Let's start talking Best Album of 2007.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

We're getting into the final quarter of the year here, so why not.

 

These are the 2007 albums I have heard thus far:

 

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Blind Cave Salamander - s/t

Blues Control - Puff

Bruce Springsteen - Magic

Celebration - The Modern Tribe

Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon

Feist - The Reminder

Fiery Furnaces - Widow City

Interpol - Our Love To Admire

The Postmarks - s/t

Nellie McKay - Obligatory Villagers

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter from the Ash

Son Volt - The Search

Sondre Lerche - Phantom Punch

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Fire Escape

White Rainbow - Prism Of Eternal Now

Windmill - Puddle City Racing Lights

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

Witchcraft - The Alchemist

Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters

 

I'm aware that it's a ridiculously safe choice, but my favorite album of the bunch is Sky Blue Sky. The more I listen to it, the more I feel happy with it (and just feel happy in general). I don't care if it's not as adventurous as previous Wilco albums, because it's just thoroughly enjoyable for me, and surely many others.

[snuffbox 0]

Will probably end up being In Rainbows.

 

As of now my vote goes to Brother Ali's 'The Truth'

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I just read about In Rainbows. Totally dope, Radiohead.

 

As for 2007: Probably Panda Bear's Person Pitch, or maybe LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver. Person Pitch keeps rising in my estimation.

[Gary Floyd 0]

I'm going with LCD Soundsystem's Sound if Silver.

 

[Nighthawk 0]

Dethalbum all the way.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Right now I'd say it's a toss-up between M.I.A's KALA, Liars' s/t and maybe Graduation. There's a few albums coming out in the next couple months which could potentially surpass these, though (In Rainbows and Widow City mainly, but I'm also naively holding out hope that Jay-Z will somehow manage to defy expectations and release something worth a shit).

[justsoyouknow 0]

Sky Blue Sky out of the ones listed. Other than that - I'll say Against Me's New Wave. You wanna fight about it?

[snuffbox 0]

I hope Chrome Dreams II ends up contending for this title.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

but I'm also naively holding out hope that Jay-Z will somehow manage to defy expectations and release something worth a shit).

I like "Blue Magic" so far, but the whole "I saw this movie and wanted to make a rap album" thing is kind of weird. Fingers crossed.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

What's with this staggered release for In Rainbows? Totally lame, Radiohead.

[snuffbox 0]

Are they even doing an in-store release?

 

The whole thing is confusing me.

 

I like every new song I've heard, though.

[Gary Floyd 0]

I really should give that Wolves in the Throne Room album a listen sometime. As far as metal goes, Weighing Souls with Sand by The Angelic Process is my favorite metal album of the year so far.

 

Radiohead's got a new one coming out? Didn't know.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

WHAT THE FUCK IT'S EIGHTY DOLLARS

[snuffbox 0]

If it's a limited release the sets will be traded for newborns on ebay.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

Okay, so you can download half the album next week for like a dollar, or you can wait till December and buy the whole album on CD, vinyl, and MP3 with a book for $80. I don't know. I like Radiohead, but even I don't think I like them enough to buy such an expensive and sprawling package. The vinyl seems especially overindulgent, but the digital download is kind of lame. I don't know why Thom feels he has to reinvent the wheel here. Just make a fuckin' album like the rest of us.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

Brief thoughts on what I've heard!

 

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha

Pleasant, clever, and esoteric, but it's in-one-ear-out-the-other coffee shop indie if you're not willing to give it repeated critical listens. I preferred The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Whatta whistler, though.

 

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Underachiever of 2007. Enough has been said by now.

 

Blind Cave Salamander

Glacial-tempo post-rock in the vein of Jonny Greenwood's Bodysong. Instrumental bar a few seconds of one track, it's good studying music, and wouldn't be entirely out of place in the background of an exhibit at the Field Museum.

