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Best music of 2007: The Ballots

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December 12th, 2007

Sean O'Neal

1. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (10)

Adding a horn section can smack of bloat and desperation, and while indie-rock's most economical band may have stretched itself by adding layers of Philly soul on its sixth album, the tunes within are as nattily dressed and whip-smart as ever. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is further testament to Britt Daniel's maturing singularity as a songwriter, too: He slips from hooky FM pop to experimental abstracts to ragged post-punk, but always with an unmistakable bite. With the bouncy, horn-sweetened come-ons of "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" and the Van Morrison-esque retro-pastiche of "The Underdog," Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga swung for the fences and landed the band its first ever Top 10 debut. But as Middle America-friendly as those tunes are, the highlights are the relatively more modest "Eddie's Raga" and "Finer Feelings," both of which sound like nothing more revelatory than great Spoon songs—a commodity that becomes more valuable with each passing year.

2. LCD Soundsystem, Sound Of Silver (10)

3. Les Savy Fav, Let's Stay Friends (10)

The band's two-year hiatus left a lot of fans expecting the worst, so having Let's Stay Friends roar out of the gate, ferocious as ever, with what may be their strongest full-length was kind of like having your parents say they're divorcing, only to turn around and say, "Just kidding, plus here's a new bike!" Hearing Tim Harrington assure us (on "Pots And Pans"), "This band's a beating heart / And it's nowhere near its end" makes the future seem just a little brighter.

4. The National, Boxer (10)

5. White Rabbits, Fort Nightly (10)

"Kid On My Shoulders" by White Rabbits

Formed too late to capitalize on the New New York explosion already beaten to death by The Strokes and The Walkmen, the blue-eyed soulsters in White Rabbits obviously missed their moment in the zeitgeist. Fortunately, the band's remarkably self-assured Fort Nightly is a timeless fusion of jangly art-rock, dark calypso atmosphere, and woozy barroom laments that transcends any notions of a "scene," and the songs themselves are full of bleary-eyed, Lost Generation imagery, propulsive rhythms (having two drummers helps), and the kind of smoky, ragtime piano that never goes out of style. There simply wasn't a better-dressed debut all year.

6. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (5)

Resolved: This is the only modern indie band that can name-check Bruce Springsteen and get away with it. Seriously.

7. Liars, Liars (5)

"Plaster Casts Of Everything" by Liars

Forgoing both the occasionally grating experimental obtuseness of They Were Wrong, So We Drowned and the heady Berlin-influenced mesmerism of last year's Drum's Not Dead, Liars' fourth album found the "difficult" Brooklyn band embracing guitars and traditional song structure in a way they hadn't in years, surprisingly yielding the same galvanizing (and polarizing) rewards. Punishing lead-off single "Plaster Casts Of Everything" may be the closest the band has ever come to rocking with its cock out, and, if nothing else, Liars deserves credit for treading in tricky crossover waters without coming off like a pandering joke. It's safe to say we'll never know what they'll come up with next—and how many bands can you say that about these days?

8. Yeasayer, All Hour Cymbals (5)

"2080" by Yeasayer

The haters came out in full force to decry this Brooklyn band as yet another batch of pretend-bohemians combining vintage folk instruments and synthesizers, but as always, those knee-jerks missed out on one hell of a beautiful album. Taking the glitch-gospel of TV On The Radio and lessons cribbed from Peter Gabriel and David Byrne (who were also once laughed at for branching out into "world" music), All Hour Cymbals couches its post-apocalyptic vision in stirring melodies and multi-layered head trips that reward closer study.

9. Against Me!, New Wave (5)

Forget for a moment that it was released by a major label, was greeted with cries of "sellout!", and was glossily produced by Butch Vig: New Wave is a solid, hook-filled rock album that—while it can't avoid sounding hypocritical to anyone who's followed the band from its unforgiving DIY days—manages to translate the band's usual anti-capitalist screeds and industry-related laments into digestible, sing-along packages. If the title track ("We can be the bands we want to hear / We can define our own generation") didn't inspire a hundred kids to pick up guitars this year, then there's no hope left for punk rock.

10. Menomena, Friend And Foe (5)

Lost in all the talk of the band's use of digital looping trickery—which, as it turns out, is only a fraction of its spaced-out, band-geeks-on-Whip-Its sound—was Friend And Foe's big beating heart, which bled all the vulnerability, rancor, optimism, and bewilderment of human existence over its meticulously crafted tracks, offering the same slightly warped reflection of the soul that The Flaming Lips used to, back before they turned into sentimental captains of the obvious. Few songs this year reached heights as uplifting as the refrain of opener "Muscle'n Flo"—and as the song itself says, "There's so much more left to do."

11. Grinderman, Grinderman (5)

Even if Nick Cave were to put out an album of Mel Tormé songs next year, you can bet his fanbase would snap it up without a second thought. Lucky for us, then, rather than slip gracefully into in his 50s (or a rumpled tuxedo), Cave chose to revisit his hungry days as the howling beast of The Birthday Party with this album of guitar-driven, post-punk ditties. As primal as the monkey gracing its (ugly-ass) cover, Grinderman foregoes the cabaret trappings of latter-era Bad Seeds for proto-industrial scrapes and raw, fuzzed-out dirges, with Cave in blackly hilarious form on songs like the married man's lament "No Pussy Blues"—and all the twentysomethings just stand there slackjawed.

