- Christopher Bahn
- Andy Battaglia
- Aaron Burgess
- Andrew Earles
- Scott Gordon
- Marc Hawthorne
- Jason Heller
- Steven Hyden
- Trevor Kelley
- Genevieve Koski
- Gregg Lagambina
- Michaelangelo Matos
- Chris Mincher
- Josh Modell
- Noel Murray
- Sean O'Neal
- Keith Phipps
- Nathan Rabin
- Kyle Ryan
ANDY BATTAGLIA
1. Melchior Productions, No Disco Future (15)
Thomas Melchior makes dance music that DJs turn to when they want to "go deep," which can mean all sorts of things depending on context. In Melchior's case, it tends to mean minimal house music marked by sauntering hi-hats, quivering patches of warmth, and the kind of delicately forceful repetition that makes you zone out of the material realm and slither into a province simultaneously suggestive of the earthly and the spiritual.
2. LCD Soundsystem, Sound Of Silver (15)
Everyone expected monumental beats and shrewd allusions from LCD Soundsystem's sophomore album, but nobody could have accounted in advance for its profound emotional heft. Bandleader James Murphy announced himself as a formidable songwriter with heartrending songs like "All My Friends" and "Someone Great," and he also managed to up his status as a disco-rock producer with a store of musical ideas yet to fully vest. He's complicated, too: Take "North American Scum," a rousing anthem that somehow both flays and celebrates Yankee provincialism while registering as funny, pathetic, defiant, and ambiguously on-point.
3. M.I.A., Kala (15)
M.I.A.'s Kala joined the ranks of that special brand of album that evokes not just an inimitable musical world, but, better and more resounding, a whole other planet. Song after song proves hot and colorful, and M.I.A. exhibits the kind of presence as a rapper-singer that shows no sign of flagging. No song this year did a better job than "Bamboo Banga" of summoning both the homey rock drone of The Modern Lovers and the spirit of Bollywood, and the party never dims from the opening track on. Extra credit, too, to an album that counts its one Timbaland-produced track as its weakest.
4. Fall Out Boy, Infinity On High (15)
Fall Out Boy's Infinity On High sounds like a record made in a factory—and proves all the better for it. Choruses soar, verses versify, bridges bow down and think out loud: Such songwriting doesn't come from dudes who don't know what they're doing. Whatever one thinks of his taste in hoodies and eyeliner, Pete Wentz wrote a body of lyrics that prove smartly earnest and self-aware, and the music masterminded by Patrick Stump does a lot to prop up all the withering ambivalence and outsized regret. It's misleadingly slotted as "pop-punk," especially in light of Stump's remarkable vocal delivery: Some of his better moments invoke the full-bodied passion and grace of old soul-music stars as much as the rage of mall-rats.
5. Gui Boratto, Chromophobia (10)
"The Blessing" by Gui Boratto
Download MP3 (right-click and save)
Brazilian producer Gui Boratto helped resurrect the story to be told about the German techno label Kompakt with an album as moody, melodic, and meticulously crafted as any the imprint has released thus far. Boratto's sound is sleek but not slick, drawing on minimal-techno details and bigger-picture sensations drawn from the rub of certifiable tunes.
6. Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam (10)
"Fireworks" by Animal Collective
Easy to underrate for its lesser standing in the Animal Collective catalog in terms of straightforward immediacy, Strawberry Jam still manages to sound different by the day, the week, the month—basically, whatever amount of time separates two given spins. How many other albums can boast the same?
7. Prinzhorn Dance School, Prinzhorn Dance School (5)
"You Are The Space Invader" by Prinzhorn Dance School
A formalist exercise that proves all the more affecting for what it's not, Prinzhorn Dance School's debut traffics in post-punk stripped to its absolute core. No song features more than just emaciated guitar, prim bass, and sparing drums, but the pent-up atmosphere goes a long way in seeding the strangeness of songs that sound at once painfully sane and patiently unhinged.
8. James Murphy & Pat Mahoney, Fabriclive 36 (5)
Between stints cold-rocking the scene as LCD Soundsystem's maestro and drummer, respectively, James Murphy and Pat Mahoney put together a disco mix that stands to tweak certain ideas about what disco was or stands to be still. The DJ set is drawn from mostly old material—prime '70s-'80s disco with a hint of weirdness to it, though not necessarily—and the way tracks fold into and out of each other speaks to skills beyond those of mere selectors.
9. Amy Winehouse, Back To Black (5)
It seems that Amy Winehouse has issues, but oh that voice!
10. Ewan Pearson, Piece Work (5)
"Don't Let The Stars Keep Us Tanlged Up (Ewan Pearson's Objects In Space Remix)" by Cortney Tidwell
A bit of a fudge for a 2007 list in that it collects remixes made over the past five years, Piece Work gathers some of Ewan Pearson's finest work. What's most appealing about it is that it's hard to slot—not exactly techno or house or trance, but also not exactly not. When he's in prime, Ewan Pearson simply makes big tracks even bigger, with lots of billowing effects and taut synth tricks falling into gears that run all the smoother when they grind.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Thomas Fehlmann, Honigpumpe
Deerhunter, Cryptograms
Kalabrese, Rumpelzirkus
Dirty Projectors, Rise Above
Burial, Untrue
TOP 30 SONGS
LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"
Gwen Stefani, "Early Winter"
M.I.A., "Bamboo Banga"
Fall Out Boy, "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs"
Soul Capsule, "Beauty And The Beat"
Brad Paisley, "Online"
Rihanna, "Umbrella"
Animal Collective, "Peacebone"
Partial Arts, "Trauermusik"
Beck, "Cellphone's Dead (Ricardo Villalobos Remix)"
Gui Boratto, "The Blessing"
A Mountain Of One, "Freefall"
LCD Soundsystem, "Someone Great"
!!!, "Heart Of Hearts"
Burial, "Archangel"
Spoon, "Don't You Evah"
Animal Collective, "Chores"
Radiohead, "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"
Prinzhorn Dance School, "You Are The Space Invader"
Shackleton, "Blood On My Hands (Ricardo Villalobos Apocalypse Now Remix)"
Bjork, "The Dull Flame Of Desire"
Of Montreal, "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal"
Elk City, "Los Cruzados"
Panda Bear, "Bros"
Thomas Fehlmann, "Bienenkonigin"
Cassy, "Soul Saviour"
Matthew Dear, "Neighborhoods"
Boundzound, "Louder (Henrik Schwarz Remix)"
Dirty Projectors, "No More"
Beirut, "A Sunday Smile"
***
« Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | Next »
- Comments