Favorite Music of 2007
Entering my fifth decade of life this year didn't seem particularly unnerving, though I perhaps now give more thought to regular checkups and rudimentary exercise than I did a year earlier. However, looking over the list of predominantly mainstream albums I most enjoyed this year gave me some pause for thought: Am I at last a fuddy-duddy? Have I lost my ear for the new, the seldom heard, the forgotten? Am I now destined to potter over my CD collection like an urban gardener over his limp beanstalks, remembering the glories of harvests past?
If so, I suppose there could be worse companions than these fine musicians, listed here roughly in order of preference and/or repeated plays:
9. Radiohead, In Rainbows
8. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
If I have indeed become a fuddy-duddy, let me first blame these two bands for showing me the gilded path. I love both of these bands fiercely, to the extent that I will buy their new releases before hearing a note. In their past few releases, both of these bands have experimented more with sound than with song, but this year both bands seemed to rediscover the simple pleasures of songcraft, measuring their odd beeps and twitters with genuinely literate and expressive lyrics. Luckily enough, both bands also feature lead singers who can (when called upon to do so) emote with the best of them. Both of these albums feature some absolutely gorgeous songs, something I've not come to expect from these bands in the last few years. Although I will happily seek out any of their future noodlings, it was nice to see them both return to what, for them, passes for roots rock.
7. Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare
These lads, by contrast with the comparatively old hands above, are still in the blossom of their working-class anger, though this should not be mistaken for punk disdain. Rather, the Arctic Monkeys channel their aggression into surprisingly empathetic songs about the people in their neighborhood. Unlike Bob of Sesame Street, however, the Monkeys are willing to peek around the curtain of their neighbors' windows, sometimes to devastatingly honest effect, as in their heartbreaking anthem to a housewife's lost youth, "Fluorescent Adolescent," one of my favorite songs of the year.
6. Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full
Back to the fuddy-duddies, then. Macca's latest shows him more willing to experiment with instrumentation and songcraft, though experimentation to the former Beatle means something very different than it does to Radiohead or Wilco. The opening number, "Dance Tonight," for example, is a charming little mandolin number that McCartney wrote for his youngest child and is only experimental in the sense that it is not overwrought with McCartney's sense of self-importance (an affliction that more often struck his former partner, John Lennon) or the need to make any kind of grandiose statement about the vapid subjects that sometimes dominate McCartney's songs. Later in the album, McCartney acknowledges his past, but again manages to be more charming than cloying. The kicker is "The End of the End," in which the Beatle projects to the day of his death, evoking the sad realization that, aside from Ringo's perpetual nostalgia tours, Paul is really all we have left of the world's most influential pop band. This song, and this album, make you feel that perhaps we should enjoy whatever good years this man has left. But, like Dylan's recent renaissance, McCartney doesn't elicit any sympathy votes with his music. It speaks for itself.
5. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Raising Sand
Initially, I thought this would be more of a novelty record. It certainly is that, but not in the sense of it being an of-its-era throwaway. The novelty (or one of them) is in hearing Plant's grizzled voice wrap itself in harmony around Krauss' gorgeous lilt, and in the way they manage to resurrect some real chestnuts from the R&B and C&W canons. If, like me, when you listen to Led Zeppelin's fourth album and find yourself looking forward more to "The Battle of Evermore" than "Black Dog", you will fucking love this album. Ride on.
4. Steve Earle, Washington Square Serenade
The story of this album is almost as much fun as the album itself. Steve Earle, long the outcast leftist songwriter in a town full of conservative hacks, finally gets fed up with Nashville, marries one of the best singers on the planet, loads up the truck and moves to Manhattan, where he procedes to emulate the young Dylan by writing songs about what is, to him, a newly discovered mecca of characters, sounds, and inspiration. In doing so, like Dylan, Earle churns out one of the best albums of his career, a folky fuck-you to Trashville and all the small-minded hicks who inhabit it and a hummy hallelujah to NYC and all its freaky immigrants. Unlike anything coming out of country music these days, this album tells us what it really means to be an American.
3. Bat for Lashes, Fur and Gold
Before I fell in love with Bjork, her albums used to scare me shitless. Hypnotized both by her voice and the amazing range of fucking weird-ass noises she would throw together in her songs, I could only sit transfixed, like the RCA dog listening to his master's voice. This album is the first time since hearing Bjork's chirpy growl on a Sugarcubes record that I've felt so entranced by a voice whose words make me shiver in repressed terror. It must be love.
2. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
Until I heard this record, I thought that any 20-something's evocation of the Golden Age of Motown would fall into the tired histrionics of Boyz 2 Men or Mariah Carey-style yelping, where a potentially interesting song becomes an excuse for the singer to ululate like some sped-up version of a Cold War siren. Amy Winehouse, despite (or because of) all her drug-induced tragedy, knows that Motown was not intially a City on the Hill and that its songs were made to sound best coming out of a transistor radio, something Mariah Carey wouldn't touch with a ten-inch heel. Better yet, Winehouse looks like she has just stepped out of the era, and carries the pipes to prove it. This record is a sonic love-letter not only to some of the greatest music made in America, but to the poor shlubs who stayed up all hours learning etiquette, fashion, and dance steps to bring it to the masses. This is, and always will be, a music of the people.
1. Bruce Springsteen, Magic
I wrote about this on the site earlier, and I have lost none of my enthusiasm for this wonderful, much-needed, album. There are at least three songs on this masterpiece that never fail to bring tears to my eyes, and at least that many that make me want to blast down the freeway, hooting at underage girls. Like his earlier classic, Born in the U.S.A., this album has been sadly underestimated and misunderstood, but it will, I have no doubt, be regarded as one of Springsteen's most vital statements. This is an album we should feel lucky to have, and one that may well serve as a reminder, years hence, of what made this country great and how we pissed it all away.
