Thousands of discs were released this year, but only 20 could make the final cut. With the most scientific of instruments (headphones, and sometimes CD players) we whittled down this year?s releases, and for the past two Thursdays, we?ve delivered five of our faves. Let us know what we missed, and what you loved.
LCD Soundsystem, Sounds of Silver (DFA)
James Murphy is the patron saint of downtown cool, and anything he or his record label touches instantly becomes an indie treasure. What?s most extraordinary about his sophomore release is its accessibility — at its heart, this is a bubblegum pop record, and not the salty organic kind of gum you buy at the health food co-op, either. We?re talking Bubblicious here, people. Long renowned for long-playing dance-floor remixes and shoe-shopping house beats — his other record this year, 45:33, provides an excellent example of that — Murphy?s work on Sounds of Silver is discreet, short and frequently to the point. ?North American Scum? is precisely the kind of song you want with you at the gym, a self-deprecating slice of upbeat funk with lyrics that?ll never make the Republicans happy: ?New York?s the greatest if you get someone to pay the rent . . . and it?s the furthest you can live from the government.? Then there?s the new wavy ?Someone Great? and ?All My Friends,? a song so suffused with nostalgia and desire it sounds like it belongs in a John Hughes movie. It?s excellent, easy to listen to and innately underground, and it?s been a long time since those three elements intersected in a pop album. Yes, there?s a sense of unrequited longing here, but so much the better for Murphy if he keeps producing work like this.
M.I.A., Kala (INTERSCOPE)
For her second album, thinking-liberal’s pop star M.I.A. traded political sloganeering and an abundance of hooks for something much simpler: an album of bangers, bamboo and otherwise. Compared to her 2005 debut, Arular, Kala‘s beats are more propulsive, its messages are more opaque and its cultural mining is even stronger. The resulting album is all prowess and ire and recontextualized sound. It is, at heart, a hip-hop record, and because it’s so effective and singular and forward-thinking, it’s the heart of hip-hop in ’07, period. As always, M.I.A.’s speak-singy vocals turn charisma into a fine art. Her personality is so huge, she’d have Rihanna‘s career if the world were fair. But then, her whole point seems to lie in reminding us that it isn’t.
Band of Horses, Cease To Begin (SUB POP)
Let?s forgive them the fact that their songs are all about mood and aura, rather than ?feelings? or the problems that bring those ?feelings? about. And let?s forgive them the fact that the singer veers into Supertramp territory now and again. Let?s just bathe in the eerie pomp of the chiming guitars and the rhythm section?s splashy forward motion. Like U2 sleeping over at the Jayhawks? house, these guys make melancholy anthems that love to reverberate everywhere before they slink home with the echoes dissipating in the distance. Maybe it?s their recent move to North Carolina, but for a grandiose outfit there sure are quite a few moments where twang takes over. Dream pop disc of the year.
Radiohead, In Rainbows (ATO RECORDS)
It was a David & Goliath tale, if David were a band of insanely talented mope rockers and Goliath was the desperately floundering record industry. In short, the band revolutionized the music industry in 42 minutes and 34 seconds, with 10 songs: The band would offer its newest effort, In Rainbows, and whatever folks felt fit to pay, well, that?s the price of the album. It would be considered an impressive move by a lesser band. That the band was one of the most popular, and simultaneously respected, outfits in music today only compounds the coup. But to concentrate solely on marketing techniques, the implications of morality and the free market economic discussions this generates would miss the point: the band has made a gorgeous album. From the glitchy snares and waltzing jazz guitar of ?15 Steps? to the stark, maker-meeting ?Videotape? that seems to take its percussion from a funeral march, the album shows a marked change in the four years its been since Hail to the Thief. Gone is the politically tinged rock invective, and the verse-chorus-verse songs. Radiohead has made an opus, difficult to splice into song, and utterly captivating throughout.
