top 10 albums of the year
Modeselektor’s pet pig
Another year, another list. It’s always an interesting time of year for me as I get the chance to peruse other blogs’ top album choices and on that note Large Hearted Boy has started to compile everyone’s year end lists - check them out here. And there’s a twist in the tale today - I’m actually going to make this a top 11 as I have 2 titles vying for the number 1 spot and they are there for different reasons. So I decided to give Burial and Radiohead a joint number 1, here’s why. Burial dropped ‘Untrue’ late this year and in my mind (and others too it seems) it’s as close to an electronic masterpiece that we’ve had in some time. I came late to the dub step movement but I caught up fast following the blogger/blog Blackstep. Meanwhile as a Pitchfork review put it - Burial says - “Underground music should have its back turned, it needs to be gone, untrackable, unreadable, just a distant light.” Untrue is just that. It quivers like a hissing lightbulb, one that illuminates the tracks scattered around it– garage, dubstep, soul– and in doing so smears them into unique shapes. Untrue is a remarkable piece of work.
Meanwhile, unless you’ve been living under a rock this year, you could not have missed the brouhaha that surrounded the Radiohead ‘In Rainbows’ album release. The publicity white noise and the resulting coverage focused on the delivery system the band used to get the music across to its fans, which was understandable, but the music itself was a strong return to form for a band that at times seemed to take their fans for granted as they dabbled in histrionic electronic squawks, scrobbles and beats on prior recordings. ‘In Rainbows’ lives up to all of the hyperbole surrounding its release, another solid piece of work from a band that continues to mature musically and strategically. In any other year, Modeselektor’s ‘Happy Birthday’ would have taken the pole position.
1.a Burial Archangel from Untrue
1.b Radiohead Weird Fishes Arpeggi from In Rainbows
2. Modeselektor The Dark Side of the Sun from Happy Birthday
3. Booka Shade Numbers from Booka Shade DJ Kicks
4. Mojib Radiohead - Videotape (Mojib remix) (not) from Whimsical Lifestyle
5. Justice Justice vs Spank Rock - Thunderous Bumps (not) from †
6. Daft Punk Television Rules The Nation from Alive 2007
7. Betty Davis Anti-Love Song from Betty Davis (re-release 2007)
8. The Cinematic Orchestra Breathe from Ma Fleur
9. Okkervil River Our Life is Not a Movie… from The Stage Names
10. Kanye West Stronger (feat Daft Punk) from Graduation
I know I sound like a broken record, but - most of these artists have music for sale in the Amazon download store, iTunes or EMusic, so do your bit and support them by buying a tune or two.
Related Post: Top Ten MP3s in August, Top Ten MP3s in September, Top Ten MP3s in October, Top Ten MP3s in November, Dave’s top 20 new musical discoveries
December 11th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
It’s nice to see someone dedicated to making other artist money. paying for one music is one way. leaving a comment or two one someone blog is another. i am looking to increase traffic to my blog. if it sucks i would love nothing more than for you to tell me. please Dave Allen, leave me a comment. Maybe you aren’t my target audience but I admire what you are doing here. And I’ve been posting blogs about you to try to get your attention. (maybe they aren’t showing up in your google reader - maybe being sneaky isn’t the way to go)
As for your list. I am working on a list of my own. The best music blogs of 2007… it won’t be up for a while. I have different categories. I’m trying to figure out which one you will be in. If you have any nominees besides pitchfork or writers for pitchfork that would be cool. Maybe I’m not using the right key words but Portland doesn’t appear to have many local bloggers writing about indie music (outside of myspace). At least independent writers (non mercury/ww peeps). Or maybe they are deep listed on the google search… hmmm maybe I am answering my own questions here.
As always it’s a pleasure and I sincerely look forward to your best of list of local band!!!
Oh yeah — will you be adding a subscribe feature to your comments?
