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Pitchfork makes it easy when it comes to guessing its Top 50 albums of the year in advance, thanks to the “Best New Music” and “Recommended” stickers it slaps on the records it likes best. So if you’ve been paying attention to the bottom-left corner of the site for the last 12 months, P-fork’s 2007 list, headed up by Animal Collective member Panda Bear’s Person Pitch, should feel like a bunch of old friends getting one last shout-out before the end of the year. That, or it’s another chance to curse the site for over-praising a bunch of records that don’t really deserve the dap.
THE GOOD: U.K. post-punks Life Without Buildings’ career-capping live album and Stars Of The Lid’s six-years-in-the-making follow-up to a sleepy ambient classic sneak into the upper reaches. Plus all the other records everyone else with even a toe dipped into indie rock liked this year.
THE BAD: Way too much tooth/brain-rotting twee Nordic indie pop/dance. What’s that you say? That’s only like three or four albums out of 50? It’s still too much.
THE WHAAAA? “With Burial’s 2006 debut, it helped to have some investment in dubstep; Untrue is for everyone.” Really? Everyone?
50: Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life
49: Dizzee Rascal, Maths + English
48: Robert Wyatt, Comicopera
47: Yeasayer, All Hour Cymbals
46: Marissa Nadler, Songs III: Bird on the Water
45: Ricardo Villalobos, Fabric 36
44: Les Savy Fav, Let’s Stay Friends
43: Stars of the Lid, And Their Refinement of the Decline
42: Ghostface Killah, The Big Doe Rehab
41: Life Without Buildings, Live at the Annandale Hotel
40: Beirut, The Flying Club Cup / Lon Gisland EP
39: The White Stripes, Icky Thump
38: Wu-Tang Clan, 8 Diagrams
37: Grizzly Bear, Friend EP
36: Iron and Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog
35: Black Lips, Good Bad Not Evil
34: James Blackshaw, The Cloud of Unknowing
33: King Khan & the Shrines, What Is?!
32: Sally Shapiro, Disco Romance
31: Deerhoof, Friend Opportunity
30: Caribou, Andorra
29: Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
28: Dinosaur Jr., Beyond
27: Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
26: Various Artists, After Dark
25: The Tough Alliance, A New Chance / New Waves EP
24: Dan Deacon, Spiderman of the Rings
23: Studio, Yearbook 1
22: Okkervil River, The Stage Names
21: Dirty Projectors, Rise Above
20: Liars
19: Feist, The Reminder
18: Kanye West, Graduation
17: The National, Boxer
16: Lil Wayne, Da Drought 3
15: Justice, &8224;
14: Deerhunter, Cryptograms / Fluorescent Grey EP
13: Jay-Z, American Gangster
12: No Age, Weirdo Rippers
11: Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala
10: Burial, Untrue
09: The Field, From Here We Go Sublime
08: Battles, Mirrored
07: Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
06: Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam
05: Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
04: Radiohead, In Rainbows
03: M.I.A., Kala
02: LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
01: Panda Bear, Person Pitch
Top 50 Albums Of 2007 [Pitchfork]
this sally shapiro nonsense has got to end.
A quick glance:
Huh? Really?:
Dizzee Rascal, Maths + English
Jay-Z, American Gangster
Okkervil River, The Stage Names
Caribou, Andorra
Stars of the Lid, And Their Refinement of the Decline
Coming to their senses and omitting, despite loving all year::
Postmarks
Sunset Rubdown
Voxtrot
Ponys
Shins
Blitzen Trapper
And now they ignore for no good reason::
Boris & Michio Kurihara Rainbow
Electrelane
Lee hazlewood
Soft Circle
Untrue is a great album. I tried playing it for my grandfather, who still listens to Three Dog Night on 8-track. He didn’t really get it.
Good job, Pitchfork.
“Icky Thump” is TOTALLY better than “Comicopera.” Yep. Far superior…
…morons.
[snickers...]
Arcade Fire snub has to be the funniest in the list.
[i]Untrue[/i] is for everyone…with insomnia.
@Ned Raggett: HEYO!
First list to include Dirty Projectors!
I saw Dirty Projectors open for Jarvis Cocker and it was the worst
thirty minutes of music I heard in all of ‘07. Do people actually like
that band, or do they just like Black Flag songs?
The world needs more Sally Shapiro. (Well, I do, anyway.) Jens I’m not so sure about.
As for Burial, Untrue is as much for everyone as Maxinquaye was a few years back. It’s not like Cyrus (Random Trio)’s From the Shadows was the one that was going to catch on outside the dubstep cult, good though it is.
@Weezy F Baby: i agree whole heartedly, that record is absolute bilge.
@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee: You are correct, sir!
@HowardDecker: As for Burial, Untrue is as much for everyone as Maxinquaye was a few years back.