 

Blues Control - Puff

Lo-fi ambient stuff that didn't really inspire me or interest me at all. I tried falling asleep with it on my headphones at a low volume (this made Portishead interesting), but no weird dreams or anything. There's the sound of a tape head in the right channel that I'm sure is meant to be there, but annoys the fuck out of me.

 

Bruce Springsteen - Magic

Treading water. Suffers from lackluster and/or inappropriate arrangements.

 

Celebration - The Modern Tribe

TV on the Radio - black + girl + organ. Production is virtually identical to Return to Cookie Mountain, approp., since it's another Dave Sitek project. "Heartbreak" could be their "Wolf Like Me."

 

Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon

I haven't given this enough time to sum it up in two sentences. Soon, though! I like what I've heard, though.

 

Feist - The Reminder

Improbably, I've grown sick of a Feist song due to commercial overexposure. It's still a good song, though, as is "Honey Honey." I miss the cool Parisian chanteuse stuff from Let It Die's second half. A lot of it still sounds like "The Girl From Ipanema," though.

 

Fiery Furnaces - Widow City

Nothing we haven't heard before.

 

Interpol - Our Love To Admire

I'm impressed with some of the more extended stuff they did on here, plus the addition of piano. It's a big development from them when they could've just gone with a holding pattern and delighted lots of people who wear lots of black.

 

The Postmarks

This is just an adorable little album and I like it bunches. It was what I wished Emily Haines's album would've been like, instead of that sustain-pedaled morass we got last September. Ringing upper-register piano, jazzy drumming, tight little brass lines in the background when needed. Very crisp and autumnal, even though the lyrics cover all four seasons and "weathering the weather with you." This album elicits warm and fuzzy feelings I haven't felt in years. I shortlisted this one before I settled on the Wilco. I guess I'm just a wuss at heart.

 

Son Volt - The Search

One of my favorite jogging/driving soundtracks of the summer, the major flaw here is that with Jay Farrar's voice a little lower in the mix than on, say, Trace, I'm prone to slip into passive listening if there's nothing compelling going on in the instrumental aspect, like the horns on the second track. Really good, though.

 

Sondre Lerche - Phantom Punch

Cool bossa nova-influenced jazz/rock stuff here, but Sondre is a Swede (or Norwegian), and I get the impression that he's never 100% invested in the lyrics he's singing. There's something distinctly foreign and ersatz about this album, like if aliens from outer space tried to make a rock album without really having a fully-formed concept of what rock music is.

 

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Fire Escape

I don't know what the hell to make of whatever this thing is, but I find it quite interesting nonetheless.

 

White Rainbow - Prism Of Eternal Now

I have a slew of ambient Eno albums, but I don't really think of them as being particularly interesting. I got more than I expected with this one, as there was a lot of interesting stuff happening, kinda quasi-krautrock and Talking Heads, in a way.

 

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

mentioned

 

Windmill - Puddle City Racing Lights

A pre-pubescent Wayne Coyne fronts the Arcade Fire to mixed results. I want to like this more, because instrumentally, it's cool, but egads, the voice.

 

Witchcraft - The Alchemist

This sounds like a time capsule from the early '70s. There's a lot of Zeppelin of the forest-gnome genus here, plus some Sabbath, Crimson, and a little bit of Rush in that last big proggy title track. Said track is the best of the lot, and the whole thing is surprisingly good because I came in with no expectations, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to revisit it.

 

Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters

I usually don't like metal, but this was pretty good stuff. Kind of operatic and atmospheric in parts. Again, because I rarely pursue metal, a pleasant surprise, insofar as metal can be described as pleasant.

[At Home 0]

One vote for Devendra.

 

Great album.

[Si82 0]

I'm going with LCD Soundsystem's Sound if Silver.

Agreed. It's a fucking tremendous album.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Dethalbum all the way.

