The official thread for year-end lists.

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

Let's get our lists compiled. To start it off, here are my top 12 albums of 2007.

 

#12: The National – Boxer

I thought I’d like this more than I did, given that it’s pretty Tindersticksy, but there’s a distinct “trying too hard” feel to some of The National that I just can’t shake. It’s probably the vocalist. I really enjoy the drumming, however, and it’s extremely rare that I single out the drumming as my favorite part of a rock album.

 

#11: The Go! Team – Proof of Youth

It’s a lateral pass from Thunder, Lightning, Strike; nothing more, nothing less. That’s still enough to make me happy.

 

#10: Stars – In Our Bedroom After The War

I guess I’m a sucker for the boy-girl dialogue lyrics. Yeah, it’s basically a cutesy version of U2 circa “Beautiful Day,” but it’s still a favorite of mine. The album starts with an instrumental overture, which always earns points with me, this specific track reminding me of Feel Good Lost. I can’t help but enjoy the drippy sentimentalism in “The Night Starts Here,” and the overwrought Bono-ness of “Take Me to the Riot,” but that line at the beginning of “Tomorrow Will Be Better, I Swear!” is too eye-rolly even for me. The 6/4-4/4-2/4 beat (I think) that introduces “Life 2” is a small highlight for me.

 

The closing title track is a great piano-driven cathartic exercise in the recent tradition of the Arcade Fire’s closers. If “Videotape” approached half as much energy as this did, that would’ve been perfect. As for this song, and by extension the album, the emotions get to be a little histrionic, but it’s part of the charm, and there’s nobody making you or me listen to it till that gets unbearable.

On an unrelated note, the painting on the cover is my desktop wallpaper.

 

#9: LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver

I don’t know why, but I really soured on this album. I still love “All My Friends” and “Someone Great,” but the rest of the album just isn’t doing it for me anymore. Well, I tried. It was a competitive year.

 

#8: Radiohead – In Rainbows

I do like In Rainbows more in its discbox-augmented iteration and it’s probably here on the strength of that material, but I’ll never be completely satisfied with it. I waited almost three years for LP7 and wound up with great familiar songs ruined by ill-advised arrangements (“Nude,” “Arpeggi,” “Videotape”), songs that were never good in the first place (“House of Cards,” “Bodysnatchers,” “15 Step”), and great songs that were buried on a supplemental disc worth $80 (“Down Is the New Up,” “4 Minute Warning”).

 

I still listen to “Reckoner," the far-and-away standout of this album, at least once a day, even though the MP3 that they sold—back when they were tricking us into thinking they abandoned the traditional marketing model—is full of glitches. Everyone told me that it would grow on me someday, and I suppose it has to some extent: “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” is much cooler when it’s listened to on its own or out of order, because “the beat that goes round and round” had already annoyed the shit out of me on the four songs before it that use the same drum figure.

 

#7: Andrew Pekler – Cue

My favorite album of the year in the realm of ambient music, a new interest of mine, Andrew Pekler’s Cue is a tribute of sorts to production music libraries (so they tell me) inasmuch as Pekler approached each song by crafting them to fit a title or mood, much like the anonymously produced stock music that we hear each day but never acknowledge.

 

Naturally, it’s tough to explain ambient music in words, but “Steady State” is the standout here, with its chimes rolling and abruptly stopping over a churning bass beat. The leadoff track “On” takes the krautrock sensibilities of Faust and Neu!’s rhythm sections and leaves you to mentally improvise a solo for it until wavering synths and tambourines take the track over. The heavy piano of “Floating Tone” goes on and on with backmasked cymbals and what may be some sort of guitar or banjo dropping in intermittently, all under a lo-fi fog of scratchy old vinyl. With ambient music, your mileage may vary, but I suppose I’m easily amused by repetitive background noise or something.

 

#6: Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha

It’s not full of guitar wizardry or bad Moody Blues poetry, and yet this is an incredibly difficult album. Of the new albums I got this year, I tended to listen to a lot of them multiple times, but none of them demanded multiple listens like this did. I can’t describe exactly what I mean here, but this album really required deep examination to fully reap its rewards.

 

#5: The Postmarks

An almost-perfect little piece of work, the Postmarks’ s/t is full of Bacharach-esque light jazzy arrangements of love songs with nice breathy female vocals by a girl named Tim. As a huge vibraphone enthusiast who can’t stand Sufjan Stevens, this album is a real destination for me in the world of indie rock, as vibes complement cellos, muted trumpets, acoustic guitars, flutes, and the kitchen sink throughout the album. The whole album carries a very brisk and light tenor, demanding close attention without being ponderous and abstruse. Seasonal imagery abounds in these songs, as in “Winter Spring Summer Fall,” though autumn would tend to be the dominant season here.

