Top 21 Albums of 2007

The most thrilling musical moment in 2007 comes 56 seconds into "Paper Planes," at the precise moment when Maya Arulpragasam, with a barrage of gunshots, transforms Wreckx-N-Effect's ode to the rump into an anarchist's cheat sheet. If the second record from M.I.A. teaches us anything, it's that life is short and getting shorter, the casualty of a culture accelerating so quickly we'll all be atomized by this time next year. So, then, let's not mince words: Kala is a masterpiece, an astonishing work of vision and idea whose scale and ambition only looms larger with every half-assed platter released in its wake. No other pop record released this year was so relentlessly forward-thinking, so consumed with consumption and so able to wring the maximum impact out of musical juxtaposition. Kala is the perfect reflection of the way culture happens right now, with Banghra and Baghdad and Biggie Smalls all ramming up against each other over and over, a few hyperactive particles in the steadily swelling data-smog. But for all of its global acumen, Kala never descends to the realm of polemic. M.I.A. remains — firmly, proudly — a documentarian, making more of her points with her choice of sample than with her turn of phrase. Kala is a collage made from scraps of the daily papers, each of them a different typeset in a different language, all of them reporting the same bad news.

God damn, we missed you, Shins. Honestly, we wanted to be a little bit, "Oh, so that's how it is, you just come waltzing back into our lives whenever you please?" And when Wincing the Night Away, the long-awaited follow-up to Chutes Too Narrow, kicked off with a freaking marimba, we were all licking our chops, ready to write this off as the band's first flagon of flop sweat. And then James Mercer and pals do what they always do: knock us out with a combination of killer hooks and slow-burn introspection. Mercer's latest is an ode to insomnia, an affliction he struggles with, and an example/product of the meticulous songwriter's ability/need to toss and turn ideas over and over until they're perfect. Opener "Sleeping Lessons" introduces us to Mercer's dreamworld, and the ensuing 10 tracks, from the upbeat "Australia" to the pensive "Phantom Limb" to the churning "Sea Legs," traverse a subconscious otherworld where identity is fractured and characters flow in and out. The spell is broken with "A Comet Appears," after which we feel we know what it's like to spend a night in Mercer's head. The experience is addictively disorienting, and we find ourselves constantly reliving it.

Leslie Feist begins her breathtaking third solo album by purring "I'm sorry," but she has nothing to apologize for. The Reminder is a complete album, skipping the bits of self-conscious pablum that marred 2004's periodically brilliant Let It Die. Even the moments of calculated bizarreness — including the ghostly-then-rollicking Nina Simone cover "Sealion" — are spot-on. From delicious bits of pop-candy goodness like "1 2 3 4" to haunting techno-love-letters like "Honey Honey," Feist harnesses her eclecticism and turns it into a catalyst, suffusing most tracks with heartbreak, long-distance torment and remorse. On the guitar-ballad "I Feel It All," she laments, "Oh, I'll be the one to break my heart ... I'll end it though you started it," and on the spartan "Intuition," she asks, "Did I miss out on you?" Despite the ever-present specter of past catastrophes, Feist continues to fall. "Like a waterfall in slow motion, like a map with no ocean," she sings with resignation, "there's a limit to your love ... but there's no limit to my love." The Reminder is that bittersweet day you pick yourself up off the floor with a broken heart and decide to love again.

Does it seem like you spend half your life trying to build a relationship and the other half searching for the exit? The Quin twins can relate; each wrote seven of The Con's twitchy, synthy paeans to anxiety, incommunication and regret. Tegan's stuck in a loop that takes her from running away ("The Con") to collapsing in depression ("Are You Ten Years Ago") to running away ("Call It Off"), all while praying to be pursued. Sara's got marriage on her mind, but that's not fun, either, unless you swoon to a line like "I want your lungs to stop working without me." First comes homophobia ("I Was Married"); then comes embarrassment in holding her wife's hand and boredom in their bed ("Back in Your Head"). Each twin provides her own bassist — Tegan gets AFI's Hunter Burgan, Sara gets the Rentals' Matt Sharp — but The Con holds together with half of Death Cab for Cutie playing on half of the songs (three of Tegan's, four of Sara's) and the 27-year-olds' chirpy voices. The sisters' situations may be as out of sync as their harmonies, but their reactions are as predictable as their pitch. Only pros could pull a Con this thrilling.

Neon Bible isn't better than Arcade Fire's debut, Funeral, but in the two and a half years it took to release Neon, the consensus was in: Arcade Fire is a great band, and possibly even an important one. It's been a while since we've had an important band. Nirvana? Radiohead? The White Stripes? In the search for a savior here in the mp3 era, Arcade Fire, with their theatrical live shows and songs of death and redemption, were expected to stand above all the other hyped-to-oblivion blog bands. Neon Bible was supposed to change the world — and of course, it didn't. Critics and fans wanted to be transcended by the 11 Bruce Springsteen-tinged anthems, and when they weren't, Arcade Fire was pushed aside for the next-big-thing-before-next-week's-next-big-thing. The significance of Neon Bible isn't that it failed to change the world — it's a solid album — but that it came from a band good enough to be held to those standards.

