My credentialsI am not an authority by any stretch of the imagination, but fuck it, what's the fun of spending a shit-ton of dough (or "doe" as Ghostface Killah might have it) on music if you can't rank the cream of your crop at the end of the year? Obviously, there's nothing comprehensive about one man's taste; as Robert Christgau, the Dean of American Rock Critics, pointed out back in the '70s, there just isn't physically enough time in a given year to listen to all of its sonic bounty. And he got paid to try: what the hell kind of chance does a regular schmuck with a day job like myself have? So, yeah, while I'm calling this list "the best albums of 2007", you can fill in the rest yourself: the best albums I heard in 2007, or my favorite albums of 2007, or whatever.
For your convenience, you will note that I have furnished you with links to (as applicable) each listed acts' website, MySpace page, and YouTube search results. Some acts, like the Google-unfriendly Swedish duo Studio, proved elusive presences, even in the age of the omnipotent internet; well, tough titty, because like I said, no one paid me to do this: consider it my Christmas gift to you, Phil Spector-style.
You'll also note that I blurbed each record enumerated herein, so forgive me if the writing tends to, ah, suck at times, but you try thinking about something pithy, yet revelatory to say about 50 albums, that is if you even heard 50 albums this year. That's not a swipe, it's just that most people haven't, so keep off my fucking back.
To wit:
For your convenience, you will note that I have furnished you with links to (as applicable) each listed acts' website, MySpace page, and YouTube search results. Some acts, like the Google-unfriendly Swedish duo Studio, proved elusive presences, even in the age of the omnipotent internet; well, tough titty, because like I said, no one paid me to do this: consider it my Christmas gift to you, Phil Spector-style.
You'll also note that I blurbed each record enumerated herein, so forgive me if the writing tends to, ah, suck at times, but you try thinking about something pithy, yet revelatory to say about 50 albums, that is if you even heard 50 albums this year. That's not a swipe, it's just that most people haven't, so keep off my fucking back.
To wit:
50. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch)[website/myspace/youtube]
Wilco, it seems, are destined to go on making Wilco albums until they (or at least Jeff Tweedy) die. If you like Wilco, then this is not necessarily a bad thing. Sky Blue Sky abandons the are-you-in-or-out Yankee Hotel Foxtrot/Neil Young vibe for a more laid back California feeling: still, being the indie rock Pearl Jam is probably preferable to being the indie rock Eagles.
49. Parts & Labor - Mapmaker (Jagjaguwar)
[website/myspace/youtube]
[website/myspace/youtube]
"Fractured Skies", the first track on this, P&L's third effort, is a fairly standard slice of soaring, uptempo pop punk - well, fairly standard except for what sounds like a broken fax machine in the background. I wouldn't exactly call P&L's aesthetic "Wall of Sound" but if there's an inch of unoccupied space on this record, I sure as hell can't find it. I suppose you could call it a sonic assault, but don't worry: it's a very happy attack.
48. Devin the Dude - Waitin' to Inhale (Rap-A-Lot)[myspace/youtube]
The marijuana album of the year, a hilariously raunchy hot box job made for late night rides to 7-11 for those microwavable egg sandwiches, Mountain Dew Code Red, and...do they still even make those Philly Cream Cheese snack bars? So yeah, this one's not going to win any prizes from N.O.W. or the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, but you can credit Devin with one of the smoothest listens of 2007 - he manages to preserve some loverman credibility even when dissembling on the cleanliness of his dick.
Moore, a noted noise aficionado, joked that Trees was going to be his "pop" album; maybe it wasn't a joke though, as the Sonic Youth lifer comes through with honest-to-God verse/chorus/verse type songs here. Though not as immediate as Rather Ripped, last year's excellent Youth effort, Trees reveals Moore to be an affecting song writer when his compositions aren't all scuffed up with sonic Brillo.
46. V/A - Death Is Nothing to Fear Vols. 1 & 2 (Spectral Sound)[website/myspace]
Like the auto industry before it, what the Motor City hath wrought, foreigners have gone and made their own, and so the techno capitals of the world are now Berlin and Barcelona. Ann Arbor's Spectral Sound (the more dance floor oriented arm of the Ghostly International empire) keeps the flag raised for the Detroit sound on these two EPs (allegedly the first in a series). Minimal that clicks and hisses, blends, bends, and bounces along; nothing sterile about it.
45. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (Universal Republic)[website/myspace/youtube]
Sadly, this is one of those albums you like in spite of yourself; poor Amy's gone and made a mess of her life, turning more and more into a horror show by the day (seriously, compared to Amy, Britney Spears = Mother of the Year). Yet, I would be hard pressed not to fit title single "Back to Black" into my top ten ("Rehab" I'm coming to believe isn't as rubbish as I once thought). Cinema soul facsimile done very, very well. If you can ignore the accompanying photo shoot.
Once you release a 37 minute song, it's kind of hard to take accusations of self-indulgence seriously. So pardon Ricardo Villalobos, who has dedicated his edition of Fabric's vaunted mix CD series entirely to himself, weaving together a polyrhythmic tapestry of previously unreleased work. If there aren't any obvious singles here, there are plenty of peaks to reward a complete listen; after all, unless you're Dutch or something, it's not like you're going to dance around to this thing by yourself.
Once you release a 37 minute song, it's kind of hard to take accusations of self-indulgence seriously. So pardon Ricardo Villalobos, who has dedicated his edition of Fabric's vaunted mix CD series entirely to himself, weaving together a polyrhythmic tapestry of previously unreleased work. If there aren't any obvious singles here, there are plenty of peaks to reward a complete listen; after all, unless you're Dutch or something, it's not like you're going to dance around to this thing by yourself.
43. !!! - Myth Takes (Warp)[website/myspace/youtube]
2002's "Me and Giuliani Down By the School Yard (A True Story)" set the bar very high, and with follow-up LP Louden Up Now (on which the then two-year old track was rehashed), !!! tripped over it. Myth Takes smooths out the herky-jerk edges of that record, cannibalizing defunct sister act Out Hud's superior sense of groove to make a dance record for dancing, not spazzing. An upgrade, although they don't eclipse their previous lyrical zenith: "Mr. President/You can suck my fucking dick."
42. Statehood - Lies and Rhetoric (Statehood)[website/myspace/youtube]
Rock music is for teenagers; these guys are in their thirties, but they might as well be 17 or 18. Comprised of the rhythm section of the dormant Dismemberment Plan plus a couple other DC scenesters, Statehood (get it?) play the music for the kids, tapping into a reservoir of bouncy angst that people their age really ought have gotten out of their system by now. We should be grateful they didn't. (What is post-hardcore, btw?)
41. Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)[myspace/youtube]
Is Panda Bear the Justin Timberlake of the Animal Collective? Well, AC are still making records for the moment, even though PB has blown up solo. Curiously, much of Person Pitch has seen prior release elsewhere - last year's "I'm Not"/"Comfy in Nautica" EP, or the "Bros." single - but that doesn't keep Noah Lennox's Brian Wilson/marching band/codeine mash-up from cohering into a glistening whole. Timbaland probably isn't going to produce PB's next effort; perhaps he should consider it.
40. Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls (Too Pure)[website/myspace/youtube]
These ladies have rather unfortunately decided to go on extended hiatus following the completion of their outstanding touring commitments, denying them the opportunity to take advantage of laurels I am bestowing upon them here. No Shouts, No Calls closely parallels the dry, wiry sound of Argument-era Fugazi, infusing it with a Continental aesthetic. Although they have dropped the French poetry in favor of, well, more traditional lyrical tropes. Shucks.
39. Magik Markers - Boss (Ecstatic Peace)
[website/myspace/youtube]
39. Magik Markers - Boss (Ecstatic Peace)[website/myspace/youtube]
I don't know enough about the noise-blitzkreig heyday of this Hartford now-duo, composed of Elisa Ambroglio and Pete Nolan, to speculate as to the effect the departure of bassist Leah Quimby might have had on the group's sound. I can tell you this: they're still noisy as fuck. But as for the "rock-classicist punch" The Wire's Jon Dale ascribes to the Markers' approach on Boss, well, yeah. Ambroglio has a little bit of the Corin Tucker swamp monster in her vocals, and the guitars are picking through a melody even as the choke on the thick squall of their own feedback. Still, who would have thought they made such a racket in Connecticut?
38. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone)[website/myspace/youtube]
If Amy Winehouse is a "facsimile", then what is Sharon Jones? A better facsimile or the genuine article? Authenticity issues aside, this is some fantastic soul and funk music, and Jones & Co. do not try to pretend any differently. I know that as these things go, "timelessness" usually equals "old-sounding", and that's true here - 100 Days, 100 Nights sounds like it was cut in the Sixties. Why that would be a bad thing, I couldn't possibly tell you.
37. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Merge)
[website/myspace/youtube]
37. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Merge)If it's Bruce Springsteen, it's Darkness on the Edge of Town; no one would have accused the Arcade Fire's debut of being cheery, but a lot of the musical brightness of that record has been sucked out here. Standout tracks like "Intervention", "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations" and "My Body Is a Cage" are postcards from the electric chair, but the best moment belongs to a retreaded "No Cars Go". Neon Bible is both a sophomore success and, for a band as obviously gifted as the Arcade Fire, something of a holding pattern.
36. Justice - † (Ed Banger/Vice)[myspace/youtube]
"D.A.N.C.E." (like breakout single "We Are Your Friends") is so infectious, somebody better call the CDC. The rest of the record is a bit more spotty, sounding like a Colecovision filtered through a vacuum cleaner or something equally egregious. As a "blog house" time capsule, † (not "Cross", mind you) is priceless; if you forced Metallica and Daft Punk to fuck at gunpoint etc. Don't mean to be crude, but this record is out on Vice in the States, after all.
35. Dirty Projectors - Rise Above (Dead Oceans)[website/myspace/youtube]
The concept is definitely better than the music here, but art being art, and pop being pop, I'm willing to reward supreme ambition. Theoretically a rendition of Black Flag's seminal 1981 album, Damaged, as filtered through the imagination of main Projector Dave Longstreth, Rise Above, outside of a few snatches of lyrics, and a semi-complete (albeit rearranged) tracklisting, has virtually nothing in common with its inspiration. With soaring vocal harmonies (much of the record sounds like Microphones crossed with Sufjan Stevens) and ornate rhythm-driven arrangements, Longstreth tries to coax more of the poetry out of the original's punishment. In the attempt, Black Flag is utterly buried, but that's theory vs. practice stuff anyway, and the ends in this instance justify the means.
34. Okkervil River - The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)[website/myspace/youtube]
Taking a step back from the emotionally-wrenching Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River continue mixing their '70s classic rock and roll with askew lyricism; frontman Will Sheff still sings like his head is about to explode. These songs can and do go pretty much anywhere - when the band breaks into "Sloop John B" during the final track, the digression is noticeable but not necessarily obvious, if that makes sense.
33. Black Devil Disco Club - 28 After (Lo)[myspace/youtube]
Is it remotely possible that someone could cut a seminal Italo disco EP almost 30 years ago - of which there is virtually no contemporary record, mind you - and then re-emerge with a shit-hot EP of completely new material from out of nowhere? Or is this all just an extremely elaborate practical joke conceived and executed by the illustrious Richard D. James a.k.a. AFX a.k.a. Aphex Twin? Either way, Black Devil brings it hard, pushing squiggly synths and 4/4 beats all over the place, squeezing out the sex like toothpaste from a tube. If he did take 28 years off, then there wasn't a whole lot of rust.
32. Battles - Mirrored (Warp)[website/myspace/youtube]
Definitely a WTF experience, Battles are a math rock outfit, now with helium vocals courtesy of Tyondai Braxton. Bizarrely, their album most reminds me of the movie Akira, for reasons I can't quite place. I love how everyone in the band bounces during the "Atlas" video - I can't imagine doing anything else, either.
31. Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow (Pedal/Drag City)[website/myspace/youtube]
Apparently Michio Kurihara, of psych outfit Ghost, is some kind of underground godfather figure in Japan. The remaining 98% of people who bought this album did so because of Boris. The acid blues continue here - not a sound that combines with others so much as it envelops them - but there are some notable differences from 2006's Pink. For one, the mix feels much deeper, with fewer elements crammed up at the top; additionally, there's a number of slower, more nuanced tracks at the record's heart, giving the impression that these guys listened to a lot early '70s pastoral sludge rock before heading into the studio. Kurihara is definitely a force here, but it's difficult to peg whether he's a co-equal, or merely doing his best to stem the tide.
30. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is EP (Dress Up/Interscope)[website/myspace/youtube]
Last year's Show Your Bones was a tremendous record, easily one of the best put out by any alumnus of the Rock and Roll Saviors Class of 2001. Yet, because (to my mind) it didn't sufficiently conjure images of Karen O dumping beer all over herself while wearing a trashed strapless party dress, interest seemed to be, how shall I say, passing? Is Is was allegedly recorded during the Show Your Bones era, and frankly, these guys must find hundred dollar bills in between the cushions regularly. Five tracks, five killers, successfully marrying the frenetic punk energy of their self-titled debut EP with the mature musical textures of Fever to Tell and Show Your Bones.
29. No Age - Weirdo Rippers (Fat Cat)[website/myspace/youtube]
No Age are only the biggest band on this spheroid we call Earth at the moment, so I would have felt remiss not including them. I've really said everything I want to say about these guys for the moment. You can buy the album, so that you might understand for yourself.
28. Caribou - Andorra (Merge)[website/myspace/youtube]
On Andorra, Dan Snaith reaches back beyond the Krautrock -cum-Hendrix influences on his previous albums, turning up the psych and mixing in a little more (wouldn't you know it?) Brian Wilson. Electronic music has a tendency to be fragmentary, so perhaps I'm proving my "rockism" or dilettantishness by lavishing praise on people for making songs with beginnings, middles, and ends. Whatever the case, Snaith is far more focused here, and more direct as a result; it helps him get his point across.
27. Deerhunter - Cryptograms (Kranky)[website/myspace/youtube]
[website/myspace/youtube]
Partner producer/DJs Shackleton and Appleblim take the icy blackness of dubstep and turn down the thermostat. Just check flagship single "Blood On My Hands", conceived as a response to the September 11th attacks: "When I see the towers fall, it cannot be denied/That as a spectacle it is a realization of the mind." Soundboy Punishments anthologizes the relatively nascent label's output, including Villalobos' 18 minute "Blood" remix. Music so blacked out it's practically obsidian.
25. Gui Boratto - Chromophobia (Kompakt)[website/myspace/youtube]
The punny title is a lie: Boratto's techno abounds with hues of every possible shade, eschewing the genre's preferred sense of forward momentum in favor of a digressive emotionalism. "Beautiful Life" may be the best "pop" single put out on Kompakt; is Chromophobia the best "pop" album? Before I get accused of copping out by asking more questions than I'm attempting to answer here, allow me to say: yes.
24. Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II (Reprise)[website/myspace/youtube]
Life is not fair; if it were, Neil Young would be getting the same type of love for Chrome Dreams II that Dylan got for making a none-too-subtle cunnilingus reference on Modern Times. Anchored by the extraordinary This Note's For You-era holdover "Ordinary People" (talk about a guy sitting on a goldmine of material), CD II finds Young in neither country corn nor abrasive rocker mode, instead presenting something of a mixed bag. Stylistically mixed I mean: the quality is all top-shelf late-period Neil, which ought to be good enough for you pilgrim. The fact that this could be so under the radar means we need a new set of radars.
22. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Columbia Nashville)
[website/myspace/youtube]
Feels, AC's prior full-length, was ultimately a faller: a semi-forgettable half step, anchored by an indelibly rambunctious single ("Grass"), that failed to make much new headway on the path forged by their zenith, 2004's Sung Tongs. I still haven't got a feel for Strawberry Jam, but that's the thing about Animal Collective: even when they're at their best, they're always going to be a little slippery. Lead track "Peacebone" suggests that AC are now making something out of something; maybe not "straight-up pop, like it was a Fergie record or some shit," a sentiment Village Voice writer Tom Breihan memorably (and sarcastically) ascribed to particularly starry-eyed Tongs partisans, but definitely some kind of pop.
22. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Columbia Nashville)There's always a handful of albums from genres I normally neglect (music costs money when you buy it) that get enough play in the year-end press that I make a point to pick them up; Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is one of those records. Lambert is unapologetically (what's to apologize for?) country, singing songs about getting even with abusive men ("Gunpowder and Lead"), the perils of small-town living ("Famous in a Small Town"), and making quite a scene in the local honky tonk ("Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"). The music twangs but it also pops; Lambert and her musicians are unafraid to come close to full ahead rock when the material calls for it. Sure, the record's a little front-loaded (the ballads can drag a little bit), but the fun quotient is maybe the highest I've heard all year; maybe I should start watching CMT.
