Last Friday, actually, Stereogum reported that music rag Harp dropped their top 50 of the year with Okkervil River’s “Stage Names” at the top spot. No complaints there, as that album is so intense it really demands multiple listening sessions just to take in the scope of the thing. Their list hews closer to my tastes a bit, and many in their top 10 would find places in my top 10 as well.
The top 50 list from Uncut on the other hand… This list reads to me like the editors were looking at what everyone else was doing and decided to just do the opposite to spite people. LCD Soundsystem checks in at number one – which is the same as Stylus’s early list. But from there they go all over the map: Arctic Monkey’s at the two-spot? I like the Arctic Monkeys, but I can think of a hell of a lot better albums this year. Same goes for Wilco’s “Sky Blue Sky” which sounds like the self-described rehab album it is, certainly not the fifth best album of the year. And I truly loved The Hold Steady’s “Boys and Girls In America” – a fact I mentioned earlier since I found that album from a 2006 best-of list – and that’s exactly it: the album was released October 3, 2006. What part of Best of 2007 did the folks at Uncut miss?? Seriously?!
Even for the sake of disagreeing I still love this list time of year. LCD Soundsystem completely missed my radar, and now I’m going to go check it out. Hopefully we’ll have a new podcast for y’all by the end of the week. We’ll see. Wait, did I just invoke the curse? Shit.