[Crossposted from Livejournal]
30. The Hot Toddies: Smell the MittenTheirSpaceCokemachineglow ReviewComments: Girl group from the Pacific Northwest, and they sing a lot about sex. They have an incredible sense of humor, and it's a pretty funny album.
29. Scotland Yard Gospel ChoirTheirSpacePopmatters ReviewComments: More like a mini-album, as it clocks in at just over 25 minutes. It's still quality Belle and Sebastian style pop, and it's on Bloodshot Records, home of Neko Case and Chicago based, located at 3000 W. Irving Park.
28. Wilco: Sky Blue SkyTheirSpaceMetacriticComments: Some people hated this album, but I didn't. Call it a Wilco-bias, since they're my favorite band and all, but I thought some of this was great.
27. Madeline: The Slow BangHerSpaceSlant reviewComments: Another mini-album, with 8 tracks in under a half hour. I came across Madeline while browsing the
Orange Twin website, and then checked it out. Kind of like Cat Power- voice and guitar, for the most part. Pretty bare bones, pretty awesome.
26. Office: A Night at the RitzTheirSpaceStylus ReviewComments: They're on James Iha's label, so at least in that respect the real Smashing Pumpkins are represented on this list in some capacity. It's fun pop music, and I'm going to be seeing them next week. Some of these tracks were on their album from last year, Q&A, but they're still good, and so are the new ones.
25. Coconut Records: NighttimingTheirSpaceAbsolutePunk.net reviewComments: This is Jason Schwartzman's band. He gets Kirstin Dunst to do backup vocals, and she does pretty well. The album does pretty well for itself, too.
24. VoxtrotTheirSpaceMetacriticComments: Another album that a lot of people didn't like. No, it's not as good as their EPs that came out between 2005 and 2006, but I still enjoyed it enough to include it.
23. Jens Lekman: Night Falls Over KortadellaNotHisSpace, but it has his songsHis website [in the absence of a real MySpace]MetacriticComments: I almost forgot about this album. It's actually better if you hear some of the back stories behind some of the songs. One of them is about one of Jens' friends who tells her family that they're getting married in order to avoid telling her parents that she's a lesbian. There's another song on here about Jens' hair stylist. If that's not convincing enough, it went number one in Sweden.
22. Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer?TheirSpaceMetacriticComments: They put on a fantastic live show, but that's not really why they're on here. They also made a fantastic psych-pop record this year, probably their best since Gay Parade.
21. Thurston Moore: Trees Outside the AcademyThurston's page on the Ecstatic Peace! record label site [with MP3s]MetacriticComments: Sonic Youth stripped of noise. It's also really fantastic.
20. Apples in Stereo: New Magnetic WonderTheirSpaceMetacriticComments: Robert Schnieder also created his own scale, the "Non-Pythagorean Scale" that he uses on the album. Apparently he's a math nut. I don't have a good enough ear to tell. You've probably heard more than one of these songs somewhere on TV, because at least a couple of them got picked up for TV shows and commercials.
19. Dinosaur Jr.: BeyondTheirSpaceMetacriticComment: It sounds like Dinosaur Jr, and Dinosaur Jr rocks. The original trio is back together [J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph] and they can still bring it.
18. Rock Plaza Central: Are We Not Horses?TheirSpacePitchfork reviewComment: Ok, so basically, this is an album with a story told from the perspective of machine horses who long to be real horses. How on earth could this suck?
17. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of SilverHisSpaceMetacriticComment: The trio of "North American Scum", "Someone Great" and "All Your Friends" might be the most unfuckwithable consecutive song trio on any album this year.
16. The New Pornographers: ChallengersTheirSpaceMetacriticComment: Again, an album that a lot of other people weren't too keen on. I liked some of the slower songs on Twin Cinema, and bringing those to the forefront wasn't the worst idea. Dan Bejar still brings it on his three tracks, and AC Newman still has some good ones, but the biggest mistake on this is probably the fact that there's less Neko Case on the record [but she did draw art on the cover]
15. The High Water Marks: Polar
TheirSpaceReview on Optical AtlasComment: It's not really an Apples in Stereo side project anymore, since Hilarie Sidney left that band, but this is her primary musical outlet now. Her songs were always my favorites on the Apples in Stereo albums, and now this is her second output with her as co-main songwriter [along with husband Per Ole Bratset.
14. The Pipettes: We Are the Pipettes
TheirSpaceVideo for "ABC"MetacriticComment: Another all-girl group, but they just sing and "the cassettes" [their mystery backing band] play the instruments. It's a fun album full of nice, short pop songs.
13. Nicole Atkins: Neptune City
HerSpaceVideo for "Neptune City"Rolling Stone reviewComment: I had no idea who Nicole Atkins was until Spence saw her open up for The Pipettes in Boston. Ultimately, I think Nicole Atkins put out the better album. She has a fantastic voice, and has some fantastic tunes on this one.
