Taking time to actually cover pop music for once, New York puts forth its "Best Of 2007" as an odd list/rundown hybrid. The whole shebang is topped by Radiohead's In Rainbows on the album front (apparently, it "had no serious rival this year"! Take that, all you old-model fuddy-duddys!) and Rihanna on the singles chart (because it made "the avant-garde irresistible"). The rest of the list is after the jump, but here are a few other high (and low) lights:
THE GOOD: Finally, someone has addressed the disappointment that was Bjork's much-anticipated Volta, although I don't know if it was pop music's biggest stinker of the year. (The stench created by the industry as a whole was much, much worse, no?)
THE BAD: In a year that was marked by the city getting increasingly prettied up by glossy people and glossier buildings, the messy Animal Collective is your "signature New York band," taking over from the Strokes. Maybe the New York editors didn't have time to track down whoever does the music for all those new condo developments' Flash-heavy Web sites?
THE WHAAAA? Pick one: Feist as an "art-rock diva"? Lil Wayne as an "open-source rapper"? Or LCD Soundsystem as "geek glam"? I'll go with the last one, if only because to add insult to injury they were kinda robbed on that whole "signature New York band" thing. (And I'll avoid the "... but you're bringing me down" joke, too.)
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Idolator
Lutist Gordon Sumner, Robert Fripp collaborator Andy Summers and Oysterhead drummer Stewart Copeland have announced that they're retiring their supergroup, The Police, after a final show in New York this August. The venue has yet to be announced (too bad CBGB closed!), but the proceeds will go to arts programming on public television. John Tesh to return to Red Rocks? If you insist, Gordon.
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From the looks of this Venn diagram, the people at New York know an awful lot of rock critics. (Maybe this is a hint as to why those critics' writings aren't in the magazine that often...) [
