Album(s) of the Year: Dos Mil Siete

In times like this I go to iTunes and check the stats. The numbers are don't lie, my friend. They tell me exactly what I've listened to the most this year and, therefore, what the album or albums of the year should be.

Okay, so I just checked the stats and maybe I need to do a bit of interpreting here. The album with the most listens isn't necessarily the album of the year, I realize. So first I'll do it by stats and then by what I think is album of the year.

Most listened to albums of 2007

The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Okkervil River: The Stage Names
LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
Battles: Mirrored
Iron & Wine: Shepherd's Dog
The National: Boxer
Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: Living With the Living
The White Stripes: Icky Thump
Wilco: Sky Blue Sky

So. Those are the cold, hard stats. Do they lie? No. Isn't that great?! The numbers just can't lie! The part where I morph from statistician to clairvoyant, though, is when I look at that list and determine what should be the top album of the year.

Album(s) of the Year: 2007

Okkervil River: The Stage Names
Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (Was held back from Number One by the ridiculously indulgent 12 minute "The Past is a Grotesque Animal.")
Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Was held back from Number One by scattered moments through out the album that returned to sound and style from Gimme Fiction.)

• The biggest blindside was Battles. Oh, and LCD Soundsystem. I'm not into math rock or electronica but their albums really lit me up.
• The biggest I-don't-want-to-say-let-down-but-I-can't-think-of-another-term was The National Boxer. I know people love it and there are times I really, really do, too, but just not overwhelmingly as a whole.
• The album I listened to a lot at first but not very much the rest of the year was Wincing the Night Away.
  
• The album I really, really need to listen to more of is Sky Blue Sky. There. I've said it. I need to listen to it more. But you've got to understand it bores me, okay? Bores me.

As I do every year I feel like I've forgotten some amazingly awesome album and someone's going to say, "Dude, you totally forgot about the amazingly awesome album!!" I did sort my iTunes by year so there may be some that slipped through by not having a year listed in their information. So there's that excuse if I've forgotten anything.



Now that that end of the year stuff is over I wanted say a thing or two about BSP. "Atom" is a great song. Very great. An I-feel-I-should-write-a-movie-just-so-I-could-put-this-song-into-a-
crucial-scene good song. And concerning the rest of Krankenhause--I'm surprised at the big-sounding guitars. And BSP remind me of Pink Floyd. There you go: three things about BSP.