2007 Albums: 1-5

5. Radiohead - In Rainbows

The first few seconds of this album, just after I'd finally been able to buy it from the bogged-down In Rainbow website, formed a pit in my stomach. Computery, refracted beats, sparseness, ghostly Yorke voice. Nobody really knew what this album would sound like, and it came out of nowhere, but I think a lot of us didn't want it to sound like that.

Then that gently sliding guitar, a warm, almost cozy sound. It was enveloping. "15 Step" may be one of my least favorite tracks on the album--it's not really even a song--but that single riff went a long way for me in establishing the mood. The emotions on the record are real again, instead of antiseptic and hospitalized.

I was a huge OK Computer fan, and never got into one of their later albums the same way. But moments of songs from In Rainbows have lodged in my brain and authored entire afternoons of feeling. Can this be an experience I'm actually having? Listening to Radiohead this late in their career? There are some downright heartfelt emotions here. It's a serious pleasure being allowed to hear a band as good as they are just sit down without too much cerebral overshadow, and create transcendent songs and play them.

4. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

Was Animal Collective seriously on Conan O'Brien? National television?

As much of a mystery as Animal Collective is, this year provided some glimpse into their music-making process with the solo releases of Avey Tare and Panda Bear, their two lead singers. After Person Pitch came out, we were all astounded, and thought that maybe Panda Bear really was the genius in AC. Avey Tare's solo album with wife was fine, but nowhere near as astounding as Panda Bear's. But then out came Strawberry Jam, and Avery Tare is all over it. His vocals are the most compelling part and carry the album, not to mention anchor "For Reverend Green," the albums centerpiece.

"For Reverend Green. " Enough said. Just keep listening to that song over and over, until it becomes a spiritual experience. When I saw them play it live at South St. Seaport with the sun setting and the Brooklyn Bridge behind them, it did for me. But seriously, that song is ridiculous. It established why Avey Tare is such a talented vocalist, for one, (or at the very least totally original) because he makes that song work and no one else could ever sing it. Panda Bear somehow comes through with more astonishing tracks: I love "Derek," the lost Person Pitch song, a song which codified the feelings I had toward my childhood golden retriever, and her death two years ago. #1, the song they played on Conan, demonstrates well why AC needs both singers: the airy Panda Bear background as a setting for the rough-edged snap of Avey Tare. I think this is their best behind Sung Tongs, which will always astound and inspire me because it was the first thing I heard and when I realized music could do things I'd never realized.

3. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

For some reason, I was diligently checking almost every morning for this album to leak, moreso than anything else this year. I became a man obsessed. I joined a Spoon forum and got message board updates in my email inbox. I tried desperately to score an account with Oink. I read commentaries when the cover leaked, people finding out where the photograph comes from and what it might mean about the music therein. I remember vividly the day that one track, “Ghost of You Lingers” leaked, and I put on headphones at 4pm in the office, and listened to it with my eyes closed. I kept waiting for the band to join in with the persistent, horror-film piano and Britt’s ghostly falsetto--and then, suddenly, the song was over. I was suddenly very, very nervous about the new Spoon album.

I was even more nervous when I did hear it, and the first song, “Don’t Make Me a Target,” came on. It’s kind of a weird song, the tempo seems off somehow, and, for lack of a better description, it just kinda sounds like Spoon. But like all of their albums, the more you abuse it, the better it becomes. Which is of course what happened with this one.

I literally get butterflies listening to songs on this album. As soon as a track starts, I want it to play faster, quickly, all at once because I’m too impatient for the good parts to get here already. I want to hear all the little studio tricks, all the accumulated moments that make a Spoon album as rewarding the 39th time you listen to it as the first, more so.


2. Jens Lekman - Nights Over Kortedela

Jens, how is this accomplished? How do you consistently write songs this perfectly pitched between joy and sadness, make them totally singable, and throw in lines any other singer would sound like a bafoon uttering? How can a song contain all these emotions and, through the virtue of their absolute and perfect balance, never feel weighed down?

