I’ve been putting a bunch of thought (statistics) into my favorite albums of 2007 and I think I’ve narrowed it down enough to put some stuff up here. I’ll attempt to group everything into 3 categories: my favorite albums of the year, my biggest disappointments of the year, and finally, some albums that have been getting a lot buzz with the whole ‘best of’ thing that I never got around to listening to/listening to enough to judge but plan on listening soon.


So, my most disappointing albums of 2007, unranked, are:


Ted Leo & the Pharmacists “Living with the Living”. I really really like Ted Leo, but this album just didn’t deliver like I expected it to. I thought the first single (Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.) was boring and annoying. There were a few good tracks, but all in all, not even close to as good as his previous LPs.


Voxtrot “Voxtrot”. Their EPs were great, and similar to Ted Leo, it just didn’t live up to my expectations. If it were limited to 4 songs, it could have been amazing. Just too much filler.


There are a few others that were disappointing, but I don’t really care about the bands enough to be that disappointed. Those bands include Interpol (album summation: stagnant.) and Rilo Kiley, who have turned…just plain bad.


Now onto some albums that I’ve downloaded in the past few days based on recommendations and other top ten lists. Maybe I’ll do a “best of what I missed” podcast next. I hope they live up to the hype. The albums are as follows:


Dirty Projectors “Rise Above”
Bon Iver “For Emma, Forever Ago”
White Rabbits “Fort Nightly”
Frankel “Lullaby for the Passersby”
LCD Soundsystem “Sound of Silver”
Burial “Untrue”
Handsome Furs “Plague Park”

And now, onto the albums that were my favorites of the year. It was a pretty great year, considering several of my all-time favorite bands had new releases. I guess I’ll try and put them in a bit of order, mostly based on my play count statistics.

Unranked, honorable mention goes to the following:


Ryan Adams “Easy Tiger”
Beirut “The Flying Club Cup”
Iron & Wine “The Shepherd’s Dog”
Of Montreal “Hissing Fauna, are You the Destroyer?”
Radiohead “In Rainbows”
Black Kids “Wizard of Ahhhs”
Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew “Sprit If…”
Patrick Wolf “The Magic Position”
The Shins “Wincing the Night Away”


and now…
10. Panda Bear “Person Pitch”
9. Arcade Fire “Neon Bible”
8. Battles “Mirrored”
7. Josh Ritter “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter”
6. Bishop Allen “The Broken String”
5. The National “Boxer”
4. Loney, Dear “Loney, Noir”
3. Animal Collective “Strawberry Jam”
2. Wilco “Sky Blue Sky”
1. Spoon “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”


It was really tough deciding between Spoon and Wilco, so I let the numbers do the talking. You can find great reviews of all of the above albums pretty much anywhere, so I won’t write them.


So now the tracklist for my podcast accompaniment. Some of the albums above have had several songs featured on alphabeticalORDER, so I did my best to throw in new songs or great B-sides. Download it here


1. Animal Collective “For Reverend Green”
2. Arcade Fire “No Cars Go”
3. Battles “Tonto”
4. Beirut “Nantes”
5. Bishop Allen “Butterfly Nets”
6. Black Kids “I’ve Underestimated My Charm (Again)”
7. Britt Daniel (Spoon) “Bring It On Home to Me”
8. Broken Social Scene presents Kevin Drew “Farewell to the Pressure Kids”
9. Iron & Wine “Innocent Bones”
10. Josh Ritter “Mind’s Eye”
11. Loney, Dear “Saturday Waits”
12. The National “Green Gloves”
13. Of Montreal “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse”
14. Panda Bear “I’m Not”
15. Patrick Wolf “The Magic Position”
16. Radiohead “All I Need”
17. Ryan Adams “Two”
18. The Shins “Phantom Limb”
19. Voxtrot “Kid Gloves”
20. Wilco “The Thanks I Get”