 

The album is consistent without being samey, always a deft achievement, with the distinct exception of “You Drift Away”—one of the album’s standouts—whose fade-in, processed drums, emulated strings, field recordings, and delicate lilting lead guitar make it soooo adorably obvious that the Postmarks were listening to the Smiths before they wrote this one. Though this sticks out like a sore thumb, that’s hardly a bad thing, and if they feel the baroque arrangements have been played out by the time they start the sophomore album, I’d really love to hear more Postmarks in this vein.

I suppose what I’m saying is that it’s twee as fuck and I less than three it.

 

#4: Beirut – The Flying Club Cup

From the second I heard the bubble-popping keyboards on “Nantes,” I knew I was in for something great. As I’ve said before, Camper Van Beethoven + Final Fantasy is a passable description for the particular sound of this album, though it also delves into French postwar jazz at times, too. Though you might think this is a novelty that would quickly wear thin, it’s remained at the top of my list since I heard it.

 

#3: Nellie McKay – Obligatory Villagers

Given the high-reward sprawl of Get Away From Me and Pretty Little Head, I was initially pretty bummed to find out that the new Nellie McKay album wouldn’t even crack 32 minutes. I mean, come on. That’s an EP, and I hate the very concept of the EP. Only Weezer can get away with half-hour albums, and I hate Weezer, too. Luckily, the density and variety of Nellie McKay’s music make up for the comparative lack of breadth we’d come to expect.

 

Unlike the first two albums, which gleefully skipped between every genre under the sun, everything here seems to fit into a general “indie cabaret” niche here. It’s hardly minimalist, though: the lyrics are again of the Gilmore Girls mile-a-minute variety, the arrangements are full of Broadway bombast. You still get the endearingly awkward forays into rap, but now they’ll just be verses or song fragments rather than full-fledged songs. The songs here flow from one to another better than ever, unlike the anything-anytime approach to the previous releases. “Identity Theft” and “Testify” feature her best lyrics yet, and the arrangements are fantastic as always. “Mother of Pearl” is a little much, but caveat emptor with vegan feminists, I guess.

 

#2: Blind Cave Salamander

At first, I thought this was just the eponymous debut of a post-rock band named after the blind cave salamander (Proteus anguinus), a curious little amphibian about which very little is known. The band’s website, with its encyclopedia entries on the animal in question, was nothing I paid any particular attention to, thinking it just a gimmick by a band trying too hard. I listened to the album, enjoyed it very much, said I liked it more than new Radiohead, and shunted it away so I could check out more 2007 stuff.

 

A second, fairly recent trip back to blindcavesalamander.com clarified the album’s intent: this isn’t so much a self-titled album by a new band as it is a one-off musical project, a “concept band,” about the life of the blind cave salamander, or the olm, to be more precise. The olm is an endangered animal which can only be found in the watery subterranean caves of Slovenia, where its very specific indigenity makes it a peculiar national symbol of sorts. Here’s a picture of it. Yikes. Quite frankly, Slovenia can keep it. But now that I understand the olm (and shouldn’t we all?), what the project is meant to be, and how it’s meant to be understood by the listener, the whole work makes much more sense.

 

My first impression, way back in September, was that this has a “museum” feel like Jonny Greenwood’s Bodysong, which turned out to be fairly perceptive on my part, as the music is meant to evoke “exhibits” of the olm’s life. Appropriately, a dark aquatic feel pervades every song on the album. “Ljubljana,” Slovenia’s capital, juxtaposes the unseen natural world of caves and underground lakes with the bustling overworld by placing busy electronics above glacier-fast cellos and treated guitars. “The Human Fish,” the olm’s name among the locals, grafts miscellaneous electronic noodlings over a thick, dark ambient soundscape, as if to apply “human” qualities to the creature in its relatively untouched habitat. “Time Piece,” more a piece about time than a song about a watch, runs through several ambient motifs beneath the persistent ticking of a programmed beat. The album is cerebral and fascinating, a shining example of music as an elicitor of imagery (though there’s probably very little shining going on, so to speak), and one of my favorite releases of the year.

