We're 55.3% of the way through the year, so you know what that means...it's time for another Best of 2007 update!
Best Albums of 2007
1. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black. Still the freshest, most unique album of the year, no matter how many times she gets on a magazine cover.
2. The White Stripes, Icky Thump. I'm not a huge White Stripes fan by any stretch of the imagination, but this is just such a strange, fun album...easily my favorite from WS. It really came pretty close to unseating Back to Black.
3. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible. My opinion still changes every time I listen to it, but this was certainly a nice step forward for The Fire.
4. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky. I actually look forward to Volkswagen commercials now.
5. Pat McGee Band, These Days (The Virginia Sessions). This album gets penalized for being so short (9 songs, nothing particularly long), but it's strong throughout, and there are three brilliant songs, which you'll see on the list below.
6. The Ike Reilly Assassination, We Belong to the Staggering Evening. The biggest surprise on the list. I bought it on a whim after hearing a couple good things, but I didn't expect a lot. Strong licks and extreme wit make for a really fun listen.
7. Blue Scholars, The Long March EP. We're cutting spending afer our big purchase a couple weeks ago, otherwise I would have purchased their June full-length by now. This is a lengthy EP (9 songs), and this is some of the strongest storytelling I've seen from hip hop in a while.
8. Brother Ali, The Undisputed Truth. Knocked from the "Best Hip Hop Album" slot by Blue Scholars, but it still has the best hip hop song of the year, "Truth Is".
9. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Living with the Living. All sorts of variety on this one, a nice mix of R&B and rock...with a little Rage Against the Machine thrown in.
10. Bright Eyes, Cassadega. Ups and downs abound here. The high points are brilliant emotional efforts ("I Must Belong Somewhere" has significantly grown on me), but there are some weak points like "Make a Plan to Love Me". Dude's got charisma and skill, though.
11. Queens of the Stone Age, Era Vulgaris. A letdown after 2005's fantastic Lullabies to Paralyze, this is still pretty strong. Only a couple truly great songs, but everything's good.
12. Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full. I liked it more than I thought I would...though I guess it says something that I still put it below Queens of the Stone Age.
13. Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. I'm all over the place with this one. I almost slipped it into the Top 5, and then it ended up #13. Sorry, Isaac and Johnny.
14. Elk City, New Believers. Quirky, quirky, quirky.
15. Ozomatli, Don't Mess with the Dragon. A great band that tries to sound a little too much like Black Eyed Peas on this one.
Best Songs of 2007
1. "Rehab", Amy Winehouse (sorry, haters...this song's still great)
2. "Maybe It's Time", Pat McGee Band
3. "Truth Is", Brother Ali
4. "I Must Belong Somewhere", Bright Eyes (this one keeps working its way further up my list)
5. "On and On and On", Wilco (sad and optimistic)
6. "You Know I'm No Good", Amy Winehouse
7. "It's Hard to Make Love to an American", The Ike Reilly Assassination (the perfect IRA song to my ears...strutting and witty)
8. "You Got Me", Elk City
9. "Conquest", The White Stripes (the weirdest, most fun cover of the year)
10. "Spitting Venom", Modest Mouse
11. "What Light", Wilco
12. "(Antichrist TelevisionBlues)", Arcade Fire
13. "Tears Dry on Their Own", Amy Winehouse
14. "Icky Thump", The White Stripes
15. "Me & Mr. Jones", Amy Winehouse
16. "Side with the Seeds", Wilco (best guitar work of the year)
17. "I Don't Think I'm Listening", Pat McGee Band
18. "Effect and Cause", The White Stripes
19. "Suture Up Your Future", Queens of the Stone Age
20. "We're Not Alone", Dinosaur Jr. (second-best guitar work of the year)
21. "Back to Black", Amy Winehouse
22. "How Come You Don't Hold Me No More", The Hot Puppies
23. "Dashboard", Modest Mouse
24. "End of October", Pat McGee Band
25. "Gallina", Ozomatli
26. "Dance Tonight", Paul McCartney (slight point deduction from the "iTunes commercial" overkill, but this song annoys the crap out of The Butterfly, so...yeah, it stays on the list!)
