The Definitive Top 10 Albums of 2007

Well my little ladies, I have finally got around to it (and I had to make sure I beat Pitchfork otherwise you'd accuse me of stealing their list). I've read an awful lot of top 10 lists this year, and, while they were all completely wrong and that doesn't surprise me, what does surprise me is the amount of good music that came out this year. For example, remember 2006? When everyone's favorite album sounded like when somebody left the DX7 on overnight in the Arctic Circle and the polar bear maidens came to sing, you know it's not a good year. Or do you? But anyway, this year was good, so let's get to it, shall we?

Update: (I forgot Dan Deacon. Now it's a Top 11.)

11. After Dark Compilation

As infuriating as it is to italo-disco aficianados (myself not included) to see this stuff being even associated with italo-disco, luckily that doesn't mean it isn't really good. I admit I wasn't on the bandwagon until it rolled by on this stuff, but this softy gummy groovy aesthetic has been with me since Sonic 3 Ice Cap Zone Act II. The standouts to me weren't the Johnny Jewel projects Glass Candy and Chromatics, but were the Mirage tracks, which definitely had the most polished, dreamy yet groovy thing going on. Also excellent were the Professor tracks. Show this one to your parents, they might like it.

10. Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover

Another impressive album from our old friend Spencer Krug and company. Their debut Shut Up I Am Dreaming last year was definitely one of the year's best, but that's kind of unfortunate because the memory of that one seems to detract from the excellence of this. Its keyboard/guitar/drum ensemble is more versatile and dynamic than their debut, with equally good songwriting, and Spencer's very unique voice and excellent lyrics to boot. But we're so used to Spencer being so good that it doesn't seem as special anymore. Still, a very good album.

9. !!! - Myth Takes

These guys are so good at what they do. Their tightly orchestrated funk-inspired jam-like grooves are very groovy, and you won't believe some of the grooves they come up with. Singer Nic Offer, previously one of the silliest and the sassiest frontmen, here sobers up a bit and shows a little more depth. Gone are the smarmy lyrics from their sophomore Louden Up Now, replaced by a little more 20-something emotional stuff, like love, 'n stuff. But it's mainly down to the grooves that this album kicks it.

8. A Place To Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers

This album is characterized entirely by truly excellent melodic post-punk songwriting. Every song is strong and will leave its mark on your brain for days. If the album were just that though, it would either be the best album of the year or really terrible—because, you see, smeared and slathered over each tight post-punk song is a thick, reverby layer of harsh noise. Sometimes it quiets down and lets you hear the music, and sometimes it pierces straight through everything else. It works well enough that I'm not sure if it's necessary to how good this is or whether I'd like it without. Also, the name is terrible, guys. Really bad. I changed the band name in iTunes to the more suitable Electricity but that started screwing with my last.fm.

7. White Williams - Smoke

While !!! have a whole band to fuck with, this guy is just as groovy, and he does it all alone. Seriously, these are some of the best bass-synth-drum grooves you're gonna see, and he does it with a strong sense of melody. These are basically pop songs, yes, but they are created with a unique vision, not the cookie-cutter indie-rock or blog/internet/web/oink/waffles-house that everybody else is doing. Just make sure to skip the terrible “I Want Candy” cover.

6. Justice - †

Obviously the big story of the year. As much as everybody wants to deny it, this album, more than anything else, anticipated and summarized what it was to be 2007. Not much more needs to be said about their Daft Punk thought-theft, but the production work is as painstaking as Aphex Twin or Autechre and the songs are mostly top-notch. There are a few yawners in here though, and that, along with a lack of variety overall, make it inferior to the other blog/mp3/digitaldream/justice/michaeljackson-house album on the list. (Also recommended: try to get into an argument with a Goblin fan about whether Phantom is a remix or merely a sampling.)

5. Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings

While I could start off this paragraph by pointing out that I knew about Dan Deacon before the Pitchfork BNM, I decided not to point out that I knew about Dan Deacon before the Pitchfork BNM. What Dan Deacon does is--like other artists on here--he takes a certain aesthetic, or core musical idea, and he repeats it over and over, and finds goodness in it simply through repetition. That openness to repetition may be the ultimate hallmark of 2007. But here Dan uses the repetition to build synth-indie-rock anthems for late-night Mortal Kombat sleepovers, using his dry synth pulses as rhythm guitars and his drum machine to drive the song while adding pitch-shifted vocals and choruses of friends to add a narrative. The whole thing ends up being a sort of weird indie rock, but with everything you'd expect substituted for something else. But it's mostly about the transendental feeling of victory that somehow fills you when you've heard a few minutes of repeating synth stabs and people shouting about sharks and swords.

4. Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release

Here's an album that eschews making a same-y gimmick album (which Justice comes close to), instead featuring an impressive amount of variety in terms of sound, melody, form, singers, and everything. This album is better than Justice's, although it features similar blog/mp3/16bit/v0/ableton-house stylings (but taken only to the second power, and not too overdone). But this album also deserves to be compared to LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, with which it shares a lot of variety and strong songwriting. (Runner-up Digitalism's Idealism is good too.)

3. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

Like I said, this album has strong songwriting and enough variety to make it consistently interesting throughout (unlike their debut, which was too scattershot to really work). James Murphy, our main man, has really locked down his electron-disco groove for this album, and pretty much all of the songs get going like you want 'em to. The real standouts , though, are when he abandons his feel-good “Daft Punk” thing and goes for the heartstrings in “All My Friends” and “Someone Great.” There are a few real stinkers on this album, though, like, astoundingly, the title track, but the good ones are so good that it doesn't matter too much.

2. Panda Bear - Person Pitch

This album seems to be the consensus album this year, like Joanna Newsom's Ys from last year. And indeed, it is very, very good. Panda Bear has created himself a unique loop-based sound somewhere between Ariel Pink and Optiganally Yours that floats in reverb from far-off skiffle bands. His hymnal pentatonic melodies are always beautiful and catchy, no matter how complex they are, and no matter how stagnant the music behind them remains. The loops are also augmented to great effect by what appears to be results of Panda Bear's field-recording habit, with sounds of bottle rockets and subway rails sounding throughout. The most striking thing about this album, though, is how mature and sober it sounds compared to Animal Collective, Panda Bear's main band, and it really makes one feel like some kind of lollipop-sucking Oshkosh b'Gosh kid to have ever liked Animal Collective. That said...

1. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

Well, it can't be because they're my favorite band or anything. This seems to be Avey Tare's project, and here he acts like a kid who just got off a really long, stinky bus trip (that is, Pullhair Rubeye) to the zoo. While previous Animal Collective albums have featured about an even mix of fast- or mid-tempo to slow tracks, this one almost exclusively features upbeat ones. But that doesn't matter, because they're all amazing. With as many good melodies as Panda Bear's album, this album also sets more moods and paints more interesting pictures. Panda Bear has created a very unique work that sounds like nothing else, but if you want ear candy, Animal Collective has got more than you'll find anywhere else. And as their history has shown, it's not a gimmick—and ultimately, this is the only album this year that makes me say, “Boy, I can't wait for the next one.”

Coming soon: The Bottom Five, featuring M.I.A., Radiohead, A-Trak and more!