Two discoscuzz merchants, two hipster country acts, two actual country acts, two loopy geniuses who gave it away free—and 17 more reasons the album still isn’t dead.
OH YEAH... 209 SONGS WE LIKE
Now! That’s What We Call Indie
!!! “Heart of Hearts”
Ryan Adams “Halloweenhead”
Air “Mer du Japon”
Apostle of Hustle “National Anthem of Nowhere”
Arcade Fire “No Cars Go”
Band of Horses “Is There a Ghost”
Andrew Bird “Darkmatter”
Black Kids “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You”
Bloc Party “I Still Remember”
Blonde Redhead “23”
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah “Underwater (You and Me)”
Feist “My Moon My Man”
Handsome Furs “What We Had”
LCD Soundsystem “All My Friends”
The Long Blondes “Giddy Stratospheres”
Los Campesinos! “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives”
The National “Fake Empire”
the New Pornographers “Myriad Harbour”
Okkervil River “Plus Ones”
Johnathan Rice “We’re All Stuck Out in the Desert”
Rilo Kiley “Silver Lining”
The Rosebuds “Get Up Get Out”
The Shins “Phantom Limb”
Silversun Pickups “Lazy Eye”
Spoon “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”
The Teenagers “Homecoming”
Vampire Weekend “Cape Cod Kwassa”
Wilco “Impossible Germany”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Down Boy”
Yeasayer “2080”
In Da Club
50 Cent “I Get Money”
Chris Brown feat. T-Pain “Kiss Kiss”
DJ Khaled “We Takin’ Over”
Down AKA Kilo “Lean Like a Cholo”
Eve “Tambourine”
Gym Class Heroes “Clothes Off!!”
Calvin Harris “Acceptable in the 80s”
Hot Dollar “Streetz On Lock”
Jay-Z “Roc Boys (And the Winner Is ...)”
Tracy Jordan “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah”
Justice “D.A.N.C.E”
Kia $hine “So Krispy”
Maroon 5 “Makes Me Wonder”
M.I.A. “Boyz”
Kevin Michael “We All Want the Same Thing”
Ne-Yo “Because of You”
Rich Boy “Throw Some D’s”
Nicole Scherzinger “Supervillain”
Soulja Boy tell’em “Crank That (Soulja Boy)”
T-Pain “Bartender”
Timbaland feat. Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado “Give It to Me”
Kanye West “Good Life”
Will.i.am “I Got It From My Mama”
Young Buck “Get Buck”
Young Jeezy feat R. Kelly “Go Getta”
Hip-Hop for Hipsters
Chromeo “Momma’s Boy”
The Cool Kids “’88”
Dizzee Rascal “Sirens”
Dude ’N Nem “Watch My Feet”
Santogold “Creator”
Uffie “Pop the Glock”
Kanye West “Stronger”
Wu-Tang Clan “Watch Your Mouth”
Yo Majesty “Club Action”
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25) RihannaGood Girl Gone Bad Def Jam
Teen beauty queen from Barbados lounges under her “Umbrella” In which an anonymous dance-floor understudy transforms into a scenery-chewing ham and takes center stage: Good-bye, Caribbean novelty act; hello, riveting drama queen! On her third album, Rihanna hurls china at boyfriends one minute (“Breakin’ Dishes”) and tears off their pants the next (“Shut Up and Drive”), with time left over to skim from their savings accounts (“Lemme Get That”). Throbbing, full-gloss techno beats, courtesy of Stargate, J.R. Rotem and Timbaland, help ramp up the soap-opera hysterics. And we haven’t even mentioned 2007’s nine most exciting syllables. All together, now:
ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh.
24) Bright Eyes Cassadaga Saddle Creek
Boy wonder finds maturity in horns and the paranormalNamed after a spiritual retreat in Florida, with flighty phrases (“Mighty Saturn enters your eighth house”) hidden throughout the album art, Conor Oberst’s seventh LP had all the makings of a new-age blunder. But the onetime emo wunderkind (now 27) undercuts his concert-hall-ready arrangements with tangible tales that trade youthful angst for a more lived-in loneliness. The betrayed wives, biblical whores and unjustly overlooked session musicians who populate Oberst’s songs ache but rarely wallow. This shameless wuss with Dylan-sized ambitions continues to expose himself with dignity.
23) Lily AllenAlight, Still Capitol
Hip-hop renegade in party dress seeks real man, cute sneakersShe drinks too much, writes diss songs about her ex-boyfriend’s miniature pecker and puts pictures of flowers on her MySpace blog. Twenty-two-year-old British pop terror Lily Allen combines the mercenary zeal of a ruthless gangsta rapper and the impetuosity of that “crazy girl” on the junior-high school bus who could always think up nastier snaps than any of the guys. On her debut, she openheartedly talks trash over reggae, New Orleans and Swinging London beats in a delicate, summery voice that makes the tough stuff seem tender, even kind of comic. It’s the rare 2007 rap record that doubles as excellent toenail-painting music.
22) Band of HorsesCease to Begin Sub Pop
Spaced cowboysIt’s hard not to love a band that randomly titles a bewildered breakup song “Detlef Schrempf,” after the German-born NBA all-star who retired in 2001. That kind of cognitive screwiness permeates the eerie, luminous second record from this Southern trio, a series of reflections on global warming, sleeping alone and the scary beauty of everyday life, triggered by a drive from Seattle to South Carolina. The Horses’ mossy porch jams and ramblin’ jam-odysseys, drenched in reverb and paranoid-stoner moodiness but still weirdly homespun, have the lived-in comfort of a thrift-store couch you can’t bring yourself to throw out.
21) Okkervil RiverThe Stage Names Jagjaguwar
Depressive record geeks of the world, unite!Next time you need a ringer for Trivia Night, try Will Sheff. The leader of this Austin, Texas, indie-rock outfit is an unreconstructed smartypants: naming his band after a Russian short story, borrowing the tune from “Sloop John B” to eulogize confessionalist poet John Berryman, singing self-consciously clever muso jokes about “100 luftballoons” and 97 tears (“Plus Ones”). But while Sheff’s nimble wordplay doubles and triples back on itself, his urgent songs charge straight ahead as he yelps about losers so hard-luck they can’t even do suicide right. Bruised and beautiful, these are portraits of failure as something to aspire to.