Pretty Goes with Pretty

My Listening Year: The Best of 2007 (New Release Edition)

1. Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha [mp3: "Fiery Crash"]
Other albums released this year might have been more ambitious, more audacious, more immediate, more dramatic. But the simple fact is this: no other album occupied my time more than this one. It's musically and lyrically sophisticated, not without humor or irony but never self-conscious either. And it's the best kind of album, where every single song, at one point or another, is your favorite.
Previously: my review of the album

2. Peter Bjorn & John, Writer's Block [mp3: "Paris 2004"]
I never got obsessively into Writer's Block the way I did with Armchair Apochrypha, but like a faithful dog, this album has never been far from my iPod. There ain't a single bad song here, and best of all there is a lot that is different from "Young Folks," lest you form your opinion based on that one overplayed track. (I gave you "Paris 2004" here; I love the unexpected timing of the chorus.) I played the hell out of Writer's Block for the first part of the year, and I've consistently returned to it after the honeymoon, still loving each and every track from first to last.

3. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [mp3: "Eddie's Ragga"]
Easily the best-produced album this year. I knew I liked this album for its songs, but once I started listening to it on headphones and started noticing all the little details, it got even better. Radiohead could take a few lessons from Spoon in terms of using the studio as an instrument. As if everything else Spoon does, they know when to use it and when not to use it. "Eddie's Ragga" is a good example: listen to it on headphones and hone in on that guitar. It's basically one chord for the entire song but the sound of the subtly guitar changes throughout.

4. Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala [mp3: "Shirin"]
Easily three or four of my favorite songs of the year are courtesy Night Falls Over Kortedala. The album drags a little in the middle—one too many songs with that syrupy layer of strings—but as time goes on even the songs I liked less on first listens have been growing on me. I can tell that I'm not done with this album yet.

5. Radiohead, In Rainbows
Last week I mentioned that after listening to In Rainbows, I stopped abruptly and haven't felt the need to go back. That's still true, but in anticipation of this post I did put it on once more, and darn it but I can't deny that it's a cohesive, well-thought-out, engaging album. My feelings on my personal relationship to Radiohead aside, this is an album with few faults.
Previously: my review of the album; Radiohead teams up with the Eagles to fuck record stores; and of course, "All I Need" rendered as lolcats.

6. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
This album is getting a lot of love right now, showing up at or near the top of many other best-of-the-year lists. For me, seven of this album's nine tracks are fantastic, which is enough to get it on my list; I just wish it didn't totally crap out on the last two.
Previously: my thoughts on "Us v. Them"

7. New Pornographers, Challengers
I got into the New Pornographers late, and hence picked up their other three albums all at once. I wound up processing all those albums as one large body of work. Challengers, therefore, is the first New Pornographers effort I've taken on its own terms. That might be why I appreciated this album's layers more than others did. I'm not sure what I would have thought if the band had done Electric Version 2.0—would I have embraced a dozen more super-charged anthems or would I have felt like they were spinning their wheels? Who knows. The bottom line is that Challengers is different, but not too different. I appreciate that. I've said this before, but: I never would have thought my favorite tracks on a NP album would be the slow songs, but that's what happened. For an album I'd been anticipating all year, Challengers somehow managed to be a pleasant surprise.

8. Feist, The Reminder
Heading into 2007, this was my most-anticipated album. So of course it disappointed a little. And by now I'm all Feisted out for a while, what with the ubiquity of "1234" making discussion of Feist too polarizing to be interesting (come on, just listen to this music—there's nothing polarizing about it; you either love it or you're ambivalent about it). At any rate, The Reminder succeeded for me as a collection of ten or twelve great Feist songs, though it failed as an album. It didn't quite cohere, though most of these songs will continue to pop up on various iTunes playlists, guaranteeing consistent rotation around this house.
Previously: my review of the album; my suggested resequencing of the track list; and my post on "Adult Alternative"

My Listening Hours: The Best of October–November

Big Star, #1 Record
Last year I picked up my first Big Star album, Third/Sister Lover, after hearing for years how influential they were and how wonderful they were and how up my alley they were. Upon listening, I didn’t get it. I tried and tried but just could not unlock that album. Happily, I was encouraged by a fellow Readervillian to pick up #1 Record; he said the genius was there, not here. At the library a few weeks later, there it was.

This album is possibly the discovery the year for me—it’s neck and neck with Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom and Andrew Bird’s Armchair Apocrypha for my most-listened-to album of 2007. Like both of those albums, on first listens I thought it was more of a hit-and-miss affair. It alternates between rockers and ballads like a fork in the road—veer left for Elliott Smith (“Thirteen,”), veer right for Boston (“Don’t Lie to Me”). I was immediately ensnared by all the soft songs, and anxious about the rest. With more listens, the rockers became more enjoyable—even “In the Street,” of which I’ve almost erased visions of Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher from my mind as it plays.

Previously I only knew Elliott Smith’s (faithful) version of “Thirteen,” but the original wins out; it doesn’t hurt that I’m in the middle of experiencing Freaks and Geeks for the first time; the song sounds like the perfect soundtrack to a lovelorn montage on that show (picture it: the first verse follows Sam as he gets the guts up to ask Cindy out on a date; the second verse shifts to follow Nick pouring his heart out to Lindsay… it works, almost too well).

Meanwhile, my favorite song on the album is "The Ballad of El Goodo." As with nearly every other of my favorite songs in the last couple years, I’m a sucker for the harmonies.

Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala
Since my last string of My Listening Hours posts I’ve purchased three more albums made in 2007. Two of them I’ve talked about already—Radiohead and Beirut—but the third hasn’t gotten a mention yet in these parts: Jens Lekman. Ironic, too, because I like this album way more than those two. It’s not a perfect album, which is slightly disappointing, since I thought for a minute there that I might have a contender to unseat Andrew Bird in my top of 07 list, based on the perfectly crafted and forever enjoyable "A Postcard to Nina," and the slightly inferior “Opposite of Hallelujah.

The best and worst thing about Lekman is that he sounds like he could have stepped out of any of the last six decades. Sometimes his smooth voice sounds like 50s crooner; sometimes it sings fey platitudes over a 70s disco beat; other times—often—his lyrics are wry, nuanced, and packed with detail, laid over a kind of diy orchestral pop, giving comparisons to Belle & Sebastian or Magnetic Fields. All this hopping around keeps things interesting, but it also sets Lekman up for the occasional misfire. Nevertheless the highs far outpace the lows (and the live show was something to see, too). Expect to see mention of this album again in a couple of weeks in these parts.