 

Over in former Yugoslavia, Europe’s powder keg, perhaps the only reliable stability is that beneath the surface of Slovenia, there’s some hideous and strange translucent creature that none of us will ever see, just going about its business and doing whatever it is that blind cave salamanders do in their remarkable 100-year lifespan. Maybe for their next project, these guys, from a bunch of bands and projects of which I've never heard, can create a musical tribute to the colonies of brine shrimp in Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Actually, that’s not a bad idea at all. You could really go somewhere with that.

 

#1: Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

One of the bigger hurdles for me in compiling this list is the fact that my first and last impressions of Sky Blue Sky were both in the middle of Shitty Midwestern Winter™, which, as surely anyone can guess, is not the time and place for an album with “blue sky” in its name. But from May to September, when I jogged along lakeshores and nature trails, drove through broad green expanses of downstate Illinois, or just read at the park, this album was beautiful, transcendent, and perfect for its setting.

 

Far too much has been made of this album being “too complacent” or “dad-rock.” I don’t care about that designation at all. I thnk it's meaningless. What did people want from Wilco, Jeff Tweedy passing out and leaving an amp buzzing for forty minutes? The songwriting is just as strong as it was on Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and the guitar work, now featuring Nels Cline, is better than it’s ever been. The “experimental” aspect of Wilco was never a large part of what made them great, and the treads of that tire were worn out by the end of A Ghost Is Born.

 

With all of that out of their systems, Wilco just made a great summer soundtrack, made to be appreciated out-of-doors, from “Either Day” as you watch the sun rise on a clear July morning, the interlocking guitars of “Impossible Germany” to keep you awake as you traverse long boring interstates, and “On and On and On” during those awesome biblical-proportions thunderstorms we get here. This album enhanced my surroundings like nothing else has, and I can’t wait for the conditions to be right for me to properly appreciate this album again. At least there’s something to look forward to this spring besides another surely frustrating season of Chicago Cubs baseball.

 

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I liked Sky Blue Sky, but have had absolutely no desire to listen to it since the summer.

 

If pressed, I'm sure I could come up with ten albums from this year I liked, but it wouldn't be easy for me to come up with anything stable beyond the top three or four.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I've heard a mere 4 of those albums. Ho-hum. I've been slacking this year more than ever as far as new releases. LCD Soundsystem, Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Stars of the Lid, and The National win, I guess. I've also only listened to it once, but the Wu-Tang album seems pretty cool too, even if it is painfully long.

[snuffbox 0]

Top 10 Shows

 

1. Saul Williams - Feb. 21, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN. Best live performance I have ever seen in any medium.

2. Modest Mouse (w/ Love as Laughter & Man Man) - Nov. 10, Orpheum Theatre, Madison, WI

3. Brother Ali - 4/20 High Noon, Madison; 11/17 Sonar, Baltimore; 12/08 Union, Madison. Yeah, it's three shows but fuck it.

4. Atmosphere/Mac Lethal - Oct. 16, Barrymore Theatre, Madison

5. Pharoahe Monch - Aug. 25, Myth Nightclub, Minneapolis, MN

6. Sims/Mac Lethal/POS - Feb. 1, The Annex, Madison

7. Wu Tang Clan - Aug. 25, Myth Nightclub, Minneapolis, MN

8. Type O Negative - Oct. 20, Rave, Milwaukee

9. Ghostface Killah w/ Rhythm Roots All Stars & Theodore Unit - Nov 17, Sonar, Baltimore

10. Buckcherry - May 30, La Crosse Center. Makes the list due to sappy, back-in-the day bonus points.

[Slayer 0]

Top Ten Personal Metal Albums of the Year

 

1. Helloween - Gambling with the Devil

 

A solid power metal album from beginning to end, with only one WTF over-the-top song near the end of the CD, which has been par for the course for Helloween going back to their first album. Not only is this my favorite CD of the year but it's become a top contender for my personal Metal Album of the Decade list (currently headed by Iron Maiden's Dance of Death)

 

2. Paradise Lost - In Requiem

 

My favorite metal band churns out another great CD which definitely marks a return to the heaviness of their peak years in the mid-90's, although I actually preferred the mellowness of the s/t album from a couple years ago (another one on my AOTD list)

 

Beyond these two, I'm too lazy to try and rank the remaining eight in some kind of order, much less write up another eight mini-reviews, so here they are alphabetical order

 

Candlemass - King of the Grey Islands

Dark Tranquillity - Fiction

Devin Townsend - Ziltoid the Omniscient

Machine Head - The Blackening

Megadeth - United Abominations

Silent Force - Walk the Earth

Symphony X - Paradise Lost

Therion - Gothic Kabbalah

 

Five albums I've been meaning to check out but haven't, which sound very good from the 30-second iTunes samples:

 

Amorphis - Silent Waters

Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos

Korpiklaani - Tervaskanto

Lake of Tears - Moons and Mushrooms

Wuthering Heights - The Shadow Cabinet

 

Disappointments

 

Iced Earth - Framing Armageddon

Nightwish - Dark Passion Play

[Red Baron 0]

Iced Earth released an album this year?

