My 20 Favorite Albums of 2007

I had a really delightful problem coming up with this list: unlike '06, where I struggled to find 10 albums I could heartily endorse, I felt guilty limiting myself to 20 this year! I bought 47 new releases in 2007, the most ever, and with that came a lot of (self-imposed) pressure to try and "keep up". I failed pretty miserably at that, as my reviews record will attest. Still, I think by the advent of '08 I'd done the year justice in my purchases, enough that I think this list represents a pretty good version of what it would have looked like if I had unlimited funds and time. As always, many thanks to Pitchfork and Cokemachineglow for turning me on to so much great stuff this year.

I spent considerable time agonizing over the top three spots on this list. What finally decided me is that this is a list about albums, and ideally an album is an entity unto itself, not just a collection of songs. Consistency becomes a prime consideration - and as much as they're mind-blowing accomplishments, Mirrored and Grindstone both contain some filler. Whereas that title sitting down at #1 has only one song that I can take or leave, and everything else is a keeper. The same thought process had me shuffling the order a bit in the bottom half of the list, and ultimately knocked El-P off of it (he gets his due in my favorite 40 songs, however).

Apologies to those who might have looked at the list when I first posted it (not to mention Menomena, who just got booted)... since then I've listened to Aesop Rock's awesome None Shall Pass enough to recognize it belongs on this list. I guess that's one of the advantages of writing a blog over publishing a mag (whether paper or virtual) - you always have the luxury of changing your mind! Still, I'm ready to stop thinking about this, so without further ado....

Honorable Mention: Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home

Not H.M. because it was #21 on the list (that was El-P), but because technically this came out at the end of 2006. Still, I didn't buy it until summer of '07, and even though Pitchfork included it in their year-end list for '06, they didn't get around to actually reviewing it until January. The Long Blondes are essentially the female version of Franz Ferdinand - same snappy wit, same post-punk guitar sound, same love for disco rhythms just below the surface. Kate Jackson's every-woman lyrics occasionally border on trite, but more often get a knowing smile and a hearty sing-along from me. "You're only 19 for God's sake / You don't need a boyfriend", she sings in the beginning of "Once and Never Again", but by the end of the song she's acknowledging her jealousy of the younger woman's range of choices with only a trace of bitterness. One of my favorite guilty pleasures last year.

20. Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English

I think Dizzee is incapable of making a bad album, and even if this one feels like a further retreat from the sonic adventurousness of Boy in Da Corner, it's still a solid and consistent listen. He's enunciating more, but his flow is still intense and nuanced. What surprises me the most about the album is that - at the ripe "old" age of 22 (or so) - Dizzee can convincingly pass himself off as some sort of role model. He's still dodging the police (the epic "Sirens") and ogling the girls ("Da Feelin", "Flex"), albeit with none of the hostility that he used to have for women. But "Hardback (Industry)" finds him warning wannabe 'heads about remembering to pay their taxes (!), and "Excuse Me Please" is a credible lament about the uses of violence - both sanctioned and non-. I don't know how much longer I'm going to find him interesting, but Maths + English would be a worthy departure point.

19. M.I.A. - Kala

There are some serious missteps on this, and her (pretense at) politics grates, but I still have to give M.I.A. props for her iconoclasm. And when her music hits - "Bird Flu," "Boyz," "World Town," "XR2" - all of those other concerns disappear. She could have played it safe, instead she found a way to push nearly every boundary (self- or other-imposed), and it's not like there were that many. Björk should really pay attention.

18. Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass

This just in! He's making the list after the year ended, but the album came out a L-O-N-G time ago, so it's not Aes' fault I'm an idiot. It's just that None Shall Pass is such a dense, detailed, demanding listen, it took a lot of listens to get my head around. The music is defiantly old-skool: classic funk, r n' b, and lounge jams with few of the embellishments that other Def Jux acts tend to build their sound on. The real draw here is AR's flow. For all that he's no rapid-fire spitter, does anybody cram this many words into three or four minutes? I think it'll take another twenty listens before the words sink in enough for me to figure out themes (though everything I've read about him suggests the man's literate, not comprehensible). The title track got a lot of love online, but for me the standouts are "Bring Back Pluto", where Aes uses the members of the solar system as avatars for the characters in a story (I think?) over a groovy langurous lounge track; "Fumes," which seems to be a morality tale about taking drugs but gets over with me for the fun it has with tempo and sequencing; and the near-disco outrage of "Five Fingers." The more Def Jux hip hop I hear, the more I'm sold.

