[tws]

I'll be the first to tell you that 2007 was a year that I spent considerably little time waiting anxiously for new music to emerge hot off the presses. I augmented my vinyl collection like no other this year (related post with bad news coming soon). That isn't to say that music isn't at a bad place right now, its just in a vortex of oversaturation. There are not enough hours in the day to sit back and absorb even just the "best new music" column on Pitchfork. My favorites from this year, both in singles and in albums, are a scattershot but highly likeable mix of left-field hits and pleasant surprises.

ALBUM

I don't have a favorite album of 2007. I did way too little footwork with actually sitting down and taking in an entire LP from start to finish, at least as far ast 2007 went. There were a couple that did stand out for me, given my oversight of what many critics jacked off this year (Sound of Silver? Strawberry Jam?).

One album that did very pleasantly surprise me this year was Ash's apparently final studio full-length Twilight of the Innocents. Ash has been one of my favorite bands since I was about 13, and their previous album Meltdown was a misstep in the classic Sandinista!-style misstep. I defended the band against their dud in my college's art magazine, and surely enough three years later they swung right around (sans the ridiculously talented Charlotte Hatherley- more on her later) and delivered the power pop that Tim Wheeler is capable of. "Blacklisted" and "Polaris" are included on this playlist.

For those of you who know me and my weird music tastes, you may say that I like my music noisy and I like it Scottish, usually not in that order. One of the most ear-numbingly good shows I saw this year was The Twilight Sad. They're incredibly noisy and incredibly Scottish, and their album Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters delivers, complete with beautiful 50's retro-packaging. Frontman James Graham doesn't even try to hide his thick accent. Righteous! I've included one of the songs on there among my best singles of the year, so look below.

I also really liked the Dinosaur Jr reunion album Beyond. It was actually so good, I think they've avoided the "nostalgia act" label entirely that people were afraid would follow J, Lou, and Murph into this new millenium. Their late-80's heyday isn't even necessarily a heyday, considering how they're still incredibly relevant, given how solid this record is. Plus, there's that whole "J Mascis is probably the best guitarist of the last 25 years" thing they have going for them. Sebawho?. I'll even forgive the guys for nearly deafening me in New Orleans a few weeks ago. Check out my two favorite cuts "Almost Ready" and "We're Not Alone" on the playlist.

Haha-Fart/Romance pop-punk legends The Queers, against tons of conventional expectations, put out a pretty good record, too, called Munki Brain. Not one of the greatest, I just think Joe Queer needs more attention now that he's pushed 40 and still tours his ass off. "Houston We Have a Problem" (on playlist) and "I Can't Stay Mad at You" are both great.

SINGLES

Plenty of good songs, even if no "album" proper really won my heart and soul. The best song of the year, and maybe in contention for second-best of the whole damn decade (The Streets' "Don't Mug Yourself" is my favorite, in case anyone was wondering) is a song by a hyper-hyped quintet from Jacksonville called Black Kids. "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You" channels the superficially great girl group mentality (this high school social is awkward!) through Bright Eyes (if they weren't so damn depressed). Fro'd leader Reggie Youngblood strikes a vein with this one, and the shout-along chorus completely seals it.

The Twilight Sad, the scottish noise-pop quartet I talked about above, also nailed it this year with a building, sprawling, crashing, beautiful single called "And She Would Darken the Memory." (That's meant to be read with a Scottish brogue...go back and do it again). Anyway, this comes in a very close second to my pick for best single, and is easily in the top 5 of my favorite songs of the decade so far. [Really dumb of me to forget it when writing this column the first time up...I seriously thought it came out in '06. D'oh.]

Los Campesinos! You! Me! Dancing! Unbridled enthusiasm! Kickass eclectic instrumentation! Sounds like twee pop with balls! Hilarious! Exclamation points! I'd kill to see this performed live!

What else? Dan Deacon, a chubby ubergeek from Baltimore with an ingenius electronic-trash setup (just watch this video to the right) was my single favorite show I saw all year. His live performances are something everyone should experience in their lifetime. Quality adrenaline. His song "Crystal Cat" has found its way into my brain on repeat. It's like british drum-n-bass, but written by Lewis Carroll. Think Aphex Twin mixed with Ween and damn life-affirming.

I mentioned the Irish rocker Charlotte Hatherley earlier. She is awesome. And, dare I say (and Jake and I did say on the Christmas special of "The Big Takeover" before playing her single), unconventionally hot. She left Ash because she was gaining too much solo-steam, yet somehow hasn't broken through in the states yet. Wait...I've been saying that about Ash for over ten years now. Check out "Behave."

Aesop Rock, everyone's favorite ambiguously Jewish long islander turned rap impresario/genius left a lasting impression on me a few years ago with Bazooka Tooth. His album this year None Shall Pass is good but nothing spectacular. Fortunately, the title track is pretty awesome. Blockhead does some good snap/click/stomp production on it. Kudos!

The Animal Collective are pretty talented as brainstormers and hype-getters, don't get me wrong... but, let me put their experimental indie pop into perspective. Imagine if Superman, perfectly capable of saving lives and bettering mankind, chose to use his superpowers more often to build really cool Stonehenge-style mountains out of Ford Windstars. Then, every couple of years, the writers and Pitchfork forced you to stare at the piles of cars, convincing you that you were some philistine for not appreciating how awesome these piles of scrap metal were. That's the Animal Collective (also from B-more originally) in a nutshell for you. They have the capacity to make awesome pop singles completely within their creative framework, such as "The Purple Bottle" and "Grass" from Feels in '05, and "Peacebone" and "Bros" both among my favorite singles from 2007 (the latter being a solo track by Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox that is entirely too long in its original cut but still Brian Wilsonly beautiful). Too bad most of their album tracks are pretentious schlock half of the time.

And James Murphy, aka LCD Soundsystem, that unintentional king of the hipsters, made an album called The Sound of Silver that my housemate owns but I've been too lazy to borrow and make a sincere effort to appreciate. He has some song on it called "All My Friends." It's pretty good. Actually, it's great. It just doesn't need my endorsement (None of these last three do). I just wanted to include it because I can't get it out of my damn head, but that's not a bad thing. Damn you, James Murphy. "Losing your edge" my ass!




Happy Listening! More early next week!