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Last five. Thanks for being patient with us. It’s been a slog – we’ve been arguing over this list for what feels like forever – but we’re here. The summit. The zenith. The end. Et cetera. The best five albums of 2007.
According to the DiS editorial team, anyway – the results of your voting will be published next Friday, December 14. Be sure to swing by DiS then to see if your favourite albums of the year – from our original shortlist of 50 – have made the DiS reader top ten. What I will tell you, for the time being, is that the number one record received a staggering number of votes, putting it head, shoulders, knees and toes ahead of the album in second position.
Below the top five is the top 50 in order, as ranked when we initially published the shortlist in an A-Z style. ‘Til next week’s reader vote result: happy listing…
(Missed some? Links: 25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6)
5
Jamie T Panic Prevention (Virgin)
“Kharas needs brought out and SHOT for this.” In hindsight, now the dust has had time to settle, I reckon it’d be fair to say that the 10/10 review _Panic Prevention received on this site wasn’t greeted with widespread approval. A million miles from your typical ‘DiS band’, whatever that’s supposed to be, Jamie T may have walked a familiar line but through his shot retinas that neighbourhood became a more interesting place to loiter. An exploration of suburban living, lacking cliché, is as hard a task as constructing a math-rock masterwork or a looping, spectral paradise. Stealing glimpses of all the hush-hush romance and tragedy a sleeping camp of Barrett three-beds can hold, the trio of ‘Calm Down Dearest’, ‘So Lonely Was the Ballad’ and ‘Back in the Game’ trumped every other album of this ilk in 2007. It’s ‘Ike & Tina’, though, that is the record’s ace; whirring, fumed and dizzy-reeling under hometown lights.
Kev Kharas; review here
4
M.I.A. Kala (XL)
Leaving a carbon footprint bigger than a fossilised yeti’s, pop trailblazer M.I.A.’s follow-up to the acclaimed Arular was several months, several hundred countries and one troublesome Visa request in the making. It was, naturally, worth the wait - bigger and bolder than its predecessor, taking in the supercharged rhythmic clatter of first single ‘Boyz’ and the bonkers Bollywood disco of ‘Jimmy’, while generally reminding everyone that the Sri Lankan tigress is simply in a class of her own with this stuff, whatever that stuff is exactly. Superb.
Alex Denney; review here
3
Panda Bear Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
It’s harsh and impossible to think of a 2007 that’s missing this record from its racks. Pulling memory back to endless after-hours carry on, Person Pitch is, quite simply, a masterwork that words struggle to describe. A synaesthetic epiphany dripping with sample and found sound, it’s Lennox’s disembodied cry manning the record's nerve centre; a playful, vibrant PA. But in a year of clevver music founded on the innate sway of the loop – LCD, Battles, Burial et al. – it’s Lennox who stands out as the poster boy; his is the album that makes that debt most obvious, almost as if he’d constructed a giant tape deck, stuck the world in and hit rewind, reversing the spin of an entire planet on its axis, exploding narrow time and skewing light off the dizzy sphere. A haunting, ultimately incredible record.
Kev Kharas; review here
2
Battles Mirrored (Warp)
Lord knows how it turned out this way. Swell-headed techlords from assorted mathy spod bands slowed down their unfeasibly dense rhythm section and spawned a seven-minute, glam-slamming monster in ‘Atlas’ and suddenly Battles became the must-hear act of 2007. Put simply, Mirrored was sheer prismatic perfection, a perfectly-titled light chamber of echoing loops and twitching, automated beauty that sounded like nothing we’ve heard before or ever will again, and united speccy blogger-types and skinny-pantsed hipsters for possibly the only time in history. Huzzah!
Alex Denney; review here
You know, you make something and you cannot believe another person likes it, period. I kind of consider myself a member of the audience, too, and though I may have a different perspective if I like it, I am crazy enough to think others may like it. So I am very happy that people have responded to Mirrored. It also reminds me that maybe there is more room for this music out there than presumed. - Tyondai Braxton, Battles
1
LCD Soundsystem Sound Of Silver (DFA/EMI)
The more iniquitously-minded of you may suggest that LCD made its way to the top of the list by virtue of being the record that no-one hated; certainly its position here is the result of a very democratic process in the DiS camp, votes going right to the wire to bump it above Battles. But to assess its ranking in such an analytical way would be to ignore the pathos-dripping track-of-the-year 'All My Friends', the sweet drone of 'Someone Great', and the wry lament of fitting album closer 'New York, I Love You'. It would also be a dismissal of a record that is a near-perfect integration of musical modernity and classic songwriting. Sure, it’s topped a few lists elsewhere, but DiS can’t disagree with the reasoning of our peers: Sound Of Silver is the album of 2007.
Gareth Dobson; review here
Oh wow, awesome. That’s wonderful. That’s fantastic. I never know how to react to such things other than, “it’s great”. I feel so funny about it. - James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem
And our top 50 of 2007, from one to 50…
1: LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
2: Battles – Mirrored
3: Panda Bear – Person Pitch
4: M.I.A. – Kala
5: Jamie T – Panic Prevention
6: Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
7: Liars – Liars
8: No Age – Weirdo Rippers
9: Radiohead – In Rainbows
10: HEALTH – Health
11: Deerhunter – Cryptograms
12: The National – Boxer
13: Les Savy Fav – Let’s Stay Friends
14: Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass
15: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Some Loud Thunder
16: The Maccabees – Colour It In
17: Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam
18: Klaxons – Myths Of The Near Future
19: Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
20: The Shins – Wincing The Night Away
21: Grinderman – Grinderman
22: Blonde Redhead – 23
23: PJ Harvey – White Chalk
24: Efterklang – Parades
25: Justice – Cross
26: Black Lips – Good Bad Not Evil
27: Deerhoof – Friend Opportunity
28: Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury
29: Field Music – Tones Of Town
30: Bloc Party – A Weekend In The City
31: The Cribs – Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever
32: !!! – Myth Takes
33: Andrew Bird – _Armchair Apocrypha _
34: Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare
35: Electrelane – No Shouts, No Calls
36: Thurston Moore – Trees Outside The Academy
37: Beirut – The Flying Club Cup
38: Future of the Left – _Curses _
39: dälek – Abandoned Language
40: The Sea & Cake – _Everybody _
41: Mathew Sawyer and the Ghosts –_ Blue Birds Blood_
42: Eugene McGuinness – The Early Learnings Of…
43: Von Südenfed – Tromatic Reflexxions
44: Prefuse 73 – Preparations
45: Pinback – _Autumn Of The Seraphs _
46: of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer
47: Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals
48: The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
49: Jen Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala
50: Feist – The Reminder
