Music - Best of '07
Time now for my brief list of the best albums I've heard in 2007, aka "stuff nobody in my friends list listens to nor cares about."
Here they are, in more or less order:
Shape of Broad Minds - Craft of the Lost Art
This one was out of nowhere for me. It is a collaboration album between rapper Jneiro Jarel and producer Dr. Who Dat (they are related to each other the same way Madlib is related to Quasimoto), and they created a diverse hip hop album with a solidly jazzy backbone. It reminds me a lot of Outkast's The Love Below, and features a host of different guest appearances, including MF Doom and Count Bass D. This album is number 2 on Boomkat's top 100 albums of the year. Even if you're not so big on hip hop, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Not too much of a surprise here. Their latest album, while not their best, is still a strong, harrowing entry that puts the band back on track after their average Hail to the Thief (disclaimer: an average Radiohead album is still better than most anything else out there). This album feels a bit stripped down, with much of the focus falling on Thom Yorke's falsetto backed by synthesized strings. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that it is far too short and feels as though it is missing something. I haven't heard the exclusive bonus disc that comes in a fancy-pants limited edition box set yet, but other people have told me that the songs on the second disc help fill this void.
Oh No - Dr. No's Oxperiment
Madlib's little brother takes 70's psyche-funk from Turkey, Lebanon and Greece and chops it all up into 28 brief but brilliant instrumental hip hop tracks. The beats on this album are so amazing that I've actually gone digging to uncover the source material, and have been able to identify roughly half of the tracks on this album so far. I'm not quite sure what my fianceé makes of my new-found taste in artists like Baris Manco and Selda, but she has this album to thank for it.
NOTICEABLY ABSENT FROM MY LIST:
The Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
If you knew me in high school, you knew that I lived and breathed the Smashing Pumpkins. Nowadays... not so much. I kind of dreaded the release of this album, their first in seven years, especially knowing that James Iha was not at all involved with it. But with my low expectations set, I can say... this album isn't half-bad. There were several solid tracks and while the lyrics were nowhere near the level of the band's Siamese Dream/Mellon Collie days, they weren't a total embarrassment either. No, what killed this album for me was its wall of noise overproduction values, with Billy's vocals dropped on top of it to make it sound like he sang the album two rooms away from everything else. I think Corgan's hearing is shot, because anyone hoping for the warm, smooth production values from the band's mid-90s albums will walk away from this album with their ears bleeding. Producers like Alan Moulder or Flood could have really turned this into something special, but instead we have this over-modulated, unbalanced casualty of the Loudness War. A shame.
Here they are, in more or less order:
Shape of Broad Minds - Craft of the Lost Art
This one was out of nowhere for me. It is a collaboration album between rapper Jneiro Jarel and producer Dr. Who Dat (they are related to each other the same way Madlib is related to Quasimoto), and they created a diverse hip hop album with a solidly jazzy backbone. It reminds me a lot of Outkast's The Love Below, and features a host of different guest appearances, including MF Doom and Count Bass D. This album is number 2 on Boomkat's top 100 albums of the year. Even if you're not so big on hip hop, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Not too much of a surprise here. Their latest album, while not their best, is still a strong, harrowing entry that puts the band back on track after their average Hail to the Thief (disclaimer: an average Radiohead album is still better than most anything else out there). This album feels a bit stripped down, with much of the focus falling on Thom Yorke's falsetto backed by synthesized strings. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that it is far too short and feels as though it is missing something. I haven't heard the exclusive bonus disc that comes in a fancy-pants limited edition box set yet, but other people have told me that the songs on the second disc help fill this void.
Oh No - Dr. No's Oxperiment
Madlib's little brother takes 70's psyche-funk from Turkey, Lebanon and Greece and chops it all up into 28 brief but brilliant instrumental hip hop tracks. The beats on this album are so amazing that I've actually gone digging to uncover the source material, and have been able to identify roughly half of the tracks on this album so far. I'm not quite sure what my fianceé makes of my new-found taste in artists like Baris Manco and Selda, but she has this album to thank for it.
NOTICEABLY ABSENT FROM MY LIST:
The Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
If you knew me in high school, you knew that I lived and breathed the Smashing Pumpkins. Nowadays... not so much. I kind of dreaded the release of this album, their first in seven years, especially knowing that James Iha was not at all involved with it. But with my low expectations set, I can say... this album isn't half-bad. There were several solid tracks and while the lyrics were nowhere near the level of the band's Siamese Dream/Mellon Collie days, they weren't a total embarrassment either. No, what killed this album for me was its wall of noise overproduction values, with Billy's vocals dropped on top of it to make it sound like he sang the album two rooms away from everything else. I think Corgan's hearing is shot, because anyone hoping for the warm, smooth production values from the band's mid-90s albums will walk away from this album with their ears bleeding. Producers like Alan Moulder or Flood could have really turned this into something special, but instead we have this over-modulated, unbalanced casualty of the Loudness War. A shame.