BlueKitchen.net
BlueKitchen.net
The 20 Most Glass-Raising Albums of 2007
The Top Ten:
10.
Band of Horses
Cease to Begin
Our top album of last year was the debut from Band of Horses and there were some around these parts none too happy about it. Although many of us had it very high on our individual lists, no one had it as their #1 album. But, with everyone unanimously agreeing that it was a great album, it made the top spot. Now, another Band of Horses debate: should this, their "not as great" follow-up and first without co-founder Mat Brooke, even be on our list?Thanks for reading!
Band of Horses is now in the capable hands of Ben Bridwell who, by the sound of this album, has decided to shed a bit of rookie playfulness and settle into some warmer songwriting. The opener, "I Could Sleep," is a bit deceptive in its return to Something All The Time's more anthemic-friendly indie rock. Shortly thereafter, Cease to Begin settles down and gets comfortably numb. "Marry Song" and "Detlef Shrempf" highlight the rest of the album which, while not reaching the crowd-friendly toe-tappers of the first album, is just fine to be its own creation. Bridwell has taken his band into mellower, "more boring" waters to some...but slowing down can be progression, too. -Eric Morris
09.
Animal Collective
Strawberry Jam
Animal Collective is slowly becoming this generation’s Beatles. Not that their music really sounds much like any of the Fab Four’s back catalogue, but both bands have an elusive knack for taking traditional pop music and turning it on its ear, with the added bonus of consistently putting out albums that are not only good, but essential. “Strawberry Jam” is AC’s latest kaleidoscope of screeches, swirls and buzzing sounds, creating what might be their most straightforward, psychedelic and consistent album yet. Songs like “Peacebone,” “For Reverend Green” and “Fireworks” are prime examples of the sonic beauty that you can count on hearing on each new Animal Collective album. Then you consider this year’s mind-blowingly great Person Pitch, and Panda Bear and Avey Tare really start to look like the 21st century Lennon-McCartney. Here’s hoping they won’t wind up hating each other and parting ways to create bands like “Wings.” -Scott Morris
08.
Electrelane
No Shouts No Calls
If Electrelane’s recently announced hiatus turns into real dissolution, at least the timing will be as lovely and dead-on as the Brighton female foursome’s latest record, “No Shouts No Calls.” Written during a clearly memorable summer in Berlin (including a World Cup football game sampled on the track “Five”) and recorded in Michigan last fall, the album perfectly mixes the band’s confident instrumental prowess with expansively slight lyrics about tender possibilities lost, recalled, dreamt and stirring. The balance between balls-out (or is that vags-out?) rocking, such as on “Five” and “Between the Wolf and the Dog,” lush, expansive seas of organ, piano, guitar and string melodies, and sirenlike serenades of do do dos and ooh ooh aahs ― sometimes within the same song ― made this one of the most epic and transporting albums of the year. Even if Verity Susman, Emma Gaze, Mia Clarke and Ros Murray catch up to the idea of not being in love with Electrelane anymore, they have given us a last lighthouse in the storm. And as Susman’s penetrating lyrics tell us, “At sea there is always tomorrow. There are ways to be free. We’ll work it out, we’ll work it out …” -Kiersten Lawson
07.
Battles
Mirrored
As my thirties press onward and I find myself dealing more with grocery store lists and utility bills than noise bands and math rock, I occasionally take a break to revisit my not-so-forgotten youth for a moment. Such was the case this year when I went to see Battles at the Doug Fir here in Portland. Having already heard this excellent album a few times, my crazy near obsession with it started that night.Now, I am a big proponent for albums standing on their own without being propelled by a live performance, but Battles is certainly not interested in conforming to any type of rule structure. Their very music, in fact, seems to take them in and out the bounds of "music," as it is commonly known, multiple times within songs. One of the best songs of this year, "Atlas," is a thunderous, epic journey that grows from a small seed and become a giant oak with branches sprouting in every which direction. In fact, the same could be said for this entire album. Mirrored is mostly instrumental, mostly genius, and mostly unconventional. To some, I imagine it will be mostly unlistenable. To me, it's sweet music to my ears...even here in my "grown-up" thirties. -Eric Morris
06.
Radiohead
In Rainbows
Given less than two weeks notice and the news that we could pay whatever we wanted to download it (I settled on under $10, but not by much), with In Rainbows, Radiohead turned the music industry on its ear...again. It's hard not to love an album that can do that, even if it's not entirely by its musical content. But, Radiohead hasn't skimped on the musical side of things, either. The album, initially, felt like it would settle nicely into Radiohead's catalog somewhere between Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac. Not quite reaching the crescendo that was OK Computer or the odd brilliance of Kid A, but solid nonetheless. Then multiples listenings led down another path. It's still not the strongest album by Radiohead, but the diversity they show on it is compelling. Old live tune "Nude" is performed dreamily here while songs like "Jigsaw Falling into Place" revisit a pop structure that only Radiohead can perfect. Radiohead continues to show its dominance as the most respectable powerhouse in music today with their ingenuity, both on and off the record. -Eric Morris
05.
LCD Soundsystem
Sound of Silver
James Murphy tends to wear his influences on his sleeve, and bless him for doing so. Murphy’s latest album overflows with his favorite types of music -- electronica, kraut-rock, post-punk, disco and even occasionally lounge crooning, as in the closer “New York, I Love You (But You’re Bringing Me Down)” – as well as nods to particular musicians such as David Bowie and Bryan Ferry. This follow-up to LCD Soundsystem’s eponymous record often sounds more like a James Murphy mix tape than a studio album, but that is one of its strengths. It’s as if he’s so impassioned with particular styles of music and specific musicians that he can’t help but import that same furor into his own work. “Sound of Silver” hosts three of 2007’s best songs --“North American Scum,” “Someone Great” and “All My Friends” -- which also happen to be consecutive tracks, a feat rarely accomplished on any album. Beyond that, there is so much pleasure to be had in this excellent collage of funk, rock and dance that it’s hard to comprehend anyone listening to it and not immediately claiming it to be one of the best things they’ve heard all year. -Scott Morris
04.