…which is amusing because I also think Maxinquaye is way overrated. (The Nearly God album and Pre-Millennial Tension are what made me a fan.)
To be fair, this IS the first list I’ve seen to include James Blackshaw. I give Pitchfork credit for that.
That being said, I find it strange that a track from Sir Richard Bishop’s “Polytheistic Fragments” made the top tracks of 2007, while the album didn’t secure a place on the top albums of 2007 list.
It doesn’t even belong there
bummed and perplexed to see that Andrew Bird didn’t crack the list.
@Jfrankparnell: Neon Bible, that is
Anyone still listening to that Knife record? Of course not. Panda Bear? Whatev’s. Good to see Ghostface and Jay-Z, but even I have to be honest and say the Wu-Tang record is a bust.
So American Gangster is the best rap album of the year. Right. It would’ve been nice to at least see UGK make the cut, considering that it was on as many staffers’ lists as most of the albums in the lower reaches of the list.
I think the list is alright, to be honest. I mean, compared to most of what we’ve seen, particularly the disappointing AV Club list? It’s pretty okay.
I’m glad that Pitchfork has embraced “tooth/brain-rotting twee Nordic indie pop/dance” and not just the aggressively serious/bleak/credible electronica. Doesn’t Idolator ordinarily go bonkers when other publications dismiss entire sub-genres of music, particularly on the pop side? Besides, Sally Shapiro and Jens Lekman are both from Sweden, not Norway; Studio isn’t all that poppy, and none of them strike me as particularly brain-rotting. I’m with you on most of your other best-of-2007 appraisals, but this one reminds me of your hatred for “Umbrella.” I just don’t get it.
Les Savy Fav should be higher. Still, is anyone else as pumped as I am to see No Age ranked so high?
Also, the defacto snub (compared to everyone else) of Neon Bible almost makes not seeing Boxer in the top 10 worth it. Deerhunter I clearly should have paid more attention to.
Finally, I guess this cements the notion that; despite having 3 classic songs and a bunch of stuff I can take or leave, LCD made the consensus pick for album of the year.
@scott pgwp: Are you for real? That Andrew Bird record was the worst thing ever. Besides all the other terrible, lazy records released this year that didn’t make this list. Pleased to see Ted Leo didn’t rate.
Did anyone actually like that Liars record? Ew!
But yay for Bon Iver (what does one do with self-released things that will get a label release next year?), Studio and the Dirty Projectors. Which is to say, once you get out of the top 10, this isn’t the worst list ever.
haha “Pitchfork” in quotes… made me laff out loud.
plus y’all know who really “deserve the DAP”..;)
@therichgirlsareweeping: Re: Liars, no.
How they followed up “Drum’s Not Dead” with that, I’ll never know.
@cassidy2099: Actually, I still listen to that Knife record. But I don’t mind being the exception that proves the rule.
In general: Yeah. No Andrew Bird anywhere? No Electrelane?
I saw the Dirty Projectors open for Grizzly Bear once. I even have the awesome Burlesque poster for that show. They were … fine? I guess? I dunno. I wasn’t impressed, but it wasn’t like having frozen weasels jammed in my eye sockets either.
I haven’t given it a shot, but I have trouble imagining that album of Black Flag covers is as revelatory as I’ve heard… Maybe I should go give that a try…
I’m surprised Jess missed this obvious joke, but it might be because the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet. But I’ll go ahead and make it…
Rating: 5.4
I initially loved the Panda Bear record but over time most of the songs resembled little more than Beach Boys remixes.
Jens can be taken or left, but I quite like Sally Shapiro and am glad to see her on the year-end list.
And yes, I still listen to that Knife record.
I love how the Dirty Projectors are a love-em-or-leave-em band. I’ve seen them do songs from Rise Above twice (and a few other times over the past several years) and every time it was … transcendent. But there’s no accounting for taste, I guess.
@SuperUnison: Nope, I’m also psyched to see No Age this high, although that write up really was one of those “remember when they hit in 2008 that we liked them first!” type things. Still, that record got the praise it deserved. It was good to see Burial in the top 10. I was kinda upset to see Times New Viking, UGK, and the Besnard Lakes albums curiously omitted, though.
what’s the tallying process like? you’d think that two top 10 votes for paramore would be enough to bump them into the top 50…
@therichgirlsareweeping:
yeah for me dirty projectors live is incredible. I guess you can either get down or you can’t get down.
This is naturally my favorite list thus far, although I don’t think person pitch is all that. I lke the “edits” of the songs that floated around before the album came out. I prefer 3 minutes of a loop rather than 12
Maybe it’s because I’m from Portland, but it seems weird that neither Blitzen Trapper nor Menomena made the list. P4K was a staunch supporter of both.
Oh, and both Jens and Sally Shapiro are making my list this year. Sorry Jess.
