also show international recognition isn't the be-all and end-all.

Best Hopes For 2007 Lisa Hannigan and Vyvienne Long. Damien Rice's partners in crime spent 2006 slowly building their respective cvs. Hannigan featured strongly on The Cake Sale's excellent album, while Long's recent EP suggests she's not only a great interpreter of songs but has some of her own as well.

Hero Of The Year Dan Treacy of the Television Personalities. A true pioneer of British indie, Treacy built a cult following in the States during the late 1970s (Kurt Cobain and John Peel were huge fans) but succumbed to depression and addiction. During the 1990s he went missing-presumed-dead but turned up in 2004 on a prison ship off the south coast of England. Inside he discovered internet fansites dedicated to the band so he wrote some new songs. Friend and supporter Laurence Bell of Domino Records helped him release what became My Dark Places during the summer and the results are amazing.

Villain Of The Year Sandi Thom. Talentless, disingenuous, gormless, everything about Thom's 'broadcasting to the world from her Tooting basement' reeked of record industry bullshit and galling self-promotion. The only silver lining is that after the rubbish single 'I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker. . .', the rest of her album is so crap that Thom will more than likely disappear without a trace back to her Tooting basement.

Albums of the Year 1/ Regina Spektor Begin To Hope (Warner Music) The queen of anti-folk became a pop princess with her major label debut. The mixture of crazed melodies and super mainstream pop-rock made this an accessible delight. The Muscovite finally started to live with her influences . . . Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks etc . . .and emulate them.

2/ Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins Rabbit Fur Coat (Team Love) A white soul classic from the Rilo Kiley frontwoman, Lewis's debut solo album saw her team up with M Ward, Bright Eyes and a set of gospel-tinged twins from Kentucky with the oddest of results. Spit 'n' sawdust ruminations on the nature of faith, eating disorders and drugaddicted parents plus a cover of the Travelling Wilburys' 'Handle With Care' cap an album like no other this year.

3/ Bruce Springsteen The Seeger Sessions (Sony Music) There was much whoopin' and a hollerin' as the Boss paid his dues to traditional American music and came out with a spontaneously recorded classic. The irony was while Bruce was selling out shows throughout Europe, the audiences in America were less enthusiastic.

Strange place, the Yoo S.

4/ Bonnie Prince Billy The Letting Go (Drag City) The crown prince of miserablist alt-country returned to form with a straight-up country blues record that offset the spooky vocals of Dawn McCarthy with his own new-found equilibrium. The only shame was that he neglected to play here.

5/ Fionn Regan The End of History (Heffa) This youngster from Bray, Co Wicklow, took the most overused template (singing with an acoustic guitar) and showed that he can write interesting and funny lyrics while actually being able to play his guitar. This album will put a smile on your face and pep in your step.

6/ Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Wichita) The David Byrne nasal whine made this 2006's first hype story.

The band, previously unknown, had built up a following on a little known music networking system known as MySpace. The rest is history and although their gig in the Village was disappointing, the album remains a quirky, postSmiths gem. New album due in February.

7/ Belle & Sebastian The Life Pursuit (Rough Trade) The biggest surprise from the twee Scots was how funky-glam Stuart Murdoch had become on their seventh album. Indie's most literate Christian came of age with a selection of songs that threw glances to T Rex and Rupert Holmes. The album became their biggest seller to date.

8/ The Beatles Love (EMI) Feel the love with which George Martin and his son treated the Fab Four's canon and came up with a medley that should not have worked. It did, and stands as its own album.

9/ Beth Orton Comfort Of Strangers (EMI) The chillout queen of 1990s folktronica teamed up with producer du jour Jim O'Rourke and turned out a pared down, painfully melancholic collection of songs that oozed charm.

10/ Director We Thrive On Big Cities (Warner Music) Four fresh-faced lads from Malahide produced an unfussy, fresh-faced album of perfectly weighted pop songs.

Chicks ruled the roost these past 12 months, while Irish band The Immediate showed us how soon was now, writes Una Mullally

2006 was a strange year for music. The hottest band in the world began as four resigned indiepunks from Sheffield and ended up as six electro rockers from Sao Paulo.

The mainstream continued to shatter, with charts becoming more and more redundant, hence this year's demise of Top of the Pops.

