2007 Albums :: My Top 30
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After a slow start 2007 turned into a pretty good year in music. True, there were few true masterpieces. There certainly were disappointments: Arcade Fire, Interpol, New Pornographers, Nine Black Alps, Queens Of The Stone Age, Radiohead, Shins, and White Stripes all can do better than the records they released this year. (And please don't bring back the painful memory of the new Stooges record.) There certainly was a lot of Brit pop the only question concerning which is just how generic it is. (Arctic Monkeys surprised me pleasantly with a record much superior to their boring and laddish debut.) But on the whole there was a broad range of very good stuff, certainly enough for a music junkie to go from one new thrilling fix to another. And it was a spectacularly good year in noise pop, even if the pool was somewhat narrow.
I listened to about 130 albums that were released in 2007. I found roughly 30 of them to be worth singling out. My selection and ordering is some non-algorithmic function of: what appealed to me (even if I recognize that it's overdone, like the Editors record); what I listened to a lot; what I thought was original or interesting, or else noteworthy in some well-trodden genre; and what I judged to have high musical quality even if I myself couldn't really get into it (looking at you, Radiohead). What this kind of rag bag of criteria tells you is that the ordering might not be very stable, and some other week I might make different selections towards the bottom of the list. (Token selections of hip hop, electronica, freak folk, Americana, and a few other genres shine by their absence because including them would be just a fake diversity effort on my part.)
1. The National: Boxer2. Ceremony: Disappear2. A Place To Bury Strangers: S/T4. Les Savy Favy: Let's Stay Friends5. Red Dons: Death To Idealism6. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga7. Editors: An End Has A Start8. PJ Harvey: White Chalk9. Grinderman: S/T10. Arctic Monkeys: Favourite Worst Nightmare11. Richard Hawley: Lady's Bridge12. Field Music: Tones Of Town13. Blonde Redhead: 2314. Jesu: Conqueror15. Dax Riggs: We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love16. The Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters17. Radiohead: In Rainbows18. David Kilgour: The Far Now19. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: 100 Days, 100 Nights20. Midnight Movies: Lion The Girl21. Witchcraft: The Alchemist22. The Ponys: Turn The Lights Out23. Arcade Fire: Neon Bible24. Sweatmaster: Animal25. Electrelane: No Shouts, No Calls26. Klaxons: Myths Of The Near Future27. Interpol: Our Love To Admire28. Maximo Park: Our Earthly Pleasures29. My Teenage Stride: Ears Like Golden Bats30. The Noisettes: What's The Time Mr. Wolf?
I listened to about 130 albums that were released in 2007. I found roughly 30 of them to be worth singling out. My selection and ordering is some non-algorithmic function of: what appealed to me (even if I recognize that it's overdone, like the Editors record); what I listened to a lot; what I thought was original or interesting, or else noteworthy in some well-trodden genre; and what I judged to have high musical quality even if I myself couldn't really get into it (looking at you, Radiohead). What this kind of rag bag of criteria tells you is that the ordering might not be very stable, and some other week I might make different selections towards the bottom of the list. (Token selections of hip hop, electronica, freak folk, Americana, and a few other genres shine by their absence because including them would be just a fake diversity effort on my part.)
1. The National: Boxer2. Ceremony: Disappear2. A Place To Bury Strangers: S/T4. Les Savy Favy: Let's Stay Friends5. Red Dons: Death To Idealism6. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga7. Editors: An End Has A Start8. PJ Harvey: White Chalk9. Grinderman: S/T10. Arctic Monkeys: Favourite Worst Nightmare11. Richard Hawley: Lady's Bridge12. Field Music: Tones Of Town13. Blonde Redhead: 2314. Jesu: Conqueror15. Dax Riggs: We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love16. The Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters17. Radiohead: In Rainbows18. David Kilgour: The Far Now19. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: 100 Days, 100 Nights20. Midnight Movies: Lion The Girl21. Witchcraft: The Alchemist22. The Ponys: Turn The Lights Out23. Arcade Fire: Neon Bible24. Sweatmaster: Animal25. Electrelane: No Shouts, No Calls26. Klaxons: Myths Of The Near Future27. Interpol: Our Love To Admire28. Maximo Park: Our Earthly Pleasures29. My Teenage Stride: Ears Like Golden Bats30. The Noisettes: What's The Time Mr. Wolf?
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