My Top Ten Albums of 2007

2007 was a very difficult year for me personally, which coincided with a very bad year musically for everyone else; making this a difficult year for choosing a list of best albums. So few truly fabulous albums were released and my mental state for the mid-part of 2007 prevented me from really enjoying many others thought were great. This year saw my personal life fall apart, bad health (I contracted a super-bug infection) and a (thankfully) failed suicide attempt, amongst the release of a new Springsteen album (I’m not a fan so this held no interest for me), a new White Stripes album (I love Jack White but… oy what a tragedy that was) and a new Arcade Fire album (one I would love to have spent more time with but just didn’t have the heart for). Radiohead’s In Rainbows should be on my list as I love it, but I didn’t spend much time with it and, for this list anyway, that would feel wrong. Of course Dylan released an anthology which I love but anthologies don’t count on a best-of list.

This list is actually a list of the albums I couldn’t do without this year. Most were released this year, two I discovered this year but were released previously, but I felt they needed to be highlighted. They don’t all hold personal significance, but all of them are worthy of a best-albums list due to their power and intensity or my sheer delight in the music, along with the talent involved in creating them. So what follows is a list of albums that I just couldn’t stop listening to. Presented in inverse order of course.

Joss Stone – Introducing Joss Stone

Joss Stone has a voice so soulful, so sultry and intoxicating that when you hear it, it is something seriously special. Her first two albums, The Soul Sessions (03) and Mind, Body & Soul (04), were good label-driven albums, filled with radio-friendly dance-pop/soul music, tinged ever so slightly with R&B but, as fun as they were, they were bare of substance. That emotive, powerfully sexual voice always needs more substance; there just wasn’t enough there, there. Now Joss is all grown-up and taking charge of her own music, and the resulting album Introducing Joss Stone is significantly more substantive. This album is a big step away from that homogeneous, committee-chosen, label idea of soul music, and shows the obvious influences of jazz, 70's soul and funk, and modern R&B. Introducing shows a woman who is finding herself, taking control of her life and career, and searching for personal and artistic freedom. Stone still has some way to go in developing a fully fleshed-out sound, but this album is a definite step in the right direction.

Colbie Caillat – Coco

I think in many ways you must be female to understand and truly enjoy Colbie Caillat’s simple melodies and lyrics, written, as they are, from a female perspective. So where some may find her music saccharine, childish and flaccid, I see engaging pureness, teasing silliness and the appealing nature of simplicity. To me Coco is a triumph of delicate beauty and captivating honesty, over pretentious political metaphor or cryptically expressed romanticism — which some will mistake for artistic merit. Caillat has managed to capture the essences of being female and in love. Caillat knows — when some do not — that when a woman of any age is under the influence of that first blush of love she is a mischievous little girl, a giggly, flirty teenager and grown lustful woman all at the same time.

Jem – Finally Woken

This stunning debut album, released in 2004, was met with warm critical response but cool sales, possibly due to under-promotion, or to its genre-defying sound. Jem mixes rock, trip-hop, electronica, hip-hop and R&B successfully to create an album that is beautifully atmospheric from beginning to end. With a name like Jem and her beautiful innocent looks you might be forgiven for thinking this 33 y.o. Welsh songstress is nothing more than the newest pop-sensation wannabe but you couldn’t be further from the truth. Jem has a real music pedigree, and has worked as a DJ agent, record producer (for Madonna to name but one – but when it’s Madonna do you need to name more?), songwriter and now as a solo artist. Jem’s catchy, hypnotic tracks are a mixture of everything good about all music, lyrics that are catchy and fun but more than cotton-candy fluff, beats and rhythms that scream "get up and dance", electronica with rock flourishes that shouldn’t work but somehow do. This album is a gem all the way through.

Bat For Lashes – Fur And Gold

This enigmatic "band" is really the work of English singer-songwriter, visual artist and multi-instrumentalist Natasha Kahn, but don’t let the "visual artist" part put you off. Fur And Gold (released in September 2006) isn’t nearly as inaccessible and over-the-top arty as that would imply. Kahn’s music is part Björk and Kate Bush and part new wave pop. The richly textured sounds run from electronic flurries, to piano tinkling falling like rain, atmospheric elegance washing over you; perfectly crafted, highly stylised, catchy hooks and unforgettable melodies. Kahn’s beautiful vocals are a big part of that style, they have an almost-whispered quality, even when she is belting it out. She has constructed a sound that feels like it was designed to float along with that ethereal voice. Sometimes feeling almost diaphanous, every track on Fur And Gold is perfectly balanced, never overpowering her vocals always adding just the right touches. This is an album that walks that tight rope between cutting edge and accessibility.

