My 50 Favorite Songs of 2007

OK, so it was supposed to be my 40 favorite songs... but 40 just felt too limiting, given how much great music was released last year. And I wanted to give myself enough space to acknowledge some artists who didn't make my 20 favorite albums list, but still had one or two songs that ruled my year (notably El-P and Deerhunter, who land two each in this list). On the flip side, it was interesting to me how I could really love an album but still be hardpressed to choose more than one song off it for this list (Yeasayer, Field Music, Marnie Stern, Frog Eyes, Aesop Rock, HEALTH, Kristin Hersh). There's a statement in there about how consistent those albums are. And then there's a third bunch where the song that makes this list was pretty much their sole contribution to my year (Kammerflimmer Kollektiev, Supersilent, Prinzhorn Dance School, Shapes and Sizes, Beirut, PJ Harvey, Besnard Lakes, and, um... Burial).

I kind of feel like this list reveals how limited my listening habits really are. I bought around 45 CDs in '07, and I'm afraid I don't venture far outside my CD collection when listening to music. I'm going to try and take better advantage of Pitchfork and Cokemachineglow's podcasts this year, and maybe by the end of '08 my songs list won't be confined to the albums I actually purchased. All of this is a long-winded (and probably unnecessary) apology for how many "repeats" there are on the list. I set myself a firm rule that no artist could have more than 3 songs on it (sorry Shining), and in the end 50 spots are shared by 37 artists. In the top half there are only 3 repeats (go figure, representing my #s 2,3, and 4 albums). So maybe I didn't do SO badly on the breadth issue...

Here's the list itself; the commentaries on each song are a work in progress so be sure to check back every now and then.

50. Prinzhorn Dance School - Crackerjack Doctor

What if the grass really is greener on the other side? What if 2 + 2 really does equal 5 (and Thom Yorke's neurosis isn't as hefty as the reputation he's built upon it)? What if Cheney isn't really an evil bastard and Bush isn't a tool in every sense of the word? Where are the limits of your (or at least, my) incredulity? Prinzhorn Dance School have computed the answer to that last one out to the fourth significant digit. Then they add one, and right there is where they drop this "5 o'clock shocker" (am, not pm, by the way). So ridiculous... so calculated in its meaninglessness... so impossible to dislodge from my aching brain...

49. Interpol - The Heinrich Maneuver

In retrospect, I was probably a bit harsh on Interpol when I reviewed Our Love to Admire. So let me make it up to them here: much as I predicted even then, I never turn off this song when it comes up on random shuffle. It's a tricky little beast - indie-by-numbers on the surface, but brimming with lots of satisfying guitar twists as soon as you look beyond its wholesome tunefulness. I'm particularly fond of those short shocked-sounding bursts on the chorus, and the interplay between the drums and both guitars on the bridges. This is what Interpol do best, and here's to many more.

48. Dälek - Paragraphs Relentless

Sinister. That's the word that comes immediately to mind when this sizzling wall of organ and processed guitar hits you in the gut. The mundane beat serves mostly to create motion, a frame on which the rest of the instrumentation strains and writhes against its boundaries; like a Bruegel painting, endless tension and details are contained within a relatively limited palette. Above it all floats that eerie harmonica-like melody: is it a warning of what's to come, or a dirge for what has passed? Either way, I'm rooted to the spot by this song, even as it evokes a deep-seated urge to flee.

47. The National - Brainy

On an album full of songs driven by the drumming, none gets pushed harder by the beat than "Brainy". Everything else - the simple two-note guitar motif that starts the song and continues throughout, the long aching brass and string notes, the resigned vocals, even the lyrics with their talk of "dragging around by the end of your coat" - futilely resists being pulled along. "Think I better follow you around," Matt Beringer admits, but then follows that with the single most memorable line on Boxer: "You might need me more than you think you will." He could be addressing anything or anyone - that insistent beat, the hopes inside his own chest, the lover he won't let run away. The narrative doesn't matter nearly as much as the raw emotion behind his dedication; one of the most moving and (dare I say?) universal moments I heard all year.

46. Parts & Labor - Ghosts Will Burn

On most of Mapmaker, Parts & Labor repeatedly force chaos and structure, noise and harmony, to coexist. But on "Ghosts Will Burn," the chaos is the structure. The beat upon which the song is built is inexplicable but rock-solid, Christopher Weingarten's shining moment among a number of incredible performances. Around it the guitars whine, moan, and burble. The bassline plays tag with both, creating a thick stew of silences interspersed with colliding notes and rhythms. And soaring over top all of it is one of the album's most majestic vocal melodies, like a surfer confident in his own abilities to ride no matter what boils up from below. Get your head around this burst of randomness, and jump on the surfboard with him.