[haws bah gawd 0]

Best Albums I've Bought This Year:

Dark Passion Play - Nightwish - At first I was skeptical, but after seeing them live in Atlanta last month, they've made a wise decision with their new vocalist, Annette. She isn't this full-blown opera singer like Tarja, but she has tons more energy, and better stage presence. The Tarja f

Ghost Opera - Kamelot - Kamelot is fronted by one of the best pure singers in metal. Their sound might not have changed much over the years, but why fix it if it isn't broken?

The Divine Conspiracy - Epica - I'll probably get a lot of flack for this, but I really enjoyed it. Simone has a good voice, and it's perfectly complemented by Mark Jansen's backing grunts. Plus the album art is easy on the eyes:

 

 

Worst Album I've Bought This Year:

Minutes to Midnight - Linkin Park - I probably should've known better since this album was produced by the same guy who told Lars to bang on trash cans for the St. Anger album. Still though, I've enjoyed their work in the past, and then-current single What I've Done, and figured I would give them a chance. What a turd this turned out to be. The first few songs weren't all that bad, then my ears were raped by the joke known as Bleed it Out. Then it only got worse with Shadow of the Day, and whatever that crap was where Mike Shinoda tried SINGING.

 

Dear Linkin Park,

Can I have my $14 back please?

 

Thanks

 

 

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

You bought a Linkin Park album and didn't expect it to be total dogshit? What are you, retarded?

[haws bah gawd 0]

You bought a Linkin Park album and didn't expect it to be total dogshit? What are you, retarded?

 

Did you read my post smart ass? I said I enjoyed their previous work, but this wasn't good at all.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I think the question kinda still applies.

[Nighthawk 0]

I think they're better than they get credit for. Not good, mind you, but not quite so terrible.

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

Well, I think you're being a contrarian.

 

Haws bah gawd's sig haad me thinking: what ever happened to the "lol200x" meme? I remember it lasting at least up to "LOL2004," but I don't recall wide use in 2005 and beyond. We were layin' that one on heavy for a while.

[Slayer 0]

Iced Earth released an album this year?

Bad redbaron51!

 

Yes they did. There were some very good songs on it (Youtube links below), as expected from IE, however the album as a whole is a bit bloated, mostly because it's a concept album where the concept falls flat IMO.

 

Good songs:

Something Wicked Part 1

Setian Massacre

Ten Thousand Strong

 

The first two are just songs with a static b/g of the album cover. The last one is an actual music video, however I highly recommend not watching that... just stick that window in the b/g while posting on this board or whatever

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

Took a flier on "Ten Thousand Strong" just now. This sounds pretty good, but the video...? I know it's not too different, stylistically speaking, from that Postmarks video I sent you yesterday, and yet rotoscoping has a totally different effect on metal than indie, I guess.

 

Say, I'm gonna give this Iced Earth album a chance. I bet you want to pin a gold star on my shirt for my exemplary effort to finally embrace metal.

[Gary Floyd 0]

Disappointing Albums

 

Wu Tang Clan-The 8th Diagram The first half of the album is great, with the exception of "Heart Gently Weeps". The other half though, is full of uninspired raps and pedestrian production.

 

RJD2-The Third Hand After Since we Last Spoke, I had really high hopes for RJD2. Unfortunately, I ended up getting subpar Elliot Smith style singing, poor attempts at indie rock, and even poorer attempts at Cars style New Wave.

 

The Stooges-The Weirdness I should have expected this since it's been such a long time since they've been together, but still.

 

Six Organs Of Admittance-Shelter From The Ash Come on Ben, you're capable of better.

 

Interpol-Our Love to Admire Repeat listens have not been kind to this one.

 

Throbbing Gristle-Part Two-The Endless Not It has it's moments, but it sure won't stay up there with older albums.

 

Explosions in the Sky-All the Sudden I Miss Everyone I like them, but this was a bit of a disappointment for me.

