Best of 2007

I listened to a lot of music this year, but the albums I kept coming back to numbered in the single digits. There's a lot of great stuff out there, and I think I made my way through most of the highlights unscathed.

The Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder

Listen to: "Same Old Drag", "Energy", "7 Stars",

These guys deserve some praise for creating one of the happiest, most energetic albums of all time. This thing is filled to the brim with good feelings and warm sounds, and it plays out like something familiar, but catchy all the same. It's definitely heavily produced, but the sound doesn't suffer for it, in fact, it elevates most of their songs into something electronic sounding, which I find myself more attracted to as of late. Which leads me to my next favorite..

Daft Punk - Alive 2007

Listen to: The whole thing. From start to finish. Do it.

This might be the best album from last year. From the moment it begins, you know it's going to rock harder than anything you've heard before. These guys already knew how to write great electronic funk rock, and this album is the culmination of ten years of perfect songs. Every song that you loved before is remixed with another in this titanic, speaker crushing, live robot fest. Unlike other collaborative efforts (and because it's their stuff), it comes off perfectly blended, there is no wasted noise here. They bring back every great moment from their albums and it hits you hard and doesn't stop for the duration.

Calvin Harris - I Created Disco

Listen to: "Acceptable in the 80's", "Vegas", "I Created Disco", "Merrymaking At My Place", "Colours", "Disco Heat"

This guy surprised me completely. I heard a track of his on OpenPandora, and it didn't really catch my ear. In fact, it kind of annoyed me. A few days later, I discovered myself humming it, and realized that what I initially thought of as an annoyance was actually one of the catchiest beats I'd ever had the pleasure of hearing. This guy is a wizard and the album title, while not modest in any way, is correct. This man, too young to have been alive when Disco graced this green earth, has done with the genre what few other people could. He's created a clever, catchy, up beat disco album for the 21st Century, and it is fantastic. There are a few throw away tracks toward the end, but as funky electric disco goes, this guy has the shit down to a science.

The Killers - Sam's Town

Listen to: "Bling Confessions of a King", "Sam's Town", "For Reasons Unknown", "Uncle Johnny", "When You Were Young"

I know, I know, it came out last year. That doesn't change the fact that it took me this long to give it a thorough listen myself, and I couldn't believe it took me so long to get here. There are some tracks I don't care for, and their sound has taken on a brighter, more arena-rock oriented focus, but I like it. It took me some time to get on board with a few tracks, but this is a great album that deserves every bit as much praise as the first. Sure, every track isn't phenomenal, as on their debut album, but that's to be expected. If this is any indication of where things are going, I can't wait for their third offering.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Listen to: "Reckoner", "Videotape", "House of Cards", "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"

One of the greatest bands of all time releases an album for free and it's some of their best work? Pinch me, I must be dreaming. Indeed, Radiohead put out a rock solid offering here, and it's worth your money more than any album you've paid for this year. They've come off five albums of heavy experimentation and the results haven't always been great, but this is where it comes together. The sound is softer, it's lighter, it's focused, and it's a pleasure to listen. This is clearly an album crafted by some of the greatest song writers on the planet, and it shows. It's great the whole way through, and is best taken in with some degree of substance abuse before hand. Just saying.

One Billion is a Lot

What would I do with one billion dollars? The possibilities are endless. If only I'd had the foresight to invent a product like Guitar Hero.

That's how much money they've made on the sale of the product itself. It does not include the vast revenue garnered from downloadable content. This is a hulking beast of a thing now. It will be exploited to the darkest point of no return, and its iterations will exist, in some form, for many years, I suspect.

Of course, I love the series. It is as close perhaps as I'll ever get to an actual guitar without ever really coming anywhere close to being one. It's fun to play, that's all there is to say about it. But how did a game where a 3/4 size plastic guitar controller become mainstream? How did it become wildly popular? I remember when the first Guitar Hero came out, it was incredible fun. It brought the sort of joy to the home game console that I hadn't felt since the old days. It was arcade-like almost, but one felt the urge to rock the fuck out. I always felt it was a niche product, partially because of the price, but also because you look stupid when you play it. There's no getting around it, it's hard to look cool with a tiny little guitar controller that has buttons representing all of the primary colors.

Now it's a hulking juggernaut in the game industry. The competition is fierce, with Rock Band in tow (or perhaps in the lead?). It will be interesting to see where we go from here. Do we get more instruments and updates via Xbox Live for Rock Band, or will we get nickeled and dimed? They already know they can charge us anything for the downloads, because people will still pay for them, regardless of the price. It's that point system, furiously insisting that a few more points aren't going to hurt your bank statement at the end of the month. It's also the offerings. There are some great tracks out for Rock Band. The Police? Queens of the Stone Age? Yes. I'll take it.

<---- Has contributed over 300 of his hard earned dollars to the Guitar Hero franchise.