27. "The Sons of Cain", Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
28. "How Do I Let a Good Man Down", Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings (I found out the other day that the Dap-Kings were the backup band from Amy Winehouse, so I guess I should congratulate them for getting 6 songs on the top 30)
29. "8 More Days Till the 4th of July", The Ike Reilly Assassination
30. "2 O'Clock in the A.M.", Swati
So the next question is...what albums have I missed so far this year? At some point, I'll end up with Blue Scholars' Bayani, along with earlier 2007 releases from Rufus Wainright and Arctic Monkeys...anything else that this list just doesn't work without?
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Best Songs and Albums of 2007
Friday, June 08, 2007
Best Songs and Albums of 2007 (so far)
Welcome to Good Nonsense! Be sure to check out the Music archives here and on the left sidebar. And don't be afraid to leave comments!
---
We’re officially 43.3% of the way through 2007, so you know what that means...another “Best of 2007 (so far)” list!
And just in case you don’t read all the way to the bottom, I'll say this now: I’m soliciting advice on other purchases to make here. What great 2007 albums/songs have I missed out on so far? And for the love of God, where the hell is the hip hop? This has so far been the worst year of hip hop that I can recall. Granted, Talib Kweli’s new album is finally dropping in July (after like a decade of delays), and that will help, but...what else is out there? I've got to be missing something. One solid hip hop album is pathetic.
SongsAnd while we’re at it, let’s look at the best albums as well.
1. Rehab, Amy Winehouse
2. Truth Is, Brother Ali
3. You Know I’m No Good, Amy Winehouse
4. You Got Me, Elk City
5. On and On and On, Wilco
6. Intervention, Arcade Fire
7. Spitting Venom, Modest Mouse
8. What Light, Wilco
9. How Come You Don’t Hold Me No More?, The Hot Puppies
10. I Must Belong Somewhere, Bright Eyes
11. We’re Not Alone, Dinosaur Jr.
12. Tears Dry on Their Own, Amy Winehouse
13. (Antichrist Television Blues), Arcade Fire
14. Soul Singer in a Session Band, Bright Eyes
15. Dashboard, Modest Mouse
16. 2 O’Clock in the A.M., Swati
17. Find You, Andy Zipf
18. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse
19. Cler Achel, Tinariwen
20. Gallina, Ozomatli
Honorable Mention:
1980 World Champion, The Bad Plus
Esa Morena, Ozomatli
Everybody Knows, Ryan Adams
How Do I Let a Good Man Down, Sharon Jones & the Dap-King
If the Brakeman Turns My Way, Bright Eyes
Keep the Car Running, Arcade Fire
Parting of the Sensory, Modest Mouse
Side With the Seeds, Wilco
Walken, Wilco
And finally...just for fun...Albums
1. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black – As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not impressed with excess, and the travails of Winehouse’s excess have definitely made the rounds. It helped her get on the cover of Rolling Stone, for instance. But when the album’s this good, it doesn’t seem to matter as much. For instance, Pete Doherty is the current king of excess, but he hasn’t exactly made the RS cover. It still takes talent and success (I guess it still sometimes only takes the latter, not the former). This album is just fantastic. As you see above, it has two of my favorite three songs from 2007 on it (and four of the Top 20), and the mix of current R&B and old Motown sound (and a bit of hip hop) is beyond refreshing. And you have to love that she used the word “f---ery” as one of the key lyricals components of one of her songs (“Me and Mr. Jones”). It will take quite a bit for this album to not end the year as #1 on my list.
2. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky – As has been mentioned here many times before, Wilco never does what is expected of them. With Nels Cline onboard, it would have just been too easy to make a rocking powerhouse of an album. Instead, they stepped back and created a set of reserved, mature songs, and while the “I love it when Wilco rocks out!” side of me was disappointed, there is still nothing but quality here...really, not a single misstep.
3. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible – I loved it the first time I heard it, I was underwhelmed the second time, then I really loved it the third time. Guess I just have to be in the right mood for it...