 

Pleasent Suprises

 

Substanz T-Beyond E One of the more unjustly slept on techno albums of the year. A nice blend of cold ambient, trip hop, intelligent techno, and some killer bass grooves. Oh, and the title means "Beyond Electronic"

 

Nine Inch Nails-Year Zero The first album I like from Trent Reznor, thanks mostly for the killer production it has. Too bad Reznor still can't write lyrics.

 

 

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

I don't know what else "Ben" is capable of, but I thought Shelter from the Ash was a decent little exercise in dusty rustic guitar instrumentals.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Municipal Waste - The Art of Partying

Thrash madness, and just pure amazing. The most fun I've had listening to an album since SOD's Speak English or Die and any of the MC Lars discs.

 

Evile - Enter the Grave

The best return to "serious" thrash metal by a newer band...ever. Hints of Exodus, the heavier side of Anthrax, and Kill 'Em All-era Metallica. Solid shit.

 

S.O.D. - Rise of the Infidels

Not a good album outside of as far as live SOD ones go (and, of their several discs and bootlegs, most of them are live, and most of them are the exact same sets). This one includes ballads for Nirvana (and it's a concert from Seattle in '94 or so), Freddie Mercury, INXS, and Jim Morrison in addition to the classic one for Jimi Hendrix. Good for SOD fans, though the sound quality is awful, but bad for anybody expecting "good" music.

 

Exodus - The Atrocity Exhibition - Exhibit A

Amazing. Beautiful thrash goodness. 'Nuff said.

 

Eh...nothing else has really struck me as worth getting this year.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Wow, that IE video is awful. That looks like something I woulda directed while really high. And 6 years old.

 

I knew they had that new CD, but I haven't bought it yet...not a big fan of Tim Owens, plus I heard the re-done versions of the Something Wicked Trilogy, and I seriously wanted to punch Schaffer for that. I think I saw it used the other day...I prolly will pick it up when my money situation gets a little better.

[Red Baron 0]

Best Albums I've Bought This Year:

Dark Passion Play - Nightwish - At first I was skeptical, but after seeing them live in Atlanta last month, they've made a wise decision with their new vocalist, Annette. She isn't this full-blown opera singer like Tarja, but she has tons more energy, and better stage presence. The Tarja f

Ghost Opera - Kamelot - Kamelot is fronted by one of the best pure singers in metal. Their sound might not have changed much over the years, but why fix it if it isn't broken?

The Divine Conspiracy - Epica - I'll probably get a lot of flack for this, but I really enjoyed it. Simone has a good voice, and it's perfectly complemented by Mark Jansen's backing grunts. Plus the album art is easy on the eyes:

 

 

Worst Album I've Bought This Year:

Minutes to Midnight - Linkin Park - I probably should've known better since this album was produced by the same guy who told Lars to bang on trash cans for the St. Anger album. Still though, I've enjoyed their work in the past, and then-current single What I've Done, and figured I would give them a chance. What a turd this turned out to be. The first few songs weren't all that bad, then my ears were raped by the joke known as Bleed it Out. Then it only got worse with Shadow of the Day, and whatever that crap was where Mike Shinoda tried SINGING.

 

Dear Linkin Park,

Can I have my $14 back please?

 

Thanks

 

 

Bleed it Out was the only thing good on the album.

 

 

Gary, Year Zero would probably be my favourite album of 07, and possibly my favourite NIN album ever.

[King Kamala 0]

Top 4 shows this year (Didn't go to as many shows this year so I'll narrow it down to four)

 

4. Bob Dylan/Elvis Costello-October 4th at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, ME (Dylan was off for the first third or so of his set but he eventually warmed up and the songs off his (somewhat) new album all sounded great. Costello did a really good set but was onstage for only 45 minutes. Why they didn't give him 10-15 more minutes is beyond me.)

 

3. Fountains of Wayne- August 9th at Copley Square Park in Boston, MA (Great free show. Played just about every song I wanted to hear. There's not much better than an outdoor show on a beautiful summer day)

 

2. These Go To 11: Christopher Guest Meets Berklee- November 30th at The Berklee Performance Center in Boston, MA (Rare chance to see songs from This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, and Waiting For Guffman all performed during one show. Just an awesome show)

 

1. Guster- April 21st at The Opera House in Boston, MA (Super awesome 2 and 1/2 hour homecoming show. Bob Saget came on stage for about thirty seconds during the encore and just waved to the crowd)

[Red Baron 0]

I think the only concert I saw this year was The Tragically Hip in Erie, PA.