21. Jesu - Conqueror (Hydra Head)[website/myspace/youtube]
Not the "ultimate wrist-slashing experience." The heaviness here is smothering rather than pounding, as Justin Broadrick (Napalm Death, Godflesh) continues to push his drone more towards the mainstream. As foreshadowed by last year's outstanding Silver EP, melodies receive greater emphasis here, and much of the music actually has an almost optimistic cast to it, especially closing tracks "Mother Earth" and "Stanlow".
20. Studio - West Coast (Information)[myspace]
International men of mystery Studio are apparently Swedish; beyond that, I can tell you very little. Apparently this is supposed to be some kind of danceable instrumental post-punk. I had them pegged as techno, personally, but, hey, sheer inscrutability should count for something these days.
19. V/A - After Dark (Italians Do It Better)[website/myspace]
I don't know if you can necessarily characterize this as "synthetic disco"; after all, disco is about as plasticine a music as they come (no offense given). Jersey City Italo imprint Italians Do It Better has reconstituted the Moroder sound, abandoning the winking indie feyness of present-day fellow travelers and burying the needle on the Wayback Machine somewhere between 1979 and 1982. Originally a tour-only CDR, After Dark plays like a found object, collecting vinyl-only (the crackles are still audible on some tracks from the rip) and previously unreleased tracks harvested from IDIB's roster of acts, including it-bands Glass Candy and Chromatics.
18. Papercuts - Can't Go Back (Gnomonsong)[website/myspace]
Jason Quever's voice doesn't do beginnings and endings, melting his words together like an endless string of honey. His music is crepuscular, a "marching band on Quaaludes." Makes you want to have a porch to sit on while you listen to it.
17. Matthew Dear - Asa Breed (Ghostly International)[website/myspace/youtube]
Matthew Dear is a self-segregating personality, recording under the monikers of Jabberjaw, False, and Audion; that's why it is most curious that he has chosen to record pop under his given name. Of course, it is Dear's particular idea of "pop", which in this instance seems heavily influenced by the African-inflected experiments of early '80s Eno. Unlike kindred spirit James Murphy (or, hell, Von Sudenfed), Dear sticks to the smoother side of the pavement, belying his sex machine techno roots - perhaps this is the bedroom disc of tomorrow.
Liars, dance-punk darlings of 2002, lost the plot, or so the story goes, scuttling their "legacy" with the indecipherably alien They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, allegedly a concept album about witch trials. Much credibility was regained with Drum's Not Dead (a concept album about a mountain and a drum) - though rock and roll this was necessarily not. Though I am usually suspicious of the non-debut eponymous record, Liars lives up to its billing by being something of a roots move. It rocks, though not necessarily in the same way as 2002 Liars - the punk created here is far more indebted to the garage sound than Gang of Four-type funk. (Okay, so there's more than a little Jesus and Mary Chain in there too.) They're only getting better.
15. Ghostface Killah - The Big Doe Rehab (Def Jam)Liars, dance-punk darlings of 2002, lost the plot, or so the story goes, scuttling their "legacy" with the indecipherably alien They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, allegedly a concept album about witch trials. Much credibility was regained with Drum's Not Dead (a concept album about a mountain and a drum) - though rock and roll this was necessarily not. Though I am usually suspicious of the non-debut eponymous record, Liars lives up to its billing by being something of a roots move. It rocks, though not necessarily in the same way as 2002 Liars - the punk created here is far more indebted to the garage sound than Gang of Four-type funk. (Okay, so there's more than a little Jesus and Mary Chain in there too.) They're only getting better.
[website/myspace/youtube]
Hahaha...oh I can't get over that picture. Ghost knows a lot about drugs: seriously, I hope that the NYPD doesn't try to take his door or something. All media accounts about Tony Starks should probably preface his name with "the presumptive nominee"- I held back this list because I knew that there was no way this record wouldn't merit inclusion. What does it sound like? Let's put it this way: Ghost has found a formula that works, and if that makes him the rap Wilco, then so fucking what?
14. Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position (Low Altitude/Universal)[website/myspace/youtube]
By all rights, Patrick Wolf should be way bigger than he is: he's like a combination of Let's Dance-era Bowie's mainstream pop ambition and Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie's fashion sense. Seriously, for the next record, what's he going to do, pull a right turn and pop out in an immaculately tailored suit? Well, while Mr. Wolf tries to formulate his inevitable image redo (can't have 30 year old men going about like this), it's only fair to note that The Magic Position is his most polished LP yet, one of the most sheerly optimistic pop gestures of the year. Seriously though, while we're playing the "sounds like X + Y" game, tell me "The Magic Position" doesn't sound like a combination of "Police and Thieves" and "Come on Eileen".
13. Wire - Read & Burn 03 (Pinkflag)[website/myspace/youtube]
The first two Read & Burn EPs seemed to be a Year Zero type thing, a la DC Comics - Wire hitting the reset button and returning with some fiercely aggrieved punk rock, a la Pink Flag. The third installment is a step forward in this newfound alternate dimension: not quite the leap that Chairs Missing was with respect to its predecessor, but definitely a subtler, more textured effort. The fury is replaced with a reflective, melancholic tone, with the occasionally poignant (or foreboding) sentiment peaking like the tip of an iceberg above an ocean of dada: "I'm telling you fella/I wouldn't be in your shoes."
12. Jay-Z - American Gangster (Roc-A-Fella)[website/myspace/youtube]
If Jay-Z didn't see American Gangster, what would he have done next? Put out an album about paying his mortgage? Shopping hedge funds? I guess we ought to be grateful, but let's face it: where else was H.O.V.A. going to go besides this? Guy's probably moved enough weight to put Neil Young's backlog to shame; fucking Tupac is still putting albums out, for chrissakes.
11. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)[website/myspace/youtube]
With their last two records, Spoon have taken up the flag of what I will term "frustration rock." Each sound, each syllable sounds like a struggle, is constantly at risk of being choked off before it reaches your ears. That Britt Daniel and Jim Eno ("oh, ur in the band 2?") have managed to join Wilco, Arcade Fire, and Sufjan in indie rock's no day-job penthouse is something of a minor miracle. I guess there's a place in the market for upscale sonic noir after all.
10. The Field - From Here We Go Sublime (Kompakt)[website/myspace/youtube]
I suppose it wouldn't be correct to term Axel Willner's technique as pointillism, or even collage. The aesthetic arguments about sampling have always been over the artistic merit of the sampler's recontextualization: in that case it's tough to argue against Willner's work as The Field, wherein the net effect of his micro-mesh splicing of sonic snippets over relatively conventional drum programming is an entirely new product, the source material held down to virtually subliminal levels. When he pulls back the curtain, as on album closer "From Here We Go Sublime" and you hear the Flamingoes' "I Only Have Eyes For You" underneath, the effect is spectacular and jarring.
9. Radiohead - In Rainbows (Radiohead)[website/youtube]
Once you set aside all of the marketing hype, what you're left with is a very good Radiohead album, perhaps their best effort since Kid A. Of late, the band, especially mouthpiece Thom Yorke, have seemed to struggle with the psychic burden of topping their last conceptual masterwork with another. On In Rainbows, they come in from the cold, playing like a coherent, recognizable band for the first time since...OK Computer? The songs are songs not anti-technology manifestos or what-have-you, and in many places you can almost hear smiles behind them: "I don't want to be your friend/I just want to be your lover" (??!)
8. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)[website/myspace/youtube]
Inspired by lead singer Kevin Barnes' separation from his wife, Hissing Fauna is without a doubt the most sonically adventurous indie rock album of the year, slinking from Prince-esque hyperfunk to prog-punk to mechanical krautrock often within the space of a few bars. 12 minute album centerpiece "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal" is a knife wound you won't be hearing in an Outback Steakhouse commercial anytime soon: "...it's like we weren't made for this world/Though I wouldn't really want to meet someone who was." Apparently Barnes and his wife have since reconciled; I wonder what she thought of that song.
7. Kanye West - Graduation (Roc-A-Fella)[website/myspace/youtube]
Graduation is, as the title implies, another step in Kanye's sonic evolution, eschewing the gritty chipmunk soul samples of The College Dropout and the lush Jon Brion-assisted orchestrations of Late Registration for a neon futurism underwritten by (probably expensive) Daft Punk and Can samples. West pays lip service to the formal rules of rap music, but a man who would wear this to the Grammys is clearly aiming a little higher. Perseverance pays off: who would have bet a year ago that Kanye could outsell 50 Cent head-to-head?
It's no secret that blog house is a genre with an expiration date, but in case there was any question, scene polestars Daft Punk released this audio document of their already legendary 2007 tour. Normally I would be reticent to include a live album here, but the degree of renewal through recontextualition here is astounding - not only have Daft Punk redeemed the controversial Human After All (punk-dance instead of dance-punk; if not in the sound than certainly in the piss-take offing), but they have obviously thought a great deal about how their catalogue items relate to one another. From a conceptual perspective, it's not unlike the Beatles' Love: Daft Punk mashed up with itself. Executed in a live setting, though, and not with the same hermetic sense of product as that Cirque de Soleil-approved stocking stuffer, and you can see Messrs. Bangalter and de Homem-Christo as they see themselves: maximalist robots programmed to party all the time.
5. M.I.A. - Kala (Interscope)[website/myspace/youtube]
God only knows whether this is true or not, but Arular felt like an album M.I.A. had to make, whereas follow-up Kala feels like an album she wanted to make. It's certainly sloppier and more dichotomous, taking more risks than the increasingly pro-forma world music bangers Diplo stitched together for her debut. That's not to say that M.I.A.'s passport doesn't get a sufficient workout here, taking left turns at Bollywood, the Australian Outback (courtesy of child rappers Wilcannia Mob), and The Clash. It's just that she feels like more of a three-dimensional person here than a lesson in semiotics or globalization or something.
If Elvis Costello's twin poles were "revenge and guilt", The National seem attuned solely to regret. Boxer is black, but not goth: you can see the missed opportunities flying by as the music careens forward to some indefinite terminus. There are no crashes, though, only last calls.
If Elvis Costello's twin poles were "revenge and guilt", The National seem attuned solely to regret. Boxer is black, but not goth: you can see the missed opportunities flying by as the music careens forward to some indefinite terminus. There are no crashes, though, only last calls.
3. Burial - Untrue (Hyperdub)[website/myspace/youtube]
The opposite of Daft Punk, Burial is Poe's Red Death come to the subterranean club, turning R&B, grime, and two-step into bled-out husks. Really, it's not quite so horrifying as all that; in fact, it's not horrifying in the least. Whereas, his first album felt like a photograph of a cityscape taken at night from space, Untrue is a far more human scale effort, expanding on the strange sense of empathy underlying the debut's elegiac dystopianism.
2. Lil Wayne - Da Drought 3 (mixtape)[website/myspace/youtube]
"I am the rapper eater/Feed me rappers, or feed me beats." For an artist who put virtually nothing into record stores in 2007, Lil Wayne has managed to transform himself into hip-hop's zeitgeist, threatening to surpass 50 Cent, Kanye West, and even rejuvenated eminence grise Jay-Z (all artists who actually put out product this year) in the hunt for the title of Greatest Rapper Alive. Da Drought 3, one of a number of free mixtapes Wayne has made available this year via the internet, is a magnum opus of unforced musical agility; it's as if copious amounts of cough syrup and marijuana made Weezy more productive. Allegedly, we can look forward to Tha Carter III, Wayne's next "official" album, sometime in early 2008; only time will tell if that's like trying to put out Parade after Sign O' the Times.
1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (DFA/Capitol)[website/myspace/youtube]
Surprise, surprise. There's not much I can say about this album that hasn't been said before or better in any number of venues; suffice to say, this was something of a foregone conclusion. Following 2005's uneven debut album, questions arose as to whether or not mastermind James Murphy could recapture the heights of "Losing My Edge" or "Yeah". Perhaps he doesn't precisely top himself here, but he comes pretty fucking close on centerpieces "Someone Great" and "All My Friends", not to mention lead single "North American Scum". With Sound of Silver, Murphy has finally moved beyond interpreting his influences to transcending them: in a great year for music, this is the greatest music.
