Top 10 albums of 2007

What do you mean this is late?

1 The National – Boxer
My sister casually said have you heard anything by The National, they're pretty good. At the time I was between chemotherapy cycles and, to be honest, didn't really pay much attention. But I did borrow four albums from her and they lay neglected in a corner of my iPod for a month or so. Finally one afternoon in hospital, idly flicking through artists, bored with all the music I knew, I happened upon this album. It didn't take too long for me to be completely hooked. First thoughts were of the Tindersticks and Stuart Staples in particular (or Vic Reeves' pub singer according to pootly1), but without the melancholy or heavy-hearted weariness. The music is dark and brooding, late night and smoky at times, but never portentous or forced. The drumming is amazing and the other instruments sparkle and spar over the top, surging from sparse and spare arrangements to dense walls of rhythm.

2 Burial – Untrue
The sound of walking for hours alone through London after the tubes have stopped running, all the night buses have fallen off the edge of the world and you don't quite know where you are going.

3 Sigur Rós – Hvarf / Heim
Five (sort-of) new songs and five live recordings from 2006. Sounded like a clearing-out-the-cupboards type of project – not enough ideas for a new album – but in fact it is pretty good. Not exactly Agaetis byrjun, but certainly no Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do either. I think it also figures pretty high on the list because of the wonderful DVD that came out around the same time.

4 Lucinda Williams – West
That voice. Until 2007 I don't recall hearing anything by Lucinda Williams. I had read reviews which sounded interesting, but was always put off by the stigma of buying something from the country and western section. Anyway in March I noticed that iTunes had Car Wheels on a Gravel Road for $10 and given the relatively anonymous nature of the transaction I was unable to find a good reason not to buy it. Straight away is was hooked. In classic country and western style this, her latest, album is all about pain – the death of her mother and a lost love – but the songwriting and music is so far removed from my understanding of country and western as to make the genre irrelevant.

5 Art of Fighting – Runaways
At times last year I found this almost too sad to listen to. While it is undeniably downbeat and even pessimistic in places it also often soars to the heavens, the lows somehow emphasising and accentuating the joyous.

6 Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Seems a long time ago now, but I played this endlessly when it came out. I like it even more than Funeral and that was a stunning album. Lots of reviewers mentioned Springsteen's influence, but I can't see it myself. Not that this would necessarily be a bad thing as I have always (well since 1985 anyway) been a huge Bruce fan. (Although 2007s Magic was a disappointment to me, sounding like a very workmanlike copy of a real Bruce Album. Even the song titles sound like cliché Bruce – Gypsy Biker, I'll Work for your Love, Devil's Arcade ...) The music is dark, apocalyptic and frankly pretty scary if your listening on headphones. Also great played gut-kickingly loud in a darkened room.

7 Malcolm Middleton – A Brighter Beat
I feel happy that Scotland has its own parliament now and look forward to them honouring Mr Middleton with the freedom of the country or some other suitable recognition for services rendered. Aptly named, this a more consistent and coherent set of songs than Into the Woods, but for me it doesn't have anything quite as sublime as Choir and Loneliness Shines. If you haven't heard the former please drop everything and go find a copy right now. This sounds churlish, and when you've got songs like Fight Like the Night, A Brighter Beat and Stay Close Sit Tight it probably is. (Oh, and full credit for releasing a song called We're all Going to Die as your attempt at a Christmas number 1.)

8 Idlewild – Start a New World
Nothing earth-shattering – Roddy Woomble's lyrics can still veer perilously close to pretentious bed-sit poetry, the music is a little more polished than their best work, but it's still great. Soaring choruses, crunching, spiky guitar riffs and even a little bit of trumpet. Listen to Make Another World, Once in Your Life or Finished it Remains and tell me that this isn't a great rock band.

9 Manic Street Preachers – Send Away the Tigers
I guess that this is the album that I hoped the Manics would make after Gold Against the Soul. It is direct, nothing superfluous, heart-on-sleeve, righteous-anger rock music and sounds like they are finally having fun as a band again. Your Love Alone is Not Enough is just magnificent and I find it hard to believe that anyone could be unmoved when the Nina Persson and the strings take off together around 1.10 into the song.

