THIS WAS MY BEST OF 2007

I was searching through what is left of the archives of the old blog – I reckon about 75% of the old posts are missing altogether and I’ve already mined the best of what is left and re-posted them at some point in recent years.

I’m not saying that this blast from the past is any sort of memorable or worthy post, but it’s interesting in that I picked out five of my favourite new songs that had been released during 2007 and a further five that I had only just picked up on or that they were old favourites given some sort of fresh life via a re-release.

From 30 December 2007:-

Just a quick final posting for 2007. Everyone seems to do extensive lists of what have been their particular favourites of the past 12 months. Here’s mine, and it consists simply of what I reckon have been the five new songs to give me most aural pleasure:-

Arcade Fire – Intervention
Frightened Rabbit – Be Less Rude
Grinderman – No Pussy Blues
Malcolm Middleton – Superhero Songwriter
The Twilight Sad – That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy

And among the albums I picked up years after they came out and the various boxsets/re-issues/Peel Sessions that appeared in 2007, I’m rather fond of these:-

Cinerama – Apres Ski (Live At Maida Vale, June 2000)
Jans Lekman – A Higher Power
The Lucksmiths – There Is A Boy That Never Goes Out
Prefab Sprout – Faron Young (acoustic version)
Tindersticks – Tiny Tears (Mark Radcliffe Show – October 1993)

But above all else, I at long last latched onto an album released back in 1997:-

Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

2007 was the year that I spent a fair bit of living and working in Toronto and there was a big chunk of time when I didn’t buy much as I would have had issues trying to ship it all home with me on my return to Glasgow after 18 weeks away.

I bought the Neutral Milk Hotel CD after hearing it played in a record store in Toronto and while I was all over it for maybe the best part of six months after I came home, I soon found myself fully immersed again in the local music scene, and in particular making up for lost time by going to see bands that were emerging or growing in popularity, and it soon began to gather some dust on the shelf. I still enjoy giving it a listen every now and again, but I don’t hold it in as high a regard as I did 12 years ago.

mp3 : Neutral Milk Hotel – King Of Carrot Flowers
mp3 : Neutral Milk Hotel – Two-Headed Boy
mp3 : Neutral Milk Hotel – Holland, 1945

JC