best music of 07

what does this guy even do

I wasn’t gonna do one of these this year. I haven’t been watching release dates as closely, and I haven’t done as much cross-genre listening as usual. Consequently, I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve missed. That being said, you know I can never resist making a good list. I can also never resist blogging about my favorite music. Here’s the Best of 07.

Best Albums of the Year
In no particular order:

Graduation – Kanye West
Dude stepped up his game and made an elegiac record that sounds like nostalgia for the future. (can’t believe I just bit from Simon Reynolds, sorry everybody)

Sound of Silver – LCD Soundsystem
James Murphy got tired of making dancefloor anthems and decided to write some songs. The result is danceable as fuck, but also moving and affecting.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga – Spoon
With each new record Spoon is getting tauter and tighter. They’re getting better too, and this is their best yet.

American Gangster – Jay-Z
After the mess that was Kingdom Come I thought the King was dead. Surprise surprise: on the new record, Easter eggs abound, the beats manage to be more soulful than The Blueprint somehow, and he even raps double-time on the title track! Long Live the King.

In Rainbows – Radiohead
blah blah blah blah blah LOL THE INTERNET. This is a good album.

Untrue – Burial
The real surprise here is that this actually manages to be better than the mysterious Londoner’s debut.

Kala – M.I.A.
This is the dark side to the sunburst glow of Arular. If Arular was perfect for parties, this is perfect for driving at night with the windows down. And parties.

M.A.D.E. – Scarface
Not his best album (not even his best this decade), but the OG is still going strong and is just as incredible as ever.

The Big Doe Rehab – Ghostface Killah
Dude is on a roll. First Fishscale, then More Fish, and now a third incredible record in a row. This is the best of the three: vivid storytelling, thick absurdism, and beats that knock serious.

Mirrored – Battles
When the robots take over, this will be their favorite album. Battles are so ahead of the curve it’s not even funny.

Best “Underground” Hip-Hop Albums

Below The Heavens – Blu and Exile
The debut from this talented team is what I wanted the new Common album to sound like. It’s not hard to imagine this album getting called “classic” in a few years.

Popular Demand – Black Milk
A worthy successor to J Dilla’s title of King of Detroit.

The Undisputed Truth – Brother Ali
An above-average lyricist, some beats that really knock, and delivery that makes dude sound like your older cousin giving you advice. Like early Ice Cube without the misogyny or anti-Korean sentiment. Or the Bomb Squad.

I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead – El-P
Like Trent Reznor stole the Bomb Squad’s playbook, then stuck a microphone in front of some pissed off slam poet. Dude is pretensious as fuck and wears his “I AM MORE UNDERGROUND THAN YOU” patch on his sleeve , but this is his best record.

Best Mixtape


Da Drought 3 – Lil Wayne
Dude put the zeitgeist in a blender and came up with the weirdest, funniest, most half-baked project of the year. He’ll probably never get his act together and record the classic album everybody wants out of him, and there are already plenty of signs of diminishing returns, but we’ll always have this overblown monster to remind us of what could have been.

Video of the Year
tie
“International Players Anthem” – UGK f/Outkast

“Sensual Seduction” – Snoop Dogg

Song of the Year
“What a Job” – Devin the Dude f/Andre 3000 & Snoop Dogg

Pour Out A Little Liquor
Pimp C
Ike Turner
Alice Coltrane
Billy Henderson
Oscar Peterson
Victims at Virginia Tech
Victims in the Minneapolis Bridge collapse
Soldiers & victims in conflicts around the world
And anyone you lost this year: rest in peace.

insight in the midst of noise

This has been a very, very busy couple of weeks for me. Here’s a quick rundown:

-The girlfriend and I finally took the plunge and got a place together. We’re all moved in, and now begins the long and difficult process of unpacking. Soon there will be a little shindig to break the place in, and surely I’ll have pictures of that here.

-I haven’t been making time for my practice. I need to correct that. I’ve been lax in keeping up with the Zendo as well.

-Finals are fast approaching. *gulp*

-Holy crap it’s a crowded fourth quarter. Wu-Tang, Ghostface, Saigon (?), and a lot more than I can name off the dome.

-I’m graduating in 6 months. In less than a year, I might be in front of a classroom full of teenagers who expect me to teach them something about literature. Holy crap.

And yet despite all the worries about the future and stresses in the present, I saw something that Jordan said in the Treeleaf Forum that sliced through all the muck and hit me hard:

There is no right or wrong, correct view, or incorrect view. There is only this Buddha sitting in front of you on the bus or beside you at work.

Wonderfully phrased, yes?

method man speaks on nas’ album title

 “Nas knows what he’s doing. He’s a smart brother. He keeps his name in the game,” said Method Man. “Last year, when he put out ‘Hip Hop Is Dead’, I was being interviewed, everybody was asking me what I thought about his album. … I think it’s too much emphasis on just the word. I know a word worse than ‘nigger’: Darfur. Real talk. I’d like to see Reverend Al take a walk out there. Let’s stop focusing on the wrong shit.”

nas retitles album “nigger”

made you look

This is gonna be interesting. You might have heard about Nas’ forthcoming record, tentatively titled Nigga. The dude has changed his mind and decided to go all the way with it: the new title is Nigger, and it’s set to drop December 11.