Elin and I saw Jens this year and it was, quite surprisingly, among the best shows I've ever seen. I didn't think the songs would really benefit all that much from a live setting, and Jens wouldn't have his studio to tinker in. But he was friendly, infectiously humble, and basically just played and played and told stories that were as goofy as they were profound. I also got to hear the full story of "Postcards to Nina." This wasn't a high-energy affair, no one was sweating and having palpitations, but the crowd called him out for a triple encore before the venue made him get off the stage. He then told the crowd that he'd be out in a minute and he hoped that we could all keep singing and playing somewhere else. I didn't wait around--I wanted to leave with the warm feeling intact--but somehow it was such an authentic gesture, and not hippyish like it sounds.

And then there's the production, a wonder of samples and subtlety. The bizarrely perfect use of beats, which are as well-constructed and labored over as on a hip-hop album.

I debated with myself for awhile about whether this belonged in front of or behind the following album. They're just so different. Ah, I'm still not sure.

1. Panda Bear - Person Pitch

I heard "Bros" last year and forced Nick and Austin to listen to it when we played our top five songs of 2006 for each other. I think it came after Austin played some fast, beat-heavy song that he used to work out to. Then I put on "Bros," that starts with an owl hoot and needless to say, we didn't make it through all 12 minutes of it.

I think I know what the problem was--you're supposed to listen to Panda Bear alone. Yes, it's a headphones album, so that contributes. But all my feelings about this album are tied to very private experiences. "Bros" reminds me of snow falling, which is probably because the first time I heard it, I was walking around some Brooklyn brownstones at night and snow was falling softly all over the city, Joyce-style. It was one of the most beautiful and profound moments I've ever had in New York City. I felt utterly alone and utterly connected to the universe, etc., etc.. Another time I was alone one night and put "Ponytail" on repeat and fell asleep to it, and had dreams that were dreams I needed to have, and I woke up with a better understanding of myself. Last month, I woke up in the middle of the night having a bizarre panic attack while traveling, and feeling very, very confusedly unsettled. Nothing would put my mind to rest but "Search for Delicious."

I don't know why this is, why Panda Bear and Animal Collective in general are able to create these musical moments. Perhaps they just give us an abstract musical space to project our own fears, thoughts, dreams. But they really are artists, and this is really meaningful music.

2007 Albums: 6-10

10. Okkervil River - The Stage Names

Unlike Mike and Austin, I didn't love Black Sheep Boy, despite its supposed positive qualities like wrenching heartbreak and authentic depression. Both Nick and I tried to get into it, but the only song we seemed to like was the opening track, a quiet little ditty that the band didn't even write. Maybe it was the exuberance of living in New York, where depression doesn't manifest itself quietly, but in loud, self-destructive behavior, Walkmen's "The Rat" style. The album just seemed dusty and distant. So it was a relief when the opening cut on The Stage Names began with the sound of palm-muted guitar strings keeping a quick beat, which gives way to loud, raucous singing and the occasional "woo hoo!" The second song doesn't slow down either, and suddenly Okkervil River is a confident band with gusto, without losing any of the literary qualities--there are characters and personas all over the album. Generally the idea of a literary songwriter bugs me--it comes off pretentious and fake and just hackneyed, but I really don't feel that way about Okkervil River. It's honest rather than pretentious, while maintaining the mystery of storytelling which is the reason we're drawn to it in the first place.

9. Liars - Liars

The Liars convinced me of their greatness with their last album, Drum's Not Dead, an experience of sheer power. It still gives me chills. Shapeless and unformed, it was nonetheless acutely emotional and wrenching. I loved it for its abstract qualities, its hugeness and its violence. If a band can go from sprawling abstractness to straightforward rock song structures, as they do with this year's release, Liars, without losing any of their power, it's a serious achievement. The probably dared each other to write regular songs and see what happened. This happened. The first track is loud and angry, incredibly good, but a fairly normal song, though made to sound powerful and desolate by the nature of the band playing it. But then "Houseclouds," the second track? It's a pop song. Who is this, Beck? Nevetheless, this two-punch is among the best moments on an album in 2007. Throughout, the songs are pretty paced, and they don't indulge in long instrumental sections, staying true to some variation of punk, garage, or pop rock form. But the fact that it's the Liars performing them makes all the difference. They can't help but do it better than anyone else.


8. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

It wasn't really possible for them to live up to the expectation. What album by any band possibly could? The depths of childhood and personal tragedy had already been mined; how many times can a band do that? Funeral meant something different to all of us because it was such a personal album, and we all took it personally. Neon Bible found them going in the opposite direction, into larger themes and sweeping ideas, and trying to sound like The Boss. It's a noble goal, oft-failed, and "Antichrist Television Blues" was perhaps the most emotionally powerful song of 2007 that was at the same time universal--what a work of art should do, represent the large in the small. That was the highlight of the album, along with "Intervention," at least lyrically. I think they have a lot that's interesting to say about religion in America (or Canada, I suppose), things that need to be said and explored, and they have the gusto and musical power to do so. Other parts of the album were musically exciting--but overall it's not a cohesive album. Maybe they got too big, too ambitious, too risking of melodrama. They could only make it work on half the songs. But those highlights are enough to carry it well into the ten best of the year.

7. The National - Boxer

People always say that the first time you listen to The National, it's just a really boring experience. A sleepy baritone singer slurs his lyrics out over quiet, mid-tempo piano songs, and it just makes you want to fall asleep. But I had the opposite thing happen: the gorgeous first track, "Fake Empire," sound like it's lit from within. A textbook piano riff gets a sleepy sheen as Matt Berninger sings about being half-awake and spiking his lemonade with some mysterious lover to go apple picking. The song--and the whole album--remind me of that hour of day when the night is ending and the morning is beginning, halfway between two worlds, the late-night revelers and the morning commuters. Things are half-lit, nostalgic, boozy, with a slight headache creeping in. I also just happen to think it's one of the most beautiful things released this year.


6. LCD Soundsystem - Sounds of Silver

"I'm not charismatic or particularly talented...I'm not Bowie. I'm not Eno. I'm not Lou Reed reinventing rock. I'm just a fucking dude with a band, but I fucking take it seriously. ...Don't play a show with us and then bring your fucking B-game and phone it in and pose and pull a bunch of rock bullshit moves and emote and shit like that because I'll punch you in the fucking face. That's bullshit. When I see bands, they just roll over and think it's OK, like, "You go, man! You guys are crazy!" And then they go and they play, and I'm just like, "Holy shit, dude, seriously look at yourself! You're a fucking burlap sack full of somebody else's gestures!"

Two years ago I almost broke my ankle falling down the stairs on the way to see James Murphy DJ, because I was so drunk and excited. But I feel like that small physical ailment is only a fraction of the physical and emotional martyrdom that James Murphy puts into LCD Soundsystem. I read this interview with James Murphy while listening to the first three songs of Sound of Silver--especially that long building opening to "Get Innocuous"--and I was pretty sure nobody was going to come out with a better album this year. James Murphy is a huge, bear-like badass, is a fast-talking nutcase, and he makes immediately fantastic, danceable music--not aping but inhabiting and reimagining entire past eras of music. There's this whole other side of Sound of Silver that was nowhere on his earlier stuff--affecting emotion. He's stopped ad-libbing lyrics on the fly and started writing them, and it makes the music more meaningful. Not that the getting-old thing on "All My Friends" makes much personal sense to me, but you can feel the weight to the songs, and that wobbly, repeated one-handed piano part is stunning. He just manages to create a basically perfect album without a single bad moment. I'm sure when I'm 35 this will all make more sense to me.

