Mostest Favoritest of 2007

I'm not really much of a list maker. I know some of you out there find no greater pleasure than making long lists of things you've got to do and find particularly great satisfaction in crossing things off of said list. One of my closest friends even includes 'shower' and 'eat breakfast' on her daily to-do list so that she can have the satisfaction of dragging her pen across the page an extra couple of times. My husband is one of these listy types as well, and razzes me relentlessly about making shopping lists and to-do lists and packing lists when we go on trips. I usually manage to make do without one, she says tapping her forehead knowingly with her forefinger.

It's that time of year when everybody starts compiling lists of things that they liked best about the year and though I don't really get the point of to-do lists, I do like making top 5 lists. Anybody who knows me knows that it's music that makes my world go round and I've always sort of fancied myself something a connoisseur of good tunes. You be the judge. Here I'll list my mostest favoritest albums of 2007!

Before we get started with the drum roll and all the hullabaloo, I need to send a couple of honorable mentions out. This was a good year in music for me. Pretty much all of my favorite artists put out new albums, one even posthumously, though regrettably only one makes the final top 5 of 2007. Shocking really, considering I'm the loyal fan type, but damn there was some fine new (to me) music to come out this year!

And the runner's up are ...... Iron & Wine -The Shepherd's Dog (can you believe it, i&w didn't make the top 5!), Wilco - Sky Blue Sky (what? not Wilco either?), Amy Winehouse - Back in Black, Damien Rice - 9, Ray LaMontagne - Till the Sun Turns Black (I know this came out in 2006, but I didn't get hold of it till later and I haven't stopped listening to it since), Kings of Leon - Because of the Times, The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible, Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City and last but certainly not least, Beirut - The Flying Club Cup.

Elliott Smith's New Moon would have made my Top 5 had I not just gotten it for x-mas and have only listened to it a handful of times, but it's absolutely brilliant. Go out and buy it immediately!

5) Coming in at number 5, it's our dear friends Radiohead with their perfectly radiohead sounding album, In Rainbows. Case in point, when my friend came to dinner recently and asked me to put it on, the first thumps of 15 step started off and she proclaimed "Oooh! It sounds just like radiohead!" Also, I'm a big fan of their pay as much as you want downloading scheme. I gave it a good deal of thought, but in the end settled on £3.00 for mine, which seemed fair enough to me. How much did you pay for yours? I read the average paid was £2.99 so as it turns out, I'm perfectly average.

4) Next is Elvis Perkins' pretty little debut album Ash Wednesday. I heard about this thing way before I got around to giving it a listen. I was flying from LA to London on Virgin and I swear that's as good as it gets for transatlanticism. (Oh Virgin airlines... you're so dreamy.) There's all sorts of fun things about a Virgin Atlantic flight, loads of movies, games and music on the little video screen on the seat in front of you and a music magazine to flip through. For some reason this kid's story stuck to me. He's the son of a Hollywood actor who died of AIDS in the 80's, his Mom was killed in 9/11 so there's lots of reasons to expect that this album would be a bit mopey and sad, and it is, but not in the ways that you might expect. It's dreamy and loopy and sometimes a bit poignant and shocking. Swoon.

3) Now, I don't have a whole lot to say about this album except that I listened to it A LOT this year. It's one of those that's completely sing-along-able and for that reason alone, it played while I was cooking or jogging or in the car and in the shower. All I really know about her is that she's Canadian and used to play with Broken Social Scene. Divine!


2) I love everything about Miss Kate Nash. I love the storyteller in her more than anything, I love that she's a teenager, but wouldn't sell her soul to the Britney machine, I love that even though by now you can't get her off the radio in the UK, I'm still not sick to death of her. She came to me by accident. Wilco was playing on Jools Holland, which for the Americans is a late night show on Fridays that showcases all sorts of music and I stayed up late to get some Tweedy action. Instead it was little Kate that grabbed my attention. The only introduction she got was "This is Kate Nash, she's new" and she was only allowed one song. She didn't have an album out or anything yet, but her songs were all over limewire and myspace and the like. I started collecting them as I came across them and if I'm honest, I don't actually own this album, I've only bits and pieced it from the internet. Naughty!

1) Peter, Bjorn and John blew me away this year. I can't stop listening to their album Writer's Block. Here's my favorite song from the record and maybe you'll see why I love it so, so much.


Good stuff. There were a bunch of albums I didn't get to listen to yet like pj harvey and Sigur Ros and Steve Earle and Bat for Lashes and Band of Horses and Caribou and KT Turnstall and Interpol and Rilo Kiley and Spoon and Bettye Lavette....

What are you listening to?

(sorry about all the you tube action, I'm not sure what happened there and can't seem to fix it. besides, you can't have too much of a good thing!)