@futurehorse: By the time I read down to the top five in the list I knew which ones would be there — except I assumed Menomena had to be in there, and completely forgot about Panda Bear.
@sfbeary: What I think is weirder is that out of the five Scandinavian artists listed, three of them are on the same label (TTA, Jens, and Studio are all on Service).
But I really love Jens. He also gets bonus points for being a ridiculously nice guy.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned that not only was Wizard Of Ahhhs not included on P4Ks best-of, but the guy who wrote the gushing review of The Black Kids (Marc Hogan), didn’t even put that record on his individual best-of 2007 list: list[www.pitchforkmedia.com]
@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee:
@kisskisskiss:
That Knife album is still better than most of the albums released this year. (Same with Joanna Newsom.) And apparently I am the only person who would put Liars in my top five, along with edIT, Miss Li, Scout Niblett, and….Radiohead.
@graeffufighting: That news is priceless.
I’m probably the only person in the world who absolutely hates MIA’s Kala, so I’ll just pretend the #3 spot is a “missing in action” tribute to a bunch of great albums that didn’t make the list:
Apparat – Walls
Gui Boratto – Chromophobia
Boris with Michio Kurihara – Rainbow
Earth – Hibernaculum
Electrelane – No Shouts, No Calls
Grinderman – s/t
PJ Harvey – White Chalk
Lee Hazlewood – Cake or Death
Low – Drums and Guns
Om – Pilgrimage
And I don’t think the Arcade Fire placement is a snub, but simply an accurate placement of a good-but-not-great album. Neon Bible is enjoyable and relatively strong, and is a good top 30 album. Whereas, for example, Icky Thump belongs nowhere near a top 50 list.
I saw a picture of Menomena once. Their saxaphone player looked like everything I could hate about indie rock rolled into one punchable representation.
It’s easy to gripe about any year end list, and it’s easy to gripe about most any pitchfork review for that matter, but this is two years in a row they’ve chosen my favorite album. So, I guess they’re almost as cool as me, except that I’d heard of them before they existed.
@stephenbush: No, I totally hate Kala. It’s okay, you’re not alone. I’m with you on the omissions too, save that Low record. Not so good.
@Labtheque: Oh, I underestimated the number of Swedes – Sally Shapiro, Jens Lekman, Studio, and TTA, whom I hadn’t heard until now. (Who’s the fifth Scandinavian?) On first listen, I’m not so crazy about TTA’s vocals, but I like the song and the arrangement on that one where they’re cuddling on a scooter with the flowers. Does that kind of boy/boy stuff make some Idolator peeps uncomfortable? Or is it their beauty? I haven’t gotten a good look at Studio, but most of these Swedes on the Pitchfork list are so strikingly pretty/handsome that they’d intimidate the average Jonas Brothers fan, let alone indie types used to their heroes looking like they smell bad. I’m new here and I don’t mean to jump to conclusions, but none of the Pitchfork-approved Swedes are exactly macho or reassuringly homely. The guy behind Shapiro has a photo on his website that suggests he could’ve played the role of God in an an old Ingmar Bergman movie.
no UGK=coal in P4K’s stocking…
i was a little surprised that Rhys Chatham’s A Crimson Grail didn’t make the list. thank god the national wasn’t in pitchfork’s top 10. the paste list was beyond disappointing.
it’s voting based not numerically
I’ve been running the daily editorial content for more than three years now and no rating has ever been changed after publication over that time.
Also, a Club 8 review has been filed and will run in early Jan., and reviews of those other two Service releases should be filed soonish as well. (If you’re really filling out your Swedish pop scorecards at home, a review of The Honeydrips will also appear next month.).
Pipettes were on last year’s list, and the LP was also reviewed then. And if it really needs to be said, the reviews are the opinions of one writer at one time during the year and the year-end votes are the consensus opinions of the entire staff at a different time of the year.
@sfbeary: The fifth Swede is The Field, surprisingly enough.
TTA and Jens are good friends — not only does he sample them, he even plays badminton with them! Not quite as incestuous as Constellation or E6, but still kind of funny. (Erlend Oye’s Whitest Boy Alive side project is also on Service, and he’s also a good friend of Jens’)
I only mentioned the Service thing because Labrador’s releases (Club 8, Sambassadeur, and Irene) got snubbed, despite p4k loving SKWBN last year, if I remember correctly.
I don’t know what our Idolators have against twee or Sweden. Unless it’s backlash from the actually brain-rotting I’m From Barcelona. God, that was terrible.
@Jfrankparnell: I could’ve sworn it had a different rating too. Didn’t something similar happen to the Knife too last year?
@scottpl: If by Service you mean Labrador, then sure. Personally, if you guys ever get to Rough Bunnies Weisse Wessen Dreck Am Stecken then I’ll have a Swedish twee bingo (G-42! Ooh, I’m going diagonal!)