New Year, New List

I know I have been a total slacker about updating this thing, and after all that talk about how I was going to mobile blog whatever came into my head, wine food music blah blah blah....and then it turned out that my wife was the one to actually follow through on that (read hers here). Well, I'm going to be better this year. Really. Or maybe not, we'll see. In the meantime, here's my list of essential albums from 2007 (Bon Savants was actually mid-Dec 2006 but I'm not letting 2 weeks stop it from getting in. It's my list so I make the rules).

This is the list I've been keeping. Tier I is sort of a "damn this CD is good and indispensible; I can't imagine not having that album" Tier 2 has some albums that in theory might end up in that level but probably not, but I still really liked them.

There's also a couple other albums from 2007 I picked up today on emusic but they're on the quiet/mellow side and hard to tell if I like them at work volumes. Have to have a run on the headphones to figure those out but whatever; this list is already long enough.....

My favorite album by a mile:
The National - Boxer

Tier I

Interpol - Our Love to Admire
Film School - Hideout
Sloan - Never Hear the End of It
BRMC - Baby 81
The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
The Cave Singers - Invitation Songs
Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil
Matthew Dear - Asa Breed
Tinariwen - Aman Iman: Water is Life
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Oxford Collapse - A Good Ground
Warm in the Wake - American Prehistoric

Tier 2

The Ponys - Turn the Lights Out
Celebration - The Modern Tribe
White Stripes - Icky Thump
Emma Pollock - watch the fireworks
MIA - Kala
Rebekah Higgs - Rebekah Higgs
Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down the Mountain
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Caribou - Andorra
Bon Savants - Post Rock Defends the Nation
The Rakes - Ten New Messages
The Mother Hips - Kiss the Crystal Flake
Kathy Diamond - Miss Diamond to You
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Caribou - Andorra
Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Acadamy
Pela - Anytown Graffiti
International Karate - More of what we've heard before

I felt like this was overall a really good year for music. Felt like Indie has started to permeate the mainstream a bit too which can't be a bad thing. I've also noticed a lot of world/int'l styles creeping into otherwise 'normal' music and other genre-blurring, as well as a return to a 60's and 70's classic rock sound that is hitting a great note.