The music video era is over — but all that means is that bands are now formatting their hair to look good in Flash. That's why we need someone like LCD Soundsystem brain James Murphy, who looks more like an elementary school P.E. teacher than He Who Would Save Pop Music. Proving that no one cares about trim waistlines and layered coiffures when you're a monster on the knobs (and an incredibly taut songwriter), DFA co-founder Murphy's Sound of Silver is a master class in remembering where you came from. "Someone Great" laments the loss of a vaguely framed friend; on the sweet "New York I Love You," Murphy eulogizes his city's pre-Giuliani filth and fervor. And with "All My Friends," easily one of the most moving tracks of the year, Murphy looks back lovingly on the days when he just didn't know any better ("I wouldn't trade one stupid decision/ for another five years of life"). If you're misting up, remember that you can also dance to all of this.

While Amy Winehouse is a hot, troubled mess — as I type this, the drugged-out bag of bones is chillin' in a London jail — the brilliance of her U.S. debut can't be denied. Her formula, mixing retro sounds with emotionally accessible lyrics, is infectious. Out of that mangled beehive came commercial hits like overplayed "Rehab" and the Ghostface-laced "You Know I'm No Good," which balanced out lesser-known gems like hip-swaying "Tears Dry on Their Own" and ballad "Love is a Losing Game." Hate on her publicly if you want, but be for real — you know Back to Black is a dope (no pun, no pun) ass album.

Ten years of being an "important rock band" hasn't ruined Radiohead. In Rainbows isn't just a masterful culmination of everything since "Creep" — it's a weird and creepy Britpop pipe bomb. Thom and company are excited about making music, always a versatile, unpredictable unit. Yorke's indelible voice distinguishes the shimmering, vulnerable "Nude" as an album centerpiece. Throw that pay-what-you-wish hype in the recycling bin. Then send a love letter to OasisandU2canchokeonadick@citypaper.net. Radiohead is still full of OK surprises.

There must have been a mutation in the Braxton genes somewhere along the line. Just as dad Anthony has never been a comfortable fit in the jazz world, son Tyondai and his compatriots in Battles defy the implied simplicity of the "pop" tag with skewed melodies and arrangements as layered — and as delectable — as a wedding cake. What the Residents did to '60s bubblegum with Third Reich and Roll, Battles does to booty-shaking indie rock. Would anyone really be surprised to find out that these guys are false-fronts for sequin-clad androids sent to us in the glam end times? Hell, in some parallel universe right now, our doppelgangers are stomping in sports arenas to "Atlas," the bizarro-world equivalent of "Rock and Roll Part 2." And they're having a better time than you.

The cover of the fourth album from this Winnipeg-based quartet depicts a dark ocean mostly obscured by geometrically correct glaciers. It's a particularly apt image. Almost all of the songs on Reunion Tour take place in frigid, Canadian climes. A heartbroken bus driver watches as riders "bite their mitts off to show me transfers." A curler lingers too long at a post-game bar stop, "pondering one more brown one for the snowy road." And a wandering house cat reminisces about his time on the lam, "when the winter took the tips of my ears." Like those glaciers, the lyrics of frontman John K. Samson are staggeringly precise and vivid; plus they're so literate they make most other bookworm rockers sound like Larry the Cable Guy. And, with a band equally adept at brawny anthems, twangy licks and calm atmospherics, even the most esoteric metaphors go down like the smoothest bourbon.

>For the most assured, mature and succinct record of the year, No. 11 seems about right. Eleven is a spot that's lower than Spoon deserves, but higher than they might expect — seemingly a familiar place for this band. After all, pop music rewards either snotty youth and novelty or, increasingly, Dylanesque dad-rock-y age; Britt Daniel and company write and play songs with the elegance and vigor of adulthood in its prime. Spoon's best songs have always depended on subtle distinctions and precise arrangements and iceboxes full of cool detachment. Sounding like nobody so much as themselves, Spoon spends Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga's 36 minutes (all they really needed, isn't it?) to state and refine and develop those elements over 10 jewel-perfect pop songs.

Songwriters wishing to confront their demons have plenty of options. They can yell and scream to virulent tempos, or mope over melodramatic arrangements. If they're really interesting, they'll vent to jaunty pop songs. Kevin Barnes does a lot of that in coping with debilitating depression and romantic disaster on Of Montreal's latest, singing about a self-imposed exile in Norway to a clip-clop beat and turning shrieked opiate demands into a danceable chorus. But Barnes also takes the road more traveled, using the 12-minute opus "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal" to rant, shout and practically lose his shit on tape in a catharsis that's so palpable it's chilling. To make listeners tolerate interminably long song titles, frustrating packaging and dire subject matter, an album has to be more than just good. On Hissing Fauna, Barnes and Of Montreal leave their Elephant Six pasts far behind, crafting their strongest and most personal artistic statement.

