2007

                2007 a bit of a resurgent year, with a number of interesting things happening across a variety of genres, including a couple (punk and electronic/progressive rock) that have been pretty quiet in my collection for awhile.  I’ll begin, I suppose on the prog/techno rock front, where Daft Punk have one of the most essential live albums I’ve heard in awhile (probably since Nirvana’s Unplugged, but don’t hold me to that).  It’s not a radical reinvention of their sound or anything, butut like Unplugged, it’s a lot more than just the same songs played louder, faster, and sloppier.  Normally, I at least don’t expect a lot of spontaneity from electronica artists in concert, but Daft Punk really do shuffle the arrangements, mashing up their songs into new hybrid creations that are quite compelling.  Even the songs from their last, rather cast-off, album sound of a piece with the rest in this tight set.  So 1) interesting in itself, and 2) a real rebound for Daft Punk, who sounded a bit on-the-ropes when last we heard from them.  Sadly, this, in turn, will be all we hear from them for awhile again.

                From Daft Punk to a band that owes a lot to Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem’s new one isn’t quite the party-record that their debut was, but more importantly has some impressive sounds of growth.  They haven’t followed up the Beatles-pop strain they hinted at on their last one, but rather keep going with their house-Bowie mash-up approach.  But what’s really remarkable is the lyrical step forward.  Last year’s lyrics were at times clever, but never much more than trivial.  This year that’s true for some of them, but others show an almost Pulp-esque concern with the emotional framework of sliding out of hipster youth, with attention to losing friends, disenchantment with city living, and death (the last one, on the really quite touching “Someone Great,” a lot of people somehow hear as a breakup song, which thoroughly mystifies me, as it’s clearly about the loss of a parent).   Regardless, much like you don’t expect electronic-dance artists to put out great live albums, you also don’t expect them to put out songs with emotional depth, so a pleasant surprise, and the point where LCD Soundsystem steps up to really make a claim to be the best band of their generation.

                This is true not only because of their quality, but also their influence.  Remixes by DFA (LCD Soundsystem’s production hosue/label, and like LCD Soundsystem itself mostly a pseudonym for frontman James Murphy) start cropping up all over the place.  The DFA remix of “DARE” is one of the highlights of the remix disc of Gorillaz’s D-Sides, which contains both the b-sides and remix follow-ups to their Demon Days (so as if G-Sides and Laika Come Home were a single double-disc set).  That the remixes this time are by a range of artists make them more variable in both sound and quality, though this one once again fails to be a really worthwhile remix album.  The b-sides, though, are very solid, much better than their counterparts from G-Sides, and almost as good as a proper album in their own right, if very much in the same vein as Demon Days.

                Damon Albarn’s a busy boy this year, though, and his other album this year is more interesting theoretically, even if I reach for it less.  The Good, the Bad, and the Queen, on reexamination, really strikes me as the proper follow-up to the sound Albarn was reaching for on Think Tank.  Like that one, it’s preoccupied with “Englishness” and the state of England, but also far more bouncy and groove-based than Blur’s earlier stuff.  Freed from the expectation of being the next Blur album, it’s easier to evaluate this sound on its own merits, and while it’s less compelling than 90s Blur or 00s Gorillaz, it does show that, even as Albarn’s musical inspirations have led him far afield, his old lyrical preoccupations remain, and in a way that doesn’t fit in the Gorillaz framework.

                Radiohead similarly sound like they’re interested in a return to some of their past preoccupations, though in their case more sonically than lyrically.  In Rainbows got a lot of attention for being a high-profile name-your-price album, and then a wave of attention lamenting that distribution concerns overshadowed the music, which is quite excellent.  But excellence aside (and it is very good, as is expected at this point), what strikes me is how it’s a retreat from the electronica-infused sound of Kid A-Amnesiac-Hail to the Thief, and a return to the more old-school prog sounds of OK Computer (though at the same time emphatically sounding nothing like the Coldplay-eque bands trying to make hay out of Radiohead’s 90s sound).  Rather, the atmospheric songs are more constructed in old-school fashion, rather than with electronica foregrounded.

                A final veteran UK electronic/experimental act worth mentioning are Wire, whose third Read & Burn EP shows them once again overhauling their formula, this time moving away from the aggro & guitar-based attack of the earlier ones to a more synth-heavy sound; so not unlike the move from Pink Flag to 154, but similarly updated and another credible reinvention for a band whose comeback continues to surprise with its reasons to keep listening.