Sons Of William – What Hides Inside

Sons Of William make the kind of rock you want to hear when you’re slumming it in a saw-dust-on-the-floor bar in the deep South, sitting, feet-up on a table, drinking bourbon. As you watch, the band slowly enthrals the rancorous audience into awed silence with a rich tapestry of music that is bluesy, funky and incredibly horny. As the tempestuous, luscious vocals passionately caress the bar patrons, you can’t help thinking to yourself that those deep, ardent lyrics are intellectually above this bar’s usual crowd. What Hides Inside has a mix of radio-friendly indie rock and more edgy southern rock, great songs, fantastic musicianship, stirring vocals and plenty of energy and soul. This dirty, raw, mostly bluesy, sometimes funky sound is combined with dark, sensual, smoky vocals, intelligent, passionate lyrics sung in rich harmony by frontman Joe Stark and bassist Jen Janet. All of this combines to make What Hides Inside a triumph of talent, spirit and rock music.

The Ruse – Live at the Viper Room EP

The Ruse have a melodic, soothing, cultivated sound, thick with the influences of big stadium rock bands U2, Coldplay and Snow Patrol. Their music is full of punchy guitar solos and mild baselines but it’s Dauer’s melodic, smooth, mellow vocals that complete this creamy concoction. His vocals are like good Scottish whisky, buttery, rich and hauntingly emotive with a strong Celtic flavour. The Ruse are so good you know one day they will be rock gods. The Ruse: Live at the Viper Room is a five song EP which includes one track from their debut album Invasion, two tracks from their last album, Light in Motion, and two previously unreleased tracks from their new album – they are currently recording and expect it out in early 2008.

Dan Ferrari – Don’t Let It Fall

Dan Ferrari is the saving grace of pop music. His fresh, upbeat, catchy sound, intimate heart-felt lyrics, faultless musicianship and emotive vocals are everything pop music should be. In these days of homogeneous, artistically void pop he is the fresh breeze you have been waiting for. Don’t Let it Fall is resplendent with harmonies and melodies, lustful, deeply personal lyrics, and passionate, engagingly honest vocals. Love songs filled with such fresh pain, longing, and sensual loss that you would be forgiven for thinking it was just yesterday she walked out. Even with his enviable vocal abilities, it’s Ferrari’s compellingly emotional lyrics that will keep you listening. Ferrari’s talent lies in painting a stirring and deeply personal portrait of his life – mostly his love life – that is all at once libidinous and winsome, passionate and friendly. You get a glimpse inside the painful heart of someone coming to terms with love lost and desire through his music.

Cary Brothers – Who You Are

Brothers’ voice exudes a warm sensuality and romanticism that is absolutely necessary when singing music that is so passionately felt and hungrily listened to. He has filled Who You Are, his full-length debut, with luxurious, sensuous, velutinous music; nothing about this album feels sparse, slip-shod or economical. Stunning in its magnitude and scope, Who You Are has quickly won my heart with its richly textured sounds, creamy smooth guitar, gorgeous synth and honeyed vocals.

Dan Wilson – Free Life

This multi-talented frontman of sporadically active pop-band Semisonic (“Closing Time” and “Secret Smile”), and Grammy-winning songwriter (for his part in writing the Dixie Chicks track “Not Ready to Make Nice”) Dan Wilson has released his first solo album Free Life. This beautifully reflective album perfectly conveys feelings of death and rebirth with each song as they start with an edge of melancholy but quickly become more hopeful. His music is streaked with a kind of tender vulnerability and saturated with an air of raw honesty. Wilson’s breathy vocals are filled with a tranquil humility and sentimental sweetness that never feels cheesy or overdone. As you would expect from the veteran of a successful pop band, his philosophical style folk-pop is completely accessible while maintaining an intelligent and erudite manner.

A Fine Frenzy – One Cell in the Sea

She calls herself A Fine Frenzy but was born Alison Sudol and she is easily one of the most talented and promising new-comers of 2007. The debut album One Cell in the Sea is a magnificent alternative singer-songwriter concoction full of haunting melodies, stripped back piano and raw, vulnerable lyrics. This atmospheric album is as much artistry as mainstream music can be. With alt-folk sensibilities, this 23 y.o. has crafted an album that is fresh and nostalgic together. A Fine Frenzy is far from being poppy or conventional but is still captivating and accessible. Her rich hypnotic vocals weave a tapestry of portentous emotions, while lulling the listener into a quiet, melancholic frame of mind. After listening to One Cell in the Sea, you’ll be blinded by her subtle waves-crashing-on-rocks voice, the power of her intense lyrics and finally you’ll be enchanted by her charisma and intelligence. One Cell in the Sea should have gotten so much more attention than it has, and I making it my number-one album of 2007. A title it has earned fully.