MIA
Kala
In a year of many great albums, “Kala” stood out as the rapturous renegade bent on pushing our buttons and expanding our minds while simultaneously reminding us to shake our arses and live for the motherfuckin’ moment. Named after her mother, as 2005’s “Arular” was named after her father, this second genre-mashing album by the British-Sri Lankan Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam ― whose artistic handle M.I.A. is short for “missing in action” and “missing in Acton” (West London) ― is as wholly audacious and original as she is. And that, I think, is precisely her point: She makes music that reflects her multifaceted self, as opposed to albums that are commercially designed to cash a lot of Rihanna-sized paychecks, which she could surely do after the success of her 2005 debut. The life experiences that invoke and inform her art are as intense and varied as the musical influences on “Kala.” She recorded tracks in Trinidad, India, Japan and Australia, meshing hip-hop, dance and rock with Brazilian, Jamaican, Bollywood and Aboriginal music, samples and elements from bands as diverse as the Clash, Jonathan Richman, New Order and the Pixies, and brilliantly metaphorical sounds such as rhythmically cocking guns and ringing cash registers. That “Kala” so successfully melds this jaw-droppingly broad set of influences also owes to the talents of primary producer Switch and contributing producers Blaqstarr, Diplo and Timbaland, but it’s this 30-year-old globe-trekker’s complex ideas about the world and its overlapping voices and music that give the album its real “power, power.” Chuck D of Public Enemy has said, “She is the future of music, and the future is here.” I say, “Whistle whistle, blow blow. Here we here we go go!” -Kiersten Lawson
03.
Spoon
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Outrageously unfortunate title aside, Britt Daniels has crafted his finest album since (in my humble opinion) Girls Can Tell. I'm often accused of having a soft spot for that album, as it had been some time since the last Spoon outing (three years is an eternity in Spoon years), I was single, and living in downtown Portland at the time. It all led to the perfect storm that had me adoring my still prized, pristine piece of wax and spinning it two, three, sometimes four times a day. Here we are six years removed from Girls..., which has been the springboard for Spoon's sound in the latter part of their career.
It's hard to explain what makes each Spoon album great, even though their sound doesn't noticeably change much each time out. But, listening closely and continuously exposes more and more layers of Daniels's pop greatness. Trimming some of the "fat" from last year's Gimme Fiction while not creating sparseness has made Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga a more confident, assured piece of work. Spoon's always been a bit more comfortable in the 30 minute running time of an album and Fiction bloated to over 40. It showed. Those "mistakes" have been corrected while, at the same time, bringing more to the game. "The Underdog" and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" have now tilted the pendulum into mainstream territory, but rightfully so. Both songs are crafted flawlessly and are placed well in the album. The album is structured similarly to Fiction in its build and release formula, but by sharpening some edges and manicuring each song obsessively, the result is a gorgeous piece of pop history. -Eric Morris
02.
Menomena
Friend and Foe
The next page in the lesson book of why Portland is the best American city to live in features the digitally wrangled indie rock exuberance of Menomena, three local “Neverending Story”-generation auteurs whose clever, mature lyrics and fun-and-games album naming and packaging are as gonzo fresh as their musical style. “Friend and Foe” was one of the earliest releases of 2007, but its firebrand formula of looping drums, base, saxophone and piano overlaid with melodic vocals, whistles and calls by all three bandmates ― Brent Knopf, Justin Harris and Danny Seim ― never stopped putting a loopy, appreciative grin on my face. To boot, this year’s “Wet and Rusting” EP contains three additional album-worthy tracks and two remixes of the title song that further drive home the point that these boys may be having a tubload of fun, but they are not fooling around. I recently read that for their next album they plan to use Deeler (the digital looping recorder designed by Knopf to mesh each solo musical piece into a sonic whole) at an earlier songwriting stage to make the process even more democratic. Sounds to me like all the more reason for these rose city moon-children to say, “There’s so much more left to do. Well I’m not young, but I’m not through.” Except they are still young, and doing more than their part to keep Portland weird and wonderful for years to come. -Kiersten Lawson
01.
The National
Boxer
Musical stylings, technical brilliance, songwriting and the lot be damned...the best album of the year is the one you find yourself continually going back to without falter. It's your best album of your year, after all...right? To hell with anyone who tells you differently. Mine, in a landslide, was The National's Boxer. A grand admirer of Alligator yet unfamiliar with their self-titled debut, I was wary that their sound would not translate well to another release. Wrong. Although their style, in effect, has not changed much since their debut, the song craftmanship continues to flourish. Matt Berninger's exsquisite baritone spews literate lyrics over a highly mixed and expansive sound, the drums pummeling your innards. "Fake Empire," the album's starting point, almost sets the bar too high. A morose, slow-building ballad that would have Leonard Cohen smiling, it sets the tone for the rest of what lies within. But everything builds from there. "Mistaken by Strangers" and "Squalor Victoria", like "Fake Empire," could all wind up on a best songs of the year list of mine, if I ever got around to doing one.
Listening to Boxer is a vast, cathartic affair. It never misses a step, never leaves you alone, and never lets you ignore it. It is an experience that was addictive for me this year, one that I still have yet to have tired of. A few years ago, The National felt lost in the wake left by the force of Arcade Fire's Funeral. This year, The National's Boxer won by unanimous K.O., this time leaving Arcade Fire to wonder what happened. -Eric Morris