Let me guess, that terrible Arcade Fire album is on there? ::goes to read TFA::

Wow, the first list i've seen where it isn't. Checking out the albums listed now ... for those who don't wanna read TFA, here's the comprehensive list:

-Maria Schneider Orchestra, "Sky Blue"
-Pela, "Anytown Graffiti" (Great Society)
-Pinback, "Autumn of the Seraphs" (Touch and Go)


Yea. Three albums. Nice article.

I like Pinback, but buying albums is sooo 2007.

No From Beale Street to Oblivion, I don't care.

large amounts of awesome

Remember the Far Side what humans say / what dogs hear? Here is the article to me:

blah blah blah Jazz blah blah blah arena rock blah blah blah U2 blah blah blah not prog rock blah blah blah

Or, expanded a little:

I don't care for jazz. There is some very good jazz that I like and a whole lot more than is too dull to be worth the effort of pressing play. I don't know how to predict which is which so I skip the genre.

Arena rock as a genre sounds good, but I strongly dislike U2.

I like progressive rock. My parents were fans of the stuff and I grew up listening to the popular classic prog rock. So telling me don't be fooled this isn't prog rock, that is not going to make me go buy the album.

(But seriously, for all my blah blah blah mocking this mini review succeeded in giving me reasons to have an opinion, even if the opinion isn't the one the author hoped for.)

Great Metal Jesus: No From Beale Street to Oblivion, I don't care.

I certainly did not overlook this one. Good stuff.

I had no idea Pinback was so well-known. Rob Crow's a friend of an old friend. Wow. Good for him.

My favorites of 2007:

Three Gears to Heaven - Blow It Up
Thomas St. John - The Things in Your Mind
B*tch Kitten - Shut Your Face
Somebody Actually Came to Your Party? - Dance Floor Idiot
Excitable Stuffed Animals - Snooze Alert
Mary Buggin' - Why?
Rufus the Doofus - Can't Believe You Tried to do That Thing You Tried to Do

/I was never cool enough to get a job at a record store

Piffle...



Viper Rash - Big Problems (new window)

Thw best album I've heard in 5 years is "10 Days Out" by Kenny Wayne Shepherd. It's worth it just to see final performances from Gatemouth Brown and Pinetop Perkins, as well as other blues pioneers who would otherwise have died anonymously.

Zarkin Frood: I like Pinback, but buying albums is sooo 2007.

I just found them on iTunes yesterday. Bought a single song. Good stuff though.

It amazes me what crap gets greenlit around here.

Three that I love from 2007:

The Bird and The Bee - Self Titled
Tegan and Sara - The Con
Circa Survive - On Letting Go

enrico1982, I've listened to that album no less than three times trying to get it. I don't get it.

Here's my 2007 picks, alphabetical by artist, just published today in the local alt rag.

The Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (Merge)
Here's a rarity in the music world: A sophomore album that doesn't pale in comparison to the debut album, but instead expands upon that template, rising above the overt mournfulness of 2004's Funeral to reach for something greater and, dare I say, joyful. In a word: Epic.

Iron & Wine, The Shepherd's Dog (Sub Pop)
The time Columbia-born Sam Beam spent working with Calexico a couple years back has rubbed off on him in all the right ways. Dog is the brightest, broadest sounding album he's made to date, yet it still manages to retain the quiet charms that made his early work so special.

Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full (Hear Music)
Very quietly, McCartney has issued a succession of solid, mature albums over the past decade that have belied his reputation as a purveyor of sappy schlock during his post-Beatles career. If Memory serves as McCartney's swan song, he leaves on a very high note.

The National, Boxer (Beggars Banquet)
This year's "bears repeated listening" album. It took three or four spins before its moody eloquence and brooding imagery came into full relief. Those patient enough to take the trip down this "lost highway" will be rewarded by the most cohesive and fully realized album of the year.

Panda Bear, Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
This album was described by more than one critic as sounding like "Brian Wilson on acid," which seems redundant until you give this Animal Collective offshoot a spin on the turntable and are enveloped by the miasma of harmonies and electronics swirling about your head. Heady stuff, indeed.

Radiohead, In Rainbows (ATO/XL/self-released)
Yes, it's no OK Computer. And yes, it's largely an "odds 'n' sods" collection of material that they've been knocking around in concert for years. And yes, they milked the "pay what you want" download scheme for all the publicity they could generate. It's still one of the year's 10 best albums. Whether that's high praise of Radiohead or a condemnation of the state of music today is your call.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Magic (Sony)
Springsteen hasn't made a "big" album like this since Born In The U.S.A. Here, he shows us, 20-plus years on, that he can still bring it. It might not be as bombastic or anthemic as his earlier work, but that's a plus here. It's his best album since U.S.A., and among the best of his career.

Stars of The Lid, And Their Refinement of the Decline (Kranky)
Ah, ambience. On their first album in six years, this Austin post-minimalist duo channels the best of Eno and Glass' early works. These aren't songs so much as tone poems, but the sheer beauty captured over this set's two discs is a testament to the "less is more" ethos.

Amy Winehouse, Back to Black (Republic)
This year's "it came out in the UK last year" pick. Put aside all the tabloid nonsense and you're left with possibly the finest soul album by a white British songstress since Dusty in Memphis, no small feat in itself. Plus, it had "Rehab," this year's "can't get that damn song out of my head" winner.

Various Artists, Home Schooled: The ABCs Of Kid Soul (Numero Group)
My reissue of the year. In the wake of the Jackson 5's success, kid groups popped up all over the urban landscape of the early '70s, their songs cheaply pressed on small local labels. It's albums like this that have made Numero's exhumation of soul relics so rewarding.