2007 Albums: 11-15

15. Kanye West - Graduation

Thank God, he's learning that skits aren't fun or cool! In their place, we get Kanye's most cohesive collection to date, both accessible and smart enough to have staying power (as always) and, if it were even possible, tighter in production and sampling. Even if there aren't the all-out wow moments that made our mouths drop the first time through Late Registration, i.e. Gold Digger, there is a more rounded, compact quality to this one, that's more consistent and cohesive. Minus the Mos Def song. And he's working on that recurring criticism, his flow--I think it's getting better. I like the synths stuff on "Flashing Lights" and that he explores new territory constantly (well, musical territory, anyway). I'll always listen to Kanye because he's relentlessly creative and has fun at the same time, an unusual quality.

14. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha

As you all know, Andrew Bird's last album floored me completely and was second only to Sufjan in 2005's list. His highly intelligent writing style, personal aesthetic, and overall ear for melody and harmony has always impressed me. This time around all these gifts are present, and he seems also to be aiming persistently for accessibility. You get a sense that these songs are more radio-friendly, a little more traditional in structure, and, for that reason, only just slightly less personally authentic. I listened to this album over and over, waiting for the spell that overcame me listening to Mysterious Production of Eggs; it never came. This record has some unbelievable highlights. Scythian Empires is a gorgeous, quietly political song with a repeating one-handed piano piece and plucking violins; his gentle philosophizing lyrics in Dark Matter are still here ("Do you wonder where the self resides / Is it in the head or between your sides / And who would be the one who will decide / Its true location?"). So liked this album very, very much, but never passed over to love. There's still no one doing anything like Andrew Bird.


13. The Tough Alliance - A New Chance

A mix of unpredictable beatscapes and youthful vocals made this album irresistible the first time I heard it; its appeal has only increased. The unusual vocal sampling and instrumentation have yielded more unexpected surprises with every listen. There's something about dancepop that's impossible for me to dislike. This is a Swedish duo of childhood friends, who are Jens Lekman's favorite band, which is good enough for me. They're also famous for their somewhat confrontational personalities and aggressive, supposedly Situationist politics. That all seems to be lost on me, and perhaps lost in the carefree music--Situationist ideas were always a pose anyway. They've also been accused of promoting anarchy and violence, which just seems absurd. Perhaps this line from "Neo Violence" is apt: "Truly sorry thought you'd get the wink, it's in our nature to be out of sync."

12. No Age - Weirdo Rippers

It takes about almost two and a half minutes into the first song for this L.A. punk band to do much of anything but create fuzz. There are two sheets of guitar sound swaying back and forth, one calming and watery, the other persistent and melodic. A symbol gets agitated here and there, and the stray drumbeat enters (the band has no bass player). It sounds shoegaze, but there's a potent jaggedness to things. Then out of the blue they rip into this guitar-and-drum thing and yell some stuff using processed vocals, and quit a minute later.

It sounds like an indulgent, stupid project, but instead it's really good. Throughout the rest of their 32 minute album, the tidal guitars of shoegaze are crunched up and juxtaposed with punk drumming, and the results are strangely brilliant. Their big sprawling epic, Dead Planes, clocks in at a long-winded 4:12, and the first 2/3 of the song is spent creating a formless mess of guitars and disconnected drums. But it's the perfect example of their long-drone-short-burst aesthetic that works so well, and when the song comes together, it all seems inevitable.

11. Feist - The Reminder

It’s always hard figuring out where to put your long-haul favorites from the year, those albums that you got into early on and which, though they might lack the shiny appeal of bands you’ve discovered in the last month in the all-out listening-sprint that is required for writing a top 25 list, are nonetheless great. I’ve loved Feist since Let It Die showed up at WGRE in 2004, to when I saw her with like 50 people in 2005, to when I saw her with 5000 people in Williamsburg this year. She makes totally delightful yet lasting music that goes down easy but has enough charm to stick around. And that voice. Airy, heady, weathered and surprisingly expressive, especially on cuts like Intuition and So Sorry, the more low-key minimal-production tracks. But who could deny that 1,2,3,4 isn’t one of the most fun songs of 2007? Clean fun! She’s all over my top 25 most played of 2007, and for good reason.

