Yeah, I think I had Amoeba higher than this but after repeated listening in the interim, Colors is my emotional favorite. The flow of this album is incomparable.

Wilco was #32 for me, and Arcade Fire was #2. I wouldn't be surprised to see those same numbers for them on this list, although Neon Bible is probably more like #6.

EDIT:

Great pop album, only heard it 4 days before deadline but I still had to slide it in at #50.

Also, this list is so good I'm having trouble pulling away from it to play Resident Evil 4.

#72.




Eluvium - Copia

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "The nine-minute finale "Repose in Blue", on the other hand, shows Cooper at his large-canvas best, where the on-the-nose emotional pointers work to his advantage. He discards the line between drama and melodrama as he bursts in halfway though a piece of brooding cello drone laced with horns and throws a recording of fireworks against the black sky. The explosions sound like bass and kettledrums as they burst at random without a discernible pattern, and it nicely completes the John Phillip Sousa Americana hinted at on the record's opener. If "Amreik" was a formal procession in June, this is Independence Day a month later, with bombs bursting in air as the orchestra beneath weaves a lament for the radio simulcast. It is, of course, over the top, but to a degree that strikes me as courageous. Eluvium's music isn't a web of possibilities to be explored, but a very specific path to be followed. When it works as well as it does on "Repose in Blue", it takes you to an exalted place." (7.7)

Ranked Highest By: ryan, moins (#1)

Amazon Link

AF will not be top 3. It shouldn't even be top10.

I think you're wrong on both counts, or at least the second. I really loved that disc.

Fuck!

I should really listen to that Eluvium.

Really. Which makes the bottom third my favorite part of the list.

#71.




Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin

US Chart Position: #35

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: #22 of 2007

Pitchfork Review: "As they move southeasterly, Band of Horses may bear some derision as dad-rock at best, or as granola at worst. And yes, there are moments here that support those stereotypes: The sequencing of two downtempo ballads ("No One's Gonna Love You", "Detlef Schrempf") slows the album's first half almost to a halt. But even if Cease to Begin is a little creaky and uneven and even if it never finds the resting spot the album title promises, Band of Horses do guitar-based indie very well-- well enough, at least, that the next generation of American indie bands may bear comparisons to them. The album closes with "Window Blues", a slow, aching number that fades into a simple "Rainbow Connection" banjo outro that gives the album a snowglobe quality, despite the warmer Carolina climate. These songs depict a personal world in great detail, contained within a small space. Sure, Band of Horses could stand to shake it up a bit, but for now Bridwell seems content just to enjoy the view." (7.7)

Ranked Highest By: ryan, Mahoney (#5)

Amazon Link

man. i'm really starting to worry that random spirit lover isn't even gonna place. what's wrong with this world?

Yes, you should.

Gorgeous, gorgeous album.

Meh, I got kind of tired of that Band of Horses album, it slipped off the top 50 in the last few days of my list-making. Although Detlef Schrempf is still awesome.

I can never pick the top 10 outside of some obvious ones. There's always something in there that really surprises me. My big hope is that Burial makes the 40.

I should probably get around to listening to Copia at some point.

What a great cover this is. I'd have voted for it, had I seen it.

ahh crap. I think you are right, but it makes me sad.

Also, Band of Horses seems to be placed well. It was enjoyable, but not great like the first.

-Poll looking really good so far. Those making predictions about the top 3 are missing Spoon, I think it will rank very high.

-Ritter will (unfortunately) probably not make the top 40.

-I volunteered to clean the spare bedroom where the computer is so I can stay glued to the countdown.

-It sucks to see bad Pitchfork reviews for some of these records. Enough of us here liked them that we should do them more justice.

-I would have had Mark Sultan on if I'd heard it in time.

Diesel all kinds of otm. I voted it number 4 on my list, like it more than Silent Alarm and still listen to it quite regularly almost a year since it's leak.

I don't think AF will make top 3....top 3 is prolly something like Radiohead, LCD, Panda Bear. If i had to guess i'd say somewhere 5-10 for AF.

i'm okay with it being low on the list, but i mean, woke on a whaleheart? it isn't bad by any means, but it's pretty much more of the s(mog)ame.

#70.




