Sunday, December 30, 2007

Good-bye 2007

I have returned from my Christmas revelries and in mere moments will place my nose on the grindstone once more in preparation for 2008. I hope the diversion of my end-of-year list was tolerable. Here it is in full, including numbers 21-30 but excluding numbers 31-42 which to be honest I just put in order for my own amusement. Yeah I heard that "Neon Bible", it would have made a pretty good 7" single. But no I didn't hear that new Animal Collective "Strawberry Jam" deal, I'm saving it for a slack week.

1 WIDOW CITY - Fiery Furnaces
2 RISE ABOVE - Dirty Projectors
3 NIGHT FALLS OVER KORTEDALA - Jens Lekman
4 MIRRORED - Battles
5 GA GA GA GA GA - Spoon
6 EASY TIGER - Ryan Adams
7 TONES OF TOWN - Field Music
8 FRIEND OPPORTUNITY - Deerhoof
9 SPIRIT IF - Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew
10 THE STAGE NAMES - Okkervil River
11 STICKING FINGERS INTO SOCKETS EP - Los Campesinos!
12 IN RAINBOWS - Radiohead
13 PERSON PITCH - Panda Bear
14 UNDER THE BLACKLIGHT - Rilo Kiley
15 IMAGINE OUR LOVE - Lavender Diamond
16 DYNAMICO - Mitch Easter
17 SCRIBBLE MURAL COMIC JOURNAL - A Sunny Day In Glasgow
18 THE PIRATE GOSPEL - Alela Diane
19 WIZARDS OF AHHHS EP - Black Kids
20 LIKE THE LINEN - Thao Nguyen
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21 A BRIGHTER BEAT - Malcolm Middleton
22 TIME ON EARTH - Crowded House
23 BOXER - The National
24 MOUNT EERIE PTS 6+7 - Mount Eerie
25 23 - Blonde Redhead
26 WINCING THE NIGHT AWAY - The Shins
27 THE STARS AND SUNS SESSIONS - Chikita Violenta
28 WILD MOUNTAIN NATION - Blitzen Trapper
29 ARE THE DARK HORSE - The Besnard Lakes
30 SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE - New Buffalo

I do have some (very very) modest diversions for Monday and Tuesday, but regular comics resume Wednesday.

5 comments:

R.Fiction.Esq. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
R.Fiction.Esq. said...

(the above removed, due to dire, 1:45 in the morning, whisky fuelled, work in the morning spelling)
Agree to disagree on Neon Bible, but most of the rest I know, (and i have been using emusic to slowly check out the rest), seem pretty sound. I did enjoy Widow City a lot, it was certainly in my top 10, but I suspect its play time is limited.
A little surprised to see Spirit If so high, as I only listen to 3 or 4 songs regularly, these days - although I guess that's more staying power than the average.
Lavender Diamond I listened to constantly for 2 weeks, and then almost never since, I listen to the Imagine Our Love EP by them quite a lot though.
The Malcolm Middleton record was fantastic. Initially I only really liked half of it, then I realised the bits I didn't had an Elliott Smith vibe, and they started sounding better, bizarre as that may sound.
In the style of blog comment-makers, I severally doubt you care for my opinions. Music always does that to me, makes me passionate to tell people what I think.

John A said...

Well Wombat, it's only one man's opinion after all, we're all different!

On the subject of Neon Bible, I thought it was a pretty poor follow up - if it had come out before Funeral, we'd all be calling Funeral a great leap forward. It sounds like one of those eighties "look at us now, we're a big band" stadium foghorn records - but not a particularly good one. If it was 1987, there would have been a moody B&W Anton Corbijn shot of the group on the cover.

There were 4 (!) top 30 hits on Funeral and none on Neon Bible (ostensibly a bigger, much better promoted album), from a personal point of view I don't think history will be very kind to it.

Joel said...

I saw Lavender Diamond open up for the Decemberists, they are pretty good. At the time I did not rush out to the swag table and buy the disc(s) but I will take this as a sign that I should add them to my collection.
I saw the Decemberists one and 1/3 times in 2006, and Midlke twice. Two bands I discovered from John A. 's lists. Good stuff.

BTW I also like the message board, not sure if I will register and post but I do like lurking there. I think it'd get more posts if there was a more prominent link to it but that might also lead to many tiresome fanboy posts. Maybe the fanboys would get flamed by the board regulars and that'd add to the fun? Who knows.

Citizen Meh said...

This list is pleasing to me! Although I'd disagree with you about Neon Bible, I'm happy to see the likes of Dirty Projectors, Jens Lekman and LC! in there. Listen to Strawberry Jam, and I'd also recommened Frog Eyes' new effort. Also, checked out Black Kids after your recommendation- I've been listening to their Go Team-meets-Robert Smith lovechild on repeat for the last week.