12. Von Südenfed, Tromatic Reflexxions (5)

"The Rhinohead" by Von Sudenfed

Combining The Fall's irascible savant with the playful electro-pop experimentalists in Mouse On Mars could have been just another in a long line of underwhelming guest-spot paychecks for Mark E. Smith, so imagine the surprise of fans of both bands when it turned out to be the best work either has done in years. Of course, Smith's caustic ramblings have been punctuated with blasts of electronics for nearly two decades now, but it's been a long time since they've sounded this electric. Here's hoping for Round Two.

13. St. Vincent, Marry Me (5)

"Now. Now." by St. Vincent

Download MP3 (right-click and save)

Who knew that that cute pixie wielding guitars behind The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens had so much more to offer? Annie Clark's seductive debut recalls the art-damaged weirdness of Kate Bush given a wry, Gilmore Girls makeover: It's sentimental without being cloying, quirky without being off-putting, and crammed with more musical ideas per line than a dozen Regina Spektor records. And while Clark's elastic, mellifluous voice is Marry Me's biggest revelation, the talented multi-instrumentalist also shows great promise as an arranger, wrangling snaking guitar lines, pianos, synthesizers, xylophones, and a whole host of other eccentric instrumentation while never treading into preciousness or schmaltzy bombast. She deserves the spotlight.

14. Bat For Lashes, Fur And Gold (5)

Born to a family of famous squash players (how very Wes Anderson), and gifted with exotic beauty and an amazing voice, Natasha Khan was destined for stardom. Fortunately, she eschewed the Norah Jones/Starbucks route and chose to follow her own freakish muse as Bat For Lashes, an eclectic chamber-pop project steeped in baroque instrumentation and dark-forest mysticism. And then she turned out a spellbinding debut that never loses its mystique.

15. Grizzly Bear, Friend (5)

Yes it's a between-albums EP (and you're sort of right for supposing that this is a late-bloomer's attempt to make up for egregiously leaving Yellow House off of last year's list) but Friend is far from filler: The road-tested, refined versions of songs from both the psych-folk band's breakout and its gritty, lo-fi debut Horn Of Plenty are different enough from their originals to count as brand new, and the inclusion of live favorite "He Hit Me" (the oft-covered Crystals' ode to domestic abuse) is reason enough to earn it a spot on this chart. In fact, the only reason Friend doesn't place much higher is for including useless "bonus" covers from other artists instead of that superior version of "Fix It" that usually opens the band's shows. Oh well. There's always next year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Dirty Projectors, Rise Above

Celebration, The Modern Tribe

Elvis Perkins, Ash Wednesday

Deerhunter, Cryptograms

Amy Winehouse, Back To Black

Michael Cashmore, The Snow Abides

Art Brut, It's A Bit Complicated

Okkervil River, The Stage Names

Jay-Z, American Gangster

Battles, Mirrored

Dizzee Rascal, Maths + English

Earlimart, Mentor Tormentor

Studio, Yearbook 1

The Besnard Lakes, Are The Dark Horse

A Place To Bury Strangers, S/T

White Denim, Let's Talk About It EP

Yellow Fever, Cats And Rats

GOOD SONGS FROM ALBUMS NOT ON THE LIST

1990s, "You're Supposed To Be My Friend"

Bruce Springsteen, "Radio Nowhere"

brakesbrakesbrakes, "Cease And Desist"

The Horrors, "Sheena Is A Parasite"

Mastodon, "Cut You Up With A Linoleum Knife"

Panda Bear, "Bros"

Panther, "Use Your Mouth To Breathe"

Tracy Jordan, "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah"

ALBUMS THAT PROBABLY WOULD HAVE CHARTED IF THEY HAD COME OUT IN TIME

Ghostface Killah, The Big Doe Rehab

Wu-Tang Clan, 8 Diagrams

MOST IRRITATING SONG OF THE YEAR

Tie: Feist, "1234" / Ingrid Michaelson, "The Way I Am"

Ah, the double-edged sword of selling your songs to commercials. Yes, you can get career-making exposure—it's doubtful that anybody would have heard Michaelson's treacly "The Way I Am" had it not been run ad nauseum on those Old Navy spots—but it can also turn you from an underground sensation to a one-hit wonder in record time. Here's hoping Feist, a talented member of the Broken Social Scene collective whose solo records are actually quite lovely, outlasts the flash-in-the-pan love she's garnered from those goddamn iPod ads.

HIPSTER BAND AFFECTATION OF THE YEAR

The banjo.

HIPSTER NAME-DROP OF THE YEAR

"We're really influenced by The Band."

BEST PRESS INDICATOR THAT YOUR BAND IS FOR PUSSIES

"As heard on Grey's Anatomy!"

SIGNS THAT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY MAY NOT BE WORTH SAVING

The enduring popularity of Soulja Boy/Fergie/Hinder/Nickelback.

THE SHUT THE FUCK UP AWARD

Tie: Kanye West and 50 Cent.

OKAY, so 'Ye sort of gets a free pass because his mom died, and we're not about kicking a man when he's down, but prior to that he spent 2007 acting like the same old attention-whoring baby, epitomized by his widely circulated temper-tantrum backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. Then there's 50 Cent, who spent most of the year having a nobody-gives-a-shit feud with Cam'ron, then challenged West to an album sales-off over Graduation and Curtis. West won handily, but guess what? Neither album was all that.

***

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Features

Best music of 2007: The Ballots