Nas scoffed at suggestions that Def Jam is hesitating at the album title and threatening not to release it. “I don’t know where that report came from, and neither does Def Jam,” he said.

The discussion has already started. The foolish are acting foolish. The wise are acting wise.

Fox News called Jesse Jackson and asked for a statement on the album title, and the Reverend promptly condemned it. Nas responded:

“Whether you in the NAACP or you Jesse Jackson, I respect all of them, I just want them to know: Never fall victim to Fox. Never fall victim to the sh– they do. What they do is try to hurry up and get you on the phone and try to get you to talk about something you might not know about yet.

“If Cornell West was making an album called Nigger, they would know he’s got something intellectual to say,” Nas continued. “To think I’m gonna say something that’s not intellectual is calling me a nigger, and to be called a nigger by Jesse Jackson and the NAACP is counterproductive, counter-revolutionary.”

I’m excited to see where this conversation is going to go.

via MTV
props to Nah Right & Boo Goo Doo Boom

trouble in shaolin

It seems it’s not all so simple down in the Shaolin these days. Infighting within the Wu-Tang Clan has reared its ugly head once again, with Ghostface accusing the RZA of not paying him for his contributions and suggesting Wu management of conspired to shelve his new album. He’s also upset that after announcing December 4th as the release date for his solo record The Big Dough Rehab, the new Wu record 8 Diagrams was moved to the same date.

“The Big Dough Rehab is my album. 8 Diagrams is their album. But it ain’t go nothing to do with the regular members. ‘Cause I love Raekwon, Masta Killa, U-God, Genius, all them. But it’s on right now. A few of them…. n—as better pay my f—-ing money. Matter of fact, they can keep the money– just get me out of their life right now.”

It sucks hearing about fighting within a favorite group.

In related news, RZA won the first annual Chess Kings Invitational Tournament. Here’s hoping he can put that same strategic mind to use in dealing with these fractures.

meanwhile, on the internets…

Here’s what’s happening:

-Tom Friedman is clueless and old. That’s the only conclusion I can come to after reading his recent piece on “Generation Q,” in which he spouts the boring boomer refrain that “these kids today just aren’t politically active like we were in the 60s.” Threat Level rightfully tears him a new one.

-Hit & Run is a little skeptical at junk science that suggests old people love spicy food. I wonder how Tom Friedman feels about curry?

-DJ Spooky writes about his contributions to the One Laptop Per Child project: breakbeats & remix software.

-Ornicus shows us the real face of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

–Greenpeace says we should eat kangaroo instead of beef?!

mychal bell released!

Dude is out on bail, the unjust adult conviction has been overturned, and he will be properly tried as a juvenile.

This is the way it should have been done to begin with.

This is good.

new jay-z track, “blue magic”

“Blue Magic” — Jay-Z, from the forthcoming American Gangster

via eskay

15 minutes after the drop, people. God I love the internet.

new jay-z album confirmed

Apparently Jay saw the forthcoming Ridley Scott-helmed Denzel flick American Gangster and got inspired. Over the last several weeks he’s written 8 tracks: “It immediately clicked with me, ” he said.

The movie, set for a Nov. 2 release, depicts the Lucas character as an underworld Horatio Alger and an innovator who, despite keeping a low public profile, rose to such power that he was able to defy the Mafia bosses who had traditionally dominated the New York drug trade before being brought down by a special narcotics task force. (Its leader is played by Russell Crowe.) Jay-Z said he thought his fans would be struck by the image of a black man reaching such heights of success, even on the wrong side of the law, much like such ruthlessly efficient Al Pacino antiheroes as Tony Montana and Michael Corleone.

His decision to record “American Gangster” is a surprise, given that his last album was released less than a year ago. “Kingdom Come” sold about 1.5 million copies, his lowest figure for a full studio album since 1997. And its elaborate marketing campaign, including alliances with Budweiser and ESPN, prompted some suggestions that Jay-Z’s branching-out into other business endeavors, and taste for the jet-setting life, had begun to undermine his street credibility.

He made no apologies for his transformation into a global brand. “Jay doesn’t live in Brooklyn any more,” he said. Rather, he ventured that “Kingdom Come” was a little too “sophisticated” for some listeners. “American Gangster,” he said, would be a return to a tougher, more unflinching view of street life.

Click here for the full NY Times article.

Funkmaster Flex, XXL, and eskay are in full synergy mode and will be playing the first track tomorrow afternoon.

Here’s hoping for a better album than Kingdom Come.

meanwhile, on the internets…

Asthmatic Kitty, Sufjan Stevens’ record label, owes a lot of its twee aesthetic to K Records. To celebrate K’s 25th birthday, Asthmatic Kitty is giving a little something back: a bunch of covers. Check out their AK Radio Player to hear AK artists cover a bunch of great K songs.

Prince is apparently suing everyone ever, or at least anyone who’s anyone in the music piracy game.

Everyone that lives in the Gaza Strip is now an enemy combatant.
Nice interview with Jay over at Entertainment Weekly. Dude discusses Graduation, the “I Get Money” remix (have you heard it yet?), and Kanye’s work ethic.

50, in his sad attempt to defer admitting defeat, says Def Jam is falsifying Ye’s numbers. “They could be scanning one record four times,” he says.

Oh, and Kenny Chesney lost.