If so, I suppose there could be worse companions than these fine musicians, listed here roughly in order of preference and/or repeated plays:
9. Radiohead, In Rainbows
8. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
If I have indeed become a fuddy-duddy, let me first blame these two bands for showing me the gilded path. I love both of these bands fiercely, to the extent that I will buy their new releases before hearing a note. In their past few releases, both of these bands have experimented more with sound than with song, but this year both bands seemed to rediscover the simple pleasures of songcraft, measuring their odd beeps and twitters with genuinely literate and expressive lyrics. Luckily enough, both bands also feature lead singers who can (when called upon to do so) emote with the best of them. Both of these albums feature some absolutely gorgeous songs, something I've not come to expect from these bands in the last few years. Although I will happily seek out any of their future noodlings, it was nice to see them both return to what, for them, passes for roots rock.
7. Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare
These lads, by contrast with the comparatively old hands above, are still in the blossom of their working-class anger, though this should not be mistaken for punk disdain. Rather, the Arctic Monkeys channel their aggression into surprisingly empathetic songs about the people in their neighborhood. Unlike Bob of Sesame Street, however, the Monkeys are willing to peek around the curtain of their neighbors' windows, sometimes to devastatingly honest effect, as in their heartbreaking anthem to a housewife's lost youth, "Fluorescent Adolescent," one of my favorite songs of the year.
6. Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full
Back to the fuddy-duddies, then. Macca's latest shows him more willing to experiment with instrumentation and songcraft, though experimentation to the former Beatle means something very different than it does to Radiohead or Wilco. The opening number, "Dance Tonight," for example, is a charming little mandolin number that McCartney wrote for his youngest child and is only experimental in the sense that it is not overwrought with McCartney's sense of self-importance (an affliction that more often struck his former partner, John Lennon) or the need to make any kind of grandiose statement about the vapid subjects that sometimes dominate McCartney's songs. Later in the album, McCartney acknowledges his past, but again manages to be more charming than cloying. The kicker is "The End of the End," in which the Beatle projects to the day of his death, evoking the sad realization that, aside from Ringo's perpetual nostalgia tours, Paul is really all we have left of the world's most influential pop band. This song, and this album, make you feel that perhaps we should enjoy whatever good years this man has left. But, like Dylan's recent renaissance, McCartney doesn't elicit any sympathy votes with his music. It speaks for itself.
5. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Raising Sand
Initially, I thought this would be more of a novelty record. It certainly is that, but not in the sense of it being an of-its-era throwaway. The novelty (or one of them) is in hearing Plant's grizzled voice wrap itself in harmony around Krauss' gorgeous lilt, and in the way they manage to resurrect some real chestnuts from the R&B and C&W canons. If, like me, when you listen to Led Zeppelin's fourth album and find yourself looking forward more to "The Battle of Evermore" than "Black Dog", you will fucking love this album. Ride on.
4. Steve Earle, Washington Square Serenade
The story of this album is almost as much fun as the album itself. Steve Earle, long the outcast leftist songwriter in a town full of conservative hacks, finally gets fed up with Nashville, marries one of the best singers on the planet, loads up the truck and moves to Manhattan, where he procedes to emulate the young Dylan by writing songs about what is, to him, a newly discovered mecca of characters, sounds, and inspiration. In doing so, like Dylan, Earle churns out one of the best albums of his career, a folky fuck-you to Trashville and all the small-minded hicks who inhabit it and a hummy hallelujah to NYC and all its freaky immigrants. Unlike anything coming out of country music these days, this album tells us what it really means to be an American.
3. Bat for Lashes, Fur and Gold
Before I fell in love with Bjork, her albums used to scare me shitless. Hypnotized both by her voice and the amazing range of fucking weird-ass noises she would throw together in her songs, I could only sit transfixed, like the RCA dog listening to his master's voice. This album is the first time since hearing Bjork's chirpy growl on a Sugarcubes record that I've felt so entranced by a voice whose words make me shiver in repressed terror. It must be love.
2. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
Until I heard this record, I thought that any 20-something's evocation of the Golden Age of Motown would fall into the tired histrionics of Boyz 2 Men or Mariah Carey-style yelping, where a potentially interesting song becomes an excuse for the singer to ululate like some sped-up version of a Cold War siren. Amy Winehouse, despite (or because of) all her drug-induced tragedy, knows that Motown was not intially a City on the Hill and that its songs were made to sound best coming out of a transistor radio, something Mariah Carey wouldn't touch with a ten-inch heel. Better yet, Winehouse looks like she has just stepped out of the era, and carries the pipes to prove it. This record is a sonic love-letter not only to some of the greatest music made in America, but to the poor shlubs who stayed up all hours learning etiquette, fashion, and dance steps to bring it to the masses. This is, and always will be, a music of the people.
1. Bruce Springsteen, Magic
I wrote about this on the site earlier, and I have lost none of my enthusiasm for this wonderful, much-needed, album. There are at least three songs on this masterpiece that never fail to bring tears to my eyes, and at least that many that make me want to blast down the freeway, hooting at underage girls. Like his earlier classic, Born in the U.S.A., this album has been sadly underestimated and misunderstood, but it will, I have no doubt, be regarded as one of Springsteen's most vital statements. This is an album we should feel lucky to have, and one that may well serve as a reminder, years hence, of what made this country great and how we pissed it all away.
posted by Chazzbot at 2:41 PM
2 Comments:
Loved Amy Winehouse's album. She's so tragic and so incredibly talented. Reminds me of a Poe or any other artist that suffered for art.
7,6,5 and 1 are all albums I've enjoyed this year too. Along with a lot of Britney Spears. That Paul McCartney album is fantastic.
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