45. Deerhunter - Octet

The Germans down at #15 might actually be named "Shimmering Collective", but this here's the true spirit of that phrase. For almost eight glorious minutes, Deerhunter are the new Happy Mondays: a rock band who aren't afraid to make music you can dance to. The bassline is simple yet powerfully buoyant, and around it the guitars and the vocals swirl in one heaving grinning mass. Taken as is, the song patiently unfolds and builds to its euphoric high, where it lingers for a number of cycles before slowly winding back down. Clip it a bit on either side, and I bet you could slip the middle five minutes of it into any DJ set around 1 am, when the drugs are starting to kick in and the audience is ready to be pushed.

44. !!! - Heart of Hearts

And hey - while we're on the topic of rock bands you can dance to!!! Except this is almost the mirror image of "Octet" - rather than a rock band accidentally making a dance song, a dance band who still can't help but rock out a little. The "dance" components of this equation - chattering high-hats, stuttering rubber-band bass, cheesy/ridiculous accelerating drum breaks - for all that they're pushed to the front of the song, can't obscure the staccato guitar (Gang of Four, anyone?) or the near-insolent nonchalence of the vocals. It captures perfectly the joint statement-of-purpose implied by the band name: we will excite you; we will sneer at the ease with which we succeed. The beauty of "Heart of Hearts" is how they can't help but invite all the rest of us to sneer along.

43. A Place to Bury Strangers - Don't Think Lover

Everything you need to know about A Place to Bury Strangers can be summed up in the first five seconds of this song: buzzsaw guitar riff decapitates, arch 80s drum machine jerks in time to your thrashing body. I'm reminded of that old childhood threat (which by the way, I always found extremely strange): "I'm gonna tear your head off and shit down your throat." Only in this case, after the first deed is done, it's like the band pause in the second. The music gets all soft and monotonal and gooey and wistful, like "hey! no matter how much you hurt me and pissed me off, I loved you! I loved you!" Sobbing and recrimination follow: "Don't.... don't think love... love, will last forever." And now the sinking realization that of course love won't last forever because you just pissed me off to the point that I tore your head off! It's all your fault! Cue buzzsaw guitar riff. Repeat cycle of retribution and recrimination until there's no more (fake) blood to spurt. It's all so cute it makes me want to start a rock band, but only if you can teach me how to make a guitar sound like that too!

42. Burial - Archangel

The indie snob in me is tempted to resist the hype (best-rated album of the year, INDEED!), assert my iconoclasm, and make this the most backhanded endorsement on this list. Aw, fuck it... I admit to being moved by "Archangel" despite how hard and obviously Burial is trying to make me feel moved by it. I further admit to being a big softie at heart, plus (hell, while I'm admitting shit) I'm in a still-new relationship and damned if this doesn't evoke those late-night moments when my insecurities kick in and I find myself thinking "If I trust you... " , "Tell me I belong..." etc etc ad nauseum. All of the expected signifiers are here: big sweeping strings, time-stretched rave-ish vocals, and a combination of truly hollow beats and cavernous metallic bass that perfectly simulates that inner void I'd deny in saner moments I ever feel. Fuckin' manipulative bastard... sombody pass the kleenex...

41. Shapes and Sizes - Head Movin'

It's the only song on which they manage to strike the perfect balance between their innate tunefulness and their disdain for stasis, but "Head Movin'" is no less an accomplishment for its solitude on Shapes and Sizes' otherwise painfully herky-jerky debut album. Brevity suits them - this is one of their shortest songs and it benefits from a notable lack of diversions. For two verses the guitars jangle and the bass pulses; then the strings all but disappear for a clattering percussion-driven coda. Throughout the vocals are boyish, alternately tentative and overconfident, and ultimately winning. Sort of a blip on my musical radar screen in 2007, but it'll probably find its way on many compilations to come.

40. Dan Deacon - Snake Mistakes

If Hrvatski and Max Tundra spawned a mutant child, this is what it would sound like. (Perhaps these were the "coolest dads in dad school" that Dan Deacon had in mind? Except of course he goes on to tell us how "coolest dad" breaks none of the "dad rules", and much like his forbears Deacon breaks all the rules. Except his own.) "Snake Mistakes" features the freaked-out technical precision of the former combined with the utter sense of whimsy of the latter; the result is a Ren & Stimpy cartoon become sound. Irresistible, if you can get past the "cute" factor.

39. Kristin Hersh - Day Glo

It used to be that Kristin's solo music had a much different persona than her band work (first with Throwing Muses, most recently with 50 Foot Wave). Although in both cases the operative word was "intense" - the solo stuff tended to be more sad and contemplative, the band stuff louder and occasionally angry. But on '07's solid Learn to Sing Like a Star, the distinction is all but gone - and nowhere more than on this standout. It's all about the way she keeps building to the phrase "Getting up is what huuuuurrrrrrrts", and how every time she repeats it that last word becomes more emotion-filled, more gravelly. Within the context of what is otherwise a straightforward jangly guitar tune - more shocking. She doesn't just want to tell you about the hurt, she wants you to feel it with her. When I heard her perform the song live, it was downright frightening.