4. Brother Ali, The Undisputed Truth – The only hip hop album on the list, which I addressed above. There’s really only one major standout track on the album (“Truth Is”), but every song is good. Ali’s mix of honesty, emotion, and battle-rapping skills mean just about anything he raps on is going to be good, and there’s nothing better than when he raises his game a notch here and there. If anything, the lack of diversity in production on this album holds Ali back a bit (things start sounding the same after a while), but the lyrics, subject matter, and delivery are high-quality.
5. Bright Eyes, Cassadega – This one’s growing on me. The first time I listened to it, I thought it was fine, but nothing amazing. The second, I thought much higher of it...guess I need to keep listening to it then.
6. Elk City, New Believers – This might go up or down after a couple more listens, but for now I’ll stick it here. I mentioned the discovery of Elk City in my latest My Month of Entertainment, and I’ll expand a bit here. Start with the sound of every European band with a female singer, pull out every trick in the Garage Band bag (that’s what it sounds like, anyway...not saying they actually used Garage Band for this), move every song in a completely different direction, and you end up with something like this. Like Brother Ali’s album above, there’s only one true standout song (the phenomenally quirky “You Got Me”), but this is an especially enjoyable listen. So far I’d have to say that EC is my 2nd favorite 2007 discovery behind Amy Winehouse. The Butterfly used to say that I don’t like female singers. Well, take THAT!
7. Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank – And speaking of quirky...a new Modest Mouse album never fails to wear me out the first couple of listens—they’ve just got so many unique and strange things going on at any one time. That said, the more I get acclimated to it, the more I like it. I loved “Spitting Venom” from the first time I heard it, but now more and more songs are growing on me—“Dashboard”, “Florida”, “Parting of the Sensory”...well, basically every other song on the album is growing on me at this point.
8. Ozomatli, Don’t Mess with the Dragon – I tried not to penalize this album simply because it wasn’t nearly as good as their last release, Street Signs. It’s still good, but there’s a pretty transparent attempt at a radio sound here. They’ve always had fantastic hooks and grooves, but they seem to be forcing it here. Nonetheless, when you’ve got a fantastic band like Ozo, their disappointing material is still more than listenable.
9. Dinosaur Jr., Beyond – A nice comeback effort from these guys. They still sound like the same band, but they’re not stuck in the early-‘90s. I’m impressed.
10. Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life – One of the better African albums I’ve come across so far (not as good as Afro-Rock, but that wasn’t from 2007, now was it?). Bluesy guitar and creative harmonies...you close your eyes, and you can practically see the desert at night in the background.
Best Other Songs (i.e. not from 2007) Purchased/Obtained in 2007
You Can’t Miss What You Can’t Measure, Funkadelic
Apache, Incredible Bongo Band
How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times, Bruce Springsteen
Lived in Bars, Cat Power
Jacob’s Ladder, Bruce Springsteen
Girl in the War, Josh Ritter
American Terrorist, Lupe Fiasco
To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High), Ryan Adams
Maggot Brain, Funkadelic
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Best Songs of 2007 (so far)
I figured now was as good a time as any to hop on iTunes and see which songs from 2007 I've rated the highest so far...
1. Rehab, Amy Winehouse
2. Truth Is, Brother Ali
3. Spitting Venom, Modest Mouse
4. You Know I'm No Good, Amy Winehouse
5. Intervention, Arcade Fire
6. What Light, Wilco
7. How Come You Don't Hold Me No More, The Hot Puppies
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse
9. Gallina, Ozomatli
10. Walking Away, Brother Ali
The Bonus #11 would be The Roots' version of "Masters of War."
And just because...a Random 10 (From the Best Songs list)
1. The Woman in You, Ben Harper
2. If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time, Willie Nelson
3. Astronomy (8th Light), Black Star
4. Two Beads at the End, Minutemen
5. Theme to Pinata, Bright Eyes
6. How Do I Let a Good Man Down, Sharon Jones & the Dap-King
7. You Know I Like That, Blind Mississippi Morris
8. Star/Pointro, The Roots
9. It's Summertime, Flaming Lips
10. The Flick, Earl Van Dyke