EJP's Favorite 2007 albums - Installment I

So I'm totally cheating on the favorite albums of the year thing. Instead of doing 10, I'm doing 30, in three installments of 10. Since I haven't been watching many movies or much TV, I've been listening to a lot of music, so it's not like I'm just throwing every album I listened to up here.

My criteria are pretty simple. At any given time, I have a fairly large stack of CDs on my desk. I'm kind of anal retentive about my music, so I sort of have a system of listening to everything at least three times before it gets ripped onto the computer. There's always a few CDs that I have to force myself to listen to that many times. Those obviously wouldn't make this list. There are some that I don't mind listening to, but I know realistically that I probably won't listen to it much in the future. A good example of an album like this would be this year's new Animal Collective album, Strawberry Jam. Not a bad album at all, but not something I can listen to over and over again. Again, not making this list. Then there are albums that I really look forward to in the rotation, and I might cycle them through multiple times for several months. Many of those will be on my list. Finally, there are the albums that I find myself listening to over and over again, the ones that only come out of the stack because I've run out of room on my desk. Those will be the top 10.

In any case, here's 21-30. No particular order within this range, and I won't get into much or any details since this post is already long and I haven't even started the list yet. I'll probably have more details for stuff higher up the list.

30) Arcade Fire-Neon Bible
As discussed with Evelyn Is Not Real, this one would probably be higher on the list if I'd seen them live at some point this year. I didn't fall in love with this album, but I recognize it as excellent craftmanship all the same.

29) Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
Pretty much worth it for the song "Shabop Shalom" alone. Yeah, he's weird and probably crazy, but he can write some entertaining songs.

28) Manu Chao - La Radiolina
Way too long for a single album, but in bits and pieces, Manu Chao is always a fun listen.

27) The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes
So silly and trivial. So very fun. Next year I might be rolling my eyes and shaking my head at the thought of how much I've listened to this CD, but for now it's a guilty pleasure.

26) Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights
New music that sounds oldish. Good stuff, and quite a set of pipes on this woman.

25) The Hives - The Black and White Album
10%of the albums on my top 30 list (so, like, three of them) are from Scandinavian artists, this being one of them. I don't know that there's anything particularly unique about these guys, but their music is totally rockoutable.

24) The Brunettes -Structure & Cosmetics
A Kiwi couple that consistently creates cute and cuddly pop songs.

23) Cloud Cult - The Meaning of 8
Takes a couple listens, but this one really grew on me.

22) Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
Probably my new favorite Bright Eyes album. I wouldn't say every song is a winner necessarily, but there are a lot of good'uns. "Four Winds", "Soul Singer in a Session Band", and "I Must Belong Somewhere" are a few of the standouts. Also, for some reason, Conor Oberst's voice didn't bug me as much as it sometimes can. The packaging for the CD was pretty cool, too, requiring a secret decoder thing on the inside to look at most of the illustrations.

21) Tegan & Sara - The Con
I really their 2004 album, So Jealous, was way underrated. Pitchfork gave it a dismal rating, but then, Pitchfork hates a lot of bands that I like. This album didn't click with me as quickly as that one, but it's still full of plenty of catchy tunes. The best music being produced by cute, Canadian lesbian twin sisters today.