Ok, so this is like, so last year, but I did promise. These were my 40 favorite songs of 2007, soundtracking lots of packing and unpacking, runs through New York, Holland and Berlin, and my every home-cooked meal. No. 1 should come as no surprise.
(image stolen from the almighty popjustice.com) (more…)
So you will find no surprises here, no sudden re-appreciations of Britney’s “Blackout” (though it certainly was quite the revelation of pop coherence), just the five albums that fueled my iPod and guided my life in the tumultuous year 2007. (more…)
6. Radiohead – In Rainbows
A scaled-back, more personal set of ten tracks by what is arguably my generation’s favorite band ever. It was actually a very strong year for my high school musical crushes, with great and mostly innovative albums by PJ Harvey, Björk, and Air all making appearances in my top 20. This might be because I’m getting very close to thirty and becoming more reluctant to embrace new sounds, but I really hope it’s because these artists are coming into their own now, making work that has no benchmarks but their own. With the syrupy-sexy (as far as echoey floaty Thom Yorke songs can really be called sticky) “House of Cards”, Radiohead at least broke new ground in lyrical content, “I don’t wanna be your friend, I just wanna be your lover,” is positively Prince. (more…)
The next part in my ‘best of 2007′ cycle is my list of best cinema experiences. Twelve films that I thought were awesome and would heartily recommend for Christmas netflix- or multiplexing. What did I miss here? What did you guys love?
11. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
The closest thing 2007 had to New Order (the title track in particular), that other band that so effortlessly crossed soul-stirring new wave rock with pounding pounding disco music. (more…)
Thanks to Largehearted Boy for linking to the first part! This might also be the time to explain what did not make the list and why. Some awesome albums were just a bit too old, Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” (1979, reissue: 2004), and John Cale’s beautiful “Paris 1919″ (1973, reissue: 2006), which came to my attention through gorgeous covers by Final Fantasy and Cadence Weapon as well as by #16 below, and The Long Blondes “Someone to Drive You Home” (2006, ouch!). Others were too new, like Daft Punk’s rocking “Alive 2007″ and Sam Amidon’s “All is Well”, which will be released in February. Then there are the albums that might not have gotten into my head fully, dear audience pleasers like Justice, Feist, or the “Once” soundtrack. The specific songs from these albums that did gain repeat-rinse-repeat status ended up on my list of ‘40favorite songs not on any of my top 25 albums’ (I know, just an excuse to extend this list to 65, but still). Anyway, without more record nerdy ado, here’s the second part of my toppest of 2007 album list. (more…)
The onset of December, in Berlin accompanied by the sweet scent of Glühwein and an overabundance of gaudy outdoors Christmas markets, always makes my nerdy soul tingle with expectation, not for the nigh arrival of the newest year, but for the wonderful concept of the year-end-best-of list. As any other Nick Hornby-chromosome bearer, I truly love lists and this season is ideal for them; the long evenings spent in gloom and candlelight, the Christmas shopping to be done, the overdue re-organization of one’s iTunes library, all are highly conducive to list-knitting. Though I’ve also made lists of best films, concerts, and songs, I’ll start by posting this first, the 5 last, but not leastest, of the 25 albums that most rocked, popped, and danced my world in 2007. (more…)
Listening to Good Girl Gone Bad, the new album by Rihanna, a singer who I’d previously only registered as just another Soft Cell-sampling RnB starlet, I realize that the gothification of contemporary pop music runs very deep. This is not about the guitars, the sounds owe more to Usher’s shivery synth track Yeah, it’s more about the general sense of slow-burning real anger and Depeche Modey disaffected dread that seeps from between the pop songs’ shiny elements. Just like Omarion’s eyelinery Ice Box track, Rihanna’s very gloomy summer banger Umbrella, stompingly mad new single Shut Up And Drive, or album track Breakin’ Dishes (chorus: “I’m breakin dishes off your head all night, and I’m not gonna stop until I see police and lights.”) reintroduce new wavy rock idioms in a similar but more danceable way than Kelly Clarkson’s impossible-to-karaoke-without-shrieking Since You’ve Been Gone.
One summer I took over the record store I worked at for a few months while my boss went off to India. Piccolo Records was housed in the tiniest old building. Crumbling and sagging, it may have seen Napoleon take the city of Maastricht, but it would not keep standing for much longer. My tasks included covering the records in the store with plastic before I left at then of every day. A single rainstorm would soak the store and render the beautiful records worthless. That summer, I lived every music geek’s High Fidelity dream. Though many people would say that the best way to exercise one’s clerky coolness would be in lounging imperiously behind the counter, only occasionally deigning to answer the questions of the humble clientele, my experience was that the greatest pleasure a record store employee can have is to put on a record and have it bought right off the store’s shiny Technics 1200.
