Best music from 2007

Since I have 8 readers or so each day (I'm losing audience faster than most TV shows, and my writing staff isn't on strike), I feel like that is the appropriate number of albums to include in my first annual "8 best albums I bought this year." Unlike many other music lists I am including everything I purchased in 2007, whether it was released this year or not.

In no particular order:*

• Arcade Fire, Neon Bible: Best live act who isn't U2 or Springfield or Zeppelin
  
• Wilco, Sky Blue Sky: This convinced me to go and buy most of their older work, which I love
  
• The National, Boxer: Still not a great live act, but they put out great records.
  
• Okkervil River, Stage Names: My favorite find of the year.
  
• Jay-Z, American Gangster: At times the parallels to the movie are overdone, but whatever it takes to motivate Jigga to make good music again after the Kingdom Come fiasco.
  
• Nas, Illmatic: Yeah, I know, it was released in 1994 and is widely recognized as the greatest rap album of all time.
• Radiohead, In Rainbows: It feels weird not calling this my favorite album of the year. It's absolutely incredible music, but it sounds like it's been in my collection for a decade, which makes it hard to believe it came out last month.
  
• LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver: The only record where every track has stayed on my iPod shuffle all year long. I almost want to dance when listening. Almost.
  

That's actually 9. Deal with it. Others in the running: Kanye West (Graduation), Jose Gonzalez (In Our Nature), Caribou (Andorra), M.I.A. (Kala), Feist (The Reminder), Clinic (Visitations).

* Because I can't figure out how to make Blogger count down instead of up