Year-End Analysis - Page 5

“New York” Collects Hip-Hop’s Greatest Under-The-Counter Hits Of 2007

jharv | December 21, 2007 4:15 am
jharv | December 21, 2007 4:15 am

geekdup.jpgAs the remaining minutes of 2007 are suddenly ticking off way too fast for comfort (we hardly knew ye, etc.), the year-end lists are splintering into the minutiae of genre and sub-genre and even format, and New York‘s list of the ten best hip-hop mixtapes of the year, compiled by dependable rap (and otherwise) crit Chris Ryan in the “the year [mixtapes] were nearly broken” by tape impresario DJ Drama’s bust by the feds at the beginning of the year, is a nice change-of-Christmas-shopping-list from the Year-End Analysis routine. Having only heard five of them, I can’t exactly start asking “the whaaaa?” or talking shit about some Stack Bundles (R.I.P.) tape I’ve never laid ears on. So though I can vouch for the quality of, say, No. 8 pick Geek’d Up Music by Fabo and Young Dro (and I’m pretty sure dead relatives have heard Da Drought 3 at this point), perhaps members of the peanut gallery who’ve made multiple trips to their local mixtape spot this year can offer independent assessment on these ten.

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ABC News Whistled Its Way Through 2007 With Peter, Bjorn, And John

jharv | December 20, 2007 9:05 am
jharv | December 20, 2007 9:05 am

pbjbarf.jpgBecause 2007’s not over for another 11 days, here’s… ABC News’ list of the Top 50 albums of the year. Their No. 1 pick? The 2006 LP by trendy Swedish whistlers Peter, Bjorn, and John, anchored by their evil, evil, don’t-speak-the-name-aloud indie hit. (Oh great. Now it’s in my head! Fuck!) No word yet on Headline News’ take on the raging “In Rainbows before or after Neon Bible” controversy, the Discovery Channel’s picks for the year’s best hip-hop, or Hannity and Colmes‘ opinions on M.I.A. But we’ve got our ears open for you.

THE GOOD: I really hope they’re playing PJ Harvey’s White Chalk (No. 11) in the Good Morning America green room right now.
THE BAD: A cynical person might say that this list is washed whiter than a polar bear after an asshole bleaching. But who wants to be cynical so close to the holidays?
THE WHAAAA? ABC News’ list is unsurprisingly newsy. For instance, we learn that Kristin Hersh “sounds like a female Kurt Cobain.”

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What Album Will Top NPR’s List Of 2007 Bangers?

jharv | December 20, 2007 3:30 am
jharv | December 20, 2007 3:30 am

gpain.jpgAs December slumps to a close, and with visions of M.I.A. in sugarplum leggings dancing through our heads, Maura and I have laid our weary eyes on just about every year-end list in the known universe. But the end of the long, hard road out of 2007 is within view, because the all-important results of NPR’s listeners’ poll are soon to be broadcast! NPR tells us that “All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen hints that this year’s voting trends toward well-established independent artists, Canadian bands, and groups with animal names.” The hell you say, Bob. Anticipation is already gnawing, and we’ve got time to kill before that No. 1 bomb finally drops. And so as we wait, we ask you which album out of the following short list will be voted bestest by NPR’s listeners?

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“The Wire” Shares A Laugh With Robert Wyatt

jharv | December 19, 2007 9:30 am
jharv | December 19, 2007 9:30 am

robertwyatt.jpgBrit experimental institution The Wire has just dropped its weighty year-end issue, which features Brit experimental (pop) institution Robert Wyatt at No. 1 on its list of the top 50 albums of 2007. As for the rest of the mag’s rundown, it may prominently big up LCD Soundsystem and M.I.A., but hey, it’s also got saxophone records that you can barely hear!

THE GOOD: The Wire is always reliable for a dose of hair-straightening hairshirt noise, serious sound art, and/or free improv. Like Sightings’ brutalist Through at no. 37, Throbbing Gristle’s unexpectedly excellent reunion record at No. 32, or the ramshackle brilliance of drummer Chris Corsano and guitarist Mick Flower’s duo LP at No. 27.
THE BAD: Rough and tough experimentalists beware: bloggers and message board denizens are already grumbling that The Wire‘s Top 10 features many of the same records that appeared on all sorts of square lists this year. On the other hand, those who feel the magazine has lost the connection to (avant) pop music that marked its ’90s heyday may find this development heartening.
THE WHAAAA? In Rainbows? Even down at No. 34? You’re The Wire! You don’t have to play these mainstream reindeer games!

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“Billboard” Asks Musicians For Their Favorite Records Of 2007 With Hilarious/Confusing Results

jharv | December 18, 2007 12:30 pm
jharv | December 18, 2007 12:30 pm

jessicasimpson.jpgFrom Pitchfork to Artforum, publications love to pad out their year-end coverage with Top Ten lists from musicians, whether world-famous or positively subterranean, but perhaps only Billboard could bring together Greg Dulli and Katharine McPhee. Instead of reprinting them all–there are many, and do you really care that the dudes from Vampire Weekend also liked that Panda Bear record an awful lot?–we’ve included our “Top Three Lists From Billboards‘s Top Tens” after the jump, along with our “The Good,” “The Bad,” and “The Whaaaa?” wrap-up, so as not to spoil the fun.

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“Pitchfork” Heaps Its Praises On Panda Bear

jharv | December 18, 2007 8:55 am
jharv | December 18, 2007 8:55 am

pandabearz.jpgPitchfork makes it easy when it comes to guessing its Top 50 albums of the year in advance, thanks to the “Best New Music” and “Recommended” stickers it slaps on the records it likes best. So if you’ve been paying attention to the bottom-left corner of the site for the last 12 months, P-fork’s 2007 list, headed up by Animal Collective member Panda Bear’s Person Pitch, should feel like a bunch of old friends getting one last shout-out before the end of the year. That, or it’s another chance to curse the site for over-praising a bunch of records that don’t really deserve the dap.

THE GOOD: U.K. post-punks Life Without Buildings’ career-capping live album and Stars Of The Lid’s six-years-in-the-making follow-up to a sleepy ambient classic sneak into the upper reaches. Plus all the other records everyone else with even a toe dipped into indie rock liked this year.
THE BAD: Way too much tooth/brain-rotting twee Nordic indie pop/dance. What’s that you say? That’s only like three or four albums out of 50? It’s still too much.
THE WHAAAA? “With Burial’s 2006 debut, it helped to have some investment in dubstep; Untrue is for everyone.” Really? Everyone?

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“Blender” Sneaks A Best-Of Into Its Pages

noah | December 17, 2007 10:30 am
noah | December 17, 2007 10:30 am

kalaaaaaaa.jpgBlender‘s year-end issue did, in fact, have its list of the year’s top 25 albums–although you wouldn’t know it by looking at the mag’s cover, which did take the time to tout a) its list of “the 209 best songs of 2007” (which run in eight-point type underneath the list); b) its readers’ poll, which allowed visitors to Blender’s Web site to choose the “best of 2007” from a narrowly defined set of parameters (how else do you think the Arcade Fire placed in the “Best Band” category?); and c) the 20 essential CDs of 2008. M.I.A., whose Kala landed at No. 1 in Blender‘s estimation, only gets a passing mention on a “Plus:” coverline, and she’s billed third to Rihanna (No. 25 and Best Single in the readers’ poll) and freaking Feist (No. 13 and “Breakthrough of the Year” in the readers’ poll).

THE GOOD: This list is a near-perfect execution of the Blender-patented blend of mainstream music (Brad Paisley, Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse), just-outside-the-mainstream music (Spoon, Okkervil River), and hot babes (Rihanna, Feist, Miranda Lambert).
THE BAD: I can think of about 10 albums that came out last month that are more interesting than Band Of Horses’ Cease To Begin. Just… no.
THE WHAAAA? For an album that just came out last Tuesday, The Dream’s Lovehate sure made an impact! It’s No. 7, just behind In Rainbows.

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“Pitchfork” Thinks LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” Is Something Great

jharv | December 17, 2007 9:45 am
jharv | December 17, 2007 9:45 am

allmyfriendz.jpgThis summer I was already convinced that LCD Soundsystem would top Pitchfork’s list of the best singles of the year, even if I wasn’t sure if the spot would go to “All My Friends” or “Someone Great.” But my former colleagues solved the issue by putting both songs into the Top 10 of the site’s Top 100 singles of 2007, to which (in the interest of full blah de blah) I should note that I did not contribute my two cents. (Albums list neither.) The full 100 is after the jump, but first our thoughts on the list you’ve all been (admit it) patiently waiting to pick apart more than any other.

THE GOOD: The Top 10 belongs to what are by now the usual suspects (try to guess the precise order before clicking!), but this is probably the only year-end wrap-up where Sun City Girls guitar magus Sir Richard Bishop shares space with the handbag R&B of T2’s bassline house anthem “Heartbroken,” a soppy memory from the heyday of U.K. garage that grows on me with each listen. And unlike the bulk of 2007’s best-of lists, most every entry comes with an MP3 or audio stream (or at least a video clip) so that you can decide in real time just how much you disagree with it.
THE BAD: Pretty light on dance/electronic music for a site with a monthly techno column by one of the best critics covering the beat and hip-hop’s been more or less whittled down to the handful of expected/accepted 2007 Inter-faves (Kanye, Jay-Z, Wayne, etc.) in favor of Pitchfork’s indie wheelhouse (which had a better-than-average year). Plus they didn’t even have the balls to rank the Black Kids higher than No. 68.
THE WHAAAA? Pitchfork’s (institutional) embrace of the pop charts is still so odd. (That it was one of the weakest years for American pop in my living memory notwithstanding.) For instance, nothing by Lloyd, Ne-Yo, Amerie (who they favorably reviewed, even if she scored no American hits this year), Keyshia Cole, Timbaland, Bobby Valentino, Beyonce, Chris Brown, etc. makes the list, which would be fine if there was a blanket ban on non-“Umbrella” R&B. Except why did a negligible soundtrack inclusion from one-hit ex-model Cassie (a song the entry even acknowledges is initially “devoid of any distinctive qualities”) make it in?

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“Rolling Stone” Gives Its Blessing To M.I.A.

jharv | December 17, 2007 4:15 am
jharv | December 17, 2007 4:15 am

kalaaaaaaa.jpgNothing quite as batshit on Rolling Stone‘s Best Albums Of ’07 list as Randy Newman landing at No. 2 on the magazine’s list of the year’s best singles, but that’s not to say the list isn’t full of surprises, some far less pleasant than M.I.A.’s Kala taking the top spot.

THE GOOD: Far more hip-hop and R&B–and far more music made (and listened to) by folks under 35–than one may have expected. That’s not to say there’s a lot, of course, or that RS doesn’t rank Bright Eyes and John Fogerty ahead of most of it.
THE BAD: Gee, who’d have thunk the Top 10 would be yet another worthy-but-dull Magic Neon Silver Rainbows Ga Ga Graduation kind of affair? Is it 2008 yet?
THE WHAAAA? One has to assume that Rilo Kiley placing in the Top 10 has something, if not everything, to do with the dreaded hot pants.

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“Spin” Goes Slightly Against The Grain

noah | December 14, 2007 12:30 pm
noah | December 14, 2007 12:30 pm

againstmeeee.jpgHey, Spin–thanks for finally letting us use an image for one of these year-end roundups that isn’t of Neon Bible or In Rainbows! Yes, Against Me!’s New Wave topped the magazine’s year-end best albums list, which went online last night. The mag’s tracks list hasn’t been revealed yet, but I personally am kind of hoping that it reprises its “Best Albums You Didn’t Hear” list, if only because I would really like to know just where Spin would find said records in the current blog-and-MySpace-saturated musical climate.

THE GOOD: I spy former Idolator editor Brian Raftery’s influence at No. 33, where The Wildhearts landed!
THE BAD: Don’t let New Wave‘s pole position fool you: Spin‘s top 10 is otherwise pretty similar to every other list we’ve run down in this space this year. See if you can guess the other nine albums on the list without clicking through to the next page! OK, OK, I’ll give you a hint: Bruce Springsteen and the National are actually in the top 20, and–gasp–Wilco is nowhere to be found. Now, go!
THE WHAAAA? Aside from Prince’s Planet Earth at No. 12 and the lack of Wilco, this list is kind of curveball-free as far as matching up with critical consensus in 2007. Here’s another fun game, though: How many of Spin‘s 2007 cover stars did not show up on this list? I count three. And if Rilo Kiley hadn’t snuck in at No. 40…

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