George & Gene's Best Music of 2007

Published: January 15, 2008

Just look at the best music of 2007, and imagine how great radio could be if it stopped wrapping its arms around easily marketable mediocrity. Sure, there are two genuine hitmakers residing on this list, but each one of the other discs contains songs that could set all the charts ablaze. So just be a 21th century digital boy or girl and make your own radio — this list of great albums could be your foundation for a brave new world in which the most-overplayed song of the year, OneRepublic’s “Apologize,” does not exist.

1. M.I.A., “Kala” — Maya Arulpragasam detonated her astonishing pan-cultural dance explosion “Arular” only two years ago, but “Kala” makes “Arular” sound sedate. M.I.A. displays more range with “Kala,” augmenting her political tribal hip-hop with Bollywood rave-ups (the exuberant disco of “Jimmy”) and angry dream pop (“Paper Planes”), and even invites Timbaland to the party without doing any real damage. “Kala” is the sound of the world’s pop music rising up and blasting away global boredom, as if Arulgragasam abducted the No. 1 act from every country and forced them to make an album together

2. LCD Soundsystem, “Sound of Silver” — James Murphy is doing much more than restoring lost luster to club music. He packs “Sound of Silver” with trenchant social satire set to unstoppable beats and rich melodies — “Someone Great” sounds like the transcendent pop hit the Human League forgot to write after “Don’t You Want Me.” If this weren't enough, Murphy ends “Sound of Silver” with a piano ballad, “New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down,” that is so good, it’s not difficult to imagine Cole Porter coming back as a 21st century cynic, disillusioned at the squeaky-clean Bloomberg Manhattan before him.

3. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “100 Days, 100 Nights” — A long-standing vocal powerhouse in the underground R&B scene teams with a band of twentysomething retro purists to make a killer soul album. Jones can wail with the best soul singers of the past, but “100 Days, 100 Nights” never feels like a dress-up party — instead, it sounds like a genuine lost classic unearthed from the vaults of Stax Records.

4. Radiohead, “In Rainbows” — Never mind the hoopla over Radiohead’s paradigm-shifting sales platform: after years of working with texture and high concepts, “In Rainbows” is a return to writing great songs, and Thom Yorke’s formerly polarizing vocals achieve real warmth. Just when it felt like Radiohead was sailing into the ether, gorgeous ballads such as “Nude” and “All I Need” bring this great band triumphantly back to Earth.

5. St. Vincent, “Marry Me” — Singer-guitarist Annie Clark spent time as a not-so-secret weapon for the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens' angelic horde before creating this rewarding and altogether gorgeous art-pop album. Tulsa-born Clark has a gift for intricate chamber pop containing unexpected sharp edges, and at 25, she is writing songs such as “Marry Me” and “All My Stars Aligned” with a level of artistry that some artists spend entire lifetimes trying to match.

6. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, “Raising Sand” — At first, the unlikely pairing of Led Zeppelin’s golden god and the high priestess of bluegrass feels unexpectedly sleepy, but “Raising Sand” yields its rewards over time. This is slow-burning twilight music, and these voices match better than anyone might have imagined on this collection of Gene Clark gems and voodoo-infused spooky blues.

7. Ween, “La Cucaracha” — On Dean and Gene Ween’s ninth studio disc, the fake brothers get happy and smear their magic all over your record collection. Whatever they take on — whether it’s a mariachi horn section, David Bowie or old-timey jugband breakdowns — Deaner and Gener never fail to bring an insane smile. “Woman and Man,” Ween’s 10-minute take on the Book of Genesis, is so remarkable in its patchouli-scented portentousness, it should come with its own gatefold sleeve.

8. Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black” — Having set up what seems like a permanent home in the tabloids, it’s tempting to completely write off Winehouse, except “Back to Black” is filled with timeless songs — no R&B ballad of this year can compete with the doleful soul of “Love is a Losing Game.” There is enormous talent at work here that is now being eclipsed by a seemingly unrelenting self-destructive nature. Let us hope she pulls out of her spiral.

9. Kanye West, “Graduation” — On the surface level, “Graduation” sports a shiny, stainless architecture, featuring samples of Can and Daft Punk, but it’s the insides that make it valuable. West makes a genuine effort to examine his own nature on “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” and “Big Brother” analyzes his complicated relationship with Jay-Z in a manner that rarely takes place in hip-hop. Packed front-to-back with great moments, West’s “Graduation” is achieved with honors.

10. Of Montreal, “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?” — Kevin Barnes started out as a lo-fi member of the Elephant 6 alternative pop collective, but like his most recent efforts, “Hissing Fauna” is super high-tech psychedelia. Barnes multi-tracks his voice into choirs that rival “Bohemian Rhapsody” in their tight harmonies, and then shifts into Prince-style wild-eyed funk.

- George Lang

Last time I checked the charts, none of my 2007 favorites were Top of the Pops, although a couple were close. While most of the music-downloading world was walking around with “Apologize” by Timbaland featuring OneRepublic or “Kiss Kiss” by Chris Brown featuring T-Pain pumping through their iPod earbuds, I was still listening through big, room-shaking speakers to whole albums by musicians who’ve been around for awhile, and are bound to be around a whale of a lot longer than the artists mentioned above.

Call me old-fashioned. Or call me Ishmael. Or call me geezer. Here’s what I thought was good about the past year, musically speaking.