38. Aesop Rock - Bring Back Pluto

This is my friend Aesop. He's pretty cool, although he's not always symbolically comprehensible. So here's the highlights of the story: The clue is in the vacancy, the proof is in his goosbumps. It may actually be safer to play with knives. What's the proper rules for stuffing hostages in trucks? Nine minus one left eight. They're going to want his milk money next. Every dumpster diver's gonna vomit up a comment. This is little Russian dolls that get smaller and smaller still. Eight planets bullied number nine until he fell. When the freakishly disfigured have been triggered to surround you, you will live inside the actual second they let the hounds loose.

Huh, you didn't follow the story? Good, cause neither do I, and likely neither does Aes. Fortunately understanding what the hell he's carrying on about is completely tangential to enjoying the man's music. It's all about the flow of these words, the ways the individual sounds which comprise them create and demolish internal structures, all the time existing in sync and in tension with the gorgeous flow of the loungy music underneath. It's about marvelling at his words/minute ratio (ridiculously high) in joint with how clearly enunciated it all is. Ultimately, listening to it is just fun, meanings be damned.

37. Yeasayer - Germs

I realized in retrospect that despite warily endorsing All Hour Cymbals in my 20-best list, I didn't do a good job of explaining what Yeasayer actually sound like. I'm going to paraphrase my friend Kameron, who - for all that he expressed this with visible distaste - sunk the proverbial nail into the plywood. Yeasayer sound like a bunch of young wanna-be hippies, at least one of whom has been to India or the Middle East and hence injects the music with such-styled "exotic" motifs. Yep, there's a "psychedelic" peace-n-love sort of aesthetic here, which all the religious themes and overlarge generalities in the lyrics only enhance. The two big admonitions on "Germs" are: "Everybody's coming down with the same thing," and "Better get some medicine if you know what's good for you." I should have shared Kameron's distaste, but these guys have a knack for beautiful multipart vocal harmonies that makes the music seem denser than it actually is, and makes those faux-Middle Easternisms feel strangely organic. One of those examples where the music, despite my critical stance, still wins. Which just means that we all win too.

36. Thurston Moore - Silver > Blue

I.e., Daydream Nation unplugged and played on one guitar instead of two. Sure the overall tone is autumnal and contemplative, not explosive and exploratory, but damned if the guitar solo during the long instrumental coda doesn't remind me of "'Cross the Breeze" (among other SY golden oldies). Beautiful without being "easy" listening (there's still plenty of discordance to be found), restrained without being resigned, and engaging because (rather than in spite) of its predigree - I'll take this over any of Sonic Youth's recent output any day.

35. Shining - Stalemate Longan Runner

This song makes me want to start listening to Rush. I know next to nothing about Rush, mind you, and couldn't even name "that one song" they're so well known for, though if you played it for me I'd know it was them. Likewise, I could be completely wrong when I assert that the middle third of this song, built upon some of the most fantastic (and surprisingly straightforward - for Shining) riffage I've ever heard, is a total Rush rip-off. But then, I somehow doubt Rush ever started their songs with a minute of dischordant free-jazz guitar skronk. And I'd be willing to bet money that Rush never collapsed one of their big satisfying power riffs into an electronic harpsichord and keyboard duet. Hence the need to research.... awww, fuck it. Now way did Rush ever write anything this fucking odd and cool!

34. Field Music - In Context

I find writing about Field Music to be pretty challenging. Try explaining sugar to someone without using the word "sweet", or a cloudless sky without calling it "blue." Now confront the opposite linguistic problem: listen to this song - so seemingly effortless, so tuneful, immediately winning. Describe it to someone without invoking that three-letter "p" word which gets thrown around as though it had a universal meaning. My point is, telling you this is "pop" music at its most quintessential has little chance of communicating what I really mean, because "pop" is a pretty subjective experience. So I'm almost forced to reducing the accomplishment here down to its mechanics: that insanely catchy drum beat; the way the dynamic verses (all restless guitar work and beautifully-counterpointed bass) flow seamlessly into the sugar-rush monolithic melody of the chorus. But see, I have to sit and think about that, and this is not a song that requires much thought to love. Better just to say: try this out. You'll like it.

33. Pantha du Prince - Saturn Strobe

This one snuck past my defenses, but I’m glad it did. I mean, I’ve been on an indie rock kick for the last three-to-five years. House and techno music for the most part makes me itch anymore. But this! This makes me wish that I was on the roll of a lifetime (in the, um, “ecstatic” sense), navigating the distinction between finite and in-finite, living inside the music and the music living inside of me. Pantha du Prince evokes and defines that glorious Void with all these grand gestures and piles of strings, then he fills that Void with enough minute details (bells! rainfall!) to make its boundaries seem somehow… within reach. As we used to say about trance when in the right (read: altered) state of mind, this is traveling music; the best way to visit whole other worlds without leaving the space behind your closed eyes, to go everywhere and anywhere while holding still. “This Bliss” as the album title might be overreaching (I still can’t make it through the thing in one sitting), but for these seven-and-a-half minutes bliss is precisely where I'm living.