The NME in cahoots with the Klaxons tried to invent a new genre, Nu-Rave ("there's not enough rave in nu-rave, " Lily Allen snapped), and women became the biggest pop stars again with Allen, Amy Winehouse, Girls Aloud, Beth Ditto and Karen O led by a resurrected Courtney Love making this year their own.

Best Live Performance Dresden Dolls, Temple Bar Music Centre, 2 May. Boston's avant garde twosome wowed the crowd with tracks from Yes, Virginia and more covers than you could shake a bowler hat at.

Best Festival Electric Picnic, Stradbally, Co Laois. Bigger, cooler and friendlier than last year, EP may not have had the biggest acts in the world playing, but it won love on atmosphere and ethos alone.

Best Single Cansei De Ser Sexy . . . 'Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above'. How could you not love a band whose name comes from a Beyonce quote that she was "tired of being sexy"? These Brazilian kids were the soundtrack in every indie club around the world, and this is their anthem.

Best Irish Band The Immediate. The best thing about the arty, unstructured In Towers And Clouds, the debut from these Dublin multiinstrumentalists, was the notes they didn't play . . . the songs that had gone before and what more they are capable of achieving.

They have the ability to be one of the most important Irish bands of the decade, if they can hold it down.

Best Hope For 2007 Delorentos's debut album. One of the best live bands this year, they became the only unsigned band ever to play both Oxegen and Electric Picnic. Studio work is well under way; be prepared . . .

these boys have hits.

Hero Of The Year Beth Ditto. A punk soul outcast with a fire in her throat stole the show this year for true rock 'n' roll stance and image.

Villain Of The Year Justin Green of MCD spent his summer countering allegations of crowd violence in the Oxegen festival campsite and became a blame figure for disgruntled bloggers and online message board users.

Albums of the Year 1/ Yeah Yeah Yeahs Show Your Bones (Polydor) A record that refined the messy punk of Fever To Tell both in melodies, song structure and lyrics. Who'd have thought that YYY's using acoustic guitars could work. Their performance at Electric Picnic elevated Karen O to the best showman or woman around.

2/ Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (Domino) It's rare that a record out in January would go the distance, but this debut is a rare record and Arctic Monkeys a rare band.

Sharp lyrics, excellent drumming and stomping basslines make the Monkeys the tightest band of the year.

3/ Joanna Newsom Ys (Drag City) Nobody knew that the most exciting artist of the year would be making medieval harp compositions about forests? An almost perfect work that forces attention and engagement.

4/ Various The World Is Gone (XL Recordings) If there was an award for perfected genre of the year, dubstep would be it, and along with Burial, Various (nee Various Production) redefined the evolving sound with a spooky melodic album with slow advanced beats and moody pop.

5/ The Knife Silent Shout (Rabid Records) Sweden provided some great music this year . . . Peter Bjorn and John, Jose Gonzalez, I'm From Barcelona . . . but the Knife are the top of the pile with one of the most unique records this year . . .

dark, tetchy indie that's equal parts sinister and uplifting.

6/ Muse Black Holes And Revelations (Helium 3) While My Chemical Romance made a stab at bombast, Muse simply hit their multiple pedals and resnatched the crown for overblown prog, resulting in the most important album of their career.

7/ Republic Of Loose Aaagh! (Loaded Dice) The only Irish record to make this top 10, Aaagh! is impeccably produced. The excellent musicianship of the band results in them becoming the only Irish act who can legitimately mould hip-hop and soul for a unique and eclectic sound. And in Mick Pyro, they have the voice box of a generation.

8/ Howling Bells Howling Bells (Bella Union) Bizarrely under the radar, the England-based Aussies made one of the best indie pop records of the year with their debut. Great riffs and a little dirtiness stores the songs in your head for a long, long time. Might be a sleeper that'll kick off again in 2007.

9/ Amy Winehouse Back To Black (Island) Winehouse returned with a catty, catchy, jazzy drunken record that attempted to defy those who wanted to send her to rehab. It's a class record, so hopefully she can hold it together enough to make another one.

10/ Peter Bjorn And John Writer's Block (Wichita) The title was a dig at how packed this record is with melodies and homemade hooks. Producing one of the singles of the year with 'Young Folks', PBJ showed an astounding gift for permanently installing their tunes in your brain.

Honourable mentions LLily Allen . . . Alright, Still The Immediate . . . In Towers And Clouds Hot Chip . . . The Warning Cat Power . . . The Greatest ear