Crucial Minutiae

The onset of December, in Berlin accompanied by the sweet scent of Glühwein and an overabundance of gaudy outdoors Christmas markets, always makes my nerdy soul tingle with expectation, not for the nigh arrival of the newest year, but for the wonderful concept of the year-end-best-of list. As any other Nick Hornby-chromosome bearer, I truly love lists and this season is ideal for them; the long evenings spent in gloom and candlelight, the Christmas shopping to be done, the overdue re-organization of one’s iTunes library, all are highly conducive to list-knitting. Though I’ve also made lists of best films, concerts, and songs, I’ll start by posting this first, the 5 last, but not leastest, of the 25 albums that most rocked, popped, and danced my world in 2007.

21. Sexton Blake – Plays The Hits
Covering, among others, Elton John, Kim Carnes, Milli Vanilli, Rod Stewart, Erasure, as well as fucking Paula Abdul (remember the Keanu-goes-Jimmy-Dean video for “Rush Rush”? Yeah, me too) and LL Cool J, while still preserving one’s dignity, and not only that, but actually extracting emotional truths from singles flogged to death on AM radio, earns Blake not just cool-kudos, but major karaoke karma points.

22. Air – Pocket Symphony
A bit boring, yes. Repetitive, also, Elevator music, definitively. But this French band never aspired to change the face of rock, just to create imaginary, futuristic soundtracks to imaginary, futuristic French films in which everybody is somehow both smoking and radiant. This sounds like a sequel to last year’s equally sonically rich Charlotte Gainsbourg album (then #18), but mostly without Jarvis Cocker’s redeemingly sharp lyrics (“The Duelist”, a Jarvis and Charlotte duet was a bonus track).

23. Chromeo – Fancy Footwork
Elevating retro to the next level, this catchy album of metallic vocoder-enhanced lost New Edition hits (like titular single “Fancy Footwork” (check their vid on Youtube) or 80s-flashback “Opening Up”) is like a new soundtrack to a funny “House Party” starring Morris Day and Prince as Kid ‘N Play (or Hall & Oates), respectively.

24. Over The Rhine – The Trumpet Child
Like #20, this is sometimes frightfully MOR, Adult Contemporary, or even – the horror! – Starbucksy. Still, if merely being jazzy – yes, Jazzy-jazzy –, having a really good female singer, and being accomplished musically would prevent me from embracing luscious and hip-wiggling tracks like “Trouble” or glowing almost-hymns like the album’s classy title track, then I’ll gladly embrace the Michael Bublés of this world and buy another latte.

25. Bjork – Volta
Though the Icelandic siren is as always musically inventive and delivers beautiful “Hyperballad” song-songs like the oceanic (and slightly “Homogenic”) “Wanderlust” or the mysterious Antony duet “Dull Flame of Desire,” Volta is especially notable for Björk’s most strident (and f*&%king loudest) song yet, “Declare Independence,” the great Spike Jonze video for which cannot even come close to the sheer life-force and M.I.A.-besting political energy that bursts forth from its speaker-wrecking pagan bassline. Raise your flag, bitches.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 9:09 am and is filed under Music, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.