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.

Interview with Nicole Atkins

If you’re not yet familiar with Nicole Atkins, you will be soon. Last year Rolling Stone named her one of its Ten Artists to Watch, and she recently made her national TV debut on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote her full-length major-label debut, Neptune City, which has been earning positive reviews for its lush arrangements and her seductive vocal delivery.

Nicole called in from the road in Vermont to discuss the album, the tour, dinner invites from Letterman, and being the new DeNiro (sort of).

You’re on tour right now, opening for the Pipettes. How is that going?
It’s going good, the shows have been really great.

How are the Pipettes' fans responding to your performance?
Surprisingly well. There’s a lot of younger fans in the crowd, younger girls with polka-dot dresses on, and they seem to really like us. They’ve been buying our CDs after our set, which is good. A lot of people were saying they were surprised they liked the opening act!

Neptune City is based on life in your hometown. Can you elaborate on the story behind the songs?
I was living in Brooklyn for four or five years, and I just got to this point where I was really sick of the city. I moved back down to Charlotte for a few months just to get my head together, and I decided to move back to New Jersey for awhile, and it was basically about me coming to deal with all that, and being ok with living in my hometown again, because I always wanted to get as far as I could away from it, and I ended up really liking it.

There are conflicting emotions in some of the songs – a sense of pride in your town, but also disappointment in the changes that had taken place.
Yeah, you got it. It was hard because I didn’t know anybody that lived there anymore, but I ended up meeting some of the best friends I’ve ever had. It became easier for me to live there and write songs and commute to New York a couple days a week to practice, than it was for me to actually live in New York.

“Brooklyn’s on Fire” stands out as a song that paints a vivid picture. What was the inspiration for that song?
That was actually the first time I met my best friend Susan, who was my old roommate. We met on the fourth of July in Brooklyn at a rooftop party, and it was about that time, you know, just being young and living in Brooklyn, hanging out in New York and making the best memories of your youth in that time. It was a tribute song to her.

I understand that Rick Rubin made some last-minute changes to the record. How did he get involved?
Yeah, well he became the president of Columbia and he got my record and he really liked it but he thought that the vocals were being too squashed. So he actually ended up taking the mastering off completely, and it really made all of the arrangements and vocals really crisp, and you’re able to hear the nuances of every sound. My voice ended up sounding like it was leading the track rather than just being a part of the track, so I was really thankful. At first I was apprehensive about it because I didn’t know what he wanted to do. I thought I was gonna get my record back with all this shit all over it, and in the end he just enhanced it, he didn’t change anything.

I imagine it felt good to have someone of his stature helping out with your album.
It was pretty neat. It was weird because he would call me all time. I’d be out for drinks with my friends in New Jersey and be like, 'Hold on,' and they're like, 'Who's that?' 'Oh, Rick Rubin.' (laughs). He’s a really cool guy.

You’ve cited people like Roy Orbison and Patsy Cline as inspirations, with that kind of old fashioned sound. What is it that draws you to that kind of music?
It’s more the vocal style. Most of my musical influences are from the late ‘60s on, but they are inspirations to me because, that old country style of crooning, it feels really good for me to sing that way. And also the way I write songs, I like to start them out really low and build it until it’s like pow! at the end. And that’s something they were really good at doing with their songs as well.

I have to ask you about playing Letterman a couple weeks ago. What was that experience like?
Really fun! It was completely nerve-wracking at the beginning but then after a couple glasses of wine we went on stage and had a blast (laughs). It was one of the coolest days of my life so far. It was weird because when we actually got on stage, it was almost like I blacked out for three minutes and just got so into the song I didn’t notice how nervous I was.

It seemed like Dave was quite smitten with you.
Yeah, he asked me if I wanted to go get a steak! I thought that was pretty funny.

You and your band also did an American Express commercial. How did you get that opportunity?
It was so random. An intern at Columbia, their friend worked at the ad agency. She wanted to get an up-and-coming female singer/songwriter to do the ad and they asked me to do it. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I weighed the pros and the cons and was like, wow, I can pay off my credit card bill finally, move out of my mom’s house, and people actually get to hear my song that wouldn’t otherwise be on the radio, so I couldn’t understand any reason not to do it.