17. HEALTH - HEALTH

Acknowledging that pesky elephant in the room (y'know, how this was the Liars album that Liars have apparently lost interest in giving us) in no way minimizes HEALTH's accomplishment on their breakneck, intense debut. At some point - around the time "Girl Attorney" is stripping the enamel off your teeth, or perhaps the way hypnosis gives way to the utter freakouts of the chorus of "Tabloid Sores" - the comparison becomes completely invalid. HEALTH can be reckless, but they're never unconsidered, and if the last third of the album sprawls a bit it's only because they're determined to use every tool available to them. In the Year of Weird, very little felt as gleefully experimental as this album.

16. Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals

All apologies to the Besnard Lakes, but this one is the real "dark horse" entry on this list. Rather than grouse about the sparse instrumentation and their bag of vocal tricks, let me just acknowledge that Yeasayer songs have crawled into my head and refused to come out. It's an easy album to like, and also manages to create an identifiable "Yeasayer sound", always the mark of a good debut album. I might shy away from the gospel stylings on "No Need to Worry" and "Red Cave", but the hazy beauty of "Germs" and "Worms", the epic pomp of "Wait for the Summertime," and especially the powerful understatement of the opening triad sum to a great album whose charms outweigh its limitations.

15. Field Music - Tones of Town

Another one that's impossible not to like. The most immediate touch point is classic XTC, but Field Music are a little more slippery than that. I could just leave it at the indelible pop melodies, but that wouldn't do justice to the attention these guys pay to detail, or their skill at making seemingly-incongrous elements fit into the larger mix. "Sit Tight" is a bubbly little bass and piano-driven number for it's first couple of minutes, but then it smoothly mutates into a funky "beatbox" exercise with synocpated groans and throat pops, presented with absolutely no fanfare or conscious sense of how weird a choice this was. "In Context" is initially driven by a super-catchy drum program, but as the song progresses Field Music keep adding new elements and expanding the ones already present. It's probably the most accessible album on this list, but Tones of Town is also a treat for the more-than-casual listener.

14. Kristin Hersh - Learn to Sing Like a Star

A worthy addition to Kristin's already-considerable body of work. The fleshed-out arrangements (especially the string work by the McCarricks) give her always-compelling voice some room to stretch out and regain a lot of the trademark intensity that was missing on The Grotto. I've always thought my love for her work was a very personal thing, but a number of friends commented on these songs when they'd happen to pop up on random playlists. How many other artists who got their start in the mid-80s are still kicking them out strong? Here's hoping for 20 more!

13. Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm

It's probably the album on this list I listened to the least, and it might even be fair to say I respect In Advance... more than I like it. It's the single most demanding thing I heard in 2007; impossible to have in the background or ignore. But when I'm in the mood, Marnie slays like nothing else. What most impresses me about the album, and what finally sold me on it entirely, is that Marnie never just relies on her obvious technical facility to sell these tunes. There's a very unique songwriting aesthetic at work here, and an irreverent sense of humor - you can practically hear her laughing her head off at all the bizarre conflations and collisions she hurls at you.

12. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

Granted, for an album to make this list is already implicitly an endorsement. But for this album to make this list - hell, for the phrase "Animal Collective" to even exist on this blog - is a minor miracle. But let me not belabor the past; Strawberry Jam is an all-around triumph - a shimmering, hazy colossus brimming with mirth and relentless creativity. Avey Tare's vocals are the immediate hook, but repeat listens reveal tons of capitvating details in the mix. "#1" and "Cuckoo Cuckoo" suggest a Mercury Rev (!) connection I wouldn't have believed anyone could pull off. And if "Fireworks" or "Winter Wonder Land" don't put a big ole smile on your face, check your pulse. Forget Burial - this one was my big emotional release in 2007.

11. The National - Boxer

If you'd told me on initial listen that by the end of the year Boxer would be sitting just shy of my top ten, I wouldn't have believed you. Six months and countless listens later, I'll just eat some crow and happily hit the "repeat" button. They've replaced Interpol as the band I listen to when in a certain mood. I've already commented on the amazing drum work; the other star is Matt Beringer's soulful, understated vocal performance. It's probably the least flashy album on this list, but no less satisfying for that.

10. Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends

Even excepting my joy and surprise that this album exists at all, I'm going to venture that Let's Stay Friends is Les Savy Fav's best, most consistent release. OK, I find the last third of it sort of uninspired, but even their singles collection Inches had some duds on it. "The Equestrian," "Raging in the Plague Age," and "Slugs in the Shrubs" are LSF in classic attack mode, while "Patty Lee" and especially "Brace Yourself" both skillfully expand their sound without revealing any limitations. Especially in a year when so many other indie rock sure-bets disappointed, Let's Stay Friends helped me maintain my faith in the basic post-punk template.

9. Parts & Labor - Mapmaker

And then there were Parts & Labor, who use that same template as a jumping-off point for some serious noise geekiness. What's endlessly impressive to me about Mapmaker is how the band manage to combine fairly straightforward song structures and downright anthemic vocals with a dogged love for chaos and sonic experimentation. And the whole thing comes off as organic rather than tossed-together. Only A Place to Bury Strangers gave effects pedals a harder workout: from the bleepy opener "Fractured Skies" to the tidal wave crash of "Brighter Days", from the soaring bagpipe-toned solo that propels "New Crimes" to the distortion-wracked solo that makes "Ghosts Will Burn" such a standout. That band name is false modesty, because there's nothing workmanlike about these guys.

8. A Place to Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers

I'm a bit surprised at how high on the list this found itself. Consider it a concession to the sheer power and conviction of the thing. All the (valid) comparisons to previous artists don't minimize how heavily this hits. But APTBS also have a surprisingly soft-n-gooey center: just check those restrained verses on "Missing You" or (especially) "Don't Think Lover", or the way "Ocean" patiently builds to its earthswallowing climax. And they never let the mayhem get in the way of a good melody. Besides, one of the obvious influences no longer exists, two of the others haven't put out a listenable album in over a decade (I'm talking about YOU, Robert and Trent), and I'm hedging my bets on the much-ballyhooed return of the third later this year; so A Place to Bury Strangers capably - and even brutally - fills multiple gaps in our musical universe.

7. Frog Eyes - Tears of the Valedictorian

I'll keep this as simple as possible. Haven't paid much attention to the lyrics, nor do I really want to, for all that a lot of the favorable criticism of this album has focused on them somehow being a statement of the times. The music is competent, occasionally interesting, but not the biggest reason I can't stop listening to this album or grin like a loon whenever one of the better songs - "Reform the Countryside," "'Stockades'", "Evil Energy, the Ill Twin Of..." - comes up on random shuffle. Basically, I just love listening to Carey Mercer sound like he's on the verge of losing his shit for almost an hour. This was the vocal performance of the year for me, and if I ever get around to doing some vocalizing myself, I'll thank Carey for giving me the permission to be as "dramatic" as I want. Given endless time, I'd write an entire column on the many moments on this album when Mercer gives me a shiver or a chuckle or a brief stab of terror. Instead, I'll just really strongly recommend you give him a go, yourself.

6. !!! - Myth Takes

Effortlessly and endlessly groovy, yet never sounding tossed off, Myth Takes was sort of my party album of the year. I already did it justice in my original review so won't repeat myself here. Nothing guilty about this fountain of pleasure!

5. Dälek - Abandoned Language

Another one about which I'll say little more. Listen to this on headphones and marvel at how dense the production is, how what on first listen seems monotone is endlessly rich and nuanced. Anyone who was into trip hop in the 90s owes it to themselves to buy this album yesterday and sink into its haunted - and haunting - soundscapes.

4. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Scribble Mural Comic Journal

I'm about to make a near-heretical suggestion: Loveless is sixteen years old, and we need a new touchstone for "this kind of music", however labelled. I'd like to not-so-humbly submit that Scribble Mural Comic Journal is, if not a "better" album, a far more interesting one. Every song represents a different approach (if not two or three) to bringing as much twisted beauty into the world as possible. Neither the voices nor the guitars are safe from distortion, and the songwriting can only be described as "bizarre." And yet, nearly everything works. Kudos to the band as well for front-loading the album with all the weird experimental stuff (I dare you to get through "Lists, Plans" and "C'mon" without an arched eyebrow) and only "rewarding" us with the straightforward "Things Only I Can See" and "The Best Summer Ever" (easily the best Pale Saints songs I've heard since the band tragically broke up over ten years ago) at the very end. This was one of the most uncompromising releases in the Year of Weird, and easily the most gorgeous.

3. Shining - Grindstone

While compiling these lists I've realized that one aspect of music I always like is the ability to reconcile seeming contradictions, to blend disparate elements into some new organic whole. Shining excel at this in a way that only incredibly skilled and talented and creative musicians could. And let's stress the emphasis on that last adjective, because these guys are in no reducible to technical skills alone. There's a pervasive and perverse sense of humor at work throughout Grindstone. Like the way, after spending just a minute hammering home one of the most satisfying monster guitar riffs I've ever heard, "Stalemate Longan Runner" loses momentum and starts back up as a harpsichord solo. Or how "The Red Room" climaxes its first movement - a minute-and-a-half-long free-jazz smackdown so rhythmically intense that I'm gasping - with an amazingly tight and perfectly sequenced five-second call-and-response between the saxophone and what sounds like one of those baby dolls that squawks when you squeeze it. (Words honestly fail to capture this moment; you owe it to yourself to hear this song. Actually, you owe it to yourself to hear this entire beautiful album). And don't even get me started on that cheeky vocodor'ed voice in the second half of "ASI NISI MASA." In less capable hands this could have all been painfully meta- (think late-career Pavement). But back to that "organic whole" I mentioned... "Winterreise" manages to cram into its gorgeous three and a half minutes: heavy metal riffage, the orchestral movement from the theme to Dune, more hilarious vocodor, an electronic piano solo, and some rocking brass - and it never feels anything but natural. Yes, there are transitions here - which prompted some critics to label Shining "prog" the same way the Fiery Furnaces get labeled "prog." Except of course Shining are playing fifteen more instruments and finding ways to evoke common themes throughout a song regardless of the means they're using at any specific point.

"So why's it at #3?" you ask. Let's call it "Giddy Motors syndrome": 5 amazing songs (the four mentioned above + the amazing opener) do not a #1 album make. There's a bit of filler on Grindstone, and there are a couple other songs that border on garish to my ears. All that out of the way: it's a shame more people didn't hear this. In the kingdom of mind-blowing, there was no bigger monster for me in '07 than these guys.

2. Battles - Mirrored

And then there's Mirrored, which has been endlessly poured over, and discussed, and picked apart. Plus Battles toured their asses off all year long. And yes, despite some real filler, it's sitting one spot higher on my list of favorites than Grindstone, which I'm crazy about. Let's call it the difference between breaking down genre boundaries, and making something so original that the entire concept of genre becomes irrelevant. I read a lot of what people had to say about Mirrored, and overall they either had to resort to abstractions and metaphors, or they had to reduce the album down to a description of the means by which it was created. No big surprise that the latter approach tended to be that chosen by people who just didn't like Mirrored. I hate to fall into the tired old trope that "only those who don't understand it couldn't like it", but... that bit of truth in every stereotype and all....

