This is all I thought about at work today. Here we go, my top 15 albums of 2007:
15. "Grinderman" by Grinderman - Nick Cave just lost his mind, but I guess it's all relative...
14. "Graduation" by Kanye West - Even his worst album is one of the best rap albums ever.
13. "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" by Miranda Lambert - 2007 was another banner year for psychotic country woman!
12. "The Stage Names" by Okkervil River - Bonus points for making "Sloop John B" sound like a suicide letter (you have to hear it...)
11. "Person Pitch" by Panda Bear - This album is good proof that people in Baltimore do lots of drugs; like we needed proof.
10. "Year-Zero" by Nine Inch Nails - Doing a political album about how George W. Bush is destroying humanity was a great idea for Trent Reznor!
9. "Children Running Through" by Patty Griffin - If you listen to this album start to finish, at least songs will make you cry; if not, you have no heart.
8. "Kala" by MIA - This album is great by being just plain ridiculous. One song uses a birdcall in the beat, and it gets weirder.
7. "Young Modern" by Silverchair - No band (besides the Flaming Lips) has improved so much in the past 15 years; they grew out of the crappy grunge music.
6. "Sounds Of Silver" by LCD Soundsystem - Finally, an album to dance and mope to at the same time.
5. "Magic" by Bruce Springsteen - His best album in 25 years. Long live the Boss.
4. "Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire - They're just getting started.
3. "Boxer" by The National - I love this band; they gain some respect by doing a loud rock album and then gain more respect by doing a dark, depressing acoustic album about urban alienation. God bless them.
2. "In Rainbows" by Radiohead - This album is beautiful enough to make everybody forget about the last two they put out, and the internet donation this was brilliant.
1. "Civilians" by Joe Henry - I think my obsession with this guys music might last a long time. This is the artist I'm going to force everybody to listen to for now on.
I bought so many CDs this year, I have a 5 worst CDs of 2007 list:
5. "Wincing The Night Away" by The Shins - This band's peak came and went very quickly; time to quit guys.
4. "Our Love To Admire" by Interpol - Interpol decided they want to sound like the Arcade Fire. I don't know why that sounded like a good idea to anybody.
3. "A Weekend In The City" by Bloc Party - What happens when a punk band decide they want to be the next Coldplay? Another crappy idea I paid to hear.
2. "Alright, Still" by Lily Allen - A lot of critics think this girl is brilliant. A lot of critics need to be shot.
1. "Cassadaga" by Bright Eyes - Overproduced, overdone instrumentation, poor sequencing, poor lyric writing, songs that drag on for three minutes too long... this album has everything that can I hate about music. His last album was a masterpiece; what happened? Curse...
2007 was a deep year; I'll probably find albums that I missed. Let's hope I have just as much money to blow on music this year.
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4 comments:
I guess the point is that you don't intentionally buy a lot of truly shitty music, so the worst albums section has to be taken with a grain of salt.
I thought "Wincing" was just okay but not offensively bad, it's the kind of thing I'll put on when I'm doing homework because it's calm and hummable.
"Cassadega" has a few great moments and a few mediocre ones. Oberst's worst work suffers in comparison to his best, but still has a lot going for it in my opinion. I think what's happening here is that he's growing up as a person, and that is incredibly awkward and it's expressing itself, somewhat sloppily, in his music. Because, come on, "Lifted" is amazing, but holy fucking whiny teenager.
There were a lot of worse records in 2007 than "Wincing The Night Away" and "Cassadaga", but to me, high expectations make a record truly bad. I wouldn't have disliked the albums so much if I didn't absolutely love "Chutes Too Narrow" and "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning". Come on guys, I know you can do better.
Really? MIA? I don't get why people love her... she's generic in her rhymes, and even with the weird sound effects, her beats are generic as well.
Young Modern is also awful. Freak show was a good rock album, if entirely predictable. Neon Ballroom was a good and experimental album. This new one... it's crap. It's indie-style, wanna-be radiohead horribleness. Sorry, I can't get behind that recommendation either.
Mike: I think I have a soft spot for MIA because she is so different. This album makes me wish that there was more inovation in both hip-hop music and electronic. There are a few misses on this album, but I give her a lot of credit for being a real original.
As for Silverchair, I'll agree with anybody who says the lyric-writing is bad, but I love everything else about this album. You really have to have a taste for British pop music to enjoy this one (even though they are Australian).
Well, these albums aren't for everybody.
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