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

A band you should listen to

My friend Brian does silly things like spending all his time and money starting a record label rather than playing golf. Some people just have different priorities.

That said, much like Christopher Walken in the More Cowbell sketch, Brian puts on his pants one leg at a time AND he puts out hit records. Please go check out The Diggs. Buy their EP or their first CD. Or, if you want to be ahead of the times, check out this song from their soon-to-be-released album:

http://www.sugarspunrecords.com/promo/Careen.mp3


(My thanks to Brian to letting me listen to this early. For those of you in the New York, these guys play all over the city. Definitely worth checking out.)

I dislike the Killers

I think last.fm is pretty cool, as it allows other people to see what kind of music I'm listening to. Currently the graphic on the right shows a lot of bands that I like, and one that I really don't. I hate the Killers. Their first album was okay, but Sam's Town is god-awful. I have not listened to it since installing last.fm, and so I don't know why it shows up. So please know that I don't listen to the Killers.