As you may have noticed, there is a link in the sidebar to the 2007 Music Ratings. Here I have gathered the top albums, links to the initial post, purchasing and the metacritic site for it. I hope you have enjoyed the list, it was a surprising amount of work, but I think well worth it. We will see what 2008 looks like if it will be repeated, but it was fun. In any case, I now return you to your normal blogging content going forward.
Time for a cliche, this album gets better every time I hear it. And I have listened to it a lot because it is so good. The artist formerly known as Manitoba has created a masterpiece of music. He blends 60's style rock with an electronic sound to make the most delicate and beautiful music I have listened to in a long time. Once you add in the lyrical stylings to the mix, you get just about the perfect album.
This album has 3 songs in my top 5 songs of the year and no other album has more than one. That is the level this album is at. Melody Day starts off the album with a ruckus and a surprise, which leads into the very 60's sounding Sandy. You are then bombarded with a dramatic beat to start off After Hours which evolves throughout the song through both the music and lyrics. Then you get to the top song on the album, She's the One. You have listen to it, because I can't say enough about it. The album could easily trail off from there, but instead keeps going on strong with the quiet start of Desiree. A note, Desiree doesn't end quiet, especially with the inclusion of the classical hints throughout.
We then get to another 60's influenced song with Eli. This is the weakest song on the album, but still is great. Are you noticing a trend yet? Even the "bad" on this album is better than almost anything this year. Sundialing comes up next with a strong beat that continues to evolve. For those of you who prefer the earlier sound of Caribou, Irene gives you some of that as well. Then the album ends with the epic sound of Niobe, lasting nearly 9 minutes.
This album is great, if you have not listened to this you owe it to yourself to. It is my top album of the year and to be honest, it wasn't even close.
In preparation for the #1 album tomorrow, I decided to tweak the design of the site. It was also an opportunity to test out changing the image and colors on the site, which worked wonderfully. So, please check out the new photo/colors and feel free to guess the #1 album.
This is probably the least surprising placement on the list for anyone that has talked to me about music in the last year. I love this album through and through. If you have listened to the Shins in the past, this album continues progressing their music into wonderful areas. Much of the album is what you would expect from the Shins, quirky tunes that mesh together to make a great album. That alone would have been enough to get the album into the top 5, but the band had a trick up their sleeve as well, a little song called Phantom Limb.
Phantom Limb is my song of the year and makes a really good Shins album great. If you have not heard it, you owe it to yourself to listen simply for the working of the different music styles into the same song. It works perfectly. This is not to say that song is the only one worth checking out, Australia and Sea Legs are also top notch works. All of this adds up to a great album, but not quite #1.
Following up on Funeral was going to be difficult for Arcade Fire, however they proved to be up to the challenge with Neon Bible. Somehow darker than Funeral, Neon Bible resonates with the sound of failed goals. No song emphasizes this more than Intervention, which also happens to be one of the top songs on the album. In addition to the lyrics on the song, the organ work blends with a depressing beauty to make a near perfect song.
While Intervention is one of the top songs, there are also highlights with Keep the Car Running and No Cars Go. This is not to say the rest of the album is bad, it just happens that there are some peaks on the album that stand out above the rest. All of that being said, I am going to stop here because with the critical acclaim this album has received, I probably don't need to add more.