                Over in the States, Nine Inch Nails are pretty much the lone veteran band working any approximation of this sound.  Much like The Fragile, Year Zero shows Trent Reznor dipping into prog-rock for inspiration.  This time he owes a lot to Wall-era Pink Floyd, both sonically (esp. in the guitar sound) and insofar as he’s put out a dystopian concept album.  Unlike Wall-era Floyd, but like a lot of other prog, he’s playing down the emotion in favor of a more distant, analytical approach, which is probably for the best (teenage angst wears poorly into your 40s), even if it means the new one lacks the gut-punch of The Downward Spiral. 

                Also getting proggy & conceptual (not that they weren’t always conceptual) are Ween.  I hope readers don’t take it as a slam against earlier Ween, who did have very solid albums, that my favorite Ween is probably the Friends EP (which may or may not be a mini-rock opera about getting picked up at a disco & murdered), followed by their apparently final album, La Cucaracha.  Friends especially, is a gem, showing both their ability to ape clubby new-disco and dance-punk (on the first two), and how to be extremely funny in doing so.  Both album and EP show their wide range of genre adaptability, and make me sad that this is the end for them…

                Over in mainstream rock, 90s survivors are also making some noise.  Velvet Revolver are quite a bit better on their second (and also, apparently, final) album.  If on their debut, they sounded like the sum of their parts and little more, this time they’re still working the same glam-grunge their parent bands shared, but sound like a real band with their own take on that general sound.  Also, they’re among the few rockers in 2007 with genuine swagger, even if they sound very retro (but retro-early 90s, not retro-70s, for what it’s worth).  Makes me wonder if I should revisit Audioslave too…

                The Foo Fighters, meanwhile, continue to drift into me not particularly caring about them.  They’re pressing their sound in different ways, fusing the acoustic and electric halves of their last record, but it just doesn’t sound that original, and it’s missing the energy a younger band could use to really lift otherwise unremarkable material.  The White Stripes, on the other hand, are doing considerably better.  Jack White’s time with the Raconteurs apparently paid off dividends, as the Stripes are back to sounding playful instead of dutiful.  On the other hand, a dalliance in side-project land also apparently convinced White that he didn’t need his main band much longer, as this is the last studio Stripes album.  So ends the most worthy (by a healthy margin) of the garage-revival bands, but at least they go out strong, with an album that’s as diverse as set of rootsy garage rock as they’ve dropped in awhile.

                2007 is also a year for resurgence among the indie-pop-rockers.  Both the Shins and the New Pornographers are back, and updating their folk-pop sounds with increasingly synth-y abstraction.  For the Shins, this makes them sound ore than a little New Wave, while the New Pornos sound less tied to a specific area.  Neither are as compelling as their breakthrough pair of records, but both show a willingness to avoid getting boxed into a stereotypical sound, and are a success on those terms.  Still, this is the end for the Shins, as James Mercer, like Jack White, will seek a way to press forward without his core band.

                In their debut incarnations, both the Shins and New Pornographers sounded not unlike a more rocked-up and less twee Americanized version of the folk-pop of Belle & Sebastian, so it’s a bit shocking to hear an American band do such a pitch-perfect homage to Belle & Sebastian’s classic sound, in Chicago’s Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.  It also serves as a moment for me to take stock, and realize how that whole twee-pop moment both broke earlier than I realized and faded earlier than I realized as well, as Scotland Yard Gospel Choir sound positively retro this year.

                Over in the UK, the Brit-pop revival continues apace.  Arctic Monkeys, like the Strokes before them, follow up a really promising debut with a record that’s virtually a carbon copy.  I mind it less than the Strokes, but 1) Arctic Monkeys were never hyped as saviors of rock & roll (or at least I never, even for a second, believed it) and 2) they’re considerably higher-energy, which goes a long way toward forgiving repetition or unoriginality.  Anyway, the veteran Brit-poppers are also doing quite well.  Oasis have a really solid single that suggests their comeback wasn’t a fluke, while the Super Furry Animals pick this moment to return from hazy proggy psych to come back to punchy Brit-pop (though they’re still ambitious in their song construction, in a very McCartney-like way). 

