Screw Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, and "holiday cheer" - I love December for all the delicious year-end lists. Best (and worst) movies, TV shows, and books all have their own special appeal, but for me nothing beats the best-of lists for music. Several websites compile their own lists, which provides an interesting opportunity to compare how different readerships (listenerships?) and critics weigh the relative merits of each album. Where do they overlap? Where do they diverge? Which albums are really the best??See what the pros have to say:
- Pitchfork (the l33t perspective)
- Amazon (speaking for the common man)
- The Onion's AV Club
- NPR
- Metacritic
And now I humbly provide my own Best Music of 2007 list, available here. That link provides my explanations, of a sort, but I'll reproduce the list here in the interest of completeness.
- Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
- Caribou, Andorra
- Radiohead, In Rainbows
- Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
- Lily Allen, Alright, Still
- Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
- Iron & Wine, The Shepherd's Dog
- The Hot Toddies, Smell the Mitten
- Patrick Wolf, The Magic Position
- Okkervil River, The Stage Names
Runners up: Andrew Bird, Armchair Apochrypha; St. Vincent, Marry Me; Arcade Fire, Neon Bible; The Shins, Wincing the Night Away; Battles, Mirrored; Rocknoceros, Dark Side of the Moon Bounce.
Until December 2008!
