2007's Best Music: Albums
by Sean
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.


 

StG Favourite Albums 2007 - photo (c) Louis Vest

Yesterday, we shared some of our favourite songs of the year. Today the three of us talk in fewer words about our favourite albums.

I've heard almost all of them and they're all fuckin' rad. Go buy some music for Christmas, late Hannukah, New Year, end-of-world, or your wedding night.


DAN:

  1. Group Inerane - Guitars From Agadez (Music of Niger) (track: "Kuni Majagani")
  2. Frog Eyes - Tears of the Valedictorian (Sean posted "Bushels")
  3. Fiery Furances - Widow City (track: "Japanese Slippers")
  4. Paul F. Tompkins - Impersonal (track: "Alternative Pets")
  5. Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover (track: "The Mending of the Gown")
  6. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (track: "My Body is a Cage")
  7. Times New Viking - The Paisley Reich (Sean posted "Devo & Wine")

I know what you're thinking: "Dan, you have impeccable taste". Well, you're right, keep talking. "I notice you've started strong out of the gates with an album no one cared about, and no one can even get ahold of. How eccentric! And then a bunch of canadian bands you've been talking about for three years, mixed with a Brooklyn band you've been harping on for three years, and a new Brooklyn band. And mixed in there, taking up one of the seven slots for the year, the 4th no less, is an album of stand-up comedy. Seriously, you know what you're talking about." Okay, stop talking.

I'll explain the ones I think need explaining. Group Inerane's Guitars From Agadez is the most affecting group of songs I've heard all year. That album is a document of perfect expression, it's like listening to the invention of the electric guitar. After I heard it I went looking for something like it, and though there are many imitators, nothing comes close to this. Paul F. Tompkins is on there for two reasons; he's representing the comedy album, and he made the best one (simple, straightforward, yet formal, classic, like a three-piece suit).


JORDAN:

My past 365 days have been profoundly enriched by the following pieces of music (in no particular order):

Nat Baldwin's Most Valuable Player (Info)
Feist's The Reminder (Sean)
The Sleeping States' There the Open Spaces (me)
Sandro Perri's Tiny Mirrors (Sean)
Frog Eyes' Tears of the Valedictorian (Dan)
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Tusk (Sean, me, Sean, me)
The Band's The Band (me)
Robert Pete Williams' Graveyard Blues (me)
Revenant's American Primitive, Volumes 1 & 2
Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" (Buy)
Percy Sledge's "Come Softly To Me" (me)
Medicine Head's "His Guiding Hand" (me)

This year was also musically notable for me because: After three years of work, my band, The Cay, finally finished Don't Go Out Tonight. Here are two songs from that album.


SEAN:

  1. The Luyas - Faker Death [mp3/info/buy]
  2. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and Icons, Abstract Thee [mp3/buy]
  3. Vampire Weekend - Blue CD-R [mp3]
  4. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [mp3/buy]
  5. Basia Bulat - Oh My Darling [mp3/buy]
  6. Low - Drums & Guns [mp3/buy]
  7. Shearwater - Palo Santo [mp3/buy]
  8. M.I.A. - Kala [mp3/buy]
  9. Feist - The Reminder [mp3/buy]
  10. Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors [mp3/buy]
Runners up: Ola Podrida, Orilla Opry, Sleeping States, Julie Doiron, Miracle Fortress, Nina Nastasia & Jim White, Ravens & Chimes, Do Make Say Think, The Owls, Colourbook, Burial and Phosphorescent

In more ways than one, this was for me a year about coming back to life. I want to thank the artists who made living seem easy - Spoon, Basia, Vampire Weekend, Feist, Miracle Fortress. I want to thank those who found new ways to sing the ways it is hard - The Luyas, Of Montreal, Low, Shearwater, Sandro Perri. And I want to thank as well the two or three who I left behind with the ghosts; Burial and Phosphorescent, artists I've not been quite able to look in the incandescent eye.

[photo by Louis Vest]

Posted by Sean at December 18, 2007 3:46 PM
Comments

Um,it's Palo Santo, not Palo Alto. But it does rule.

Posted by David M. at December 18, 2007 5:57 PM

I'd like to thank you, not just for the year end lists, but for all your work this year, and for all the songs I've heard around here, especially : Misha "Shake a little looser", The French Quarter "Stay", Sleeping States "The next step", Nico "Little stone", Black Before Red "Underneath Gold".

My favorite album of the year is the "Clap your hands" thing that everyboody seems to have forgotten. Well...

Posted by Sebastien - from Paris at December 18, 2007 6:28 PM

Group Inerane is amazing, thanks for the intro! And thanks to all three of you--Sean, Dan, Jordan--for an awesome and always always humbling site.

Posted by Amy at December 18, 2007 11:31 PM

amy, you're my new favourite. and thank you. you are also great. the great kind of great.

Posted by dan at December 19, 2007 12:31 AM

Your list i love!

1 - PJ Harvey - White Chalk
2 - Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
3 - Brett Anderson - Brett Anderson
4 - Rufus Wainwright - Release The Stars
5 - Perry Blake - Canyon Songs
6 - Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
7 - Bill Callahan - Woke on A Whaleheart
8 - M.I.A. - Kala
9 - Kylie Minogue - X
10 - Phosphorescent - Pride
11 - Richard Hawley - Lady's Bridge
12 - Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus
13 - Blonde Redhead - 23
14 - Suzanne Vega - Beauty & Crime
15 - Sarah Nixey - Sing, Memory
16 - Manic Street Preachers - Send Away The Tigers
17 - Panda Bear - Person Pitch
18 - Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
19 - Feist - The Reminder
20 - The National - Boxer
21 - Interpol - Our Love To Admire
22 - LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver
23 - Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
24 - Puressence - Don't Forget To Remember
25 - Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat
26 - Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
27 - Liars - Liars
28 - Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
29 - Bruce Springsteen - Magic
30 - Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted

Posted by Tacim at December 19, 2007 7:15 AM

Arcade Fire best band! I love it!

Posted by Arcade Fire at December 19, 2007 12:43 PM

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about said the gramophone
This is a daily sampler of really good songs. All tracks are posted out of love. Please go out and buy the records.

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Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.

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