                Back in the States, in more straight indie-rock (as opposed to the more poppy Shins/New Pornos strain), new albums form some of the big acts.  Spoon continue to be consistently great, with their extremely in-the-pocket soul-pop sound, and I’m slowly realizing that they were/are one of the great bands of their era.  Never flashy, but while I haven’t heard their debut, they haven’t put out a dud record that I’ve heard.

                The Arcade Fire, on the other hand, while a great band, stumble a bit to my ears on their sophomore LP.  The praise seemingly went to their heads (and indeed, this one will also be praised to the rafters), but while Funeral at its core had the simplicity of roots-rock (if heavily arranged), Neon Bible has the ponderous “Important Music” feel of a rustic U2 (without the sonic innovation and phenomenal vocals that made U2’s pretentions worth overlooking).  Still, better than the mystifyingly highly praised National, who sound like an Arcade Fire without energy or interesting arrangements.  I keep reading these reviews praising the National’s energy & swagger, and it feels like they’re listening to a different band, as all I get is a bunch of grey.  Not bad lyrically, but lyrics alone are like good drumming; you can acknowledge their worth, but great lyrics can no more save a dire, energy-less project than great drumming alone.  Actually, drumming is probably more likely to salvage such a project than lyrics.

                Even more dire (if less mystifying in how they get so praised) are the Animal Collective, whose Panda Bear puts out a tedious solo project this year.  I say less mystifying because I get why people love the Animal Collective, even as I hate them.  In short, they’re the Emerson Lake & Palmer of indie-rock; they're arty and let you feel intelligent for listening to them, but ultimately tuneless and fairly free of interesting ideas.  Even worse, as Beavis would say, Panda Bear sounds he listens to elevator music and says "no, that's too balls-out..."

                On the other hand, we also get more grungy rock from the Pac Northwest.  Modest Mouse are sounding a bit played-out on their latest record.  They make a game attempt at grunge-disco on a couple tracks buried in the back half, but We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank shows the band starting to feel a bit rote.  Built to Spill do a bit better, though they only put out a single.  But like Modest Mouse, they’re melding their grungy rock to a form it has no business fusing with; for Built to Spill, this means reggae (one cryptically anti-Bush original, one rocksteady cover).  It works surprisingly well, though I’m not sure I need an album of this stuff.  Still, the best news on this front is from Blitzen Trapper, who had a few records before this I haven’t heard, but really break through here.  Wild Mountain Time is a sprawling mess of a record, though it mostly works, as it filters 70s country-rock boogie, prog affectations, and the like through a Pavement/grungy filter.  Though I’ll admit that the prog song mostly mimics the sounds of classic prog rather than the compositional substance.  Still, a more ambitious take on the country-rock stuff than the likes of Band of Horses or My Morning Jacket.  Also worth mentioning here are Trampled By Turtles, who are similarly country-rocking in a Young vein, including dashes of electric guitar crunch.

                Of course, the biggest country-rock/alt-country band out there in 2007 is Wilco, who are back but considerably toned-down from their last two.  As I allude to in discussing their live album, Wilco have made a turn toward the more laid-back, mellower grooves.  They recall to me the Grateful Dead by the 80s or so; lightly experimental, but mostly focused on riding a country-rock groove.  Not nearly as expansive or jammy as the Dead, but also not nearly as sonically exploratory as they’ve been.  In fact, probably their most conventional record since A.M.

                Elsewhere in the world of roots-rock, the Avett Bros., Iron & Wine, and Ryan Adams all turn in more of the same.  For all of these bands, I have very little to say.  They’re all good at their signature sounds, and together they show how roots-rock continues to build as a movement within indie-rock in the late ‘00s, but none of them are making any bold steps in overhauling their sound or anything.  Andrew Mitchell continues to expand his sound, though, increasing his reliance on multi-tracking to create a one-man wall of guitars.

                Of course, there are plenty of rootsier veterans out there as well.  Most notably this year is Neil Young, who puts out another of his periodic odds & sods records.  Some of this sounds like it dates back to the 80s (esp. the very This Note’s For You-recalling ”Ordinary People”), while elsewhere he’s exploring both his mellow country side and his harder rocking side.  On the latter front, “Dirty Old Man” was the single, but sounds among the most like an outtake of things here, while I could listen to all 15 minutes of “No Hidden Path” (another rangy electric jam/epic) and still wish for more.  Overall, one of Young’s most eclectic albums, probably ever, and almost as good as his last one (so as good as he’s been since the 90s).