I'm agreeing entirely. It's the only album I've bought this year that came out this year that I'm at all excited about. I'd've said In the Eyes of Fire...but that was last year. Sad that there's not much really worth listening to this year. I wish Summer's End would hurry the fuck up and release their new album. They've got plenty of new tracks, just put it on a disc and get it out there, you SoCal fuckers!

 

EDIT:

Stupid Laz. Municipal Waste's The Art of Partying came out this year. Stupid, stupid Laz. Still...it's a lovely thrash album, but it lacks that solid push to be Album of the Year. Not enough dynamics or growth, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just...lacking, really. It's fun, but not entirely lasting.

[The Man in Blak 0]

I haven't really listened to enough of my 2007 stuff to really put together any kind of decent suggestion, but I'm surprised that nobody has even put forth The National's Boxer as a suggestion. Not necessarily because it's great, but just because it seems to have dibs on that elusive cross-section of indie appeal and mainstream acceptance. I mean, I heard "Fake Empire" in a goddamn hardware store the other day.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

That's pretty good, though I haven't heard it start to finish yet. I think I've heard just about every song on it at work using Slacker. I haven't noticed the cultural saturation yet either.

[mfn 0]

Kings Of Leon - Because Of The Times

Sloan - Never Hear The End Of It (released in the US Jan 9th 2007)

Cold War Kids - Robbers And Cowards

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Baby 81

The Hives - Black & White Album

The Kooks - Inside In/Inside Out

Muse - Black Holes and Revelations

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

 

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

Sound of Silver practically the only one I've heard. Still, pretty effing good.

 

EDIT: Electrelane's No Shouts, No Calls and Low's Drums and Guns are good too.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

I think my sister has Boxer. I'll borrow it from her on Thursday and report on it.

[2GOLD 0]

 

Dethalbum has been the only CD I have been able to make it all the way to the end of without skipping a song. Been a little bit of a disappointing year for the bands I listen too.

[Smartly Pretty 0]

The Hives - Black & White Album

 

Um, this sort of isn't even out yet.

[mfn 0]

The Hives - Black & White Album

 

Um, this sort of isn't even out yet.

 

It sorta will be about before the end of the year, and I've already had a listen from nme.com SOOO

 

I can put that in the favorites.

 

[Mik 0]

Boxer is good. I like their previous CD Alligator much better.

 

My favorite song on Boxer is Slow Show. But nothing as good as All the Wine, Mr. November, or Geese of Beverly Road off of Alligator.

 

I put my vote in for LCD Soundsystem. That's a great album.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Count me in as another voter of Sound of Silver. I've listened to the Stars of the Lid double album almost as often, but it was more as background reading/work music.

[vivalaultra 0]

Hey! Of the CDs I've heard that came out this year, I'm not sure what numerical order I'd put them in except that LCD Soundsystem-'Sound of Silver' is definitely number one. Other good 2007 releases I've heard include:

 

Iron and Wine-'The Shepherd's Dog' (Sam Beam goes for a more expanded sound and it works out well. Really good.)

The National-'The Boxer' (Not as good as 'Alligator', but still quite good. The National seem to be on the verge of getting hugely popular a little bit.)

Okkervil River-'The Stage Names' (Really good Austin band. Really, really good.)

Wilco-'Sky Blue Sky' (Not overly experimental, just really solid music from maybe the most talented band going right now.)

Band of Horses-'Cease to Begin' (Nothing overly adventurous, but, like Wilco, really solid album full of really solid songs.)

Sunset Rubdown-'Random Spirit Lover' (I've listened to it a couple times. I enjoy it thusly.)

Liars-'Liars'

Panda Bear-'Person Pitch'

Menomena-'Friend or Foe'

Andrew Bird-'Armchair Apocrypha'

 

Uh...there's other I've forgotten. I didn't list the new Arcade Fire because I didn't find it very good. "Intervention" is still a great song, but other than that I have no desire to ever listen to any of it again. I haven't heard the new Devendra Banhart yet, but I'm sure I'll enjoy its freaky weirdness.