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Thursday, December 20, 2007
  my favorite music of 2007

I truly believe that 2007 was (and still is) one damn fantastic year. Obviously the highlight was the release of Je Suis France's third album, Afrikan Majik, a cultural event of such titanic proportions that the very fabric of existence itself was fundamentally altered. Some other okay records were released, too, though, and it would be unfair to them if we did not give them the recognition they are due. So ignoring the France for just the briefest of moments, here's a list of my favorite music of the year. I believe DJ will be posting his tomorrow.

My 20 Favorite Records of 2007:
(I might add some commentary later on)
1. Times New Viking: Present the Paisley Reich
2. Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam
3. Deerhunter: Cryptograms
4. Trans Am: Sex Change
5. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
6. Parts and Labor: Mapmaker
7. Life Without Buildings: Live at the Annandale Hotel
8. Psychedelic Horseshit: Magic Flowers Droned
9. Still Flyin': Za Cloud
10. The Bad Trips: s/t
11. Blues Control: s/t
12. Ex-Cocaine: Esta Guerra
13. Reports: Mosquito Nets
14. Panda Bear: Person Pitch
15. Folklore: The Ghost of HW Beaverman
16. Raccoo-oo-oon: Behold Secret Kingdom
17. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
18. Oakley Hall: I'll Follow You
19. Boris and Michio Kurihara: Rainbow
20. Wooden Shjips: Wooden Shjips


My 20 Favorite Songs of the Year:
Two songs stood out far above the rest, regularly getting stuck in my head and
tenaciously refusing to leave. These first two songs pretty much defined the year for me, musically.

1. All My Friends - LCD Soundsystem
I've thought about this song a lot over the last eight months, and I feel utterly confident calling it the best song of the decade thus far. It's not just the music, which is awesome, and sounds like New Order covering something off of John Cale and Terry Riley's Church of Anthrax. The lyrics repeatedly kill me, the way they blatantly stroke nostalgia, but less to glorify or eulogize the past and more to contrast and make sense of the present and the future. Maybe it's turning 30, maybe it's living so far away from my friends that I see them maybe once a year, but this song came around and helped pave over a hole in my life that I was barely even aware of. The fact that it seems to have done the same for thousands of other people speaks either to my own lack of imagination or else to James Murphy's arrival as a genuinely excellent song-writer.
2. Teenage Lust! - Times New Viking
The rock anthem of the year, and the best GBV song Robert Pollard never wrote.
3. I'm A Flirt (Remix) - R. Kelly feat. TI and T-Pain
4. Peacebone - Animal Collective
5. Bros - Panda Bear

Tough call between these last two, but "Peacebone" gets the nod simply because I listened to it more often than "Bros".
6. Someone Great - LCD Soundsystem
7. Fractured Skies - Parts and Labor
8. Friends - Ween
9. Still Alive (Portal song) - Jonathan Coulton and Ellen McLain

I've never even played Portal, but this song is extremely catchy, and even though I probably don't get all the references, still pretty damn funny. Reminds me of They Might Be Giants, back when they were good.
10. Paper Planes - MIA
11. Portals - Pyschedelic Horseshit
12. You Got Yr Cherry Bomb - Spoon
13. North American Scum - LCD Soundsystem

Seriously, dude's great. I'm a total believer, now.
14. The Ghost of You Lingers - Spoon
Infinitely delayed resolution: you keep waiting for that release, and they keep on denying it.
15. International Players Anthem - UGK feat. Outkast
16. White Like Heaven - Gowns
17. Freak-Out - Liars

Sloppy but great rock song in the vein of Jesus and Mary Chain, from a lazy and otherwise disappointing album.
18. Good Life - Kanye West feat. T-Pain
Again, great song from a disappointing album. Graduation was probably my biggest bummer of '07. It has a couple of good songs, but otherwise it's really boring and chockful of Kanye's worst lyrics and rapping yet. "Good Life" is the clear exception, if you can get past the "ever gotten brain on a plane" line.
19. Girls In Their Summer Clothes - Bruce Springsteen
Bruce channelling the Magnetic Fields.
20. Us Placers - CRS (Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Pharrell)

The Five Best Shows I Saw This Year
1. Times New Viking / Reports / Psychedelic Horseshit / Black Clouds
: PA's Lounge, Somerville, MA, 4-21-07
2. Still Flyin' / the Lucksmiths / Ladybug Transistor: TT the Bear's; Cambridge, MA; 9-27-07
3. Yo La Tengo: MFA; Boston, MA; 11-16-07
4. Oneida / Kinski / Cul de Sac / Neptune: Middle East Downstairs; Cambridge, MA; 12-1-07
5. Acid Mothers Temple / Mammatus: Middle East Downstairs; Cambridge, MA; 4-28-07
 

ARCHIVES
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MESMERIZATION ECLIPSE RADIO:
Elliott is on AM 1690 the Voice of the Arts on Monday nights from 7-9PM for Radio Undefined
Crews is on WXDU on Tuesday mornings from ten to noon

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email

Dark doesn't want to own her, but he can't let her have it both ways.

Cocaine Bref is proud of his island heritage & will riff with you.

Elliott is sufficiently breakfast.
PS3 ID: ATLbloodfeast

Crog works in the bullshit industry in Hollywood. He was born on May 7th, 1978.

Jerkwater Johnson (friend to CT Jake Motherfucker) lives in San Francisco. He likes snacking, and the Mets, and is the proprietor of a bar called Duck Camp.

NOTABLES
some twitter things:
je suis france
still flyin'
reports (a band with dark in it)
elliott
crog
dark
crews
LD
MB
cgervin
scarnsworth

some weblogs:
unrealized scripts
oceanchum
hillary brown
shazhmmm...
garrett martin
old man crews
microzaps kindercore
talking radio towers
corp. hq of the san antonio gunslingers
crabber
overundulating fever
ryanetics
blunderford
dehumidifier
big gray
unwelcome return
day jobs
maybe it's just me
captain scurvy
movies stella has not seen

je suis france
still flyin'


wzbc
wuog
wfmu
wmbr
wxdu




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