                Springsteen is also back, this time mining a more stripped, alt-rock-inflected sound (and by that I mean that “Radio Nowhere” especially sounds like a Gin Blossoms song), but his comeback streak generally remains intact.  It’s nice to hear him pushing his sound a bit.  And Patti Smith has an album of covers, which works surprisingly well in a moody sort of vein.  But the most surprising (and best) return of a veteran is Robert Plant, here dueting with Allison Krauss.  Plant’s solo career prior to this had been first an attempt to recreate the Zeppelin sound, then some records rearranging Zeppelin songs with Page, so it’s pretty remarkable (to me, and admittedly I hadn’t been paying much attention) that he’s got here easily the best and most distinctive of the post-Zeppelin projects.  Raising Sand is quite beautifully sung, tastefully arranged, and sonically exploratory in an “NPR Album of the Year” kind of way.  Country-rock, sure, but not in arrangements you’ve heard before.  So color me impressed.

                Robert Plant is also, in part, responsible for another of the most distinctive roots-rock albums this year, as an early advocate for Tinariwen, the Tuareg (Saharan nomad) desert-blues band.  You can see how they caught Plant’s ear, as their recasting of the blues to a more expansive, epic sound isn’t too far off in spirit from what Zeppelin themselves attempted, though far more groove-based and hypnotic than the more bombastic Zeppelin.  At any rate, as fresh a take on roots-rock as we’ve heard in awhile, and well worth the attention they caught.

                Turning to a couple of genres that are off in their own worlds in my collection this year, there’s actually stuff to talk about with punk, which hasn’t been the case in my collection for awhile.  Tim Armstrong steps away from Rancid with phenomenally successful results.  Lars Friedricksen’s solo album showed that Armstrong was clearly the driving force in Rancid, but what’s really impressive is how Armstrong’s solo debut sounds nothing like his main band.  Rather, this is a bouncy reggae-garage record, and a whole lot of fun.  And in a better alternate universe, “Into Action,” a bubblegum-garage Ramones/reggae gem would have been the song of the summer. 

                This is also the year that the Gaslight Anthem debut, and while the Clash worship is clearly already in place lyrically, they sound a lot more like Social Distortion than either the Clash or Springsteen.  Still, this is a bracing & literate dose of roots-punk, which is always a good thing, even if less striking than their follow-up will be.  A very different take on roots-punk comes from Gogol Bordello, whose roots are more in Balkan folk sounds.  So they’re a little like Balkan Beat Box, if their Western touchstone were punk instead of hip-hop.  A bit more substantive lyrically, and a bit less adventurous (but only a little) musically.  So mostly this sounds like amped-up gypsy folk played with punk intensity.  Think the Pogues, but from Bulgaria, and you’re getting close.

                Another very different ambitious take on punk comes from Fucked Up, who like the Mars Volta are pressing forward on the progressive-hardcore sounds.  Unlike the Mars Volta, who drifted from hardcore in to classic-style prog, Fucked Up stay grounded in punk-rock formally, though their penchant for long songs with many layered sonic elements recalls (surprisingly) Oasis circa Be Here Now.  Just a single from them this year, but a band with this much sonic ambition is one to watch.

                Finally, in the world of hip-hop & R&B, neo-soul continues to bifurcate between the ambitious and the revivalist.  Among the former, Erykah Badu is on a serious Parliament/Funkadelic trip, with all the exploration that entails.  Points for ambition, but at times the self-conscious “importance” of the project weighs down the jams, and the record too often gets distracted from putting out a great groove.  On the other hand, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings put out an excellent groove, but it’s absolutely nothing you haven’t heard before (i.e. from Stax in 1968).  Revivalism is fun but limiting, and that’s emphatically the trap Jones falls into. 