So here's the dilemma facing anyone who loves music, and loves telling others about the music they love... how do I describe Battles to you? What do they sound like? If I told you that "Atlas" sounds like a bunch of Munchkins taking acid and having one crazy-ass dance party, does that sound like something that any sane person would choose as [spoiler alert!] their favorite song of 2007? Or how about I take a stab at "DDiamondd", which sounds like an intergalactic rock band practicing their chords for a minute, before their practice space is invaded by every fucking cricket in the entire universe. And the crickets are chirping. Not feeling inclined to give that a listen? Back in June I wrote that "TIJ" "leavens its brutality with playful keyboard/guitar interplay". See - even I can't quite escape talking about means rather than ends. What did I mean by "leavens its brutality"??? Well, throughout the song there's this loop that sounds like the CD is totally stuck. Maybe that would be annoying after seven minutes, except that everything else the band throws on top of it sounds like they're individually and collectively having the time of their lives.

"Individually and collectively". That's a good way to talk about Battles. In the end, what you have are four incredibly talented and skillful musicians who must also be incredibly bored with making straightforward rock songs. Equipped with a room-full of objects that make noise, three of them burrow inward and start to explore. Ocasionally they pay attention to the others' explorations, even syncing into each other for brief whiles. And it's all held together by the astounding John Stanier, who is just as much a machine as every other object making noise in the room. It's endlessly creative, often humorous, sometimes shocking. And man... for all my abstract appreciation of it - both means and ends - every single time these guys hit a groove on Mirrored (which they do on approximately 8 out of 11 tries) that groove rides itself into the pleasure centers of my brain.

Munchkins on acid. Crickets. A skipping CD. The future, man.... the future...

1. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

News flash: I'm a big fucking music geek. I agonized over this choice. In case the paragraphs above didn't convey this: Grindstone was the most exciting album of the year to me, Mirrored the most impressive. And yet... in the end, Hissing Fauna possesses two qualities that neither of those albums does. First of all, there isn't a single dud song on the entire album. Oh, closer "We Were Born the Mutant Again with Leafling" is a bit wispy. I've been known to lose patience with the twelve-minute sprawl of motorik "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" (but only before I heard them play it live and the big fat lightbulb went off for me). But everything else on this album is golden. Perhaps more important: Hissing Fauna... is amazingly simple and immediate. No hand-wringing over how to describe it to people or who to share it with and who not - if you can't fall in love with this, then you have no sense of humor and are immune to melody. For a start: I could hum most of these songs on the second listen, even before the lyrics started sinking in and I realized that Kevin Barnes is (and I mean this in the most respectful way) the queerest straight guy on the planet. It's actually not the least of the feats he pulls off here, that fairly mundane stories like "Gronlandic Edit" or "A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger" still come off deep and meditative. And the man has a wicked sense of camp, razor-tuned to the exact amount of whining and carrying-on that he can get away with and still be funny rather than pathetic (see: "She's a Rejecter", the funniest shit I heard all year). The music pulls off an even more difficult balance; it's easy to write off Of Montreal as 80s synth pop ripoffs. Hell, I'll even admit that in a year that saw so much fantastic analog drumming, here's my #1 album, it relies almost entirely on electronic beats, and they're CHEESY electronic beats. And a number of the songs are carried by fairly simplistic keyboard melodies and/or guitar riffs: "Cato as a Pun," "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse," "Suffer for Fashion" just to name a few. But - like the vocals - they're viral melodies and riffs. Once you're stuck with them, resign yourself to a life of warning potential partners about how you're going to be breaking into song and/or humming at wildly inappropriate moments. Warn those partners that this album, these songs, are HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS.

And really - all that catchiness could easily blind one to how creative and risk-taking the music actually is if you scratch a bit. "Cato as a Pun" and "Heimdalsgate" both feature this really bizarre drum sound, like somebody's hitting a bag full of nuts with a hammer. The verses of "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider" are all buzzy ambience. And '06 darlings The Knife have nothing on Messrs. Barnes et al when it comes to creepily multitracked vocals. The first time I talked with my friend David about Hissing Fauna, he was trying to tell me which song was his favorite, the one he hadn't been able to stop humming for the past week. "It's the one with all the really weird voices," he exclaimed. Which narrowed it down to like nine of the songs...

So there you go... 20 awesome albums in an amazing (and weird) year in music. Next up: my 40 favorite songs!