Best of 2007 Music

The Best of 2007

Here they come: Wes’ best of music for the year 2007. Like last year, remember these songs do not represent the best music that came out in 2007 or the music that captured major media attention (I’m not that up-to-date). These are the songs that I found most worthy of being digitally scanned onto a piece of circular plastic or imputed into the memory of my iPod.

Jazz and Rock ‘n Roll are featured once again, but the hardest driving genre is probably the movie/television category. A bunch of these songs came from soundtracks or are otherwise featured on television shows. That makes me terribly unoriginal. But, I'm not worried, around here, I'm still 10 years ahead of any trend. Wait, that just means I'm strange, which I’m completely cool with.

The only group or musician to get two songs on here: Death Cab for Cutie. Anna thinks the whole list should be them … plus a few songs from Regina Spektor just to balance it out. But, then again, she doesn’t listen to any music unless it is those two. Her best list for 2007 would be the same as 2006: KPCC 89.3. She’s totally cooler than I am, though, so I’ll just get on with the show:

1. Hands of Time – Groove Armada – Somebody finally realized what makes Moby great and starting doing their own take on it. Except, Groove Armada went one step further and got the musician (Richie Havens), not just the old record. Havens is a folk, singer, song-writer (he was at Woodstock), but his performance for this song is much more blues than anything else. I had heard this song probably in 2004 in the movie Collateral, and immediately fell in love with it as it gave me a way to forever recall driving through downtown LA at night. It took me this long to track it down. I’m glad I did: it embodies soul music to me, the track ending with nothing but a chorus of hums rising like a holy ghost from within.

2. Motherland – Natalie Merchant – This song opens with something of a bard’s tale mixed with a French, countryside melody (hello, accordion), but swiftly swoons at the chorus, turning the song from a dirge to a lullaby. The whole song, in fact, bounces between two lands – the desolate and the homey. Natalie Merchant’s voice makes all poetry seem profound, but it is her ability to make this song with both her mature/deep to soaring/beautiful that is marvelous to me. The subtle waver in her voice during the chorus is extremely pleasing and pleading.

3. Wash Away – Joe Purdy – Lost: Season 4 is on the horizon, and – forgive me, Lord – I’m more excited about it than I was Christmas. My love affair with Lost began quite a while ago, and this song played a key role in the blossoming. Season 1 featured this song at the end of an episode, allowing the music to float through the television while the cast was scanned against the setting of a tropical sun. I can easily see this song coming up later in my life at a critical juncture – a service of healing and forgiveness perhaps. It breathes life and refreshment.

4. On The Radio – Regina Spektor – This song is about as close as you can get to pop in the alternative genre – any further and it might be Imogen Heap. The beat is a pulse, there is plenty of glitter, including the tingle of symbol, but there is also just enough distinct piano to make it settle comfortably in with Fiona Apple. But, make no mistake, this song is playful and vibrant. Just wait tell Spektor moves through the chorus the second time and adds a little Blake from American Idol for you. Plus, she’s Russian. Need I say more?

5. Marching Bands of Manhattan – Death Cab for Cutie – Who can pick the song to represent this group? I can’t, but here’s one to give you a taste. Ben Gibbard sings lead for this group and is well known for adding his vocal originality to The Postal Service. Indeed, it is his boyish, yearning voice that makes so much of this alternative, self-love, self-dread music so wonderful. But, that said, you gotta give the whole group credit for taking his voice and adding music that moves emotions out of your heart and into your mind. The lyrics of Death Cab are especially emotive … “Sorrow drips into her heart through a pen-hole, just like a faucet that leaks, and there is comfort in the sound. But while you debate half-empty and half-full, it slowly rises. Your love is gonna drown.”

6. Your Heart is an Empty Room – Death Cab for Cutie – Part of what makes Death Cab so strong for me is that their songs work very well together as an entire album. I find it much easier to listen to an entire album than I do to pick out one song that I like, but here I go again. This song just grabs me, yanks me into liberation – like a fresh spring day – except the rallying cry begins with this line: “Burn it down ‘til the ambers smoke on the ground, and start new when your heart is an empty room …” That line right there has picked me up many a day this year, and given me a reason to keep fighting and striving. Then, there’s another line in the chorus that seems truth to me, “And all you see is where else you could be when you’re at home.” So true. Great lyrics, great vocals, and a great feel to embody it all: that’s Death Cab.

7. Blue Train – John Coltrane – Last year, I said I was starting to get into jazz. Well, if things hold true, I’ll soon be taking some trips over to St. Louis or down to New Orleans. I’m starting with the classics, and Coltrane’s Blue Train is that. The horns that begin this track drives the album – assuring and declarative, it spins into a nice little solo. By the time you get a couple of minutes into this song, the bouncing ball that would follow the notes is spinning and diving up and down. I don’t know enough about music to know how hard this all is, but I do know enough about how it sounds to say it is groovy, man, just groovy.

