top albums

This is the best post that will ever be on this blog. Behold! My top 10 favorite albums for 2007:

1. Dan Deacon: Spiderman of the Rings - Manic energy death squad
2. Radiohead: In Rainbows - The easy gorgeous choice of every few years
3. Blitzen Trapper: Wild Mountain Nation - Islands of Angular Thrash Phych Freakouts in an alt country sea
4. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver - All My Friends, ftw
5. Ratatat: Remixes Volume 2 - Mostly on the strength of 3 amazing songs. Go to their myspace, its a free download.
6. Arctic Monkeys: Favorite Worst Nightmare - Remarkably solid album, good riffs to spare
7. A Place to Bury Strangers: A Place to Bury Strangers - Jagged, noise-slabs, not nice
8. Daft Punk: Alive - Like a best of mashup
9. Justice: Cross - DANCE
10. Je Suis France: Afrikan Majik - wtf

Favorite songs 2007:
1. LCD Soundsystem: All My Friends
2. Ratatat: Glock Nines
3. Tokyo Police Club: Citizens of Tomorrow
4. Dan Deacon: The Crystal Cat

Those top 4 rearrange themselves with the passing of the sun and moon. Number 5 would be Feist's 1, 2, 3, 4. Figure that out.

4 and 1 have defined my mindset many a day and night, respectively. 2 and 3, together, are everything I want to achieve in songs I write. 4 and 2 are the songs I put on when I get close to UCI in the morning, to get pumped the fuck up.

Listen to them 3, 2, 1, 4, 3 for the best summary of my year that 20 minutes can offer.

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I never did a 2006 favorite albums list, somehow. Here is one I put together in retrospect.
1. Girl Talk - Night Ripper
2. Band of Horses - Everything all of the Time
3. VA - Tropicalia: A Brazillian Revolution in Sound
4. Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
5. Islands - Return to the Sea
6. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
7. Tapes n' Tapes - The Loon
8. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll
9. Hot Chip - The Warning
10. Boris - Pink

And my old list of 2005 albums I found, as revised in February 2006 or so:
1. danger doom - the mouse and the mask
2. the hold steady - seperation sunday
3. wolf parade - apologies to the queen mary
4. edan - beauty and the beat
5. broken social scene - broken social scene
6. sufjan stevens - illinois
7. jens lekman - you're so silent jens
8. bloc party - silent alarm
9. lcd soundsystem - lcd soundsystem
10. clap your hands say yeah - clap your hands say yeah

I can't seem to find the 2004 or 2003 lists right now, but I know the 2004 list went:
1. Frog Eyes - The Folded Palm
2. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
and a pretty big dropoff after that. Though in retrospect, The Go Team's Thunder Lightning Strike! would have taken #1 if I had discovered it when I made that list.

And I know that the 2003 list went:
1. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
2. The Unicorns - Who will Cut our Hair when We're Gone?

And that there was a very big dropoff after that. I'm still undecided about that order. They both deserve to be my favorite album of that year. I think BSS was my favorite of that year, even if the impact of The Unicorns is felt more strongly in retrospect.