12. Blitzen Trapper: Wild Mountain Nation
TheirSpaceVideo for "Wild Mountain Nation"Pitchfork reviewComment: Kinda lo-fi, alt-country. "Wild Mountain Nation" might be my favorite single track of the year.
11. Lilly Allen: Alright, Still
HerSpaceVideo for "LDN"MetacriticComment: She's feisty [not FEISTy]. She could also probably kick my ass. I don't think I'd mind, though.
10. St. Vincent: Marry Me
HerSpaceVideo for "Jesus Saves, I Spend"MetacriticComment: She's got famous friends, and that's probably how she got noticed. She was in Sufjan Stevens' Illinoisemakers choir, and the Polyphonic Spree, but now she's famous in her own right. I saw her open up for The National, and she was great. She's also my vote for Ms. Indie Rock 2007.
9. The 1900s: Cold and Kind
TheirSpace"Two Ways" performed on WGNAV Club reviewComment: I've seen these guys twice so far, but that was back when all they had out was their Plume Delivery EP. I was very excited to hear about their full length, and it truly did not disappoint. Psych pop all the way with male/female vocals.
8. Marissa Nadler: Songs III- Bird on the Water
HerSpaceVideo for "Bird on Your Grave"Pitchfork reviewComment: She takes the vocal reverb to the max, but it adds to an already eerie feel of what really are some beautiful songs.
7. Feist: The Reminder
HerSpaceVideo for "I Feel it All" performed on the Jimmy Kimmel show, on a busMetacriticComment: Who
doesn't know "1234" by now? I wanted to include the album by New Buffalo on this list, because she co-wrote the song, but I could not find it. Still, the remainder of The Reminder is just as fantastic, and maybe even better than "1234".
6. Andrew Bird: Armchair Apocrypha
HisSpace"Plasticities" performed on LettermanMetacriticComment: As good as Mysterious Production of Eggs? Eeeeeh, I dunno. But this one's still great, and it's brought Andrew Bird some big time attention, including that spot on Letterman.
5. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
TheirSpaceVideo for "The Underdog"MetacriticComment: Spoon's best album? Maybe. Ten songs, 35 minutes, they waste none of the time. "The Underdog" is up there with my favorite songs of the year, but absolutely nothing on this album is remotely even average.
4. Okkervil River: The Stage Names
TheirSpaceVideo of acoustic rendition of "A Girl in Port"MetacriticComment: I got into their last album, Black Sheep Boy, pretty late in the game. Will Sheff came back with The Stage Names and put up some more masterful songwriting that
might even require some research to fully understand.
3. Kanye West: The Graduate
HisSpaceVideo for "Stronger"MetacriticComment: Ok, so, I think that, in the long run, this might be Kanye West's best album. It's obviously too early to tell, as we've had some time to digest his first two albums, and it's nearly impossible to predict the future, but that's just what I think. This is Kanye in what seems to be a slightly more mature state, at least in the respect that he cut out the skits and just made 13 tracks that come in at under an hour. It all finishes with this kind of ode, kind of diss at Jay-Z, that could probably mean big things for the rap industry. If Kanye breaks off of Roc-a-Fella that would be huge. Anyway, those things don't really have anything to do with the album itself, which I still like quite a bit. 'Ye, keep makin' them platinum and gold for me.
1b. The National: Boxer
TheirSpaceVideo for "Apartment Story"Metacritic1a. Stars: In Our Bedroom After the War
TheirSpaceUnofficial video for "Window Bird"MetacriticOk, so this is totally a cop out. There's no single number one album this year, instead it's two albums that, in effect, tied for number one. Boxer has been at or near the top of my list for much of the year, and Stars kind of just came into the picture by accident. I absolutely love both albums from front to back. In Our Bedroom After the War just feels so epic, and stands as the perfect companion album for their last one, Set Yourself on Fire. The male-female companion vocals work beautifully, and Amy Millan has the most outstanding voice. Most of this should be getting play on mainstream radio alongside [former label mate] Feist. With the exception of "Barricade" which I think is kind of a drag, this feels like an absolutely flawless album.
Paste got it mostly right by naming Boxer their album of the year. Andy was nagging me to listen to this album, and actually, the first time I listened to it was one of the night's that he was in town. We went out for milkshakes and I was driving home at something like 2 in the morning, and I decided I'd put it in and listen on the way home. From the first line, "Staying out super late tonight," I thought it was the perfect late night driving album. It later became my perfect rainy day album, my perfect twilight album, and pretty soon it was just listenable all the time, and then my album of the year. There was really no chance, at that point, that this wasn't going to be at the top. I saw The National in concert, and it just made it that much better.