Boxcutter - Glyphic

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

BBC Review: "Far removed from London’s dubstep scene, where battle is constantly waged between bassbins and the limits of the eardrum’s tolerance, Northern Ireland’s Boxcutter makes music awash with the atmosphere of electronica as much as the rhythms of dub. This successor to last year’s well received Oneiric sometimes blends more ideas than it can adequately digest (Lunal is a particularly disjointed riot of bleeps and bass), but at its best (J Dub, Windfall) Glyphic successfully melds its myriad influences. One to bounce around the brain rather than a club." (3/5)

Ranked Highest By: Bgwaves (#2)

Amazon Link

You guys are making me want to check out the Bloc Party. I barely even bothered with the new one, since I thought the debut was pretty average.

EDIT: And wow, never expected the Boxcutter to place at all. That's four from my top 10.

You know, I bet the SOMB could have blurbed this entire list, especially given the number of albums on the "lower" end of the list with #1 votes.

Yeah, but with people still who haven't turned in blurbs, it probably would've been a hassle.

#69.




Thurston Moore - Trees Outside The Academy

US Chart Position: #6 Heatseekers

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: #80 of 2007

Pitchfork Review: "Trees Outside the Academy is, in fact, a song-based album-- and they're good songs, too. Rather Ripped had whistle-clean guitar lines and minimal melodies-- the noise had lifted to reveal Sonic Youth still picking out sharp hooks, with songcraft as sparkling as ever. Those pop songs were a good place for them to return to for inspiration-- they gave the band a form (rather than void) to play around with-- and Trees takes up a similar challenge: What can a guy like Thurston Moore do with the bare, noiseless architecture of an acoustic guitar and verse-chorus-verse structures?" (7.9)

Ranked Highest By: Bobthesquid (#2)

Amazon Link

Seriously, Glyphic is just the dogs bollocks. Can't recommend this one enough.

So far 7 of my votes have came up so far. Pretty good going.

Cool that Boxcutter placed. Just missed my final 50.

And Burial will definitely make the top 40. Shit will be real high. Stars of the Lid might sneak in there, as well. AF and Wilco won't make the top five. Panda Bear, Animal Collective, Jens, LCD... all will be in the top ten.

It's more that more people would need to volunteer to write blurbs as everyone that did them for this would end up writing about 3 of them if we went to 100. And we'd come into the problem that manifested itself a little bit with just the top 40 were there were a couple albums that no blurb writers placed that high on their own lists.

MIA and Spoon probably top ten as well, but I can't think of anything else.

of montreal?

just a touch curious, but how does one volunteer to become a blurb writer?

Great job thus far Paul. It’s funny how when I read people’s lists I only really notice the album’s I like, giving me totally unrealistic expectations for the list. Then I see UGK at 98 and reality kicks in…..

but wait, Goodz makes it an at 86 ….I love you somb. Nice to see Om and Boxcutter place too but I amazed that out of 177 lists PduP didn’t get a #1 vote.

I should have volunteered to blurb really. Even though I'm not all that great at writing them, especially compared to the rest of the people on here.

If it was gonna get one it would have come from vurt, who obviously fell in love with something else a little bit more at the end of the year.

edit: ^^re: PduP #1's.

Now that I think about it, I forgot to volunteer. Sorry, Paul.

Yeah, Spoon. Good call.

Battles, too. They'll be somewhere in the top 20.

#68.




White Rainbow - Prism of Eternal Now

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "Prism of the Eternal Now is the fifth White Rainbow release since 2005, and the third this year-- a quickening pace audible in new songs like "Middle", which sound almost metronomic, ticking like a clock yet to be invented. Belying Forkner's tendency to pose for publicity photographs in Grateful Dead t-shirts and loose white yoga outfits and to muse at length about "The Now" are his songs themselves, which are neither baggy nor ungrounded. White Rainbow's debts are to Terry Riley, to whom he dedicates a song, "For Terry", and to Brian Eno, whose Oblique Strategy cards he consults, rather than to, say, Spiritualized. As someone who works at length with loops and other static elements, Forkner's too focused to scramble anybody's mind, including his own." (6.9)

Ranked Highest By: undo, st. park (#4)

Amazon Link

Up until late November it would've been #1 on mine easily...

Fuck yeah, White Rainbow.

Such a great album.

Cannot stress this fact enough.

Makes sense. Would be cool if people volunteered to blurb more, it would be much nicer to know what made some1 rate an album #1 rather than read pitchfork say that the album is similar to a band's last album, but with some changes without giving any reference to what the previous albums were like.

#67.