The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (SUB POP)
It?s amazing James Mercer can get a word out, let alone an album, without choking altogether. Following the release of Oh, Inverted World, indie director Zach Braff latched on to it, using the majority of the album as the soundtrack to his movie, and even having his protagonist Natalie Portman utter the phrase: ?This band will change your life.? That the band went on to make two records improving on the home-recording-honed formulae James Mercer devised for their debut is a feat. With their melodic base well-established, the band appeared to move outward from that point; experimenting with sound (?Sea Legs,? with its plastic bags popping as percussion) as well as perspective (?Phantom Limb? tells the story of two teenage lesbians alienated at their school).
Take the infectious cheer-squad shout of Toni Basil‘s “Mickey,” add some glean from chart-topping uber-producer Dr. Luke, and write lyrics directed at the most tech-savvy market in the country (14-year-old girls) and you?ll understand why Avril Lavigne‘s “Girlfriend” was her highest ranking single to date. Avril?s fans forgave her her newly wedded status and bought her barbed entreaties to an already attached guy to ditch his girlfriend (never has ?She?s like, so whatever,? sounded like such a compelling argument). During the verse she rarely deviates into tune, sticking with her bratty schoolyard chants and marrying mall punk guitars with positively jubilant pop. All handclaps and sass, the video has Avril pulling triple-duty, playing her blonde self, a boyfriend-stealing brunette and a red-headed prude. While the message of the song is far from female empowerment, it seems she?s finally embraced a less abrasive side, making the unabashed pop music she?s faulted others for in the past.
Ya gots ta be multi-format these days, and there was no better example of video aiding and abetting audio than this ATL kiddo?s uber-ubiquitous, ultra-catchy dance anthem. His MySpace page was thick with how-to clips (please, don?t mess up the Superman section) and messages from trillions of fans. YouTube was loaded with tributes and satires, from yarmulke doo-rags to Santa?s elves gliding to the groove. So, yeah, DeAndre Ramone Way wasn?t fibbing when he said his reach stretched ?from the Internet to Main Street.? There?s glory in one-hit-wonderville, and even though one Web commenter rightly declared that Soulja Boy blabbered ?on the mic like he just woke up,? the song of the summer (sorry, Rihanna) proved to be a bubblecrunk gem.
A few weeks ago, we 
As though it wasn’t news enough that Eddie Murphy is 
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This year’s Grammy announcements have been made, and Fall Out Boy is pissed. At Ashlee Simpson, that is. According to a report in the 
Indie rock likes to dodge refinement, so there were some grimaces when Rilo Kiley?s rather glossy third disc spilled open. A couple of years ago, singer Jenny Lewis and her buds were underground royalty, but they?ve always wanted their day in the sun, and Blacklight?s motley songs are proud enough of their mainstream aura to carry themselves with an enviable swagger. Like its model, Fleetwood Mac?s Tusk, this is a disc about craft and breadth. White soul, punk-disco, sunny twang ? each new track is just as dapper as it is daring. Believable, too. As Lewis injects coos and come-ons into her sex-centric lyrics, all the genre-jumping feels natural, a flurry of ways to express the feelings at hand, and a cool strategy for dodging stasis.
The beehive hairdo, nude lady tattoos and odd fashion sense marked Amy Winehouse an outsider from the get-go, a retro soul-singer who could sing like it was still 1968 and she lived in Detroit, not London. The collection of songs on her second record produced an impressive five singles including ?Rehab,? which has 
Jason Schwartzman is a man of many talents. The former Phantom Planet drummer has enjoyed a successful and offbeat film career, starring in Wes Anderson?s The Darjeeling Limited this year and appearing as Ringo in Walk Hard. But he never gave up the music, as this latest project attests to. Self-recorded and produced, Schwartzman released Nighttiming on his own record label, so it didn?t get much play in the press. But it is one of the finest collections of pop music released in 2007, from the folksy humor of ?The Thanks I Get? to the disco-trills of the title track. ?West Coast? is one of the most wistful songs in recent memory, as Schwartzman sings: ?For a second there I thought you disappeared/ It rains a lot this time of year/ We both go together if one falls down/ I talk out loud like you?re still around.? It?s a sweet, sad number that recalls sunshine delays in California and New York City in the rain, and if you?re ever in need of an album you can drive to?without having to skip around tracks?Schwartzman?s got you covered.