December 11th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Mr Goldie, if in fact you are a Mr, maybe a Ms, your blog is fine, but such early days….you’ve got to earn the accolades in the blogosphere and it takes years believe me. The ‘tricks’ of getting traffic are out there but they don’t work, there are no shortcuts. What works is a dedicated posting schedule, an authentic voice, a good overview of your subject and/or topics, original content that other blogs will want to host on their own site, etc etc etc. You must become a journalist and do your research too. The Moose site is now heavily-trafficked after two years of at least 3 posts a day. 852 blogs link to the Moose and we get about 63,000 unique visitors a month…that’s uniques, not just our fine regular readers such as yourself. To get there I have put in on average about 3 hours a day every day for two years. Keep at it and you’ll be fine. BTW, my local top picks are up on Indie Music Portland
December 12th, 2007 at 12:48 am
burial works great with headphones. new sounds bubble to the surface with each listen.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
[...] It’s tomorrow in London as I write this post and the good folks at Boomkat offer up a digital download of Yorke’s ‘And it Rained All Night’ and ‘Skip Divided’ with respective mixes by Burial and Modeselektor. So my 2007 Best Albums of the Year top 3 artists are all represented here….such prescience from the Moose, I knew slipping Thom that fiver would work. One slight puzzle though. You can buy the MP3s at 320kbs or you can buy the songs in FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec - for £1 more. Boomkat’s blurb goes as follows - You are a bit of a music connoisseur, you deem 320Kbps MP3s to be inferior, you want DRM free, lossless downloads and you want them now! All very well, but does this mean that the “inferior” MP3s have DRM? I’ll buy them and let you know. [...]
December 19th, 2007 at 9:26 am
I just found a great Burial review by Simon Reynolds, he of Rip It Up..Post-Punk etc fame…
December 19th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Simon is great. He knows that music stuff.
December 20th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
[...] Related Post: Top Ten MP3s in August, Top Ten MP3s in September, Top Ten MP3s in October, Top Ten MP3s in November, Dave’s top 20 new musical discoveries, Top 10 Albums of The Year Posted in music. Tags: , 45, Aceyalone, Andrew Bird, Blitzen Trapper, Chali 2na, Daft Punk, Dave’s top 20 new musical discoveries, Eazy, Four Tet Remix, Fujiya & Miyagi Remix, Half Cousin, Human After All (Justice Remix), Imitosis, iPod, Justice, Justice vs Spank Rock, Kanye West, Looks Like A War, MP3, Pampelmoose, Regulate and Fold, Santi White, Sci_fi Kid (Recordist Remix), Shove It (Switch Remix), Spank Rock, Stronger, The Absentee, The Saturday Knights, Thunderous Bumps, Top 10 Albums of The Year, Top Ten MP3s in August, Top Ten MP3s in November, Top Ten MP3s in October, Top Ten MP3s in September. [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 4:48 am
[...] “LONDON: I had exactly three hours of free time in London, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. And rather than sleeping, I ran out to shop for music and try a dumpling restaurant that had been recommended. Since acid house in the late ’80s, the British dance music scene has been funny to watch. At first, every year, some innovator came along and created a new genre of dance music. Gradually, that window of time between new genres decreased. Now, sometimes it seems that the new genres are changing faster than the actual innovations. So in the progression that has gone from jungle to drum-and-bass to two-step to garage to grime (and don’t even get me started on grindie), the 2007 favorite is dubstep. So I went dubstep shopping, picking up the classic compilation Warrior Dubz; a collection of Skull Disco singles; and, most impressive, the new Burial CD Untrue. Afterward, I went to Yauatcha for dumplings and noodles with a guy who claims he won the U.K. version of The Apprentice. (Note: Just looked him up on Google — turns out he did.)” Here’s Neil’s web site. [...]
January 31st, 2008 at 7:00 pm
[...] Life During Wartime. The rock bands I like I can count on the fingers of one hand. Therefore The Duke Spirit should be glad that I care about their music. Perhaps I like the spunk of Liela Moss their lead singer. Perhaps I’m giving them a chance to worm their way into my head in the hope that other bands will follow and rock music can gain a foothold in popular music rankings again. Maybe. I haven’t tired of my In Rainbows package yet nor the Burial album. Both not rock. [...]