32. Beirut - In the Mausoleum

I hate to say it, but this is the success to Yeasayer's valiant attempt. Advantage to Beirut for having not only the technical chops (there are more instruments on this song than probably any other on this list) but, more importantly - that voice. The first word I think of to describe it is "buttery," melting out of your speakers and lingering on your ears for a second or two after it's passed. Throw in all the attention being paid to details (especially the layered percussion), the smooth transitions between the sections, and the way the song feels like the musical summary of your amazing three-continent trip last summer, and it all adds up to the most calorie-laden (yet guilt-free!) treat one could ask for.

31. Dizzee Rascal - Sirens

OK, so it's not "grime." It's not even particularly grimy - Dizzee sounds all grownup and big-budget now. That's still our boy Dylan though, spitting a million words a minute and making running away from the police sound like just another part of his daily routine. "Let's take it back to that old skool storytelling shit," he proclaims (oddly enough, after the first verse) but for me the appeal isn't so much the tale as the glee with which he shares it. And it's not as if everything here on the music front is straightforward - listen to the way the music all but disappears on the choruses, leaving just Dizzee's voice and that ubiquitous siren wailing in the background. Or the way all those city sounds (sirens, radios, traffic) lend it an air of gritty realism. I can accept that he's probably never gonna give us another totally alien creation like "I Luv U" as long as his feet hitting terra firma continues to sound like this.

30. Deerhoof - The Perfect Me

Recipe for the Perfect Deerhoof Song

Simple/immediately-catchy instrumental riffs (2 minimum)
Satomi's chirpy speak-sing. (intelligible syllables optional)
Chaotic drumming
At least one instrumental element used in no previous Deerhoof song (which, in this case is that hyperkinetic cowbell)

Organize riffs in baffling sequence that nevertheless feels totally organic. Liberally sprinkle speak-sing and drumming throughout mixture. Follow one of three options for last ingredient: a) sprinkle throughout; b) introduce halfway through song; or c) introduce near end of song. Options b) and c) can be executed with immediate withdrawal or persistence of said element for rest of song.

NOTE: the beauty of this formula is that - eight albums in - it still shows little signs of being formulaic!

29. Battles - DDiamondd

Within its larger context on Mirrored, "DDiamondd" feels almost like a palette-cleanser between twin-behemoths "Atlas" and "Tonto" (see numbers 16 and, errrr, 1!, below). It's Battles' most formalist moment: counterpoint rising and falling melodies, kinetic percussion on the interludes, and Tyondai Braxton's vocals are almost intelligible. They don't seem to play it live, and at a mere two-and-a-half minutes it seems downright tossed-off.

So rewind to the moment in my car when I first heard this song, after rushing across town to pick up the album at Amoeba the day it came out. "Race: In", fine. "Atlas" - stunning, but I already knew that. And then, that moment halfway through "DDiamondd" when the wall of crickets suddenly drops on my unexpecting ass and it was all I could do not to cause an accident because, y'know, it's kind of hard to focus on anything else when your jaw won't get off the damn floor. In brief: the coolest single individual sound I heard all fucking year. And almost a year later, it STILL has that power over me, like "No they didn't! Yes they DID!"

28. El-P - Drive

El-P is really pissed off. See, there's this war being fought nominally for one reason but it's really just to protect your and my (and his) ability to (as the sample on the chorus chirps) "drive drive Drive DRIVE!" And it's to his credit that he's just as pissed at himself for being complicit in the mess; for every reference to "Jesus of NASCAReth" or "military Humvees with no bullet-proof siding", there's a self-aimed zinger like "My triple-A card has one too many initials." But El also knows that protest songs that take themselves too seriously are a total drag. So the entire thing is infused wtih his unflagging sense of (gallows) humor and a continuous stream of background noise and spoken asides (my favorite is that insincere "Sorry guys!" after the "Humvee" line) that act like the ear candy you'll have for dessert after he's (or is it, "the world's"?) done feeding you a steaming hot plate of shit.

27. Of Montreal - Suffer for Fashion

Oh, I could carry on about how this is the best song David Bowie has released in decades... how it was the one that led me to my favorite album of the year... how Kevin Barnes uses words like "emasculate," "vicissitudes," and "emaciate" but still crafts the song's biggest hook from the simple phrase "...not like THA - A - A - A - AT!"... how those cheesy 80s drum machines sound totally fresh and hot... that amazing couplet "We've got to keep our little clique clicking at 130 bpm / It's not too slow!"...

