« Denver/Boulder: Shows this week | 12.10 - 12.16 | Main | Our Top 50 Songs of 2007: #40-31 »
December 11, 2007
Our Top 50 Songs of 2007: #50-41
We're willing to entertain the crazy notion that perhaps the world isn't crying out for yet another blog list, but we're not sure that we care. In a great year for music in general, and albums in particular, it was clear that the song is still king. It's not so much that albums are getting any better or worse, it's just that the single serving blog format has irrevocably changed how we talk about music. Convenience and, uh, ethics dictate that standalone tracks are what each local corner blog can offer to the digital void. They are our first snippet of the new and exciting and just as easily enjoyed out of context as in. So here, is as close a consensus as we can muster for 2007's definitive playlist, doled out ten at a time.
Our six man sample size aspires to some degree of universality though is, in reality, easily hijacked by individual passion and minor convergences in taste. Perhaps it's for the best though. You tell us.
Scandinavians keep churning out irresistibly crafted pop hits like so many surprisingly affordable and vaguely futuristic cabinets. Even though the love flowed disproportionately to smug goofs like Jens Lekman, it was Siri Alberg who won the Golden Herring Award for recording the Northern European single of 2007. Her purebred bubblegum voice sucks you into a pick-me-up narrative immediately, but the subtly shifting synth patterns are a point of interest even after you've been suitably cheered. - J. Klingman
Macromantics "the Dark Side of Dallas"
Hip-hop prog... Not since Rahmelzee Vs. K.Rob's "Beat Bop" has a hip-hop song changed directions so often. Australia's own Macromantics - a one-woman show - brings us a gritty tale of drugs over looping Spaghetti Western keys. Australian hip-hop scenesters are divided over her suitability as a representative of the scene, but Cadence Weapon and Keith O'Brien dig her - what else do you need? -K. O'Brien
Times New Viking "Let Your Hair Grow Long"
Frenetic synth mastery... Low-fi Cleveland, OH trio blasts through the desolate sky with some tasty keyboard/fuzzed out guitar thrash. The female-male vocal trade off is equally strong. Those who can't stomach the distortion miss on out the truly sweet. -K.O.
"Flooded" made an appearance in each of my forays into DJ-dom this summer. Hard to resist that familiar truculent slur serving as my calling card: "A guy shows up/says he's the DJ tonight/Sven Vath/But it was me, I was the DJ tonight." Sounds like doggerel on paper, but filtered through the living musical instrument that is Mark E. Smith and combined with the lively dubstep beat-scape of his Mouse on Mars compatriots, "Flooded" has toxic charisma to burn. - David Klein
Sylvia Plath and the ghost twins from the Shining couldn’t pen a composition as emotionally haunting as Harvey’s. With lyrics that perform hypnosis sung vacantly with innocence, “When Under Ether” will linger around the headphones and slip deeper into the ear every time Harvey makes a trancelike pronunciation of a word with the “S” sound. - Y. Korngold
Electrelane's recent announcement of 'indefinite hiatus' provides an added emotional twist to this very pretty, intensely personal tale of longing. The deeply romantic plea for togetherness is delivered with such honest, heart-wrenching feeling that it almost feels like an intrusion on private matters of the heart. Sheltered tightly with a minimalist arrangement, the music rises alongside soaring vocals and tempers quietly to nursery appropriate levels during softer transitions. - M. Swankster
It's like the old wedding toast joke: "Who hasn't slept with the bride?" Groom: "Me." Everyone else: silence. There was no better way for J. Mascis to authoritatively announce his return than with the sui generis noodle work of "Almost Ready", the opening track of Beyond, Jr.'s first original line-up album since 1988. How many other artists can step away for nearly two decades and then pick up right from where they left off? Mascis: "Me." -R. Monty
the New Pornographers "Myriad Harbour"
Yeah New York! As a New Yorker transplanted from the forever home of his heart -- who [at the time of this write up] is mere hours away from a weekend jaunt to the City -- listening to the Dan "Destroyer" Bejar's "Myriad Harbour" hits extra close to home, no pun intended. Folky, inasmuch as the New Pornographers can ever be folky, Bejar's sentences are punctuated by his superstar New Porno's colleagues. It succeeds in becoming the perfect New Pornographers showcase without necessarily lessening Bejar's mark on it. - MS
"Plus Ones" shot a numerical arrow straight through my heart. Here's a song that name-checks classic but not necessarily well-known numerical songs, adds one to the familiar number, and somehow transcends the inherent gimmickry of the enterprise. Then I realized how easy it was:
No one has a clue/that Iggy Pop is five foot two/
And Swedish magazines don't mean a thing to him/
His real name is Osterberg from Michigan/
Despite the years of drug abuse he still hits the gym...and he's a vegan
I won't be a geek for you all nine days of the week/
Won't wait for you out there on the edge of eighteen/
Won't see a flick with Martin Short or Martin Sheen/
Just like the New York Dolls I'm just a human bein' (when it gets obscene)
- DK
February 26th, 2008 is the date that the much anticipated Rare Book Room Records compilation Living Bridge can find its way to the hands of the increasingly imaginary paying indie rock customer, but there was no way we could ignore the stunning teaser that's been floating in the digital wind since mid-summer. Ethereal is an overused word in music criticism, but what the hell are you supposed to call a song that's practically made of lightly glowing vapor? One suspects that this delicate haunting can't survive the raunchy production of the Spank Rock members working on the duo's impending 2008 debut. That only makes this trembling tune a more precious commodity. - JK
Posted by Jeff Klingman at December 11, 2007 08:35 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1335
Comments
Hey Yonah, I hear Sylvia Plath and the Shining twins have been jamming with the kid who sang on XTC's "Dear God," with Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time on harmonium. Apparently Rick Rubin's set to produce.
Posted by: david at December 12, 2007 09:57 AM
Wow! Throw in The Exorcist girl and the Olsen Twins and you have the creepiest song ever made.
Posted by: Yonah at December 12, 2007 10:08 AM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
