I spent some time poring over my listening habits on last.fm for the last year. I was trying to figure out some way to sum up my favorites and I grow weary of the endless Top 10 lists, so I instead present my favorites from the year to you in the form of a soundtrack to my year, with some commentary below if you’re interested.
Most of what you’ll find here is from 2007 or 2006 although some stuff was just new to me in 2007. If I was way more enterprising, I would have linked all this to samples and how to buy it and all that. But I didn’t. If you want to buy it, I recommend emusic.com, Amazon’s digital downloads, or iTunes as a last resort.
Soundtrack to 2007
| Artist | Song | Album | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Of Montreal | A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger | Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? | Great unclassifiable new album |
| Apples in Stereo | Can You Feel It? | New Magnetic Wonder | This song’s a bit over-exposed but still a good tune. I really liked a few songs from the album. |
| Copeland | When You Thought You’d Never Stand Out | Eat, Sleep, Repeat (2006) | For some reason, this album hit a nerve for me earlier this year. Relaxing – good for listening on a plane. |
| Galactic | The Corner | From the Corner to the Block | Easily one of the best albums of the year. Galactic takes their New Orleans-style funk instrumentals and combines them with a bunch of top-shelf MCs. The result is fantastic. |
| The National | Squalor Victoria | Boxer | Another amazing album this year – it delivers on every level. I easily could have picked any song. |
| Apostle of Hustle | “My Sword Hand’s Anger” | Nation Anthem of Nowhere | I know nothing about these guys except this song from a emusic sampler, but I listen to it all the time. |
| Nada Surf | See These Bones | Lucky (2008) | This is a pre-released single from the upcoming Nada Surf album and I also found this one on repeat a lot. |
| The Futureheads | Skip to the End | News and Tributes (2006) | I believe I got this from the SXSW festival free mp3 tracks and played the heck out of it (didn’t see them though). Kind of an 80’s feel. The rest of the album is good as well. |
| The Baker Brothers | Super 8 | Hot Funky & Sweaty: The Sound of Heavy Soul & Funk Today (2005) | My go-to funk instrumental for the year. |
| The Mooney Suzuki | 99% | Have Mercy | Another SXSW track, great feel. I think was used on a car commercial this year, too. |
| Radiohead | Weird Fishes/Arpeggi | In Rainbows | Amid all the hoopla on how they released this album, there was not enough talk about how damn good it is. I don’t like it as much as Kid A, but it’s real close. |
| Ben Lee | Love Me Like The World Was Ending | Ripe | I’ve been getting into this Australian singer-songwriter more and more and his last album kind of broke it open for me. |
| Corinne Bailey Rae | SexyBack | Radio 1 Live Lounge | Awesome cover of the Justin Timberlake song done on a radio show |
| Melissa McClelland | Passenger 24 | Thumbelina’s One Night Stand | We saw her at SXSW this year and it was a cool show – the whole CD is good as well. |
| Breakestra | Inner City Blues | The Live Mix, Pt. 2 (2001) | I’m a Breakestra fanatic and I tracked down this physical disc at Waterloo in Austin – it’s one continuous jam of all or mostly covers. This is a cool cover of Marvin Gaye’s tune. |
| Amy Millan | Blue in Yr Eye (2006) | Honey From the Tombs | Got this from another sampler and bought the album – good stuff |
| Clutch | What Would a Wookie Do? | Pitchfork and Lost Needles (2005) | Uhhh….I don’t know if I can explain how I started listening to Clutch or songs about wookies, but this song is so cool. If you have any idea what it means, let me know. |
| Sharon Jones | How Long Do I Have to Wait For You | Naturally (2005) | I probably should have a put a song on here from Sharon Jones’ wonderful 2007 release “100 Days, 100 Nights”, but this is the song I can’t stop playing. There’s a horn hit at about 2:50 that just slays me |
| Art Brut | Good Weekend | Bang Bang Rock and Roll (2005) | This song is so fun |
| Guster | Amsterdam | Keep it Together (2003) | After constant browbeating by various social recommendation engines that I really must like Guster, I checked them out and I do actually like some of their stuff (like this) a lot. |
| Mika | Grace Kelly | A digital download that was popular for 15 minutes of Internet fame and a lot of fun. | |
| Gogol Bordello | Start Wearing Purple | Gypsy Punks (2005) | These guys also have a great 2007 release Super Taranta which I like a lot but haven’t listened to as much, so instead I’ll list an older tune I love. Apparently these guys are working on something with Madonna now…? |
| Rodrigo y Gabriela | Tamacun | Rodrigo y Gabriela (2006) | Dual flamenco-guitar with a heavy metal influence. Gotta love it. |
| Herbie Hancock | The Jungle Line | River: The Joni Letters | Really cool album of Herbie Hancock working with other artists covering Joni Mitchell songs. This tune has an unbelievable piano part and Leonard Cohen doing the lyrics. Freaking cool. |
| Cake | War Pigs | B-sides and Rarities | Cake put out a great b-sides comp this year with a War Pigs cover that makes War Pigs covers relevant again! |
| Tub Ring | Panic the Digital | Fermi Paradox (2002) | I picked an arbitrary Tub Ring song that I like here, but I listened to a crapload of Tub Ring this year after seeing them at SXSW and again in St. Louis. They also had a cool album out this year that I guess I should have focused on instead…oops. |
| Tom Waits and Kronos Quartet | Way Down in the Hole | Healing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation | Cool concert put on by Richard Gere’s organization, featuring a bunch of eclectic artists – gotta love Tom Waits plus Kronos |