Best Music of 2007 – Albums

The following has been pieced together from a series of e-mail exchanges that Colby had with a couple of friends over the last few weeks and edited to make a web post.

It’s that time of year again – time for everybody-and-their-brother’s “Best of 2007” lists. So, not to be left out, here’s my “Best Music of 2007” review. Most years it’s relatively easy for me to pick two or three albums that stand out above everything else I’ve heard. This year was different. In fact, even though there was quite a bit of good music, I find myself feeling slightly disappointed because of an overall trend I saw – the good-but-not-really-their-best-work trend. In my opinion, there were a bunch of artists who came out with work that just didn’t match their past performances. What got me down was that two of these albums came from my favorite artists – Wilco and Okkervil River – as well as The New Pornographers, Ryan Adams (an album and an EP), Spoon, Kings of Leon and Bright Eyes. As you’ll see, several of these still ended up as my top picks, but I think this has more to do with the limited number of outstanding records.

Top 5 Albums of 2007:
1. Neon Bible – Arcade Fire. I got burned out on this album early in the year and was almost reluctant to give it my top pick, but it’s hard to deny that it’s a great album – consistent and hard driving with a distinct sound.
2. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank – Modest Mouse. A break in the year’s trend – this could be their best album yet.
3. Challengers – The New Pornographers. A great album by anyone else’s standards, but they’ve set the bar very high with past releases like Electric Version.
4. The Shepherd’s Dog – Iron & Wine. This album was a fairly significant change in sound for Sam Beam and a lot of long time fans didn’t like it. I thought it was his best overall work yet, that it showed a lot of maturity and confidence, and that he took what had tended to be a slightly limited sound and made it into something that was strong enough to stand on it’s own with any audience.
5. Armchair Apocrypha – Andrew Bird. This was the most exciting album for me this year but a lot of that had to do with the fact that Andrew Bird was a new artist for me personally. He’s not a new artist though; he has 5 or 6 prior releases (I’ve bought one so far and love it as well) and I’m excited to hear the rest of what he’s done. I’ve read that some folks more familiar with this work feel this wasn’t one of his better records, but I think it’s an amazing piece of song writing and musical construction.

Honorable Mention:
The Stage Names– Okkervil River. Some critics were calling this their best work so far and it does have some incredible songs and more examples of Will Sheff’s impressive song-writing abilities but it’s just not quite consistent enough to make the top five.
Sky Blue Sky– Wilco. The funny thing is that this album has gotten more exposure then any of their previous work (thanks to a series of Volkswagon commercials) but actually falls short of their best. It’s a little uneven in it’s song quality and lacks the same bunch that older albums have had. Don’t get me wrong though, Wilco has yet to put out a bad or even “just okay” album. It’s better then 99% of the crap you’ll hear on MTV or commercial radio.
The Historical Conquests of…– Josh Ritter. This is probably the best album of the year in terms of all-around appeal. It’s not as adventurous or unique as many of the other albums on my list, but it’s full of songs that are easy to enjoy and smartly written.