2007 Albums: 16-20

20. !!! - Myth Takes

What I love about Myth Takes is its kind of amateurish vibe. He can't really sing very well, for one. And the band doesn't seem all that good about realizing when they've got a good hook on their hands--they often throw one away when they should be basing a whole song around it. Instead, the tracks are crowded with too many ideas, too many new beats and directions, not enough focus. But that's also the reason I like it--all this adds up to exuberance, and if not exuberance, an infectious ADD. Horns duetting with retro-sounding synths over a disco beat? The album pulses with life. But then they do stupid things like spend 8 minutes on "Bend over Beethoven," a relatively uninteresting bit of music, and chop off the next track, "Break in Case of Anything," at 4 minutes, when it should have been built into an epic event. Ah well.


19. Black Kids - Wizard of Ahhs EP

Create a flawless four-song EP with ridiculous potential, and make it exceedingly fun--that’s an immediate place on my list. These guys are apparently blogworld darlings, going from nothing to hype in no time flat, but I don’t read that many music blogs. I don’t remember how I ended up with it, but I’ve listened to all four songs too many times and can’t wait for their album. I’ll admit that they’re a half-formed thing at best, but there’s something in the freewheeling spirit that is really exciting. Kind of like a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah that you can understand. Maybe they’ll put out a good album and then utterly fail like that other conspicuously hyped band. But for now, take really great pop songs, make things a bit fuzzy with echo, add caffeine, and throw in 80s synths. Imagine a yelp like the Cure's Robert Smith, without the whine. That’s this EP.

18. M.I.A. - Kala

It’s hard to say it better than Mike did: M.I.A.’s music is amazing for relatively obvious reasons. She incredibly fun to listen to, her beats are inventive, and you feel like your horizons are expanding. The music is radical and political far beyond anything else I listen to. But the reasons that I find her original and intriguing are also the reasons I can never really connect. Her politics are mysterious. She’s like this crazy figure that’s really fun but I don’t actually understand. Not that that should be a prerogative for enjoying an artist, but it's more acute here. Seeing her in concert, for example, was enough to skyrocket her first album high on my list in 2005, but while Kala was as good or perhaps even better than Arular, I find myself less interested in returning to it as much. Maybe that’ll change and I’ll suddenly start wearing bright colors and sunglasses, but until then, this album remains more of a novelty for me. Though it's a damn good one.

17. Iron & Wine

The moment I put this album on I knew I would like it. The first few bars are all quiet, muted, and sound like Sam Beam's early bedroom folk, beautiful and ghostly. Then, "clap," and the song jumps into full-blooded flesh, drums, bass, and Beam's breathy, harmonized voice voice. I think it's a subtle nod to his past while reminding us that his music loses little and gains much with a band behind him. None of the intimacy is lost. Throughout the album the instrumentation complements his natural hush, and even the watery vocal effect on "Carousel" works beautifully. He's not afraid of sonic ambition as a folk artist and singer-songwriter, which makes him consistently interesting, and probably the only artist of that type that I listen to. And his literary talent on songs like Resurrection Fern allows him to write perhaps the most heartbreaking song of the year.

16. Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbal

I swear the first time I heard this, I thought it was a lost Talk Talk album. That blend of high-pitched vocals, frail and yet full of lung power, the spaciousness, the indescribable communal feeling that you also get when listening to Animal Collective, especially Sung Tongs. Then "2080" came on, the third track, and my mouth dropped. The verse carried on by a persistent bass drum and tinny guitar, and then all of a sudden the chorus, "Its a new year I'm glad to be here," and the song has become achingly beautiful. THEN, at 2:50, everything gets even bigger, and they band starts to sound like they're singing around a campfire, and other people are hearing the music and joining the anthem. There's this whole gospel element to it. And just when you think it can't get any larger and more joyous, a group of children start singing, and the song ends in this quiet denouement.

I know this is more a review of that song that anything else, and it's certainly the highlight of the album, but if you're a fan at all of Talk Talk, Peter Gabriel, and like songs that possess a stunning melodicism with some tribal sounds and overall utter originality, please listen to this.