Bands break-up and artists go crazy attempting what Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock accomplished by accident. That’s not to say We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank is a tossed-off affair — it means only that Brock and his band sacrificed none of the hallmarks of their sound on their way to the top of the charts. After two decades of work, the trailer park philosopher has hit his stride, finally fusing the harsh-quiet extremes he?s spent his career bouncing between. With the addition of former Smiths? guitarist Johnny Marr (and help from Shins‘ frontman James Mercer) the band?s fifth album is a nautically themed endeavor — sailors traveling the globe, doomed to die at every port. The songs alternate between spiked guitars and barking vocals (?Florida,? ?Dashboard?) and lilting guitars and lisping whispers (?Little Motel,? ?Missed the Boat?). The band?s most inclusive, technically impressive album easily drowns out the indie faction?s cries of mainstream foul.
Proving that there is life after, “I’m too old for this s***,” a post-post retirement Jay-Z turns out his most compulsively listenable album with American Gangster. Inspired by the film of the same name, Jay-Z’s chronicle of his life’s work (i.e. the hustle, in its legal and not-so-legal forms) offers a humble sense of nuance that was nowhere to be found in Ridley Scott‘s brutish picture. A slap in the face to hip-hop’s pervasive ageism, it’s the kind of album that could only be released now, at this point in the 38-year-old’s storied career. Maturity, patience, taste and humility are unfortunately not really associated with hip-hop, and yet Jay-Z offers an album rich in those elements. Sadly, the album has pretty much flopped. The kids just don’t get it. Not that they even had a chance in the first place.
Here’s the track that will probably be remembered as the year?s most portentous song. Belting out her rejection of medical care (for what, as it turns out, was a slew of emotional and mental problems, including drug addiction, bulimia and cutting), the petite British soul star established herself as a crossover hipster with urban appeal. She wooed both the Hot 97 crew and the American Apparel kids vying for face time on the Cobra Snake. Her unfortunate biography aside, the song?s meld of R&B, punk attitude and references to another ill-fated star, Donny Hathaway, marked the arrival of an exciting pop voice. Winehouse’s sound was so radically different than the soft-soul competition, she united disparate elements of the culture — everyone from Jay-Z to Nas, say. Ostensibly, the song?s about a girl abusing liquor to cope with a bad break-up. In the lyrics at least, she knows better: ?Didn?t get a lot in class/ but I know it don?t come in a shot glass.? It?s an honest ode to the virtues of being headstrong. It?s too bad, of course, that it turned out Amy herself needed rehab after all.
Can a simple lyric come off like a profound declaration? In hip-hop it can, and out of the blue this mediocre MC dropped a chest-thumping boast that was utterly confident about its one-note message: ?I could sell a mil saying nothing on the track,? drawled the New Yorker. That?s not necessarily the artistic crime it sounds like; give it up to Mims ? this baby was one of the summer?s early smashes. A key reason: the rich atmosphere created by that ghostly synth setting and that sidewalk-shaking boom. It?s the kind of space dub stuff that sticks in your mind. And it enhances his arrogance. Out to cut the competition (?I?m hot cuz I?m fly/you ain?t cuz you?re not?) a guy who?ll probably never equal this success again came up with a masterpiece of contention.
Jessica Simpson‘s acting career has long been the subject of ridicule, but apparently she’s looking to change that by taking off her clothes for a role. After starring in such bombs as The Dukes of Hazzard and Employee of the Month (as well as the straight to video Blonde Ambition), the box office black widow is considering taking a role that would feature some graphic nudity in order to get her acting career on track.
In a desperate attempt to reach her daughter, Amy Winehouse‘s mother has written an 
