The 25 Best Albums of 2007

OH YEAH... 209 SONGS WE LIKE Pickup Artists Betty Davis “If I’m in Luck I Might Get Picked Up” Flight of the Conchords “Business Time” J. Holiday “Bed” R. Kelly feat. T.I. and T-Pain “I’m a Flirt” Kings of Leon “On Call” Klaxons “No Diggity” Pretty Ricky “On the Hotline” Andy Samberg feat. Adam Levine “Iran So Far” Drugs, Drugs and Rock & Roll Babyshambles “Delivery” The Ike Reilly Assassination “Valentine’s Day in Juarez” Jarvis Cocker “Tonite” Jay-Z “Blue Magic” Joe Nichols “Let’s Get Drunk and Fight” Panda Bear “Take Pills” Leann Rimes “Nothin’ Better to Do” Blake Shelton “The More I Drink” Britney Spears “Gimme More” Amy Winehouse “Rehab” Yung Joc “Coffee Shop” Dangerously In Love Akon “Don’t Matter” Natasha Bedingfield “I Wanna Have Your Babies” The Bird and The Bee “Fucking Boyfriend” Candice “Break Up Song” Brandi Carlile “The Story” Hilary Duff “Stranger” Fabolous feat. Ne-Yo “Make Me Better” Feist “1234” Fergie “Clumsy” Hugh Grant & Haley Bennett “Way Back Into Love” R. Kelly “Real Talk” Alicia Keys “No One” Sean Kingston “Beautiful Girls” Katharine McPhee “Love Story” Kylie Minogue “2 Hearts” Kate Nash “Foundations” Paolo Nutini  “Jenny Don’t Be Hasty” Gwen Stefani feat. Akon “The Sweet Escape” St. Vincent “Marry Me” T-Pain “Calm the Screw Down” Robin Thicke “Lost Without U” Ashley Tisdale “Be Good to Me” UGK feat. OutKast “International Players Anthem” Loudon Wainwright III “You Can’t Fail Me Now” Elliott Yamin “Wait for You” Department of “WTF?” Tay Zonday “Chocolate Rain”

10) Rilo Kiley
Under the Blacklight Warner Bros.
Burn, Hollywood, burn!
This L.A.-by-way-of-Omaha band’s indie-rock and mega-hot singer Jenny Lewis won underground ardor while making a bunch of records on small labels. But the appeal of being drooled on by bloggers wears thin. So now they’ve gone their own way with an album of classically sleek, apocalyptic ’70s L.A. coke-rock, in the fine Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan tradition. Former child actress Lewis tears down the money-sex-drugs world of the star-making machinery from the inside, while searing guitars call down doom over Laurel Canyon. A “sellout” record that does its dirty deal without a shred of guilt.

9) Miranda Lambert
Crazy Ex-Gilfiend Columbia Nashville
The wildest chick on CMT is also the sharpest songwriter. Fear her
The country album of the year is this sophomore release from the Texan daughter of a husband-and-wife team of private investigators. Her secret weapon: weapons! “Gunpowder & Lead,” about blowing away an abusive boyfriend, out-psychos even Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” But she’s not just crazy, she’s crazy-gifted too, writing clever songs about small-town life from the perspective of the wronged woman, the woman who does wrong, even the woman who can’t find any man to do at all. Somewhere between Loretta Lynn and Beyoncé, she’s the most original star in country since Dixie Chicks.

8) Amy Winehouse
Back to Black Universal Republic
In the Year of Celebrity Detox, this Brit just refused to quit
They tried to make her go to rehab, and she said no, no, no. But it wasn’t because she would miss the drugs; it was because she’d miss her Ray Charles records. Amy Winehouse is a lot of things—tattooed self-mutilator, indiscriminate addict, prize paparazzi quarry, scary-skinny mascara fiend—but most of all she’s a fan, and this brassy soul party is her testament. Over note-perfect homages to ’40s jazz and ’60s Motown, Winehouse rips her heart out singing about loving, drinking and loving drinking. And if she can’t match the grace of her hero Billie Holiday, well, Billie Holiday never did a song with Ghostface Killah.

7) The Dream
LoveHate Def Jam
The way to this loverman’s heart is definitely through his stomach
Plenty of R&B macks have serenaded strippers; Terius “the Dream” Nash is the first to serenade stripping waitresses. A portly Atlanta dude with a supple, exquisitely wimpy voice, his “Shawty Is Da Shit” is an airy ode to those service-industry hotties who serve up killer “pancakes with the bacon on the side.” If that sounds like a left-field double entendre R. Kelly and Prince could get behind, that’s because the Dream is a devoted student of both: His debut is a sublimely skanky gallery of hormonal yarns, love triangles (hexagons?), androgynous falsetto and skittering digital beats. In 2007, freaks ruled the R&B roost, and the Dream was the freakiest of them all.

6) Radiohead
In Rainbows Inrainbows.com
Gorgeous lullabies so cheap you don’t need to bother stealing them
Radiohead’s plan to circumvent the evil music industry by letting fans choose how much to pay for this new album? Brilliant! And, in an added bonus, the music is nice, too—breathtakingly beautiful, even. Tempering their future-frazzled grind with fragile, reassuring melodies and pillowy strings, the band coats Thom Yorke’s heartsick croon in space-age cotton. What sounds like needy romantic ballads are, in fact, just that. Even when he is singing about creepy stuff like ’70s key parties and suicide, Yorke seems eager to connect. Apparently, destroying the music biz can put a guy in a giving mood.