Or, better never than ever?
Anyone home? Is the party still going? I’m Chris. And if it’s not too late then I am fashionably late. I am ill-prepared and under dressed. I’m talking too fast, cursing too much and looking at that family portrait where you and everyone else is wearing turtle necks and sweaters a little too lasciviously. But, I stopped on the way to pick up a bottle of wine. It's Yellow Tail. Chiraz. The thought counts. Right?
Those of you know me, well, you already know what you think of me. You're not surprised that I'm late. Those of you of who don’t? Well, I'm not exactly sure what to tell you. But, you'd probably think I'm the bee's knees. If you knew me. Right? Perhaps we'll get a drink sometime together and sit on adjacent bar stools making sure that our legs don't accidentally touch while watching a Knicks game and you'll have a chance to decide for yourself. Perhaps not. Either way, 2007 happened. Right?
2007 was a year that never stood out while it was happening, when it came to music. I'd been thinking that it was going to be a struggle to come up with ten albums/songs/whatever to put on this list. I'd been thinking that I didn't even want to try. But, to be honest, it was actually easier than last year. Which I thought of a higher quality on the whole. Last year I had to reach a bit. Last year I had to study up. This year I just had to listen up. Some of these albums on this list are some of the best, most mature and fully formed works of music that I've heard in a long time even if I didn’t know it at the time.
This is largely because the world was who we thought it was in 2007, and sometimes predictability isn’t very sexy. With the exception of M.I.A. I didn’t really hear anything for the very first time this year and think that they had changed anything about anything. The new indies were just newer indies. Panda Bear is focused Animal Collective. Maybe someday soon those bands will do something that tightens my boxer briefs. But not in 2007. This was the year where the music I liked the most was the music written and performed by the artists that I already liked the most.
10. (tie) Good Bad Not Evil, by The Black Lips After all that talk I throw out some young go-getters? Yup. I saw these guys at Maxwell's in Hoboken a way's back in ought-seven and they were raw and not in control but the songs were manic and tuneful beneath the funny wigs they were wearing and the beer gauzing my ears. This album shows the same potential. Suggested Listening: O Katrina! and...
Veni Vidi Vici:
10. (tie) The Good, The Bad & The Queen, by The Good, The Bad & The Queen. Mr. Albarn is a professional musician. He's also an ethnomusicologist. He's those things and more. Is he just using his knowledge of music to take my money? Or are these all heartfelt, organic enterprises that couldn't help but be? I don't know. And I don't care, much. Although I miss Dan the Automator, who is one of my faves, it would be impossible to leave this off any top ten list.
Suggested Listening: History Song and Nature Springs and Kingdom of Doom
9. The Flight of the Concords, Season One. We (me and roommate) wore through the tape of their HBO stand-up special like we were eleven years old and this was the first porn tape that we’ve ever come across. The fully-fleshed out episodes were even better. [Ed. note: I just pulled the "I knew them before you" card out of the deck and played it immediately.]
8. In Rainbows, by Radiohead
Agreed.
7. Magic, by Bruce Springsteen.
In the year when he was being credited as a major influence on the sound on some major indie (that’s not really even an oxymoron anymore) bands, he comes out with a vibrant and urgent record and still gets no respect from too many kids who think that all this guy has ever done is Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark and Born in the USA. This is a great album and it sounds like the full-band from The River sessions recorded the songs from Nebraska. Think about it. If you don’t know what I mean then you shouldn’t act like you have an opinion about Springsteen.
Devil's Arcade
Girls In Their Summer Clothes:
6. Icky Thump, by The White Stripes. Remember when this was a kitschy, gimmicky duo notable for dressing funny and telling lies about their relationship and The Strokes were the real band, the band that was saving rock-n-roll. Remember? That almost seems quaint. The White Stripes got so reliably good so quickly that they can now be overlooked or taken for granted. This is a great, great record.
Effect and Cause:
5. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Season 2. If you don’t know what this is or have seen it while channel-surfing and just don’t really understand why Danny DeVito is on television or why they can curse on TNT please watch these clips from the double-episode “The Gang Gets Whacked” and have your questions answered.
4. 8 Diagrams, by The Wu-Tang Clan This album is brilliant. RZA is a genius. Or, actually GZA is the Genius and RZA is an auteur of the highest caliber. For me, this is the hip-hop equivalent of In Rainbows. It manages to epitomize the group’s sound while being entirely fresh and vital. There are obscure bits of movie dialogue, emotive soul samples, live instrumentation and the truest set left in the rap game. From soul-singing under a Beatles sample of Heart Gently Weeps to the Bates motel cum meth lab stab and stammering of Unpredictable this album is as diverse and prodigous as its conntributors. And, like a lot of the things on this list it was never touched save by those who were already in the fold.
Life Changes (the surprisingly heartfelt tribute to ODB that ends the album)
3. I'm Not There OST. I can hear the groans already. Ooohhhh a soundtrack! Aaaargh cover songs! Hiss! Eeeck, Bob Dylan….but this double-disk soundtrack, chock full of some of your indie darlings, is the most captivating thing I heard all year. At least parts of it are. Yes, there are some unimaginative songs here, songs where the performers were too overwhelmed by the material to own it (Eddy Vedder and Cat Power, I’m looking at you), but there are more moments of inspiration. Willie Nelson is great, Calexico is the backing band on a large chunk of the album. Yo La Tengo, the Hold Steady, Sufjan, Sonic Youth, and the ever-brooding Mark Lanegan make these songs new again. And, of course, the never officially released title track recorded way back when by Dylan and the Band is worth the price of admission all by it’s lonesome.
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere, covered by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
I'm Not There, covered by Sonic Youth
Goin' To Acapulco, covered by Calexico
2. Kala, by M.I.A. How do all clubs not play this music non-stop? How do all college kids not have drunk sex to this music? As previously mentioned, this young lady was the only (relatively) newbie to put out an album that just blew me away entirely. It's funny, it's sexy, it's smart, it's thoughtless. It's challenging and good for blacking out. It's everything I could ever want it to be and more.
Paper Planes:
Hit That
1. Dirt Farmer, Levon Helm. The singer/drummer from The Band just recovered from throat cancer and recorded this beautiful, honest album. Levon still lives up in the sticks near Woodstock, NY (and Big Pink). He plays these shows at his house. It's called "the Midnight Ramble" and he has different performers guesting from night to night. Tickets are pricey at $150 apiece but you go to his house to hear him and his friends play together. This sounds like music meant to pe played at one's home, for friends and family and during feasting and imbibing. And, even though Dirt Farmer can feel like it may have come out of a time capsule it is the one thing from this year that I would most assuredly put in one if I was in gradeschool and our teacher assigned such a thing.
CBS meets Levon:
Proven commodities who showed up stale: I’m looking at you Jay-Z. Seriously, American Gangster sounds like Paul or some other Jigga fan writing lyrics that they think he would write and accidentally plagiarizing old songs along the way. And trust me, I know what it means to be a fake Jay-Z.
Bands I also really liked but felt disingenuous including since I didn't really listen enough
Of Montreal
Dr. Dog
Things that I didn't think were necessarily worth the fuss
Arcade Fire
Spoon
Band of Horses
The National (gasp! No, you didn’t!)
Attempt at co-opting 9/11 that bothered me most in 2007
1. Kanye and 50
1a. Guiliani
My favorite Paul Awards moments in 2007:
Jake’s Dirt Farmer entry
The proliferation of FOC and MIA
References to Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ
This one.
Bye.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
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