8. Going to California – Led Zeppelin – Because I like to believe that I know what is best and because I am hesitant to embrace what everyone else is (the elitist that I am), I didn’t care for Led Zeppelin for the first 28 years of my life – except when their song came on the loudspeakers in the middle school gym and I tried to find some hot girl to dance with for eight minutes, beginning slowly only to end in some herky-jerky trance step that totally left me stepping all over toes and wondering why this song was so damn long. Otherwise, I didn’t care for them. And, I mean that: as in I didn’t really give them more than a fleeting thought other than those Friday nights on the rubber-floored gym. A friend of mine had their IV album in highschool, and I can recall seeing it in his cd folder and telling myself, “what kind of group has a guy carrying sticks on his back … looks rather white-trash.” What did I know? So, anyhow, at 29 I repent and realize that Led Zeppelin rocks. I also realize that this song – while definitely awesome – has emerged as one of the few “California” songs that can haunt and attract me to that far land. I guess Joni Mitchell will have to make room in my heart.

9. Moon Dreams – Miles Davis – In my mind, I always imagine that life will be rich and complete when I have a little lounge in my house – complete with a nice recliner and ottoman, a good shelf of books, walls of dark wood, and the soft light that bathes more than it illuminates. Well, that, and – most of all – this song playing through speakers. Yeah, that would be luxurious and simple all at once. The true birth of the cool right in my own private four walls of serenity.

10. Rottura – Polmo Polpo – Ambience, Yoga Ammo, White Noise: yes, all of these are possible names for this strangely relaxing song. Found on the album The Science of Breath, Rottura seems to explore the subconscious realm of life – the underwater – the plummeting world of dream and rest and life. This has become a staple for those long, open-eyed nights when the ceiling becomes an unwanted fixation and I can’t seem to let my mind cease and desist.

11. Ain’t That Good News – Sam Cooke – Classic rhythm and blues master Sam Cooke got a lot of my nostalgic love this past year. I have American Idol to thank for that as January 2007 began with a whole host of wanna-be’s and will-be’s singing his “A Change is Gonna Come.” There are so many Cooke classics, but I love this one for its peppiness and joy. Horns come in halfway through to kick-in the elation, and the rest of the song is a vibrant competition between Cooke and the horn players to imbue good news.

12. Christmas Time is Here (vocal) – Vince Guaraldi Trio – Charles Shulz supposedly created A Charlie Brown Christmas to deal in part with why Christmas’ glee so often turns to Christmas glum for adults. You can tell that with this song, which is like taking a Christmas carol to a jazz lounge in New York City. The vocal addition of the boys choir is delightful for its high-notes and almost-coordinated sound, and the soft brush of the drum and play of piano keep Christmas where it should be: innocent, subdued and peaceful.

13. Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor – Lucinda Williams – What makes me a believer in all civic public pursuits? Well, besides the quality programming I receive through PBS and NPR, there is also my local library. Good and gracious God, thank you for the local library. For it is through that bequeather of knowledge and civility and goodness that I come to know music that would otherwise be as good as two hands clapping for themselves in a forest. This song I found on Classic Blues from Smithsonian Folkways, Volume 2, a great little love song that starts out with plenty o’ pickin’ and plenty o’ toe tappin’.

14. Cold Wind – The Arcade Fire – I understand that Arcade Fire is pretty smoking hot right now amongst critics. I can see why. I can also see why creative time is almost always in the evening for me, for this is the type of song you listen to at 10:23 pm on a Sunday night. This song probably started out sometime in the 80’s, got drug out to Seattle in the 90’s and then went north of the border when America started acting like Big Brother to the world. Performed by a sextet in Montreal, Cold Wind kinda reminds me of The Alan Parsons Project, and the highlight of the song comes when the music falls out to only an organ followed by a mass-movement, “hey, hey, hey” chant. “Something ain’t right.”

15. Feeling Good – Nina Simone – Let’s close this out with a great big voice, a great big band – something like Fats Domino. No, someone with a higher voice. Yeah, Nina Simone. And scratch what I said about listening to music at night. Let’s wake up to Nina Simone singing, “Fish in the sea, you know how I feel. River running free, you know how I feel. Blossom on the tree, you know how I feel. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day; it’s a new life … for me, and I’m feeling good.” Now, we’re talking. And let’s cap it off with Simone laying her soul out there with one final gusto of doo-wap’s and ooooooh’s. Can’t go wrong with that.

Great. Put a seal on it and ship it out the door. I’ll be back next year.

Wes