Heartbreak is a many splintered thing, and each song on The Stage Names is a testament to cardiac trauma of one sort or another. Will Sheff's pained earnestness plays over catchy melodies dripping with verses of promises broken, lies believed and trust violated. Add clever effects (a ticking clock underscoring "Savannah Smiles") and the rudimentary math skills of "Plus Ones" (the best song patched together from other songs since Built to Spill's "You Were Right") to this raw emotional content and the result is a maudlin masterpiece of savvy, literate rock.

It's been about 10 years since Deerhoof left their noise roots for something a little more pop, a little more hum-able, and perhaps even the tiniest bit less abrasive. But thankfully, they haven't gone too far. Friend Opportunity, the latest crescendo in a long line of explosively dissonant (yet triumphantly catchy) albums from this spastic San Francisco three-piece, still retains enough rough edges to keep old fans on their toes. Sure, the occasionally harmonious guitar riffs in songs like "+ 81" and "Matchbox Seeks Maniac" may have alienated a few noise-rock purists, but Death Cab fans still won't be able to nod their heads to this one without getting whiplash. Satomi Matsuzaki's unfailing soprano cuts sharply through key changes, horn accompaniments and unpredictable tempos, lending a sugary sweetness to the grating onslaught of guitars. Deerhoof may be hitting maturity in band years, but they still know what sounds awesome.

You've never heard a better based-on-true-events ballad of posing as a boyfriend for a lesbian pal than "A Postcard to Nina." The touching centerpiece of Jens Lekman's brilliant Night Falls Over Kortedala succeeds at humor without lapsing into novelty and champions the heart's pursuit in the face of adversity. Pretty much all of Night brings into focus the beautiful absurdity, fearlessness and imperfections of love, and persistence in the face of rejection ("I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You"). To paraphrase Tennyson, it is better to have loved in vain than never to have loved at all.

By 50, most musicians are retired or soft and content to relive their old hits. Not Nick Cave. He is pissed off about middle age and — along with Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos — he's turned that bile into a testament to getting old ungracefully. Their self-titled debut, Grinderman, is full of serrated guitars and pounding bluesy rhythms that slash their way through songs like "Get It On" and the awesomely bitter "No Pussy Blues." This is not the clichéd angst of an angry young man. No, this is the distilled bitterness, fear, resentment and secret strength of the angry middle-aged man, a rare and valuable breed indeed.

Maybe the Magic is some sort of time travel. The guitar, the pace and the fury of the E Street Band on songs like "Radio Nowhere" all remind listeners of the days before Springsteen went folk and/or got old. The Boss seems to be effortlessly channeling his greatest albums of the '70s and early '80s. It's hard to tell if this is the last great Springsteen album, or the first move in a strategic comeback. Glory days are here again.

The cries of "dad-rock" suggest that perhaps certain factions of Wilco's fanbase (and detractors) claim immunity to the aging process. Sky Blue Sky is way more nuanced than they'd have you believe. Jeff Tweedy settled into domesticity frazzled yet gratified. His bandmates followed suit by mixing the Band with Television, as laid-back country-rock grooves built off into freakily gorgeous guitar odysseys.

Sure, this evocation of James Brown, Stax and Motown explores the magic of those old grooves with a near-puritanical zeal. But, after so many bad old-soul pastiches over the years, these oft-stunning re-creations simply sound amazing. (Mark Ronson knew exactly what he was doing, hiring the Dap-Kings to support Amy Winehouse.) And Jones' throaty gospel yell keeps "Tell Me," "When the Other Foot Drops, Uncle" and others resolutely in the present tense.

From the Irish film where music — the very making of it, by a street-busker and a pianist — provides every major plot point, these collaborative songs by Hansard (of the Frames) and Czech musician Irglová seize and demonstrate the creative spark. It strikes where it wants — as on the bus, where Hansard busts out the self-deprecate-a-thon "Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy," to the moment when the pair lay hands on a piano in a deserted Dublin instrument store ("Falling Slowly"). The album, removed from the narrative, might revive those moments for the film's enthusiasts, but stands alone quite happily as the purchasable product of both a real collaboration and a fictional one. And it rocks. Which, sod the story, is quite important.

This album. This album, man. It's only 28 minutes long but it'll crush you like whatever Cloverfield is, unless it turns out Cloverfield sucks. Let's just say it'll crush you, cause it's so huge and noisy, but also humble and catchy. Boys and girls are fuzzing out on synths and distorting guitars and crashing cymbals and sing-shouting in a non-cute way, and how come sometimes I think I hear a glass armonica? Everything sounds like it was recorded on storm trooper helmet mics, always in the red but not quite a mess. Or it's a mess you wanna jump in. And then? You're crushed.