December 30, 2007
Best album(s) of 2007
I'm not really into painstakingly arranged year-end "best of" lists for anything, including music. So I hope you didn't look at the title of this post and expect a list of my favorite albums.
The reason I'm writing this post is that I have thumbed through a few of these lists (like Pitchfork's, Rolling Stone's, eMusic's, and even The Week's composite of 25 "best of" lists). Everyone's going ga ga over albums like Radiohead's In Rainbows, LCD Soundystem's Sound of Silver, the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, and - fittingly - Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Which is all fine. They're all great albums. (If I had bought In Rainbows on vinyl, it would already be worn out.) But on none of these lists do I see mention of some of my favorite albums. The most glaring omission is Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha. I mean, come on... I've enjoyed listening to it for about nine months now and I have yet to grow tired. (Interestingly, it does appear in eMusic's 2007 User Poll.)
So, even though I'm not sure end-of-year rankings make sense, I would like to at least cast a symbolic vote for Armchair Apocrypha. And while I'm at it, I'll cast one for The Good, The Bad & The Queen's eponymous album, Oliver Future's Pax Futura, Deer Tick's War Elephant, and Ash Wednesday by Elvis Perkins.