Five Albums Bubbling Under My Top 10:
Battles, Mirrored; Feist, The Reminder; LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver; Okkervil River, The Stage Names; Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand.

Five Solid Albums By Bands I Really Like, But Weren't In My Top 10:
The New Pornographers, Challengers; The Shins, Wincing the Night Away; Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga; The White Stripes, Icky Thump; Wilco, Sky Blue Sky.

Five Albums I Never Got Around To Listening To, But I Might Kick Myself For Excluding Once I Do (happens every year):
Against Me!, New Wave, Band of Horses, Cease to Begin; The Field, From Here We Go Sublime; M.I.A., Kala; Kanye West, Graduation

One Album That I Just Didn't "Get":
Burial, Untrue
Yeah, still scratching my head over this "grimecore classic."

...

In other news, pop and rock music used to be good, but it sucks bad now.


c'on kid, put down your Black sabbath album and admit it...

Great Metal Jesus: No From Beale Street to Oblivion, I don't care.

I couldn't agree with you more!

YouTube Goodness Link (new window)

...

all M.I.A wants to do is (bang) (bang) (bang) (catching!) and take your money...


KALA, By M.I.A

Prob the best of the 26 cds released by Buckethead this year.


26 cds!!!

/listened to 20 of them

enrico1982: large amounts of awesome

Yes, and this too:



Although it's not really an album.

Uncle Pooky: Zarkin Frood: I like Pinback, but buying albums is sooo 2007.
I just found them on iTunes yesterday. Bought a single song. Good stuff though.

You might also wanna check out some of the bands listed in my profile. My taste in music trends toward the "win" side.

and

My top album of the year is Lena (Jung-Hyun) Park's "Come To Where I Am," and I don't even speak Korean.

Also, even though it's a DVD, it has the full show on the disc in 256kbps mp3s...

poindxtr: Clutch and Ween


Hahaha I was hoping someone was going to mention these.

Props to ween. La Cuch is a kick ass return.

In other news- what did people see in National - The Boxer? I gave it 2-3 listens and thought it was meh.

Dusk-You-n-Me: ecx.images-amazon.com

I came here to post that. Funny enough I was watching the youtube clip of Harder Better Faster Stronger from Alive just a few minutes ago. Now if only whoever uploaded it had done a better job with ripping it.

Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light
VNV Nation - Judgement

/first 2 to come to my mind.

Great Metal Jesus: No From Beale Street to Oblivion, I don't care.

This. This was my album of the year.

Also on my list:

Ensiferum - Victory Songs
Turisas - The Varangian Way
Powerglove - Metal Kombat For The Mortal Man
Finntroll -Ur Jordens Djup
Bad Religion - New Maps Of Hell
Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos
Polkadot Cadaver - Purgatory Dance Party
Dropkick Murphys - The Meanest Of Times
Type O Negative - Dead Again

a great hip-hop record in 2007 that went under the radar:



Link

I know it's idiotic of me to hope that A Wilhelm Scream would be on any websites' top album lists (other than punk/hardcore oriented ones) but Career Suicide was a phenomenal album and it deserves some recognition

j.r.20k: a great hip-hop record

What kinda hiphop is that? It has a guy smilin' on it. I bet the dude on the cover don't even hate white people.
C'mon now, get real.

I got this album in the mail to review by a band called "Patrick Watson", never heard of them at all, and it's freakin' awesome. A mix of Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, David Gilmour and My Morning Jacket. Awesome stuff, and it went completely under the radar here it would seem.

Long as we're talking about great overlooked hip-hop albums of 2007...




El-P - "I'll Sleep When You're Dead"




Brother Ali - "The Undisputed Truth"

Grinderman, Grinderman

I've seen it on some lists, but I haven't heard a lot of talk about it.

/And Dig! Lazarus! Dig! comes out March 3

pipco: j.r.20k: a great hip-hop record

What kinda hiphop is that? It has a guy smilin' on it. I bet the dude on the cover don't even hate white people.
C'mon now, get real.


nah, we all still hate you people. we're just becoming more comfortable with the idea of not hating ourselves.

listen - don't listen... whatever. it would seem you're a "successful and attractive caucasian-american" so it wasn't made for you anyway.

If we're actually talking about "overlooked" you gotta include:



Most of the albums in this thread are anything but overlooked.

You people want great, under the radar hip hop?



Blue Scholars FTW, suckers.

eatin' fetus: Let me guess, that terrible Arcade Fire album is on there? My music taste is terrible

FTFY

"The Lemonheads" with the rhythm section from The Descendants.

Not the best by any stretch but totally overlooked.

I liked The Bird and the Bee too.

"Lies and Rhetoric", the debut album from Statehood.

Came out fairly recently (Nov. 16th, I think?), but
has not left my car's CD player since.

Contains my favorite rhythm section of all time - Eric
Axelson and Joe Easley, formerly of The Dismemberment Plan.

Hiding in the Shrubbery: Grinderman, Grinderman

I've seen it on some lists, but I haven't heard a lot of talk about it.

/And Dig! Lazarus! Dig! comes out March 3

Agreed on the Grinderman.

Also, if you liked Grinderman, this overlooked album might be right up your alley...

SkorzenyNinja, I was excited to see that at the very top because I wholeheartedly agree. Their best album yet!

My five favorite albums of the year (in no particular order):

Metal Machine Music. As performed by.. orchestra?