Best Music of the Year

Hey, my little last.fm widget is working again! To celebrate, I'll (finally) post my list of the best albums of 2007. This may end up being the last year where I'm exposed to this much new music -- the demise of Oink means it's harder (and more expensive) to seek out everything I want to hear. I'll have to depend on the largesse of my friends, as well as shelling out actual cash money at eMusic and Amazon, to keep up.

I have little reviewlets for the top five, but only sentences for the next ten and the last fifteen only get single words. Post in the comments if you want my take on any of the rest of the albums. Here's the list:

1. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Spoon's last album, 'Gimme Fiction,' topped my best-of list for 2005. I haven't gone back and retroactively done top ten lists for previous years (which sounds like something Scraps has probably already done) but if I did I imagine Spoon would join only a handful of other artists (The Replacements, Elvis Costello, Wilco) with multiple top albums. I'm not ready to enshrine Spoon in that pantheon yet, but two great albums is two more than most artists manage, and that doesn't even take into account the earlier albums, which I like though not to the level of these last two.

This album has three great songs ("Don't Make Me a Target," "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," "The Underdog") and a handful of near-greats. There isn't a weak song on here and this album rewards multiple listens. Also (and I know I'm not the first person to point this out), this album is Exhibit A in the counter-argument to Sasha Frere-Jones' "indy rock has no soul" article from October. For him to namecheck Arcade Fire, Fiery Furnaces, Decembrists, Shins (and worse yet, refer to them as "flagship Indie bands") and not mention Spoon is an omission which is sloppy at best and willful at worst. One listen to "Cherry Bomb," with its Spector-esque tambourine intro and Stax/Volt horn charts, and Frere-Jones' argument crumbles. For that alone this album deserves high praise; the fact that it is solid from top to bottom, and occasionally transcendent makes it worthy of best-of-the-year placement.

2. Radiohead, In Rainbows

Leave aside the whole subverting the dominant paradigm thing for a second and listen to the music. Apparently Radiohead has been playing, and playing with, many of these songs for years. I say "apparently" because I've never seen them live, but before the album dropped people were combing YouTube for performances of the songs which were rumoured to be on the album.

When the album finally did come out, it sounded self-assured, as if it was the result of a group of guys who'd been playing these, and other, songs together for a long time and were totally comfortable with their skills and their sound. It didn't break any new ground the way 'OK Computer' or 'Kid A' did; what it did do was present the Radiohead sound in the best, most entertaining way possible. Oh, yeah, and it totally subverted the dominant paradigm.

(Note: Radiohead is officially docked three points for ripping off Rob Crow so completely on "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" but gets four points back because "House of Cards" can act as Exhibit B in The People vs. Sasha Frere-Jones)

3. Nick Lowe, At My Age

This one came out of left field. I love Nick Lowe, but to me his high-water mark was in the early 80s, when he and Dave Edmunds were doing Rockpile albums, both official and de facto. Since then he's done some interesting stuff, first dabbling in country after marrying Carlene Carter and settling more comfortably into that genre, albeit in singer-songwriter mode, in the 90s.

I enjoyed the last two albums ('Dig My Mood' and 'The Convincer') but nothing he's done over the last few decades measures up to 'At My Age,' a relaxed paean to, well, acting one's age. It distills everything great about Lowe's career -- witty songwriting, quality musicianship, and perfect production -- into just over a half-hour of worderfulness.

4. White Stripes, Icky Thump

The first time I listened to this record I almost couldn't make it all the way through. It seemed to me that Jack White had fallen in love with a particular guitar sound that sounded screechily off-key to me, and it marred just about every song on the album. On the strength of my love for the Stripes, however -- a CD with De Stijl and White Blood Cells got me through some tough months back in 2002, and I've eagerly anticipated every album since -- I gave it several more listens and came around. There's some filler on here ("Rag and Bone," "Conquest") and I could do without "St. Andrew" but the high points are among the Stripes' highest, especially "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You're Told)." And is it just me, or has Meg's drumming improved? It's gotten to the point where I don't even notice it anymore.

5. Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare

I had this whole theory about how Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, and Maximo Park are the Oasis, Blur and Pulp of the 00s, but I couldn't figure out which one was which. 'Favourite' is a tasty chunk of Britpop, doled out in three-minute slices of jerky, angular goodness. It's certainly gratifying when a band succeeds in the face of such monumental hype; they've done a fine job of assembling their obvious influences (Oasis, The Clash, The Strokes, The Jam) into something at once familiar and interesting.

6. The Broken West, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

Big Starry goodness filtered through the southern California haze.

7. New Pornographers, Challengers

It took me a while to come around on this one but I'll put it up against anything they've done, collectively or on their own.

8. Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight

Fleetwood Mac-esque, in the best way possible.

9. Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

The first Modest Mouse album I've loved unreservedly, and not just because my three-year-old loves to dance to "Dashboard."

10. They Might Be Giants, The Else

Surprisingly un-gimmicky and mature, except for "The Mesopotamians" which is the TBMG we've known for the last two decades (!)

11. Maximo Park, Our Earthly Pleasures

Best song: "By the Monument."

12. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black

A great argument in favor of heavy drug use and stinkitude.

13. Kaiser Chiefs, Yours Truly Angry Mob

The third of my Britpop trilogy; not quite as accomplished as the other two, but just as catchy.

14. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

A victim of impossibly high expectations.

15. The Avett Brothers, Emotionalism

Like Old Crow Medicine Show, but better.

16. The Mooney Suzuki, Have Mercy

Loud.

17. Jason Isbell, Sirens of the Ditch

Choogly.

18. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Living With the Living

Angry.

19. Feist, The Reminder

Pleasant.

20. Band of Horses, Cease to Begin

Martschish (Martschian?).

21. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, 100 Days, 100 Nights

Groovy.

22. Okkervil River, The Stage Names

Interesting.

23. Bright Eyes, Cassadaga

Wunderkindy.

24. Imperial Teen, The Hair the TV the Baby and the Band

Shimmering.

25. Detroit Cobras, Tied & True

Dirrrty.