10 Gersey – No Satellites
Mining a similar vein to Interpol, but somehow when I went to buy Our Love to Admire I ended up with this instead. And undoubtably it was the right choice. While it doesn't have the range or passion of some of their early music it is (along with Idlewild and the Manics) another fantastic set of rock songs.

And an honourable mention for The Twilight Sad's Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters.

Favourite mooks of 2007

More lists... According to iTunes my favourite songs from 2007 were:

1 Rescue – Lucinda Williams (West)
2 I'm Taking the Train Home – The Twilight Sad (Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters)
3 Ocean of Noise – The Arcade Fire (Neon Bible)
4 Your Love Alone is Not Enough – Manic Street Preachers (Send Away the Tigers)
5 Heart it Races (As Played By Soft Tigers) – Architecture In Helsinki (Heart It Races – Single)
6 Fight Like the Night – Malcolm Middleton (A Brighter Beat)
7 Brainy – The National (Boxer)
8 Visitor – Nina Kinert (Let There Be Love)
9 Johnny and Mary – Placebo (Covers)
10 Hljómalind – Sigur Rós (Hljomalind – EP)
11 The Rebel on His Own Tonight – Malcolm Middleton and Alan Bissett (Ballads of the Book)
12 Parisian Skies – Maxïmo Park (Our Earthly Pleasures)
13 Lost Watch (Iceland Version) – Seabear (Music for Hairy Scary Monsters)
14 In McDonalds – Burial (Untrue)
15 Teenage Kicks – Seabear (Teenage Kicks / Piano Hands – Single)
16 Wrecking Ball – Interpol (Our Love to Admire)
17 A Brighter Beat – Malcolm Middleton (A Brighter Beat)
18 Mysteries – Art of Fighting (Runaways)
19 Make Another World – Idlewild (Make a New World)
20 What If – Lucinda Williams (West)
21 Down On the Ground – British Sea Power (Krankenhaus? – EP)
22 It's Not Over Yet – Klaxons (Myths of the Near Future)
23 Stay Close Sit Tight – Malcolm Middleton (A Brighter Beat)
24 That Summer At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy – The Twilight Sad (That Summer At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy – Single)
25 Raver – Burial (Untrue)

Which looks about right when you see the track listing for my best of 2007 CD:

Eating Seaweed (Best of 2007)
Your Love Alone is Not Enough – Manic Street Preachers
Johnny and Mary – Placebo
The Rebel on His Own Tonight – Malcolm Middleton and Alan Bissett
Make Another World – Idlewild
Parisian Skies – Maxïmo Park
Heart it Races (As Played By Soft Tigers) – Architecture In Helsinki
Fight Like the Night – Malcolm Middleton
Trains to Brazil – Guillemots
Wrecking Ball – Interpol
Still a Long Way To Go – James Dean Bradfield
Rescue – Lucinda Williams
Mysteries – Art of Fighting
Lost Watch (Iceland Version) – Seabear
Hljómalind – Sigur Rós
Brainy – The National
Ocean of Noise – The Arcade Fire
I'm Taking the Train Home – The Twilight Sad
In McDonalds – Burial

Trains to Brazil and Still a Long Way To Go don't figure on the iTunes list because they were acquired before January 1, 2007 but too late to make the cut for the Best of 2006 CD.

Good to see Malkie getting four entries in the top 25, pretty impressive even if you count the duet(?) with Alan Bissett (author of the awesome boyracers).

Lucinda Williams and The Twilight Sad were runners-up with two songs each. More on my favourite albums of 2007 soon...

Surveillance

And at number 2 was Jonathan Raban's Surveillance. I resisted reading it until March (after buying it for myself as an early Christmas present) and could tell from the first page that it was going to be a real treat.

Like in his travel writing, Raban manages to say a lot about contemporary society, the little details of fact and place are always perfectly observed, reflecting back to the reader our current preoccupations and concerns.

