Get What's For Dinner? if you don't have it already.

My favourite of all that lot is Tie Your Noose which is practically perfect in every way. It's a little rock'n'roll miracle.

Both of those are awesome.

The self-titled KK/BBQ album was just reissued. Get that one, too.

Fantastic music.

Absolutely that one. It's the best.

"Love You So" is such a fantastic song.

I just put "Love You So" on a mix. Great song. I've had "Fish Fight" in my head ever since they played it afew weeks ago at the Note.

Oh yeah, and I still haven't heard "Tie Yr Noose." I probably should investigate that.

#84.




Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City

US Chart Position: #12

UK Chart Position: #2

Charting Singles: "The Prayer" (#4 UK), "I Still Remember" (#20 UK, #24 Modern Rock), "Hunting For Witches" (#22)

Acclaimed Music Ranking: #41 of 2007

Pitchfork Review: "And so when A Weekend in the City comes bursting out at you with a gaggle of second-album upgrades-- new tricks, new scope, new arrangements-- the bulk of them sound like good ideas: They've been executed by hard-working professionals. The opener has singer Kele Okerere trying on a sly, potentially embarrassing falsetto, but within a minute the band's starting to kick up dust, on its way to a chorus hook that's loose, energetic, and honestly thrilling: It's the kind of craftsmanship that would sound good coming from nearly anyone. "Hunting for Witches" fakes you out with a sample collage at the top, then takes on xenophobia in a dutiful re-take on the band's first hit, "Banquet". And then there's "Waiting for the 7:18", the best summary yet of the band's personality: unfashionably starry-eyed at the start, then running its way up to huge hooks and guitar heroism that feel a lot more fierce and weighty than you'd think. Through it all, they're upping the technical ante, too-- Matt Tong drumming tricksy rhythms alongside computer programs, Russell Lissack stepping out from between synthesizer choirs with a string of squalling guitar leads. It's darker, broader, and more desperate than their debut, and through its first half-- when they're front-loading the hooks and energy-- it's difficult to imagine what they might have done better." (7.5)

Ranked Highest By: Diesel (#2)

Amazon Link

The album still has a ridiculous opening 4-track sequence. There's actually a ton of great songs on it. I'm not sure why it's not a great album at this point.*



*Oh yeah, really really really high expectations.

oh yeah, this band

#83.




Bill Callahan - Woke On A Whaleheart

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "Woke on a Whaleheart is a deceptively easy listen-- steady, lulling, and vehemently organic-- but consequently, it can begin to feel invisible. Sound fades into sound, until silence is noise. Still, it's hardly facile: Violinist Elizabeth Warren and guitarist Pete Denton make sparks, and various other players dip in and out, offering Wurlitzer, found sounds, Farfisa, lap steel, glockenspiel, and Hammond organ. Callahan may have ditched the instrumental, uber lo-fi methodology of his earliest days, but Woke on a Whaleheart is still a fully realized event, if not necessarily a game-changing one." (6.9)

Ranked Highest By: _jon, postoptranny (#1)

Amazon Link

What the fuck doesn't have a number one vote at this point?

Not a fan of Bloc Party's new one, wasn't really feeling it. But good to see Blighty reperesenting nonetheless.

Diesel in indie rock shockah!

#82.




Queens Of The Stone Age - Era Vulgaris

US Chart Position: #14

UK Chart Position: #7

Charting Singles: "Sick, Sick, Sick" (#23 Modern Rock), "3's & 7's" (#25 Modern Rock, #19 UK)

Acclaimed Music Ranking: #63 of 2007

Pitchfork Review: "The most enjoyable moments on Era Vulgaris come when the band treads off the beaten path. One of the album's standout tracks, "Make It Wit Chu", is a straight-forward blues-rock number plucked from the last Desert Sessions disc. And the album's gentler digressions, like the guitar-weeping "Into the Hollow" and the mournful "Suture Up Your Future", reveal Homme has a surprisingly palatable softer side. "Turning on the Screw" and "I'm Designer" aren't exactly groundbreaking departures from the QOTSA's usual fare, but Homme's lyrical bent adds an interesting wrinkle. No one's going to confuse him with Bob Dylan any time this century, but you could put much worse in your mouth than lines like, "My generation's for sale/ Beats a steady job/ How much have you got?" or, "You can't lose it if you never had it/ Disappear man, do some magic." It's at points like these when Era Vulgaris truly comes to life. Unfortunately for listeners, those moments are few and far between, leaving fans to trudge back to older Queens records for the fix they crave." (6.2)

Ranked Highest By: aestheticized (#4)

Amazon Link

i have been listening to this a lot lately. yeah, it's pretty underappreciated. good stuff, even though it is rather front-loaded.

