Top Albums of 2007
I’m usually about a year or two behind the times in terms of new music, so something that’s new, exciting, or groundbreaking in 2007 I probably won’t listen to or understand until 2009. This is the list of ‘good’ music that I really enjoyed this year, with ‘good’ being anything progressive, innovative, or “cool”. Hope you like them too.
9) Jay-Z - American Gangster
It sounds like exactly what it claims to be: Jay-Z as the quintessential American Gangster. If you know anything about Jay Z and/or old-school gangsters, and can picture how awesome it would be if the two did business together, then you have a pretty good idea of what this album sounds like.
8 ) Justice - Cross
When I first heard of Justice and saw their album cover of a giant cross, I thought they were a metal band. It has recently been brought to my attention that they are in fact the exact opposite. Think of what Daft Punk would sound like if they were poppier, funkier, and weren’t robots.
7) Holy Fuck - LP
With a band name destined for mainstream success, Holy Fuck kind of sounds a jam band you’d hear at your friend’s house party…except instead of a guitarist you’ve got some weirdo with lots of random, broken-looking equipment. Noise generators he stole from the engineering lab, and whatnot. Also gone is the pointless meandering…no 10 minute jams. They say what they have to say, rock your socks off, and then move on to the next thing. Their tracks here are loosely played but very tightly arranged, averaging 4 minutes each. Did I mention they rock your socks off?
6) The Go! Team - Proof of Youth
Picture an 80s action-adventure theme song with funky horns, mixed with schoolyard jump-rope chants, mashed up with breakbeats, and played on a cassette tape and through an old boom box. That’s what the Go! Team feels like. If you know The Avalanches, it’s kinda like that, except really really happy. Proof of Youth is very similar to their first CD, Thunder Lightning Strike, so if you like this, get their first one too. After getting sick of this album in mid-2007, I went to their awesome live show and loved it all over again.
5) Burial - Untrue
Think of Moby’s Play album, except mournful, with less pop and more soul. Mix in the dark moody scratchiness of UNKLE or DJ Shadow and dub beats. Serve chilled through headphones after midnight.
4) Daft Punk - Alive 2007
I come from a weird position of being really familiar with Daft Punk’s old catalog, but never really liking them that much…until now. Think of every catchy hook or riff they’ve every played mashed and mixed together into one crazy live set. Most dance sets start at “low” and build up to “high”, but here it feels like they started at “high” and built up to “ridiculous”, periodically bringing it back down to “high” so they have room to make it “ridiculous” again. There are more “omg this is amazing” moments in this mix than in most other mixes I can remember. Not only that but the sound quality is surprisingly good; the beats are bigger, thicker and juicier than any of their studio recordings. I think I sprained my neck listening to this too vigorously. Solid.
3) Kevin Drew - Spirit If…
It feels like a Broken Social Scene unplugged album, except with the same level of messy, grandiose, hippie-style super-production……meaning it’s just as awesome.
2) Kanye West - Graduation
There’s a line in the 007 Casino Royale movie, where M says to 007 something to the effect of “Arrogance and self-awareness rarely go together”. How M feels towards Bond is how I feel about Kanye West. Although he is probably one of the cockiest people alive, his raps show he is acutely aware of each of his vices and has no problems sharing the details and consequences of each one….in rhyme, in detail, and with wit. Judging from his lyrics, he’s actually of the most grounded mainstream hip hop artists out there. Plus, not only are his beats hot, but his collaborations with people like John Mayer and Chris Martin actually work as real songs, not just a cross-genre marketing gimmick.
1) NIN - Year Zero
Before 2007, I was not a NIN fan…..this album kind of changes all that. As is expected from Trent, we get an album full of industrial beats and noise. Most of it here is at a menacing mid-tempo, which I actually prefer to the fast-paced aggressiveness of his earlier work. Although there’s nothing really groundbreaking to be found here, the execution is flawless - every track is amazing. In fact, I think the weakest song here is the big single “Survivalism”. Now, everything in the top 4 was well-executed and could be arguably more original…..but what sets this album apart from the others was the the marketing that went behind the album’s concept. The concept itself is, again, nothing new…..post-apocalyptic future, America as a police state, blah blah blah. How they put the plot into place was pretty amazing. In a technique not so much “grassroots” as “leveraging-your-obsessive-fan-base”, NIN got a PR firm to place ridiculously obscure clues that, when decoded, would hint at a series of secret websites that would draw you deeper into the Year Zero world. The sites themselves are thematically consistent, well thought out, and quite cool. A really detailed listing can be found on http://www.ninwiki.com, check it out. On top of this coolness, the heat-sensitive CD changes colour after you play it, which confused me endlessly when I spun it for the first time.
Anyways, hats off to Trent Reznor for building himself a fake conspiracy theory and pulling us all into it too.
Happy New Year.
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