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Sunday, December 16, 2007

My favorites of '07

I've read a ton of "best of 2007" lists on blogs, so rather than subject everyone to another top 10 or top 50 list, I decided to recap my favorites from 2007 in a slightly different way, with some serious and not-so-serious categories. Here's my list, with YouTube links for each.


Favorite album of the year

Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position

Favorite Track of 2007

Rihanna - Umbrella (featuring Jay-Z)

Albums that grew on me after some initial disappointment
Architecture in Helsinki - Places Like This
Junior Senior - Hey Hey My My Yo Yo

Albums that, regrettably, never grew on me
New Pornographers - Challengers
The Go! Team - Proof of Youth


Most Tragically Overlooked Pop Single
Natasha Bedingfield - I Wanna Have Your Babies

Favorite Rock Album
The National - Boxer

Best Rock Song
Against Me! - White People for Peace

Best Rock Song That Makes Use of Church Organ
The Arcade Fire - Intervention

Best Country Song
Rodney Atkins - These Are My People

Best Chorus
M.I.A. - Paper Planes

Best Foreign-Language Dance-Pop song Featuring Bouncing Ping Pong Balls
Enrique Iglesias - Dimelo

Most Overrated Album
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Come on people, the emperor has no clothes! I'm perplexed as to how people are calling this a return to Radiohead's earlier sound. It sounds nothing like The Bends or OK Computer. What it sounds like is Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, with fewer weird sound effects. It's as if the band started recording it, then quit halfway through the process and said, 'Good enough.' By far the band's weakest effort since their debut.

Most Underrated Album
Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High
Scoff if you like, but this is a CD I couldn't stop playing. Other albums may have been greater artistic achievements, but this one had the most catchy tracks. And that's what I value most. Listen to "Bang the Doldrums" or "Thks fr Th Mmrs" and an hour later you'll be humming the chorus, whether you like it or not.

Artist I'm ready to give up on after three straight subpar albums
Rufus Wainwright

Best album from someone I'd given up on
Sondre Lerche - Dan In Real Life (soundtrack)

Most Impressive Job of Staying Relevant by Someone Who Shouldn't Still be Relevant
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

Best Album from 2006 I couldn't stop listening to in 2007
The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

Best televised performance
Feist - 1,2,3,4 on Letterman (with New Pornographers, Grizzly Bear, The National, and Broken Social Scene)



Best live performance by a Mexican instrumental guitar duo
Rodrigo y Gabriela - Diablo Rojo on Letterman



Best use of the 'Shoes' girl in a video
Dresden Dolls - Shores of California

Best Use of Furries in a Video
Gym Class Heroes - Clothes Off!

Gayest Song of the Year
Mika - Lollipop

Catchiest Rock Song That Somehow Got Largely Overlooked
My Chemical Romance - Teenagers


Best Concert I witnessed
Daft Punk - Lollapalooza

Most Memorable Song Performance I witnessed

Pearl Jam with Ben Harper - Rockin' in the Free World (at Lollapalooza)

Most captivating dancer
Aaron Behrens of Ghostland Observatory

Best Nirvana cover
Polyphonic Spree - Lithium (at Lollapalooza)

Best attempt by a goth band to sound like Franz Ferdinand
Marilyn Manson - Heart Shaped Glasses


Best Song in the "Gypsy Pirate Rock" genre
HUMANWINE - Rivolta Silenziosa

Most Bizarre Pop Song That Still Rocks
Fiery Furnaces - Clear Signal From Cairo

Most Ubiquitous Song of the Summer Which Turned Out to be a Fluke from an Awful Group
Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks

Artist I love even though I admit he has little talent
Mickey Avalon

Best Hip Hop Song
Kanye West - Stronger

Best Summer Jam
Justin Timberlake - Summer Love

Best Music Video
Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

dude how could you give props to that feist videowithout recognizing the amazingness that is the grizzly bear video for knife
fuckedup desert landscapes and crstal crotches?!?!
it doesn't get better than that

BeckEye said...

I haven't done my favorite songs of 2007 yet, but it may surprise you to know that "Umbrella" will be on it. Or maybe it won't surprise you. I mean, who the hell doesn't like that song??

Scott said...

Sweet, I am looking forward to that!

And kudos to you for waiting till late-December to post that. It's one of my pet peeves when people make year-end lists in the first week of December, with an entire month still to go.