Or, I can just admit that it boils down to two words. After announcing "I know we suffer for fashion", he pauses ever-so-briefly and concludes "or whatever." Barnes knows full well that "we" are full of shit, and this song is both a celebration and a mockery of the whole notion of belonging to a "scene." He plays it both ways throughout Hissing Fauna: (feel/laugh at) my pain, and this is the song that sets that stage perfectly. If there was a Miss Straight America contest, he'd be the ten-time champion and counting.

26. Menomena - My My

I'm still waiting (and I know they have it within them) for Menomena to craft an album that's consistently engaging and not just consistently interesting. But damned if this song wasn't the first in 2006 that actually brought me to tears. The overall tone is set by the shimmering beauty of the organ, Brent Knopf's wistful vocals and stark acknowledgement of his own insecurities, and especially the way the sax and guitar stabs intrude into the space being created like little reminders or self-recriminations that this kind of navel-gazing can lead nowhere good. It all pushes toward a haunting/soaring mid-song climax that in less deft hands would have come across as calculated. Instead: eye leakage from yours truly. If Kevin Barnes was 2006's great ironist, these guys were the year's great.... um, sincerists?

25. PJ Harvey - Silence

Fifteen years ago, PJ Harvey was telling Casanova to bend over, rubbing him til it bled, and cutting his legs off when he tried to run away. Apparently this strategy hasn't yielded long-term success, because here she's more vulnerable than we've ever heard her before. She all-but-whispers, "That by some miracle, you'd be aware...", too heartweary to really hope for anything more than the song's title. Which she repeats over and over at the end like it's all she has left - the only lover who hasn't left her (or been scared away). And the funny thing is, it's just as powerful and moving as any of her previous incarnations. For all that she's gotten softer, it isn't gently that she's going into that good night.

24. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - 5:15 Train

Popular music can't help but recycle old trends or sounds, and in 2007 it seemed like everybody (including these folks, only they did it better than most) had their My Bloody Valentine moment. But only A Sunny Day in Glasgow recognized that big Cocteau Twins-sized hole in our collective audio environment and decided not just to fill it, but to make us forget it ever existed. "5:15 Train" is the flat-out prettiest song I heard all year. The guitars chime and whirr, their vibrations lending the entire affair a hazy washed out bliss - and that's BEFORE the crystalline vocal drops on you as heavy and gorgeous and unattainable as world peace. Best of all, ASDIG make the edges of this song rough: that opening cascade of feedback that sounds like a torrential downpour on a tin roof, the percussion that hits like a stable full of cracking whips. The entire effect is like being thrown overboard by an enormous storm: terror, tranquility, and that sweet sirens' song urging you to surrender.

23. Les Savy Fav - The Equestrian

Les Savy Fav waste no time letting us know how excited they are to be back, six years after their last full-length. First single "The Equestrian" is a flat-out, balls-to-the-floor rocker, the kind for which there will always be a need. Musically it's refreshingly straightforward, with none of the self-conscious experimentation that in the past has been both their greatest strength and worst fault. I'd normally be averse to a balding pudgy guy dropping a straight-up sex jam on me, but as usual Tim Harrington strikes the perfect balance of engagement and distance, humor and earnestness. I.e., "You made me gasp when you grasped my withers" could be sexy, or self-disparaging (Harrington, bless his soul, has never pretended to be anything but a balding pudgy guy, even when he's running around in his underwear), or simply a great rhyme for "You made me shake, you made me shiver." Guys, it was worth the wait.

22. A Place to Bury Strangers - My Weakness

Much as I love them, I have to admit these guys have a great idea:song ratio approaching 1. So, here's the greatest of those ideas, an indescribable ripping guitar sound that drives the choruses and interludes, and leaves it's mark on you even when they're trying to shove it back in its cage on the verses. It also benefits from brevity, being the shortest song on the album. And of course, since it's the most brutal thing they (or almost anyone) have to offer us, they go and call it "My Weakness." Well, I feel my weakness in the knees as soon as this thing comes blasting out of my speakers. (Go ahead, turn the volume down. It'll still piledrive over you and come back for seconds). I think I'm afraid to hear a song they'd see fit to call "My Strength"...

21. HEALTH - Crimewave

In 2006, (the) drum(s) came for a visit. In 2007, they brought their friend Gloriously Atonal Guitar, and they: SMASHED THE KIDS' NEW PLAYSTATION! URINATED IN THE CAT'S WATER DISH! SET THE CURTAINS ON FIRE! DRAGGED YOUR CLEAN SHEETS THROUGH THE MUD! ATE EVERYTHING IN THE REFRIGERATOR! DIDN'T CLEAN UP AFTERWARD! And then they left, just as inscrutable as they'd arrived. Geez, it's a CRIMEWAVE!!! What'd you expect, subtlety?

20. Besnard Lakes - And You Lied to Me

In a year that saw no new music from My Morning Jacket, somebody had to give all us indie kids an epic, reverbed-to-all-hell, southern-inflected, classic-rock-referenced gem. OK, so by "southern" in this case I actually mean "southern Canada"... and of course I'll happily endorse this song in the same breath that I'd dismiss any of that old stuff in whose steps it no doubt follows. All my hand-waving aside, the key word here is "epic." For all that its structure is essentially a cycle through the same basic set of melodies (complete with dramatic long pauses between), the band add in enough small touches each time through that it feels like one long, slow build. The room gets hazier, the emotional tension thicker, the pace keeps picking up... and when release (i.e., the inevitable blistering guitar solo!) drops at about the 5:30 mark, you'll really feel it too. If they could have pulled this off more than once on the otherwise-tepid Are the Dark Horse, I'd be a huge fan, but its singularity makes "And You Lied to Me" all the more impressive.

P.S. Fuck the Arcade Fire.

19. Deerhunter - Spring Hall Convert

If I'm going to continue yammering on about how I love Interpol for their emotional heft and despite their obvious technical limitations, then I should probably extend the same courtesy to some other bands as well. Enter Deerhunter, with the song that I've actually known for the longest of any on this list - Pitchfork released it as part of their (not-so-)Infinite Mixtape series in late 2006. Still, the album didn't drop until early 2007, so we'll "officially" include it on this list. My relationship to the song has fluctuated... the insistent bassline and swirling ambience of it grabbed me immediately. Then I listened to it enough to realize that the rhythm guitar part is the same. 4-note. progression. over. and. over. for minutes. It fell out of favor with me for a while. Then at some point last summer it came up on random shuffle and I found myself cranking the volume and falling for its spell all over again. I love how the vocals just keep getting more and more multi-tracked until half the noise coming out of your speakers is layers of Brandon Cox's voice. And that bassline, with its 1-2 punch on the endless spiral of the second half, still has the power to make my heart beat in time.

18. Interpol - Pace is the Trick

And hey! speaking of Interpol... This one is easy for me to love since its the nearest they got to the outright emotionalism of their best previous work. Paul Banks' voice still has the power to evoke both hope and resignation at the same time. OK, it wouldn't be a great Interpol song if there wasn't at least one utterly bemusing lyric, and Paul hits us with this one right up front: "But it's like sleaze in the park / And women, you have no self-control / The angels remark outside / You are known for insatiable needs." I still can't figure out if it's the women that Paul is accusing of "no self-control", or a friend whose "insatiable needs" relate to women... and wait, isn't most "sleaze in the park" between men? Oh right... it's Interpol... don't listen to the words but the way they sound coming out of his mouth. Like the chorus of this one, whose rising notes: "And NOW I select you, SLOW now I let you see HOW I STUN, see HOW I STUN" was one of the year's irresistible singalongs for me. Even more impressive, the guitar work is the most creative and dynamic they've ever delivered - the monotone quarter notes are kept to a minimum (just a few stretches at the end) and the opening phrase is downright haunting. Finally, Carlos sounds like he's at least awake for this song, which is more than I can say for the rest of the album. Let's not give up on them just yet... clearly they can still deliver the goods.

17. Parts & Labor - Brighter Days

If "Ghosts Will Burn" reminded me of a sufer, then "Brighter Days" is the tsunami: it's that exhilirating, that overwhelming. Especially, that terrifying. If the first twenty seconds of this song doesn't scare the shit out of you, I want to know what natural disaster you've survived. The bass and guitar grunt and squeal at each other like the earth cracking open, while the drummer does his best to emulate what a major city must sound like when it's crumbling around your ears. The dust settles, and then these guys have the nerve (or maybe they're just hopeless optimists) to hit us with one of their custom-made "soaring" guitar solos. Dude, forget the shattered landscape, the minutiae of your ruined life laying scattered around - "brighter days", man! The verses of this sound like mid-90s arena-alterna-rock filtered through the urgency of mid-80s blue collar punks like the Minutemen. Which is to say, pretty damn fist-pumpingly cool. When the aftershock hits (another quick cycle throught that heartstopping intro), it's somehow less frightening. Like maybe you really can live through this much chaos and twisted structure and still sing a pretty song. Obama should really be on the phone with these guys!

16. Battles - Tonto

Even when they try to, Battles are incapable of creating a straightforward rock song. Not that they didn't make a valiant effort; "Tonto" has by far the highest guitar:electronics ratio of any of the songs on Mirrored, and the central section (from roughly 2:30 to 3:45) with its Big Dumb Riffs is perhaps the one moment on the album where they forget their ironic distance and need to fuck with everything within reach, and just rock the hell out! It's frankly stunning, and left me with a catch in my throat repeatedly throughout 2007. Of course the stuff that surrounds it is pretty amazing as well - the tongue-in-cheek bouncing balls of the guitar interplay in the front stretch and immediately after the big emotional payoff, and the slow wind-down of the final three minutes. Here's to glorious failure!

15. Kammerflimmer Kollektiev - Jinx

The grizzled old cowboy leaned back in his creaking wooden chair, casually lifted first one foot than the other onto the weathered railing of his front porch, and settled into the position in which he greeted the morning every day since retiring from the ranch. Today was going to be a hot one, he could tell by the dust devils already starting to dance in the barren fields across the tar road that split the wide-open landscape in half as far as one could see to the east and west.

He saw the dust being kicked up by the wagon train long before he started to hear the creak of wooden wheels, the soft exhalations of the livestock, and the occasional clank of a cowbell swinging on its bearer's neck. As the cluster of worn vehicles drew closer, another sound took increasing prominence within the mix: a series of low moans and wordless syllables. It sounded like a woman's voice, and even before she came into sight the cowboy felt a chill run up his back listening to her. As his luck would have it, she was in the last vehicle in the chain - a wooden cage on wheels much like those he'd seen being used to transport circus animals. Strangest of all, nobody else in the wagon train paid her the slightest bit of attention as she continued producing a string of pained noises. As she passed by his house, they made eye contact; she responded to the gaze of a stranger by leaping up and attempting to shake the bars of her cell. Her moans turned to outright gibbering that would haunt the cowboy's memories during silent moments for the rest of his life. The wagon train plodded on... the products of the woman's tortured throat grew quieter both with resignation to her situation and growing distance... and eventually the cowboy had nothing but his memories to verify that any of it had happened at all.

He'd often wonder: what was wrong with the caged, moaning woman? Why had the wagon train members locked her up? Where were they taking her and for what purpose? How could a bunch of arty Germans so perfectly evoke an old-time American West they'd probably never even experienced in film let alone in real life? And what statement were they making (if any) by dropping into that perfect evocation such an incongruent factor as the moaning woman? He'd jump when thoughts like those would cross his mind; they felt like somebody else's words being fed into his head, like he was nothing but a character in someobdy else's story. When the cowboy felt like that, he'd drink. A lot. Alcohol could kill those strange questions, but he never managed to drown the memories of that disturbed (and disturbing) woman's moaning.

14. Supersilent - 8.5

If anyone's paying attention out there, you might have noticed I haven't added any new updates to this list in a couple weeks now. Well, partly that's because I've been super busy, and partly it's because I knew the next time I sat down to write on here, I was going to have to write about 8.5. And frankly, writing about this song intimidates the hell out of me.

Me and Michael in the car. 8.5 comes up on random shuffle. I explain to him how it's the next one to write about on my blog, and I'm sure I'm going to end up writing a small book. But on the flip side, I'm at a complete loss what to say. Michael has heard this song before. He wrinkles his face and says, "Well, what's there to say?" I laugh the hardest I have in a while.

For all that I tend to gravitate toward "underground" music, that isn't to say that all things weird or arty or difficult are going to appeal to me. I can be abstractly impressed by something and still not feel it's worthy of recommending to folks. Plenty of stuff heartily espoused by Pitchfork or Cokemachineglow fails to register for me. Good old 8.5 wouldn't be sitting this high up on this list if it didn't genuinely move me... if it didn't make me feel... something...

I was tempted to approach 8.5 the same way I did Jinx. They're the two most abstract, arty songs on this list, and they both lend themselves to a cinematic interpretation. The problem is, the images evoked by Jinx are much safer to assume you'll see/hear also. 8.5 is an entirely different beast. I mean, there's a story being told by the song, no doubt of it. But - sort of like hating the movie they made out of one of your favorite books because now when you read the book you see the movie - the story I hear in this song, the images it evokes for me, might not be those it would for you. So let's keep it general... there's loss and there's an overwhelming sense of being lost. There are revelations. Not starburst revelations, but quiet, creeping ones, whose power you don't realize until they swallow you. There's at least one long moment of sheer terror, near the end of the first movement of the song when the distorted metallic voice changes its tone and becomes almost frenzied. And there are moments of stunning beauty: a muted trumpet solo, swooshing synth washes, pastoral flutes. The drumming on this song is amazingly counterintuitive, but then considering what the rest of the band is doing for most of it, a steady beat wouldn't make sense anyway. But for all their chaos, the beats provide some of the only solidity to be found; they define edges within the space created by the song.

I think you should hear this. I can't promise what you'll think of it, or even that you'll want to make it through the entire 12 minutes (though if you make it past the first three - which, for the record, I think are fucking brilliant - you'll have weathered the most "challenging" part of the song). I'd like to think you'll at least find it interesting, even if you never want to hear it again. But it might just invite you back... and if it does, I'd love to be told what you hear in it, what it makes you see or feel.

13. Shining - The Red Room

Fatal admission time: I know next to nothing about jazz. I mean, I know which are the "big names" and I'll happily go listen to live jazz if somebody else suggests it. I can recognize jazz-like cadences or instrumentation when I hear them. But that's about all I can offer on the genre. Which is a shameful admission from a self-professed music lover and would-be online critic.

I laughed out loud when the guy behind the information desk at Amoeba Records told me I'd find Grindstone in the jazz section. I laughed even harder when I heard the album. "Jazz", loosely defined, might have been the dominant motif on Shining's last album In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will be a Monster. I suppose the genre classification makes sense as much as any other would, when it comes to these guys, and at least a couple of them are classically trained jazz musicians. But most of Grindstone only references "jazz" (as I understand it), and certainly not enough to justify sticking it in that section on the band's reputation alone.

Except for "The Red Room," the one track on Grindstone that might not have sent the unknowing jazz afficionado screaming from the room at this bizarre new album they'd picked up on a whim. Then again, maybe it might have. For all that it starts with a warbling saxophone line, that lasts exactly ten seconds before Shining bring the chaos. The bass is practically rhythmless. The horn section spends some time practicing chords then locks into a tight-as-hell (surprise surprise) jaunty melody accompanied by stomping bass drum and, um, handclaps. Another call-and-response transition, and in the third movement the ground completely drops out. Now the horns are blaring, the bass is chugging along like a motor, there's a rising sense of tension that all comes to a head in
my favorite musical five seconds of 2007. Yes, I realize that sounds ridiculous. But this is Shining, and they can do more in five seconds than most bands manage over entire albums. (I was quite gratified by Mark Abraham's review of the album for cokemachineglow; he also thinks these five seconds are noteworthy).

12. Marnie Stern - Grapefruit

"Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 'Grapefruit', our most popular attraction here at Marnie Stern World. Because the 'Grapefruit' is immensely disorienting for first-time riders, we've put together this little safety video to help you anticipate what you've been waiting so patiently in line to experience."

"When you reach the platform, please pull your lapbelt as tightly around yourself as possible, then pull the locking body cage down into a snug and latched position. Your safety on the 'Grapefruit' is our number one concern, and many of the twists and turns it takes require you to be secure within your seat or risk being pitched into free-fall at outrageous speeds."

"Your car will be riding along the Guitar track of the 'Grapefruit.' At the beginning of the ride, the Guitar track rubberbands back and forth so quickly that many first-time riders lose their lunch. We promise that the exhiliration you'll feel at the sensations far outweigh the unpleasant consequences of this occurrence. After tossing you around relentlessly, the Guitar track begins an extended series of punctuated rises and falls that continue through the rest of the ride. Some riders report feeling dizzy at the bottoms of these falls; this side-effect is rather simply mitigated if you just stop holding your breath."

"You'll notice as you progress along the 'Grapefruit' that the attraction features another riderless track we like to call the Drum track. The Drum track is frankly going to scare the shit out of you, and you're not even riding on it. Even we're not entirely sure by what tricks of engineering the Drum track is so chaotic, seeming to collide into the Guitar track repeatedly yet managing to coexist within a single structure. Entire university physics departments have been forced into retirement trying to figure this out, so you don't stand a chance. In fact, a large part of the pleasure of the 'Grapefruit' experience - and we've got the testimonials from fanatical repeat riders to prove it - derives from this inscrutable interaction. Or, as we like to say, it's best just to sit back and enjoy the ride."

"The third component of the 'Grapefruit' is the vocal accompaniment. Our audience research suggests that this aspect of the ride is completely negligible to about half our riders. The other half report that trying to figure out the words of the vocal accompaniment provides them the correct amount of detachment to properly enjoy the whole Guitar-Drum track thing without getting so sucked into it that they freak out. We here at Marnie Stern World pride ourselves in packing our attractions with maximum punch, and are pleased that something as singular as the 'Grapefruit' still lends itself to a multitude of experiences."

"By now you've reached the front of the line and you're ready to strap into the 'Grapefruit.' We share your excitement, and even a bit of your needless dread if you're a first-time rider. And we can all but guarantee that you'll be back for the experience many more times, whether this is your first or your hundredth."

11. Animal Collective - Fireworks
10. Of Montreal - She's a Rejecter
9. El-P - Run the Numbers
8. The National - Mistaken for Strangers
7. !!! - Sweet Life
6. M.I.A. - Bird Flu
5. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Our Change into Rain is No Change at All
4. Frog Eyes - Reform the Countryside
3. Dälek - Starved for Truth
2. Shining - ASA NISI MASA
1. Battles - Atlas

In addition to fleshing those out considerably, I'll also be posting at some point soon my 10 favorite live shows of '07. And then, finally, onward to '08 - which will start with my review of Radiohead's In Rainbows. (Yes, I know I could have downloaded it a couple months ago. But I'm a CD collector, and it came out on CD in the US on January 1st. Thereby making it an '08 release as far as I'm concerned).