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2007 Year in Review I: The Introduction

We reach the end of another year and the time has come once again to reflect upon the wonderful music the last twelve months has provided me. 2007 was not, as I've heard others suggest, a particularly weak year for music - you just needed to dig a little deeper and look to some unexpected sources to find the truly captivating and engaging stuff. Radiohead and Kanye West aside, it was a year when a lot of the biggest names failed to bring their 'A' game and instead handed us less than stellar material. The Wu-Tang Clan dropped one of the more flaccid records of the latter half of their career and T.I., despite releasing the outstanding King a year ago, churned out a half-assed concept album that was simply a chore to sit through. The Smashing Pumpkins, one of my personal favorites, completely dropped the ball with their long-awaited "reunion" album - falling well short of the already low expectations. And while they certainly weren't bad albums in any sense of the word, the latest from stalwarts like M.I.A., Rilo Kiley, The National, and Spoon all fell a little bit short of my high hopes after stupendous previous releases. Hell, even Neon Bible was a little bit of a letdown, but that was probably due more to my insanely high expectations than anything else.

But let us not dwell too long on the bad, because there was plenty of great stuff that graced my ears throughout the year. I continued to dig deeper into metal throughout the year and was rewarded with great to flat-out amazing albums from the likes of Pig Destroyer, Baroness, High On Fire, Between the Buried and Me, Jesu, and Earthless - to name but a few. And while there weren't a ton of five-star classic albums this year, rap vets like Jay-Z and UGK (R.I.P. Pimp C) dropped unexpectedly solid singles and albums during 2007. But the greatest joys, for me anyway, were those left-field albums that came out of nowhere to blow me away. Deerhunter, Battles, Chromatics, Working for a Nuclear Free City, and The Twilight Sad are all new names that made a big impact with me. Plus there were the latest albums from bands that I'd previously written off for one reason another, particularly Elephant 6 alumni like Of Montreal and Apples in Stereo.

Albums aside, it was also a pretty good year for the singles game as well. As far as I'm concerned Kanye West and his Daft Punk sampling ways ruled over all comers this year but Avril Lavigne, Rihanna, and The Shins all put up a good fight with fantastic songs. Los Campesinos!, a band to watch out for once their debut album drops in early '08, also gave us the fantastic "You! Me! Dancing!" - an ecstatic piece of pop that was stuck in my head throughout the fall of this year. "All My Friends" was one of the most heartbreaking moments of the year, while Against Me's "Thrash Unreal" gave us one of the year's most undeniable hooks from an unlikely subject matter. This all without even getting into the three or four minute bursts of joy given to us by Justice, Bright Eyes, Bloc Party, and the 1990's.

So check back over the next couple of days for my lists of the best albums, singles, EPs, and compilations/reissues of the year that was 2007. As always, feel free to leave a comment or two to express your agreement or indignation at my choices.