#81.




Om - Pilgrimage

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "While rhythm sections tend to play as if periods were the only punctuation mark, Om break space with commas, semicolons, and side clauses-- their storytelling prowess and dramatic timing rival a glacier's or a narcoleptic's. But again, that's not the point. Om is a pointless band, and that's high praise. If Pilgrimage holds a discernable achievement, it's that it forges a sense of intricacy-- and a balance between the crushing and the meditative-- that Om struggled with on Variations on a Theme and 2006's Conference of the Birds. Most of "Bhima's Theme" is bread and butter for head-nodders, but "Pilgrimage" (which opens and closes the record), is shiftier and less stable, accentuated by a bassline that seems to tack extra bars to a phrase if it feels good, not for the sake of metrics. It's not metal and it's not even drone; it's like a heavy folk dance." (7.4)

Ranked Highest By: emgee (#1)

Amazon Link

Good to see bloc party on the list an album that desrves to be in the 100 but not very high

Both of those discs from Bloc Party and QOTSA are pretty rad, especially the Bloc Party. Nice to see them getting some love on the list.

Rare is the indie rock record I love. My top requirement for indie rock is that it not SOUND like "indie rock." To me, BP is far more anthemic/ambitious/huge sounding/arena-ready than most bands championed around here. They're more an indie band by circumstance than choice or aesthetic, I feel. Even more shocking is that it even placed...I was sure it would be the victim of backlash and a too-early release date. But I'd be lying if I said that wasn't still high on my personal playlist throughout the whole year...ESPECIALLY the first four songs, which are so ridiculously awesome. Honestly, I like it more than Silent Alarm, which is a bit overlong/drags a bit toward the end (but I still love.)

#80.




Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "If much of Dandelion Gum sounds like something recorded at home on the cheap, "Rollerdisco", which forms an impressive 1-2 punch after "Sun Lips", demonstrates that Black Moth gets the most out of their modest set-up. Like much of their past work, it comes over like a spry, airy, and tremendously evocative instrumental Boards of Canada interlude, from back when the Scottish duo still did that sort of thing. And the acoustic guitar loop in "Jump Into My Mouth and Breathe the Stardust" has the old-tape-found-under-a-tree-stump vibe that gave BoC's The Campfire Headphase an appealing sense of water-damaged psychedelia. Early Beck is even invoked on "Melt Me", which sounds an awful lot like what "Devil's Haircut" would have been had Carl Stephenson helped lay it down for Mellow Gold. Still, despite the occasionally folky melodic sensibility, Black Moth's aesthetic is always spacey-- they're more likely to be scoring a laser show at a planetarium than busking on a street corner." (7.8)

Ranked Highest By: Stoked American (#4)

Amazon Link

he's missing the point


they're a unique band.

This is a record I have not heard but have been meaning to.

edit: By that, I meant the Black Moth record.

#79.




Pantha du Prince - This Bliss

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "Even when Weber is indulging in crystalline and romantic visions of nature, the music remains a stage without actors: The sighing strings, furtive rustles and mournful horns of "Saturn Strobe" could be the sound of an abandoned forest patiently crafting its own elegy, utterly detached and yet quietly sorrowful as it awaits its own demise. Only in the anthemic final act of "Walden 2" is any light let in, with a succession of spectacular synth arpeggios that sound almost hopeful; but the moment passes quickly into a sense of remorse, as if hope is only defined by its own precariousness-- hope itself becomes too much to hope for in a narrative defined by decay. This overwhelming sense of loss, of something slipping away, becomes almost claustrophobic as the album continues, and exacerbates its context-dependence: In the wrong setting its pathos can become intolerable and its fragility ignorable. Choose your moments, however, and the quiet rebuke of this music makes for a magically humbling experience." (7.7)

Ranked Highest By: vurt (#2)

Amazon Link

Something tells me that the Art Brut disc will not get this same lovin'

a little higher please? (this bliss)

Perhaps. It was in my top 50.

#78.




Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "As exhilarating as Fourteen Autumns is at its most anthemic, the vividness of the lyrical themes ultimately carries the record over. If one were to consider only the widescreen sound while scanning the titles, you might think the Twilight Sad were overwrought and sappy, another example of a band overly concerned with childhood, too young to know how good they really had it. But that's not the way these songs come across at all. The Twilight Sad approach the darker side of growing up with consideration and dignity, and manage to maintain a proper perspective. "As my bones grew, they did hurt/ They hurt really bad," an angst-filled songwriter from another generation once sang; the Twilight Sad do a tremendous job of remembering that ache." (8.6)

Ranked Highest By: Sickpup (#1)

Amazon Link

Black Moth Super Rainbow should have been higher. I wish I had listened to it before making my list...

#77.




Neurosis - Give To The Rising

US Chart Position: #31 Heatseekers

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "All the past doomsday bells-and-whistles are still prevalent, all the progressive guitar mayhem and Steve Von Till's classic Tom Waits-meets-Michael Gira vocals. But unlike their last couple albums-- most notably 2004's introspective and mostly-delicate and majestic The Eye of Every Storm-- the noodley bits are tethered as if in direct response to all the quiet-loud-brood-quiet-loud brooding copycats. And songs like the two previously mentioned openers, as well as the Jesu-like "Hidden Faces" and the Mastodon-like chug-fest "Water is Not Enough", seem to be cribbing notes from the cribbers (as well as the non-copying competition) and then in turn streamlining the turns the cribbers previously cribbed. Such as the way that soundsculptor/keyboardist Noah Landis masterfully blends the dark ambient textures, not just for spooky intros and outros, but for dynamic passages of their own. Or the way that the songs-- most averaging around seven and a half minutes-- keep morphing from thunderous cacophony to desolate soul-searching melodic phrases, but with a mad scientist exactitude regarding all of the subtle, beautiful, and terrifying spaces in between." (8.6)

Ranked Highest By: Burzum (#1)

Amazon Link

This Bliss is actually higher than I expected; thought it might not place at all. #79 is pretty respectable, really.

Reading these pitchfork reviews is just making me angry. What a bunch of douchehats. It'll be great when we get to blurbzzz

A bunch of awesome albums are appearing on this list.

#76.




PJ Harvey - White Chalk

US Chart Position: #65

UK Chart Position: #11

Charting Singles: "When Under Ether" (#101 UK)

Acclaimed Music Ranking: #8 of 2007

Pitchfork Review: "Despite the presence of regular collaborators John Parish, Captain Beefheart alum Eric Drew Feldman, and producer Flood, White Chalk sounds as lonely and isolated as any album Harvey has made. There is a rich history of depressing British folk that Harvey taps into here, but without a hint of catharsis, much of White Chalk's miserablism just hangs in the air like a noose. On the right day, at the right time, the album's powerfully claustrophobic intimacy is more palatable; on the wrong day, at the wrong time, in the wrong frame of mind, White Chalk may be the longest half-hour in the world." (6.8)

Ranked Highest By: Duff. (#3)

Amazon Link

How big is the UK singles list? Seeing PJ at #101 made me wonder...

Neurosis has been one of the great musical discoveries of the year for me. The new one, and especially Through Silver in Blood have been kicking my ass.

Metal's exceptional year really is being represented well in this list. Quite surprising, considering there were 170-odd voters.

Roger that...I have no clear idea at all what that Twilight Sad record sounds like based on that pfork blurb.

#75.




The Fiery Furnaces - Window City

US Chart Position: #16 Heatseekers

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "And they get back some of that old, rambling energy-- but is that even what you want anymore? Widow City offers the biggest peek yet into how well these two could operate-- and how fascinating and idiosycratic they'd still sound-- if they followed their sounds through, creating breathing, full-bodied human beings with stories to tell, as opposed to lurching, half-animate, ADHD Frankensteins that speak in ransom-note cut-ups. It's a strange thing to criticize, but the goodness of that stuff is actually beginning to make their old fun tricks seem like something to outgrow-- and suggests their compromises between arch pop and dutiful rambling are far from the most interesting places they could wind up." (7.4)

Ranked Highest By: Gbro (#1)

Amazon Link

That PJ disc got a much more mixed reaction from the SOMB than I expected... I really liked it (top 30 for me).

Widow City is a good deal lower then I expected....thought I saw it pretty high up on a bunch of lists.

Hasn't there? Been a really good poll so far. Something tells me it won't necessarily be able to keep up the pace though.

#74.




Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "It's better for all of us they've refused to focus. While I'm loathe to make a Pavement reference (lo-fi recordings! Slackers with guitars!!1!), Wild Mountain Nation comes closer to catching the carefree fuck-off sprawl of Wowee Zowee than any record in recent memory. Here the band sail through any number of genres and styles without giving off a whiff of effort, their apparent West coast breeziness covering for the judicious amount of detail crammed into nearly every song. Opener "Devil's a Go-Go" undermines its windmilling guitars with stuttering, unpredictable rhythm; those same hiccups slide inauspiciously into the unrepentant country/southern-rock of the title track. Singer Eric Earley double-tracks himself with as much personality as his reedy voice can muster, but there's a ringer somewhere in the Blitzen Trapper's pack of guitarists-- some Guitar Center regional manager bending notes with optimal precision, lifting these songs to more authentic peaks. Elsewhere, the prim and proper indie pop of "Futures & Folly" collides with the snarling glam rave-up of "Miss Spiritual Tramp" (which features a brief harmonica and, swear to god, a jaw-harp hoedown). The canny snake-charmer guitar line of "Sci-Fi Kid" fits easily on any satellite radio playlist, yet here it's next to the gleefully raucous carnival stomp of "Woof & Warp of the Quiet Giant's Hem". All of them demand equal attention on a dizzyingly sequenced album." (8.5)

Ranked Highest By: simakos (#1)

Amazon Link

I respect the fact she went in a completely different direction on this disc, but there are two good songs on it for me. (The Devil & The Mountain).

i'm praying wilco gets shut out of the top 25

I'm pleased to see a lot of stuff I haven't heard on the list, but at the same time I know this means a bunch of my favorites didn't make it.

word.

alsp, another stronger and more god loving prayer that arcade fire do too.

Tough call, but I'd say probably. It got high votes on some lifts, but was completely left out of others. I'm guessing somewhere between 50-35.

Yeah, quite a shock for me. I voted for it. Very good album. I think Rob (lolcatrevolution) said at one point that the 6-7 track run at the start is exceptional. He's right, even though my personal favourite song is Navy Nurse.

Fiery Furnaces are one of those bands I just don't 'get', outside of a handful of tracks.

#73.




The Clientele - God Save The Clientele

US Chart Position: #19 Heatseekers

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "Listening to God Save the Clientele I keep thinking of how, through their first two albums, various EPs, and the godlike singles collection Suburban Light, the Clientele seemed defined by a certain kind of thoughtful stasis. They were the band that to casual observers sounded the same from track to track, employing a handful of production tricks and a slightly larger handful of lyrical themes to articulate a rich and complex world informed by magical realism, memory, and the ache of nostalgia. For good or ill, this uniformity seems to be slipping away. God Save the Clientele sounds like the work of the same band, but it shows them in a new, brighter light, broadened in both sound and outlook. In terms of sonics and tunes, these changes are welcome and logical, expanding upon the sound with which they made their name without sacrificing intimacy or risking coming across overcooked." (8.3)

Ranked Highest By: Rob Gordon (#1)

Amazon Link

Yeah, FF are pretty eclectic. I think the whole spoken vocals thing is a bit of a barrier for quite a lot of people.