1. Bruce Springsteen, “Magic” — When the Boss sings of “a heart shot through,” he’s expressing more than a wounded lover’s complaint on “You’ll Be Comin’ Down,” one of several anti-war screeds dropped between his more typical ruminations on love, spirituality, girls in summer clothes and hope for a better life that weave the spell of “Magic.” But no matter what has Bruce’s blood up, his common-man touch mixed with the rousing Jersey-shore fire of the E Street Band still yields one of rock’s most powerful potions.

2. Wilco, “Sky Blue Sky” — Jeff Tweedy was trying to break our hearts again, but going about it in surprisingly straightforward and emotionally engaging musical and lyrical ways on Wilco’s sixth and most mainstream-friendly studio album since its 1995 debut, “A.M.” This is signaled from the beginning on “Either Way,” an exquisitely soothing, conventionally structured country-rock ballad that sails along on a smooth stream of acoustic and electric guitars (Tweedy and newly-added lead picker Nels Cline) and serenely shimmering organ (newcomer Pat Sansone). Not as adventurous as the deconstructed experimentalism of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” but an absorbing listen nonetheless, with some stellar guitar work.

3. Foo Fighters, “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace” — Dave Grohl brought fist-pumping, football-stadium-sized hard rock back to life with his whisper-to-a-scream vocals, string-shearing riffs, locomotive rhythms and colossally catchy choruses on “The Pretender,” “Long Road to Ruin” and “Let It Die.” Easily the toughest and tastiest straight-ahead party album of the year.

4. Ween, “La Cucaracha” — Gene and Dean Ween (aka Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo, respectively) were back, channeling David Bowie one minute (the moody “Your Party”) and Santana the next (the rollicking, virtuoso guitar-drums jam “Woman and Man”), and sending up every musical style in between, from the ’80s dance floor lunacy of “Friends” to the X-rated hard-rock hilarity of the macho tantrum, “My Own Bare Hands.” While cracking wise lyrically, their musicianship was, as usual, stunning.

5. Mitch Easter, “Dynamico” — The former leader of Let’s Active, one of the most influential alternative jangle-pop bands to emerge from the Chapel Hill, N.C. scene of the mid-’80s, finally got around to releasing his solo debut after years of producing classic albums for others, including R.E.M. (“Murmur,” “Reckoning”), Velvet Crush, Pavement and Helium. When he stepped back into the spotlight as performer, his chiming pop sounded as fresh and powerful as ever, especially on smokers such as “1 ½ Way Street” and “Ton of Bricks.”

6. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, “Raising Sand” — The unlikely pairing of rock’s premier primal wailer with neo-traditionalist country’s sweetest songbird proved to be a vocal match made in Americana heaven. Producer T-Bone Burnett selected little known gems from songwriters as diverse as Tom Waits, Gene Clark, Townes Van Zandt and the Everly Brothers, and all were delivered with the kind of angelic harmonies one expects from Krauss but never imagined from belting Bob.

7. Dan Wilson, “Free Life” — Dan Wilson was the voice, heart and mind that drove the ornate psych-pop of Trip Shakespeare and the more accessible, habit-forming pop-rock confections of Semisonic (not to mention co-writer of the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice”), before the inevitable solo road beckoned, resulting in this riveting collection. The songs are long on melody, indelible sing-along choruses and thematically ambitious lyrics that should finally bring this Minneapolis-born singer-songwriter the stand-alone stardom he’s long deserved.

8. Son Volt, “The Search” — Front man Jay Farrar moved beyond the acoustic and pedal-steel alt-country that’s been his calling card since Uncle Tupelo, exploring the more citified avenues of Stax/Volt soul (the brass-fueled “The Picture”) and ’60s-inspired psychedelia (the reverse guitar loops and warbling Hammond organ of “Circadian Rhythm”) on his fifth and most adventurous studio album. But his low, adenoidal moan still works best amid the rural strum and slide of “Methamphetamine” and “Highways and Cigarettes,” rounding out one of the best and bravest roots-rock offerings of the year.

9. Arcade Fire, “Neon Bible” — The deceptively breezy mandolin- and strings-driven “Keep the Car Runnin’” seems suitable music for chasing headlight beams through a carefree summer night until Win Butler’s words reveal a much darker scenario where paranoia reigns and “men are coming to take me away / I don’t know why but I can’t stay . . . When is it comin’? / Keep the car runnin’.” So the tone was set for this Montreal-based indie experiment’s second album, where a beautifully brooding lyrical mindset is matched with rich, prog-rock-inluenced shadings on such grandiose tunes as “Intervention” and “The Well and the Lighthouse.” A mighty blow against mediocrity.

10. Dinosaur Jr., “Beyond.” The original lineup of this towering Amherst, Mass., grunge trio decided to record together again for the first time since bassist Lou Barlow was booted out in 1988, and it’s like they never left. J Mascis’ massively crunchy-yet-melodic guitar heroics and wobbly, Neil Young-ish vocals on tunes such as “Almost Ready” and “Been There All the Time” sound as if they could have been recorded during the same sessions that produced the 19-year-old “Bug,” which remains vital to this day. Here’s hoping Mascis, Barlow and drummer Murph can keep it friendly this time around.

- Gene Triplett

Comments