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Top 10: Best Albums of
2007
By Danny
West
'In Rainbows' was one
of the best albums released last year, do you agree?
I’m late. I know it, you
know it. Not just slip-from-the-office late or casual
I-got-held-up-in-traffic late, but full on I-haven’t-started-yet scary
late. That kind of unenviable tardiness where the birthday was in August
and you still haven’t forked out for the gift in November and you’re
thinking now you should probably just give up and accept that you’ve
lost a friend. I still want to be your friend.
The trouble was twofold.
One: I’ve got to drop the initial bomb on the music coverage for
what is now Awards Circuit and I want to make it an important
one. Two: I haven’t listened to nearly enough music in 2007. For
those who haven’t noticed: I was busy covering Oscar-buzzed films.
Now I’ve caught up. The
music I’ve subjected myself to in the last two months is mind-numbing.
Literally. So before my brain completely takes a nosedive onto concrete,
here are my findings on the greatest works from last year.
The Best Albums of 2007
10. Deerhoof- Friend Opportunity
If you’re going to keep things accessible and pop, then for Christ’s
sakes don’t lose your sound in the process. It’s a fine balance beam to
walk, but the experience of Deerhoof held onto it all the way to
the end and the result is a nice compromise between what your stupid
little sister likes and what you, the pretentious listener brags about
to your college friends.
9. Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
I waited and waited for Sam Beam to buckle up and break his habit
of senseless minimalism. Although he’s always been able to paint a folky
pretty picture, I longed for the day when it could show something beyond
a country sunset or a Thoreauesque recluse basking in the beauty of
nothing but beauty. This record was what I was waiting for. The same
country sunset, only painted colors that sunsets aren’t and turned a
little sideways.
8. Kala- M.I.A
You won’t see me making room for every genre for the sake of doing so.
Everyone here has the same standards of not sucking. I won’t put in
Kanye West records because Rolling Stone does. I won’t
declare 50 Cent as an innovator because, inexplicably, other
critics do. Be original, be smart or be damned in my columns. By the
same token, I won’t persecute on the grounds of genre. Case in point:
this astounding tribal protest potpourri by M.I.A.
M.I.A. to hip hop
artists: follow me.
7. Beirut-The Flying Club Cup
Zach Condon does have a bit of indie reek about him. But in
spite, the instrumentation on Beirut’s records—and face it, with
ten band members, you’re going to have some instrumentation—gives it an
identity all its own and proves that gypsy pop can in fact work. Not
that anyone was trying to make it work, Beirut included. That’s
why it works. Savvy?
6. Feist-The Reminder
Yes, the iPod commercial was hammered into our heads ad nauseam. Yes,
the song was choked into your helpless gagging throat every time you
went out for a new pair of jeans. But punish Apple. Punish Gap. Do not
punish Feist. The album has periods of all too-straightforward
sections and why they felt like they had to make her voice sound as if
she’s in a box under the stairs I don’t know, but even with these
flaws—these glaring flaws—this record is one for the pop ages. She is
the latest ideal when it comes to catch and shoot songwriting and should
not be messed with. A band that can compose melodies that dangerous
could control the world someday.
5. New Moon- Elliott Smith
Post mortem bits are always makeshift and thatched together. Or are
they? This wonderful collection of the now not living, but always tragic
anyway songwriter actually fits together despite its circumstance and
despite its length. A feat that can’t be attained by most living
artists.
4. Panda Bear-Person Pitch
Certain parts stink so much of Pet Sounds I can’t even believe
it. Has music really not come that far in this many years? Or is a back
to basics approach necessary for decent records? Either way, if you’re
going to take from a classic in terms of sound, it isn’t a bad choice.
Right out of the case, Person Pitch has a pleasant familiarity
without the baggage of being copied and plagiarized. This isn’t the
Pet Sounds your daddy owns. It’s probably better. How do you match a
different sound and stay original at the same time? Impossible isn’t it?
Not really, but you’ll have to ask Noah Lennox how to do it.
3. Caribou- Andorra
2007 may have been the year of the independent indie electronic musician
which is great for Moby’s historical stock. It’s not for the
faint of mind and certainly not for those who demand something on the
surface. It’s flowers growing in your ear in a hurry. It’s musicianship
in the new millennium and a wonderful record to wake up and smell the
roses to.
2. Neon Bible- The Arcade Fire
Defined coherence finally appears in 2007. Although modern world fears
and neurosis are all about it seems like, even in the music nook, they
always take a backseat to the artist’s style. The fears of post-2000,
post-9/11, post-humanity are always dismembered and bent to suit whoever
is writing the songs or painting the picture or shooting the film. Not
here. The Arcade Fire shut out the world entirely and found that
they still knew it was coming to an inevitable end because of what they
saw inside themselves. Nothing about the album is unnatural and
everything about it is either urgent or hopeless. The world wrote this
record. The Arcade Fire simply performed it for us.
1. In Rainbows- Radiohead
I tried to hate this record if for no other reason than I feared it
would be acclaimed merely because Radiohead has reached that
status. There is no group of naysaying finger-waggers more stubborn and
egotistical than music critics. But so big and powerful is Radiohead
that when a critic hears them and thinks of it as subpar, they will
doublethink. There’s no way Radiohead made a bad record. There’s
no way Radiohead is wrong. I must be wrong.
This record is a continuing saga of why that mentality takes place:
because they really are that incredible. This record still travels in
the vague uncertainty of the soul, but most of the stops are in happier
places than they used to be. Songs lift the book on your kitchen table
and instead of finding car keys, you find a totally different world. It
has one foot in God knows where and the other right where you are,
making you wonder how you could possibly be standing in both of these
places at once. It has dance numbers, it has jam rock, it has dreams
you’ve had before. It has your denials and your last will and testament.
And as “Reckoner" states, it is dedicated to all human beings.
It’s another triumph, another stroke of brilliance and another time
where Radiohead does what I can’t believe they’re still able to
do: make incredible successful music without any force or compliance
with anyone but themselves.
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