Prattle

Prattle-free Podcast of 20071 comment
m posted in General moans, Podcasts on January 10th, 2008

Best of 2007 - Apples in Stereo, Black Francis, Polyphonic Spree, The Aliens, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, The Crimea, The Shins, Jason Falkner, Manic Street Preachers, Polytechnic, The Rakes, Serj Tankian, fortune drive, Switches, Future of the Left, Maximo Park, Hot Hot Heat, Arcade Fire, Voxtrot.

Tracks from my favourite albums of the year, not in order of preference. Click here for the 2007 chart Podcast, and all the previous ones. This is what’s in it;

Apples in Stereo - Skyway Black Francis - You can’t break a heart and have it Polyphonic Spree - Running away The Aliens - Only Waiting LCD Soundsystem - Us v Them Spoon - Don’t make me a target The Crimea - Light brigade The Shins - Australia Jason Falkner - Contact Manic Street Preachers - Rendition Polytechnic - Cold-hearted business The Rakes - Little superstitions Serj Tankian - Lie lie lie fortune drive - Vimto vignette Switches - Drama queen Future of the Left - Small bones small bodies Maximo Park - Our velocity Hot Hot Heat - So so cold Arcade Fire - No cars go Voxtrot - Blood red blood

They’re not in order of preference, and they’re not necessarily my favourite tracks from the albums. I’d already put some of my favourites on previous Podcasts, so I chose some different ones. However, I love every track in this podcast, and enthusiastically recommend each album from which they were harvested.

You can download the file directly by clicking here, but I’d still rather you subscribed through iTunes, or whatever.

Albums of 20070 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on January 10th, 2008

Right. I’ve been putting this off, because there’s lots to say about lots of albums, and I never get round to it. So, with almost no nonsense, here’s my list of favourite albums from 2007. Why so many? Well, this year I thought I’d rate every track in iTunes, then work out averages for albums, and use that as the basis of a chart. Then, I shunted things around a bit, because some albums hang together really nicely, but might not have as many big-hitting tracks on them. So this, more-or-less, is the result. Most really bad things, or things that annoyed me a little too much, were deleted and therefore not included in the rankings. Other things missed out because I cocked up the years e.g. Sondre Lerche, though I wasn’t overly keen on that album anyway.

Anyway, stop faffing. Here’s my album chart of 2007. Podcast to follow shortly.
The top 25;

1 Voxtrot - Voxtrot	Simply wonderful. At first, Voxtrot struck me as a bunch of fairly dull indie weaklings. It seems that most people still agree with that initial appraisal, but I don’t. Many reviews have said that the album didn’t live up to the promise of their earlier EPs, but I prefer to think they’ve gone in a slightly different direction. Given the added resources (in terms of time, money and an experienced producer) the album contains more layers than the EPs. Some of the songs are packed with strings, woodwind and layers of guitars, giving the music the kind of gravitas that the lyrics often demand. In other places, they strip it back, and leave Ramesh Srivastava’s fragile vocal stranded, drawing attention to the words and the melody. It’s a beautifully crafted album, with a number of immensely powerful songs, which reward repeated listens. There’s something quite charming about an album whose climactic finale revolves around the line, “I’m just trying to do my best; I’m not afraid of life, I’m afraid of death.” It’s an admirable motto for life, I think. You may prefer to think that it’s nonsense or trite, but I’d have to disagree. It very nearly sends shivers down my spine.
2 Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder	3 Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
4 Polytechnic - Down til dawn	5 Fortune Drive - A modern question
6 Shins, The - Wincing the night away	7 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of silver
8 Rakes, The - Ten new messages	9 Manic Street Preachers - Send away the tigers
10 Aliens - Astronomy for dogs	11 Switches - Heart tuned to D.E.A.D.
12 Serj Tankian - Elect the dead	13 Hot Hot Heat - Happiness Ltd.
14 Jason Falkner - I’m OK…you’re OK	15 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
16 Arcade Fire - Neon bible	17 Black Francis - Bluefinger
18 Future of the Left - Curses	19 Crimea, The - Secrets of the witching hour
20 Maximo Park - Our earthly pleasures	21 Biffy Clyro - Puzzle
22 Electrelane - No shouts, no calls	23 Of Montreal - Hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?
24 Bloc Party - A weekend in the city	25 Wildhearts, The - The Wildhearts

Here are the rest;