You mentioned the pros and cons - there will always be some people who see doing advertising as selling out.
Yeah, but you’ve gotta think about how the music industry is today. The only songs that make it on the radio are Britney Spears... to the few radio stations that even still exist. Musicians need to make their money somehow, and I just figured all the American Express ads that I’ve seen were really cool, and they always had cool people in them, and I figured if it was good enough for DeNiro, it was good enough for me!

The only thing that was misportrayed was we don’t really lounge around in bathrobes and offer to fly our friends out to our shows (laughs). I asked them about that too. I was like, 'We usually stay at the Econolodge.' 'Uh, that doesn’t look too good on tv.' Ok, whatever.

You’re playing here in Pittsburgh on Monday. What can people expect from your live show?
They can expect to probably dance a lot, and it’s more of a rock show than people would expect from hearing the recording. It’s pretty much a full-on rock show.

Video clip: Nicole Atkins & The Sea perform “The Way It Is” on The Late Show with David Letterman.



Nicole Atkins & The Sea perform at Diesel with the Pipettes tonight at 8 pm. Check out her website and her MySpace.

And I'm so, whoa oh oh ooh oh ooh oh

"The guy in the flannel shirt is the pianist!" I'm pretty sure tonight was the first time I ever uttered that sentence. I just saw the White Rabbits, one of my favorites from Lollapalooza, at Club Cafe. I like this band and their catchy, punchy rock songs. They are unique in that they have two drummers, sometimes three, depending on the song, and they do a lot of freelancing - sometimes the bassist will play drums, sometimes a drummer helps out on keyboards.

They have some shows lined up with Tokyo Police Club - that would be an awesome pairing - but tonight they headlined alone. It was a quality performance, and the single The Plot sounded great. I love the group sing along at the end of Kid on my Shoulders too.

They seemed pretty accessible and stayed afterwards to chat with people. I wanted to join in but when I go to shows by myself I feel a little silly talking to the bands, don't ask me why. I guess that's just another reason for me to launch this Pittsburgh music website that I've been kicking around in my head for years, so that I can actually interview bands before they get to town...

I'm not feeling very verbose tonight so I'll leave it at that, and link to their recent performance of The Plot on Letterman:

On Lollapalooza, part 1

We're finally just one month away from Lollapalooza. I've been looking forward to it forever. I'm going alone, which is actually great because when you go to these kinds of festivals with friends, you end up splitting up anyway to go see the bands you want to see. Being unfettered means I'll more easily be able to worm my way through crowds and get closer to the stage.

My biggest beef with Lolla is that they don't stagger the headlining acts, they have them performing at the same time. Which means that for much of the festival, I'm going to be catching 25 minutes of one band, racing to the other side of the park, and catching the last 25 minutes of the other band. That is not ideal, but I'd still rather do that than stay with one band for the full hour and miss the other band entirely. My biggest conflicts are Patti Smith vs. Spoon, Interpol vs. Muse, and Lupe Fiasco vs. Amy Winehouse.

I'm all about seeing as many bands as possible. I'd rather see 20 half-sets than 10 full sets. I've never quite understood the opposite mindset, but I guess to each his own...

Another criticism of Lolla is there are no WOW acts playing. Bonnaroo last year featured 2 of my 3 favorite bands, the Dresden Dolls and Radiohead. At Lolla, there will be a ton of very good acts, but none that are in my personal top ten.


CSS

Top 5 bands I'm looking forward to:
1. TV On the Radio -myspace
2. CSS -myspace
3. Tokyo Police Club -myspace
4. M.I.A. -myspace
5. Patti Smith -myspace
Honorable mention: Silverchair, Iggy Pop & the Stooges, Smoosh, Amy Winehouse, Pearl Jam, Mickey Avalon

TV On the Radio are playing late Sunday night, right before Pearl Jam, and right after !!! and Modest Mouse, so that's going to be a memorable way to end the festival. They blew the roof off Letterman when they played last year: