Because 2007 still has a few weeks/months left to haunt us–Idolator Poll comin’ soon, y’all!–we present (what might be) the last 2007 list in our Year-End Analysis feautre, one we almost forgot in our joy that the clocks had turned over at midnight on Jan. 1, and with that the promise that we might never again have to type the words “Neon Bible” between an italics tag into Movable Type: the Pitchfork readers’ poll! And guess what? We had to type the words “Neon Bible” between an italics tag into Movable Type. As Pitchfork itself notes, their reader’s Top 10 hews close to the site’s own official Top 10, but after that things “diverge.” Why? Because [insert usual former-conflict-of-interest-y caveat here] despite the site’s admirable expansion of coverage over the last five years into areas that readers might not necessarily mutiny over, who else is gonna vote the Shins for “Most Underrated Album” with a straight face, Braff jokes be damned?
THE GOOD: Consensus cynicism be damned, it’s kind of heartening that, after all the first-listen reviews and release date hype hype, people actually do seem to be repeat-listening to and enjoying the Most Important Album Of 2007. (You can decide which one we’re talking about.)
THE BAD: That said, consensus keeps great records from Roisin Murphy, Dude N’ Nem, and the Dirty Projectors, which “most often received first-place votes,” off the singles list in favor of two Arcade Fire joints, two Radiohead songs, and (less irritatingly) two Spoon and LCD Soundsystem tracks each. Democracy!
THE WHAAA?: We’ve only included the Best Albums and Best Singles list after the jump, but interestingly, or perhaps just keeping with this year’s vibe of established artists comfortably trouncing even well-regarded upstarts, only three of the winners in the Best New(ish) Act category make the album and/or singles lists, all down in the lower reaches save the expected Top 10 finish for Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.”
The Guardian music blog readers’ poll: Squint hard enough and you’ll think that it’s a poll by real critics, what with In Rainbows topping the albums chart and “All My Friends” landing at No. 1 on the singles poll. (The singles list even has the token “Umbrella” mention! Way to go, everybody!) More »
The Guardian music blog readers’ poll: Squint hard enough and you’ll think that it’s a poll by real critics, what with In Rainbows topping the albums chart and “All My Friends” landing at No. 1 on the singles poll. (The singles list even has the token “Umbrella” mention! Way to go, everybody!) More »
This 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?
And in this corner, we have the scruffy disco pugilist behind the song at No. 23.
Like many other publications featured in our ongoing Year-End Analysis series, Brit music mag Fact placed LCD Soundsystem in its top single slot of the year, but they chose neither “North American Scum” or “All My Friends.” And though left-field faves like Panda Bear and consensus picks like M.I.A. dot the magazine’s albums list, the Arcade Fire, Radiohead, and (yes) LCD Soundsystem are nowhere to be found. Fact‘s actually turned in a pair of the most idiosyncratic year-end wrap-ups of 2007 so far, and they’re speckled by blog faves including our (cough, cough) fave band of 2007, Black Kids. Fact‘s Top 100 tracks and Top 20 albums are after the jump, but first our thoughts on two lists that remember people still go out to dance clubs (or at least download MP3s of records that get played in dance clubs).
THE GOOD: Dance music! Lots of it! And not just Justice! Fact‘s Top 100 singles list is filled with dance 12s and EPs, from underground disco edits to Internet-hype picks to deep Germanic techno to dubstep, and their albums list is similarly foot-friendly. Totally refreshing, and making me think I should have paid closer attention to dance music this year.
THE BAD: Like a lot of (seemingly) dance/electronic-focused magzines, Fact‘s taste in guitar-based music sometimes feels a little shaky. Vampire Weekend released the best rock single of the year? If you say so, you crazy Englanders.
THE WHAAAA? On “Umbrella”: “Just compare this take on a loved-up R&B ballad against, say, Beyonce’s recent efforts, and you’ll quickly see how special Rihanna is.” Did the U.K. suddenly forget “Irreplaceable”? Has the planet gone mad? Am I still the only person alive who dislikes “Umbrella”?
LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver–which, based on my rough estimation of the number of times we’ve had to use the album cover illustration over the past few weeks, seems to be running away with this year’s top-albums lists, at least in the UK–topped the Guardian critics’ poll, with its now-familiar listmates Radiohead, the Hold Steady, M.I.A., and the Klaxons rounding out the top five. Full list after the jump.
THE GOOD: Because the Guardian‘s list reprinted lines–and star ratings–from each ranking album’s original review, we can all see that either the music writers have changed their stance on the Klaxons or the Guardian‘s fired the person who gave Myths Of The Near Future one star, saying that “Indie chancers trying to pass this ropey stuff off as a dance revival is insulting and pointless.” But maybe I appreciate this because Myths grew on me over the course of 2007, too.
THE BAD: Feist’s The Reminder at No. 10. Britney Spears’ Blackout at No. 17. Hey, if you’re going to have the year’s most talked-about dance-pop album on your list, why not get really ballsy and put it ahead of the snoozy dinner-party music?
THE WHAAA? “Like a hunk of blue cheese, Tennessee’s Kings of Leon seem to be getting better with age.” Really, Guardian? Really?
Omnivorous online music mag Stylus sadly shut down several months before we started our Year-End Analysis series, but they helpfully published their 2007 Top 50 albums and singles lists before bowing out. So welcome to the first retroactive installment, where LCD Soundsystem once again tops both lists. (And they got the right single this time.) Both lists are after the jump if you missed ’em, but first an adieu to the site by way of our summary thoughts.
THE GOOD: Hey, look, the first list that actually remembers that electronic/dance music still exists, and/or that Justice wasn’t the only dance act to release an LP this year. Plus stuff that gets played on the radio that’s not “Umbrella” or Kanye West! It’s like popular music actually has some breadth or something.
THE BAD: We actually have little in the way of beef with these lists, though they do confirm that Miranda Lambert, a very goood singer who made a solid album, has found herself turned into the Muzik Mafia of ’07 by the planet’s rock critics.
THE WHAAA?: Vampire Weekend’s single ahead of Rihanna, R. Kelly, Lil Mama, and the best song off the Kanye LP? Also we’re starting to feel like the only people on Earth who got a rah-rah rash whenever Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” came on MTV. Even Stephen King liked it!
British music mag Uncut may advertise a mind-numbing recycled feature in the form of John Lennon’s “30 Greatest Songs” on the cover of of its year-end issue, but much like how the magazine’s reviews section stays doggedly up-to-date even as the rest of the book flogs seemingly exhausted rock icons, its year-end list names LCD Soundsystem’s Sound Of Silver the best album of the year and LCD’s “North American Scum” the best song. (Even more surprising for a mag that trades so heavily on “worthy” rock music for grown-up boys, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” sits just behind James Murphy at No. 2 on the songs list.) You know the full lists are after the jump, but an advance preview for now.
THE GOOD: PJ Harvey’s astounding White Chalk makes a surprisingly high appearance at No. 3, not that we’re complaining. Also Uncut‘s got to be the only relatively high-profile music mag in the world, other than The Wire, that would put Robert Wyatt’s art-drunk album about sobering up, Comicopera, in its Top 10.
THE BAD: People really did love that Wilco album, didn’t they? Things get a bit flabby in the AAA-friendly mid-section of the albums list with the exception of Les Savy Fav’s very fine comeback. Also the Arctic Monkeys at No. 2 seems a bit of a stretch for an album where even fans grumbled and whispered about sophomore slumps.
THE WHAAA?: As Maura wondered, how do EPs count as “songs”? With the format enjoying something of a minor resurgence, is it time to bring back the EP category across the board when it comes to best-of lists?
When compiling today’s Summer Songs poll, one track we very nearly included on the list was LCD Soundsystem’s hipster smash “All My Friends,” the second single from Sound of Silver. After all, we didn’t want to put just one indie-friendly record on a list choked with pop and invite the more discerning of our readers to pool their voting and stack the deck for one song. (We’re defining a “hipster smash,” by the way, as a song much-talked-about in a 20-block radius of lower Manhattan and upper Brooklyn and completely unknown to 98.7426% of the United States of America.) There’s no question that “All My Friends”–in both its original incarnation and its LCD-sanctioned covers by Franz Ferdinand and John Cale–is one of the year’s best songs. But it can’t really be called a “summer jam”–unless you’re the sort of person whose pale body won’t see sunlight until Coney Island’s art-damaged Siren Festival two weeks from now–and its cultural impact is easy for certain folks to overstate.