Jesu - Conqueror

US Chart Position: #24 Heatseekers

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "Take "Weightless & Horizontal", Conqueror's 10-minute centerpiece. Over an impressively gothic, plodding guitar punch Broadrick serenely sings, "Try to lose yourself/ I'm way past trying/ I'm way past caring/ I'm way past hoping." His weary nihilism (a long-term goal of his; he once said in an interview that he wanted "to make something so melancholic that it would become the ultimate wrist-slashing experience, up there with Joy Division and Red House Painters") collides with some very wistful, distinctly unmetal sentiments: "You're always leaving/ You're always hoping/ Wash away your tears." Here, as in many places, Jesu's guitars reach toward melodically searing places while unleashing the same adrenaline rush as their more inhibited hardcore peers.

For those who'll claim Broadrick's gone soft, "Brighteyes" pairs heavy delay and an earnest vocal line with a Sabbath-worthy, cleaving guitar crunch, then segues back to "Mother Earth", which some have already half-ironically noted might find a home somewhere near Depeche Mode or My Bloody Valentine. Over a rounded, triumphantly ascending progression, Broadrick tries three incandescent falsetto-vocal harmonies that cut through his planet-dense production like a lighthouse beacon." (7.8)

Ranked Highest By: st. park (#1)

Amazon Link

By the way, for those of you who care, Bears are KILLING the Pack right now. Really, not even a watchable game.

mm Jesu is a great album

it just dawned on me that vampire weekend might crack the top 20. same for yeasayer. that would be nuts.

I think four or five of my top 40 are on this list so far, the highest being my #5, Blitzen Trapper. I thought that would get a bit more love here, I see Simakos had it as his #1. Between his #1 and my #5, did anyone else rate it as high?

#66.




Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger

US Chart Position: #7

UK Chart Position: #18

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: #53 of 2007

Pitchfork Review: "For a change, let's talk about Adams' voice-- how he shapes phrases and sentences, and occasionally slides them around the edges of the beat during "Goodnight Rose" and the mellow acoustic rocker "Everybody Knows" (with its heartbreaking refrain, "You and I together, but only one of us in love"). A gifted chameleon, Adams' voice transforms from a fragile After the Gold Rush whine on "Off Broadway" and the album's finale, to a huskier, low-register rasp on dull mid-tempo rocker "Two Hearts" and the folky "Oh My God, Whatever, Etc." He goes husky to a fault on the contrived "The Sun Also Sets"-- a stark contrast to his stoic country croon on the down-home "Pearls on a String". Fittingly, the free-wheeling opener and its anachronistic vernacular ("the whole she-bang") take Adams back to the Jerry Garcia tones of Cold Roses, stretched rolling-paper-thin. If what Adams is singing often veers toward vague maxims ("Don't live your life in such a hurry/ Life goes by us all too fast"), at least he's got the delivery down." (6.2)

Ranked Highest By: im straight (#1)

Amazon Link

Glad Montana's not here right now...

Yeah, this game sucked.

I know it's too late, but my top three were Sky Blue Sky, Blind Cave Salamander, and Obligatory Villagers. I'm afraid those last two won't even crack the list at all.

I listened to this once and never did again. I have like six or seven Adams albums though, and loved Cold Roses. I meant to go back to it before making my list, but never did. I should probably give it another chance.

I quite like the Nellie McKay record, but it didn't crack my top 50.

#65.




Pig Destroyer - Phantom Limb

US Chart Position: #13 Heatseekers

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

Acclaimed Music Ranking: n/a

Pitchfork Review: "Pig Destroyer is grindcore, through and through, and on its new album, Phantom Limb, some of the songs are slightly longer ("Loathsome" tops out at 4:04!) but many are well within the minute-and-a-half range. Singer J.R. Hayes still delivers his serial killer-chic lyrics ("Stench of solvent covers stench of rot/ I didn't even recognize her like a painting/ A masterpiece torn to pieces"; "Your rib cage is open like a great white's jaws/ Your legs look so sexy out of context") in an unintelligible, rasping shout that practically sprays you with acidic saliva. The guitars still feel like you're being pushed ear-first into a knife-grinder's stone, and the beats are often still more of a landslide of cymbal and snare than anything you can even bang your head to. The band still deploys shock-horror samples about bodies on fire and whatnot. But Phantom Limb is such a quantum leap even beyond Pig Destroyer's earlier, already pretty fuckin' awesome records that it might as well represent a quantum leap for the whole goddamn genre." (8.6)

Ranked Highest By: James D (#1)

Amazon Link

It's a pretty solid record, but it doesn't hold together like Cold Roses or JCN does. It reminds me a lot of Demolition, which I guess makes sense because the songs on Easy Tiger are taken from a bunch of different sessions.