My Top Records of 2007

In every publication I read, I was continually reminded about what a great year 2007 was for music, especially indie rock/post-punk/post-polka/anything-from-Brooklyn/anything-from-Berlin/etc.
All year I thought to myself, these critics are wrong. THIS YEAR SUCKS. But upon assembling my list, I found that I indeed enjoyed far too many albums released in 2007, and my constant internal nagging has been dead wrong. Again, I proved to myself, what do I know about [partying or] anything [else] (I'm patting myself on the back for my sly Black Flag reference... 21 years after they broke up... Yey for references).

Top 10 honorable mention albums, in no particular order:

10. Of Montreal- "Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer?
9. Robert Pollard- "Coast to Coast Carpet of Love"
8. They Might Be Giants- "The Else"
7. Deerhunter- "Cryptograms"
6. Blonde Redhead "23"
5. Bright Eyes "Cassadaga"
4. MIA "Kala"
3. Handsome Furs "Plague Park"
2. Circus Devils "Sgt. Disco"
1. The Twilight Sad "Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters"

Best re-release/collection/Thank you Jesus for releasing it from your grasp album:
-Young Marble Giants "Colossal Youth and Collected Works"

Top 10 Records I'm Mad at Myself for Not Listening to Yet, in order
10. PJ Harvey "White Chalk"
9. The National "Boxer"
8. Beirut "The Flying Club Cup"
7. Low "Drums and Guns"
6. Panda Bear "Person Pitch"
5. Life Without Buildings "Live @ the Annandale Hotel
4. Frog Eyes "Tears of the Valedictorian"
3. Boat "Let's Drag Our Feet"
2. Future of the Left "Curses"
1. Radiohead "In Rainbows" (There's is no reason I should not have heard this yet. This is a prime example of my laziness. When the biggest band n the world approves a free download of their hot off the presses album, and I fill out 80% of the info on their website for it, even offering up 30 cents of my money before "X"ing out the page with thoughts of "doing it later," it only proves that I don't deserve to listen to it.)

Top 10 Disappointing albums of the year, in order:
10. Shellac "Excellent Italian Greyhound"- I've grown to have a real love/hate relationship with this album. It's Shellac's first in 7 years and I've listened to it more than almost any album I bought all year. Yet, it's far too unbalanced, chocked full of throwaways, and filled with a barrage of in-jokes. GOD I LOVE YOU, SHELLAC!

9. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "Some Loud Thunder" - After scoring what I still believe to be a well deserved 2 album spot on my 2006 list (ok, maybe 3 after hearing the rest of LCD Soundsystem's "S/T" collection), this indie blog-wet-dream band followed up their self-titled debut with a hiccup of sporadic hits and misses. I love David Fridmann's (the Flaming Lips) production though, turning this front page, up-and-coming band of stars into a lo-fi, backwoods mess.

8. Love of Diagrams "Mosaic"- After a promising 4 song EP, this full length is far too bland, full of predictable, danceable, modern day post-punk. Only a few likable songs. Boasts production from Bob Weston, of Shellac (see 10), though.

7. New Pornographers "Challengers"- The New Pornos 4th album is full of forced melodies and yawn inducing, anthemic ballads compared to the hyper charged melodies of their 3 previous Matador albums. Their 4 cd box set idea was cool though.

6. The Shins "Wincing the Night Away"- I never liked this band, but Zach Braff does.

5. Thurston Moore "Trees Outside the Academy"- Finally, this Sonic Youth heartthrob follows up his 1995 solo effort, "Psychic Hearts," with a proper album of songs rather than ambient drones or avant-garde earfucking that he's been releasing as half-assed, artsy solo albums for years. Yet, this annoyed me more than it soothed my urge for a listenable Thurston album. This just proves that without the fellow Youth's to help round out the songs, Moore writes annoyingly hooky songs full of simple riffs and lame lyrics disguised as poetic and hip.

4. The Fall "Reformation: Post TLC"- The Fall's 4857th album. What did I expect? Well, after the entire band left band-leader, Mark E. Smith, stranded in a hotel room in Phoenix, AZ on a US tour a week before recording this album, I let my expectations fall below sea level. After hearing it, I should have lowered it substantially.

3. Dillinger Escape Plan "Ire Works"- Dillinger's "Calculating Infinity" may stand as the high water mark of indie metal music/math rock of the '90's but their follow-ups, "Miss Machine", and this piece of head scratching, is a great indication those days are long gone. I do admire the fact that about 7 of the 13 songs are under 2 minutes long. But the Faith No More rip-off songs are downright laughable when juxtaposed to anything off of "Calculating Infinity."

2. Ted Leo/Pharmacists "Living With the Living"- Ted Leo has been one of my favorite songwriters for a few years now. But this man has single handedly managed to give every album a lame album name and cover art. This one manages the holy trinity: lame name, lame art, lame songs.

1. Modest Mouse "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank"- Remember when Modest Mouse was good? Even as far back to their universe shattering "Good News For People Who Like Bad News" album, I still loved them. When they were "floating on" through dorm hallways across the US, I still found them head and shoulder above many. But with this one, blahhh. I'm sick of Isaac Brock singing every song like he's a backwoods pirate. And stop trying to rip-off Tom Waits. There are other bands that do it much better. Despite listening to this album about 8 times, I couldn't tell you how a single song sounded if you held a dick to my ear.


TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2007:

10. Liars "Liars"- Their first album was full of angular, Les Savy Fav-esque, dance-punk. Their second album was an eclectic, droning, electro death set of songs with a backbeat. Their third album was European inspired feedback and tribal drums. This one, took all three, gargled them in the mouth of a club DJ on meth and spit it into a child's mouth. That's why I like this album.

9. Bill Callahan "Woke on a Whaleheart" Ditching is moniker of Smog, Bill Callahan released his first official solo album on Drag City Records this year. Recorded by Steve Albini, this record resembles some of Will Oldham's Albini recorded albums. Meditative folk with abrasively heavy drums and strange noises coming out of left field. Fittingly crammed with perfectly pristine and innocent songs, this one flew under the radars of most critics. This is the album to put on while you lay on the hood of your car, drinking Pabst, on an early, cloudless, Spring night. I've never done this, however.

8. Dinosaur Jr. "Beyond"- After kicking out Lou Barlow in 1988, and ditching drummer Murph, in '92, J. Mascis has reunited the original trio from the '80's and released a comeback record. Five years ago, comeback records were fodder for music snob punch lines. But after success the success of Mission of Burma, Slint, The Pixies, etc., Dinosaur Jr.'s "Beyond" found the band falling right in place, somewhere after "Bug" and before "Where You Been." I still hate guitar solos, unless J. Mascis plays it over his saccharine coated garage rock. Barlow's songs are awesome on this one too.

7. Arcade Fire "Neon Bible"- Everyone knows the hype around this band. When their debut, "Funeral", came out, everyone gave their babies to Satan for a listen. I ate it up too. However, I began to loose my love for the album and only purchased "Neon Bible" with a shrug and a "maybe I'll listen to it tomorrow." Tomorrow, the album kicked me in the fucking face. WAY better than "Funeral," "Neon Bible" knows exactly what it's doing, creating mountainous hooks that wash up unexpectedly before turning into a novel idea: actual musical emotion!

6. Spoon "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"- Spoon, like Arcade Fire, is another band I like, but don't love. With the release of "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga", like AF's "Neon Bible", I showed little interest. Spoon's previous album "Gimme Fiction" left me disappointed and critical of the band's endless pit of praise. Yet, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" turned out the be all the potential the band was said to posses, squeezed relentlessly in a juicer, and given to Ethiopian children for X-mas.

5. Les Savy Fav "Let's Stay Friends"- After threatening break-ups and the release of an all-instrumental, ambient, mood music album, Les Savy Fav returned with a true knife in the heart; an album that blows their last one, "Go Forth", out of the bath tub and into the ocean. "Let's Stay Friends" offers a slice of every piece of the pie that Les Savy Fav's been baking since their debut "3/5". Tightly wound bass lines, jammed in between on-the-dime-drumming, stirred in with the explosive vocals of Tim Harrington, equals possibly the best Les Savy Fav album of the eternity.

4. The White Stripes "Icky Thump"- Is it not cool to like The White Stripes anymore? Well then fuck you. "Icky Thump" brings my imaginary friends Meg and Jack White back into my chipped, golden locket that I wear tightly around my neck. From start to finish, Jack White revisits the best moments from "De Stijl" and "White Blood Cells" and injects them with a shot of Stooges fuzz and the clatter of a hardware store falling apart.

3. Battles "Mirrored"- After flittering with us, one EP after another, the band of math/electronic-blip rockers finally released their first full length and it drove me wild. After hearing their single "Atlas", I waited moths to finally buy the album, jumping around like a kid holding in gallons of piss. This impressive super group finally made an album that balances organic rock with Apple computer trickery that tons of pretentious assholes in Brooklyn have been sucking cock to make for years, but never quite achieve.

2. LCD Soundsystem "Sound of Silver"- LCD Soundsystem is James Murphy. He's nearing 40. He owns more records than Jesus. He waxed philosophical about Daft Punk playing at his house and how it felt to loose his edge. He recorded a 45 minute song for Nike. He faced an exile from jealous friends and fans. Then he released "Sound of Silver," the only album to that makes me crave the E I've never taken, dance till dawn while sweating bullets, weep in a deep state of blossoming joy, and burn it for my friends with a crazed look in my bloodshot eye. This sounds like the records you always read about that were supposed to be influential in the early '80's.

1. Sunset Rubdown "Random Spirit Lover"- The opening track, "Mending of the Gown", starts up with a riff and Jerry Lee Lewis piano pounding that immediately starts the intensity bar at 7. But the song continues to crescendo. Mounting and mounting. Intensity hits 9. Then 10. Then winds up somewhere around 18. It's the best opening track I've ever heard in my life. A side project has no right to be this good. Solo efforts from band members of great bands is simply not aloud in this solar system. Look at Ringo Starr. But, Spencer Krug has become my new indie rock obsession. A member of Wolf Parade (whose album "Apologies to the Queen Mary", stood as my 1 album of 2005), his solo band Sunset Rubdown (whose album "Shut Up I'm Dreaming" was my number 11 album of 2006), turned 2007 on its ear and made many a bad day worth living. Last year, I voted The Thermals "The Blood, the Body, the Machine" into the 1 spot for its celebration of drums, bass, guitar punk rock, as I complained about the overreaching of indie bands today. Sunset Rubdown is the perfect antidote for the lapse in creative focus and completion in many indie albums today. It's about as grandiose as Mozart climbing Everest whiling repainting the Mona Lisa. Sunset Rubdown takes you on a twisted ride of pirate-folk, haunted house carnival anthems, and jug swigging, accordion fueled, weepy ballads. This is a revolution, so why isn't anyone else listening but me?