                I have very little in underground hip-hop this year, unfortunately.  An excellent mixtape from Little Brother shows that I’ve overlooked them for far too long as they are sonically similar enough to the kind of hip-hop I appreciate while having their own distinct take.  The Roots have a lone single that recalls the glossy funk sound of The Tipping Point, but otherwise it’s pretty barren.  More in the mainstream, Kanye West is back, with easily my least favorite of his records to date.  I hated The College Dropout largely because of the whiny lyrics, but at least it (and its follow-up, which I kinda like) had decent beats.  Here, West falls hard into the fatal mistake of sample-based music: if you’re going to take big Hammer/Diddy-sized samples of songs, make sure your end result is better than (or at least distinct enough from) the original song.  So “Regulate” repurposed Billy Ocean in a vastly superior way, and De La Soul sampled Steely Dan to make a song with a wholly different mood and focus than the original, and neither of them made me want to shut off their song and listen to a version where I wasn’t distracted by someone rapping over a song I would rather just listen to.  But Kanye, on more than one occasion here, ends up just making me want to go back to the source material.  Nowhere is this more egregious than “Stronger.”  “Harder Better Faster Stronger” is just about perfection in its original version, and slowing it down so you can layer your weak-ass flow on top is hardly going to improve it.  Outside of hearing it in a bar or similar context, I’ve never made it more than 90 seconds in before shutting it off and cueing up Daft Punk.  (so it was helpful for this year that Daft Punk had their excellent live album, meaning I didn’t even need to go outside my blog-defined listening parameters).

Song of the Year:  Wire – “23 Years Too Late.”  Where did this come from?  Wire’d never really gone in for long-form song construction before, but the results here are outstanding.  A first half of shifting back and forth between a slinking groove and vicious punk snarl coil & strike like a venomous snake, then they slide into a hypnotic groove for a back end, and over 9+ minutes not once do I get bored.  Taking the post-punk revivalists to school in a big way, and one of the best songs of their own illustrious career.

Album of the Year:  Probably LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver.  The party jams aren’t as good as on the debut, but the more serious songs are much better and more substantive than you’d ever expect from a band of this type. 

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Gogol Bordello?  Little Brother?  Velvet Revolver?  A lot to pick from, so I don’t think I will.  Suffice it to say that there were  a lot of acts that I’d let get lost in the shuffle.  None of these are new favorites, but all are worthy on their own terms. 

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  Probably Modest Mouse.  Their album this year is good, but it’s not great, and they’d come off a truly phenomenal 3-album run.  Now I hear what the reviewers said at the time, that the gonzo attitude all feels a little more formula this time around.

Album List

Andrew Mitchell - Covers

Andrew Mitchell - Originals

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

Beck - Timebomb

Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation

Bruce Springsteen - Magic

Built To Spill - Misc.

Carbon/Silicon - The Last Post

Daft Punk - Alive 2007

Dinosaur Jr. - 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival Sampler

Elliott Smith - Misc.

Erykah Badu - New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War)

Extra Stout - Live & Kicking

Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

Fucked Up - Year of the Dog (12")

Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta!

Gorillaz - D-Sides [Disc 1]

Gorillaz - D-Sides: Remixes [Disc 2]

Iron & Wine - Misc.

Kanye West - Graduation

LCD Soundsystem - Misc.

LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver

Little Brother - ...and Justus For All [mixtape version]

Merle Haggard - The Bluegrass Sessions

Modest Mouse - The Bluegrass Tribute to Modest Mouse: Something You've Never

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II

Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero

Oasis - The Masterplan

Panda Bear - Person Pitch

Patti Smith - Outside Society

Pearl Jam - Christmas Singles

Prince - Misc.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Radiohead - Misc.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers - Liz's Best of Compliation for Her Wonderful Husband

Rush - Retrospective 3

Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights

Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus!

The Avett Brothers - Emotionalism

The Black Keys - I'm Not There [Original Soundtrack]

The Gaslight Anthem - Sink Or Swim

The Good, The Bad & The Queen - The Good, The Bad & The Queen

The National - Boxer

The New Pornographers - Challengers

The New Pornographers - Misc.

The Roots - Misc.

The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir - The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir

The Shins - Wincing The Night Away

The White Stripes - Icky Thump

Tim Armstrong - A Poet's Life

Tinariwen - Aman Iman: Water Is Life

Trampled by Turtles - Trouble

TV On The Radio - Live At Amoeba Music

V/A - 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival Sampler

Velvet Revolver - Libertad

Velvet Revolver - Misc.

Ween - Friends EP

Ween - La Cucaracha

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

Wire - Misc.

Wire - Read & Burn 03