In a year without any new Daft releases, it seems odd that Daft Punk finds its way through my summery speakers daily in an almost non-nostalgic way. Apart from the plethora of supersharp recent remixes of their classic singles (try the allknowing Hype Machine for some of the latest ones), it seems odd how the band’s french touch has trickled down anew on dancefloors worldwide. It seems odd that their music feels as timely as the other artists sampled by Kanye West on his new mixtape, Thom Yorke, and the omnipresent Peter, Bjorn and John. And it definitely seems odd that it has taken me 6 years to rediscover, ahem, Daft Punk’s epic pop masterpiece, Discovery.
Like Sofia Coppola’s dreamier adaptation, Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel The Virgin Suicides very vividly evokes the dull, slow-burning boredom of a teenage summer. Air’s soundtrack to the film magically matched the flowy seventies shots of Kirrsten Dunst and her onscreen sisters, adding a lush layer of sensuality to the tragic tale of teen ennui. For their second album, Icelandic ex-triphoppers Bang Gang seem to have followed Air’s lead, creating tracks that are more soundtrack than song. Sure they have vocals and even choruses, but they lack the comfort a song’s climax and resolution offers, instead presenting us with swaths of atmosphere.
For this second set of summer jams, I picked Rappers Delight Club and Wilcannia Mob, two acts that are not just singalongably sunny, but also hilariously honest. Both come from the peculiar and wonderful genre of kids’ rap, but manage to stay far from the glossy Lil’ clones so familiar from MTV (excepting the aforeblogged lipgloss-genius Lil’ Mama, and with one honorably surreal mention of seven-year-old reggeaton sensation Miguelito, whose video for Boom Boom disturbingly alternates between cute kids at the zoo and gyrating mamas at a racetrack).
Now that summer has hit New York in all its sweaty humid glory, I have immediately started to look for this year’s summer jams. Not only the hits popping loud from every corner deli or Humm-ousine, but songs that can define a season and become inextricably enwrapped with its memories: In short, a soundtrack for summer ‘07. In my next few posts, I’ll suggest a few tracks that either through their sheer rhythmic heat, or their poptastic choruses should make their way onto your picnic boomboxes or roadtripping iPods.
The likeliest options are obviously Rihanna’s twirly emo-r’n'b hit Umbrella, or Lil’ Mama’s feisty, minimalist handclapfest Lip Gloss (and they surely deserve their own posts), but my first suggestion is a little more farfetched. In fact, it is fetched all the way from my exotic, and sometimes sunny motherland, Belgium.
After The Pipettes’ fabulous encore, I hopped into my waiting car service (or probably someone else’s) and rushed through downtown Brooklyn to sneak into Union Hall’s sightline-challenged basement. Thank the gods, Loney, Dear had only just started their set. What you need to know about this Swede is that he is quite relentless. Already four albums into his short one-man-band (expanded to four on stage) career, his latest, “Loney, Noir” is pop almost to a fault.
Laden with cheery hooks and brassy Sufjan-strumentation, the album is precise and hopeful even in the face of mild tragedy, a state of mind that can be a bit much for those who sometimes like their sentiments sloppy and slushy. On closer inspection, the songs always undercut their own pop-bravado. “I Am John,” the free mp3 offered by Sub Pop is undeniably the album’s tour-de-force in peppy relentlessness (sparkly xylophone included), but Emil Svanängen’s lyrics hint at a tragic romantic realism when he follows the chorus’ “Never gonna let you down” with the downer line, “but i will always let you down.”
After the ridiculous cool-concert drought of February 2007, I was more than enthusiastically snapping up tickets to the many SXSW-related shows happening all over NYC in March. Belatedly realizing, after clicking the ‘Confirm Payment’ button, that I had bought tickets for two shows happening on the same night. Moreover, the first was happening in Williamsburg, the other in Park Slope, a true Brooklyn logistics horror.
Sure enough, my double-booked evening did not start well, I stood in the lush Luna Lounge anxiously hoping The Pipettes would start on time so I could make it to the nerdy Union Hall in time for the uniquely Swedish indie-pop of Loney, Dear (but more on the Swedes in my next post). The Pipettes were late, and nervous; their tech-guys checking up on the same keyboard five times. The suspense was killing me, I hardly even noticed my teen-idol, the ever-present ex-Pumpkin James Iha, lounging around behind me. Still, when girl-group-goddesses Gwenno, Becki, and Rose stepped on the stage, dressed in three different, but equally polka-dotted dresses, all was forgiven. The group performed choreographed literal dancemoves, democratically alternated on vocals, awkwardly said ‘cheers’ between songs, and in the process played all my favorite tracks off “We are The Pipettes“.
