Music message board I Love Music (ILX) is conducting its year-end 2007 poll, which seems like as good a time for a brief reassessment as any, considering the sheer volume of '07 tracks and albums I only had an opportunity to sample in '08. Also, there's no such thing as a fixed "best of" list: you can only consider it a snapshot of tastes at a particular moment, so some favorites that did make my cut back in December floated up and down and in and out.
There are a couple of newfound faves on the singles/trax side that don't represent here because they weren't "nominated" by ILXors: Feist's "I Feel It All" and Archives' (now Grand Archives, and set to put out a record for Sub Pop on 2/19) "Sleepdriving" most notably.
Furthermore, ILX only asks for 20 albums and singles. When I originally put together the albums list, I set 50 as an over-ambitious goal, so as to give you the reader a clearer picture of what I consumed and a bit more variety to go out and pick over. Nowadays, to be honest, there aren't 50 records that I heard in 2007 that I would consider well-liked enough to be "best of" any particular year, even though they're not bad. 20 is a tighter frame of reference, but a more honest one as well.
Albums:
1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver (DFA/Capitol)
2. Lil Wayne - Da Drought 3 (mp3 mixtape)
3. M.I.A. - Kala (Interscope)
4. Robert Wyatt - Comicopera (Domino)
5. Burial - Untrue (Hyperdub)
6. Low - Drums And Guns (Sub Pop)
7. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
8. Kanye West - Graduation (Def Jam)
9. Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams (Motown/Universal)
10. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)
11. Iron And Wine - The Shepherd's Dog (Sub Pop)
12. National - Boxer (Beggars Banquet)
13. Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position (Low Altitude/Universal)
14. Liars - Liars (Mute)
15. Field - From Here We Go Sublime (Kompakt)
16. Daft Punk - Alive 2007 (Virgin)
17. Matthew Dear - Asa Breed (Ghostly International)
18. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (Rounder)
19. Against Me! - New Wave (Sire)
20. Amy Winehouse - Back To Black (Republic)
Singles/Tracks:
1. Rihanna feat. Jay-Z - "Umbrella" (Def Jam)
2. Justice - "D.A.N.C.E." (Ed Banger/Vice)
3. LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends" (DFA)
4. M.I.A. - "Paper Planes" (Interscope)
5. Neil Young - "Ordinary People" (Reprise)
6. M.I.A. - "Jimmy" (Interscope)
7. New Young Pony Club - "Ice Cream" (Modular)
8. Kanye West - "Stronger" (Def Jam)
9. Feist - "My Moon My Man"(Cherrytree/Interscope)
10. Of Montreal - "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" (Polyvinyl)
11. Fall Out Boy - "Thks 4 Th Mmrs" (Island)
12. Björk - "Earth Intruders" (One Little Indian)
13. Dinosaur Jr - "Almost Ready" (Fat Possum)
14. Shackleton - "Blood On My Hands (Villalobos Remix)" (Skull Disco)
15. Voxtrot - "Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Wives" (Playlouder) [ed: not '06?]
16. M.I.A. - "$20 / 20 Dollar" (Interscope)
17. LCD Soundsystem - "Us V Them" (DFA)
18. Gui Boratto - "Beautiful Life" (Kompakt)
19. Caribou - "Melody Day" (Merge)
20. 50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland - "Ayo Technology" (Shady/Aftermath)