The story concerns a journalist, reclusive writer, gay actor/activist, the journalist's 11-year-old daughter and whether the writer's bestselling war-time memoir is real or not. The story races along and is always fascinating. The ending, however, leaves everything unresolved, not reaching any conclusions about what has gone before. I can't decide if he is trying to make a larger point about the world and mankind's place in it or if he just felt that was how the story should end.

Maybe I need to read it again and see if I can work it out...

What was Lost

So, Catherine O'Flynn's What was Lost was my favourite book of last year. I first read about it on the redoubtable Crockatt and Powell's blog (why did they wait for me to move from Battersea to Melbourne before opening up shop?) and managed to get a copy brought out from the UK.

For me it is just about perfect - moving, funny (hilariously so in places), mysterious and wonderfully well written. I am not going to say any more because basically everyone should read it and I don't want to give anything away.

The Readings' catalogue this month had a special feature (i.e. short interview) with Catherine and Scribe are publishing it in Australia, so well done to them and whoever was smart enough to invite Catherine to the Perth Festival...

(Scribe also published the excellent Dark Roots by Cate Kennedy and the very enjoyable Border Street by Susanne Leal, both of which I read last year and would recommend.)

Books of 2007

Listed in the order they were read. 2007 was actually a pretty good year in terms of quantity (mostly due to spending the best part of two and a half months in hospital) and I expect 2008 will mark a return to levels more like 2006's twenty-eight.

1 Kate Atkinson – Case Histories
2 Nicholas Shakespeare – In Tasmania
3 Cormac McCarthy – The Road
4 William Boyd – Restless
5 Markus Zusak – The Messenger
6 Matt Rendell – The Death of Marco Pantani
7 William McIlvanney – Laidlaw
8 Rory Stewart – The Places In Between
9 Paul Auster – In the Country of Last Things
10 Anne Fadiman – Ex Libris
11 Jonathan Raban – Surveillance
12 Laura Hird – Hope and other Urban Tales
13 Richard Gwynn – The Colour of a Dog Running Away
14 Catherine O’Flynn – What Was Lost
15 Orhan Pamuk – The New Life
16 William Boyd – Fascination
17 Cormac McCarthy – No Country for Old Men
18 Roberto Bolano – The Savage Detectives*
19 Colin Thubron – In Siberia
20 Mark Taplin – Open Lands
21 Cate Kennedy – Dark Roots
22 David Vise – The Google Story
23 Martin Cruz Smith – Wolves Eat Dogs
24 Sara Wheeler – Travels in Thin Country
25 Richard Moore – In Search of Robert Millar
26 Ian Rankin – The Naming of the Dead
27 Kenneth Deffeyes – Beyond Oil
28 Graeme Fife – Inside the Peleton
29 Jonathan Coe – The Rain Before it Falls
30 Michael McGirr – Things you get for free
31 John O’Farrell – Things can only get better
32 Paul Auster – Oracle Night
33 William Gibson – Spook Country
34 Ian Rankin – Exit Music
35 Simon Winchester – The Map that Changed the World
36 Susanna Leal – Border Street
37 Andrew Greig – Kingdoms of Experience
38 Graham Swift – Tomorrow
39 Alexander McCall Smith – 44 Scotland Street
40 Orhan Pamuk – Istanbul
*Mostly read in 2007, but I ended up putting it aside about two-thirds of the way through and only finished it off recently.

Statistics
Fiction: 24 titles
Non-fiction: 16 titles
Number of authors: 34
Male authors: 27
Female authors: 7
Books published in 2007: 7
Books published in 2006: 10
Books published in 2005: 7
Books published 2000-04: 8
Books published 1990-99: 5
Books published 1980-89: 2
Books published before 1980: 1

Top 10
1 Catherine O’Flynn – What Was Lost
2 Jonathan Raban – Surveillance
3 Orhan Pamuk – Istanbul
4 Cormac McCarthy – The Road
5 William Boyd – Restless
6 Colin Thubron – In Siberia
7 Ian Rankin – Exit Music
8 William Gibson – Spook Country
9 Paul Auster – In the Country of Last Things
10 Nicholas Shakespeare – In Tasmania
Notes on the top 10 to follow...