Tulip Frenzy

• 10. The Waterboys “Book of Lightning”Who ever would have thought that the Waterboys would rock as hard as, and sound a lot like, Robyn Hitchcock?  This was a left-field surprise that went beyond a return to form, since never once had they sounded this good.
• 9. Eddie Vedder “Into The Wild”Great movie, perfect soundtrack to it.  
• 8.The Chesterfield Kings “Psychedelic Sunrise”Until the next Fleshtones album comes out (January 22nd), this is the garage classic of the moment.
• 7.Babyshambles “Shotters Nation”Pete Doherty makes Amy Winehouse seem like she’s overly fond of 3.2 beer or something, but I was shocked by what an amazing album this is, the best Brit-rock album since Blur was functional.  We need to keep this guy alive.
• 6.Iron & Wine “The Shepherd’s Dog”Music to listen to while getting tanked up on coffee, sitting in sunlight, while reading six sections of the Sunday Times.  That’s actually a compliment.
• 5. The Apples in Stereo “Science Faire”The little pop-rock genius Bob Schneider made a good ‘un, rocking hard but not at Ramones speed, while still catchy as their soundtrack for the Powerpuff Girls.
• 4. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club “Baby 81″Even in a year when the Jesus and Mary Chain came back at Coachilla, this was the best moment for off-kilter hard rock that I lived through.
• 3. Wilco “Sky Blue Sky”Why put down Jeff Tweedy’s sobriety? With Nels Cline sounding like Tom Verlaine on a good day, this beautiful symphony of noise deserved a far, far better fate than the slagging it took.  (Funny how after putting it down, Uncut put it in their Top Five list…)
• 2. The New Pornographers “Challengers”Another album hipsters gainsaid, yet still packed such an un-Canadian wallop, it’s a wonder the Arcade Fire didn’t do the honorable thing and just move to Paraguay. 
• 1. Ryan Bingham “Mescalero”The best album of 2007 was by a West Texas songwriter named Ryan who was smart enough to embrace, not run from sounding like the great lost Whiskeytown album.

This entry was posted on January 2, 2008 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Music with tags Apples in Stereo, Babyshambles, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Chesterfield Kings, Eddie Vedder, Iron & Wine, New Pornographers, Ryan Bingham, Waterboys, Wilco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.