2007 Albums: 21-25

25. A Place to Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers

There's always some shoegaze album that I get into every year because there are times when no other music will work for my brain. When I need the obliterating effect on the mind, the droning guitars, the fuzzy vocals, thick texture, the overall indistinctness. If I'm "using" the music to suit my mood rather than listening to it for what it is, that's fine. Even so, I will say that this is far more than shoegaze derivative--their use of guitar distortion is careful, even if it sounds haphazard, and there's a haunting quality to the record, a kind of austere tension, that reminds me of Joy Division. Plus, like last year's shoegaze choice, Asobi Seksu, they're from Brooklyn.


24. Cool Kids - Totally Flossed Out EP

Ever wish hip-hop sounded more late 80s? Here's your chance. In the same way that lots of recent bands are throwbacks, the Cool Kids remind us that hip-hop used to be more fun. Their beats are purposefully low-fi, their swagger immature, their flow laconic. They characterize themselves as a black Beastie Boys, though that comparison isn't so much about sound as about a retro style, with a dash of immaturity. And for the most part, it doesn't seem ironic: it's not a skin-deep aesthetic, it's a whole mentality. All this is made more fun by their sound, which reminds me of slowed down, skewed up N.E.R.D. beats (and how's that for a cool pun: Cool Kids, Nerd beats?). In my own limited whiteboy hip-hop listening world, they're the Kanye antidote: while his production gets slicker and his songs overflow with samples to the point of nauseating saturation, the Cool Kids use their own voices and are decidedly classics. It's refreshing.

23. Battles - Mirrored

I had like a one-month love affair with this album, and then, quite suddenly, it felt like the most boring music imaginable. It's difficult to describe why this happened, but one moment they were this marriage of immense creativity with ridiculous technical proficiency, and the next, totally indulgent and uninteresting. It was totally unexpected, but I didn't know what to do, so I stopped listening for a few months. Putting together this list, I've been listening again, and I really do think it's a great album. They set up some confines for the music--literally, their album cover has the band inside a glass room--and proceed to invent endlessly within them. But it's a very limiting kind of creativity, and it leads to indulgence and frenetic results.

22. Low - Drums and Guns

I can’t speak much to where this album belongs in the progression of Low releases, which have been steady since 1993. I’m pretty new to this band, unlike some of their long-enduring fans, so I don’t have a sense of their evolving style or the slowcore movement in general. I do know that at its most basic, this is beautiful, fragile music that stands up to repeated listens. The band sounds so flimsy that a strong breeze would blow them over, as if the warm center of their music has been plucked out, yet the harmonies and quiet instrumentation keeps it all tied together. But honestly, it’s like the album is inside a freezer: the drum beats are tinny, the vocals beautiful but shaky, the tempo always even and slow, the melodies all downbeat.

Why do I love it? This might be a terrible metaphor, but it’s as if the band is a skinny, willfully quiet, possibly goth kid on the playground, who a bully likes to beat up. As a listener to the album, I feel compelled to beat it up, to call its haunting bluff. But I can’t. It’s music that I want to write off quickly, but instead keep returning to. Those weak dorky kids make bullies mad because they seem to have some secret to hide.

21. Kevin Drew - Spirit If...

I came pretty late to this album, frustratingly. When Elin and I saw Feist in concert at a giant old swimming pool turned into a concert hall in Brooklyn, Kevin Drew opened for her, but we got there too late to see him. When we got home I downloaded the album, but somehow failed to listen to it. Little did I know that there was a lost Broken Social Scene album sitting in my iTunes library.

In the frantic rush to relisten to all my 2007 albums the last month or so, I finally heard this. The characteristic “beautiful mess” that they’re always tagged with (I’m guilty)--which would eventually be an album-length haze over that 2005's Broken Social Scene--that’s here, but things are a bit more singular in focus. Its probably because Kevin is at the reins, with the rest of BSS flanking. He tries to push them into pop structures. Ironically, when he fails, and things unravel, the album is most arresting. I guess that beautiful mess thing really is the key.