“New” music 2007
John H Saturday 12th January, AD 2008
Well, it’s taken a few days to get round to it, but here – courtesy of Last.fm, obsessive audioscrobbling by yours truly, and, um, MS Excel – is a handy chart summarising the new (to me) music I listened to most over 2007:
As you can see, it was a pretty close-fought race, but Rufus Wainwright just edged ahead to number one. Rather than commenting on every artist on the list, here are some selected highlights, presented in a “Golden Globes press conference” style…
Most effortlessly-talented: Rufus Wainwright. Many of the other artists on this list are making great music, but you get the impression they are as good as they can be. With Rufus, you get the impression he is barely breaking a sweat. If you want to try him out, I’d recommend listening to the first two tracks off Want One: “Oh What a World” (whose incorporation of Ravel’s Bolero perfectly illustrates the “effortless talent” point) and “I Don’t Know What It Is”. If you’re not hooked by that point, you never will be.
Best voice: Neko Case. No contest. Just check out a song like “Deep Red Bells” or the New Stenographers’ “Challengers”. Sadly, eMusic have lost the UK rights to most of Neko Case’s albums since I downloaded them in August, but her latest, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is still available, and very good it is too (though not quite up there with Blacklisted).
Most interesting lyrics: Jens Lekman. Everybody’s favourite deadpan Swedish troubadour writes lovely pop songs about things you’ve never heard songs about before: slicing off your finger while chopping avocado (“You Put Your Arms Around Me”), pretending to be a lesbian friend’s boyfriend at her conservative parents’ house (“A Postcard to Nina”, a wonderful comedy of embarrassment which ends with a nod towards Leonard Cohen), working at a bingo hall in rural Sweden (“Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo”), that sort of thing.
Most-necessary editing of a name: The New Stenographers. Well, that’s what they’re called in my household (to avoid “daddy, what’s a…”-type questions, thanks all the same). I enjoy listening to them, but have a couple of gripes. First, they criminally underuse Neko Case (“You happy to take backing vocals again, Neko? We’ll keep you well down in the mix”). Second, they only have three songs: a fast song, a slow song, and Challengers. The fast song and the slow song are both very good, but there’s a limit to how often I need to hear them. Challengers is different: there is no limit to how often I want to hear that, but then it’s really a Neko Case song (good video, too).
Best last-minute storming of the chart: Eels, whose album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations I downloaded from here on something like the 28th of December. Their lead singer, Mark Oliver Everett (or “E”), is the son of Hugh “Many-Worlds Interpretation” Everett (who was maybe a halfway decent father in a parallel universe, but not, alas, in this one). E probably also wins the “most appealing human being” award, too, not least on evidence of the BBC documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives (well worth watching if you get the chance. I couldn’t possibly comment on whether it is available from any torrents or anything. That would be stealing depreciation of the BBC’s chose in action, and friends don’t do that. 
).
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Thinking of music, I did get those rather lovely inner-Scots Presbyterian psalm mp3s eventually. And am now discovering that the words to almost all of them are scattered liberally across the Internet, as well as the music, which is making a fun collecting exercise. I may manage to get the lot and post them as a handy cheat sheet, especially given that I really couldn’t decipher the words to some of the psalms. “Thus looking to him is a whole blessed race” in Psalm 24, apparently. Can’t hear a word of it meself.
What Amie Mann album did you listen too? I only have bachelor number 2, which i really like, but I was wondering if you liked something else I might give it a shot, too. There are a lot of overlaps in our music lists.
Very impressive CanCon, and that’s without federal regulations forcing 33.3% through your radio tuner, even!
Oh, and about the MS Excel thing… well, since that’s sort of embarrassing here’s this to inspire you towards something bigger and and greater for 2008.
Good list! So, aside from Challengers, have you given any of the other Stenographers records a go? I first became a fan when they released Twin Cinemas, which I think I enjoy more than Challengers on the whole, but I haven’t dipped into their earlier releases.
What are your thoughts on Rich Mullins? I’ve been listening to him for such a long time–it’s nice to see him show up on your list.
And if you haven’t yet, you should give Over the Rhine a try. They’re also on eMusic (at least in the US).
I am a huge fan of the NPs and am presently getting into Neko Case’s work (I am listening to Fox Confessor as I write). I have listened to Twin Cinema more than any other album over the last two years or so, with the possible exception of Sufjan Steven’s Illinoise. The Arcade Fire make complete my trio of top three artists on Last.fm.
Devona: the only Aimee Mann albums I have at the moment are Bachelor No 2 and her Christmas album, One More Drifter in the Snow (best track = “Calling on Mary”; avoid the Grinch one). I may try The Forgotten Arm at some point, though it looks a bit depressing, or to find her debut album on CD. I first came across her when I saw Magnolia: it was, “Who is this singing, and why haven’t I heard her before, and why am I still watching this (albeit excellent) film when I could be downloading this music?”
JRH: I almost made more of a “thing” of the Canadian link: Rufus is half-Canadian, Neko Case made her name in Canada, Jens Lekman is signed to the Secretly Canadian label, Arcade Fire and the Stenographers are both Canadian, that sort of thing. Have I missed anyone?
As for the choice of graphing software: I tried various other Last.fm visualisations, but none of them quite captured the “Rufus et le désert musical” flavour of the year. So I had to do my own, and I was at work at the time, so…
Rob: as well as Challengers, I’ve got Twin Cinema and Electric Version. I perhaps overstated the negatives in my summary: I do really like the NPs’ stuff, but the songs do tend to blur together a bit. It may partly be that the first NP album I heard was Challengers: a lot of NP fans seemed to dislike this as being somewhat different from their previous albums, and I may have had the opposite problem.
Rich Mullins was also in the running for “most appealing human being”, especially after Brant Hansen’s write-up earlier this year. The only album I have of his is “A liturgy, a legacy and a ragamuffin band”. If there are any others you’d recommend then I’d love to know – some of his stuff comes across as a bit “overproduced 80s CCM” for my taste, but perhaps that’s just the appalling cover art……
Re: Secretly Canadian
What an intriguing phrase. Is that just a nonsensical phrase ( yes I did read your comments to JRH) or does it mean something in the UK that wouldn’t translate in the US? It would adequately describe several people I know here in Minnesota (including my own dear dad), only they aren’t very secret about it.
No secret code: that’s the name of the record label. They’re based in Indiana, it seems.
Yep. I’m most familiar with SC for being the label that the inimitable Danielson Famile releases their material on.
The Arcade Fire? Yes, you drank the Kool-Aid, just like I did.
We love a lot of those same bands here at Wyclif.net. You should get the Juno soundtrack. That cover by Cat Power of “Sea of Love” (on autoharp!) is special.
I don’t know any of this music. I *may* have heard some of them (movie soundtracks?), but I wouldn’t know. I suppose the rock I live under is more comfy than most. Say, is there an equivalent LibraryThing tool for one’s music collection? Not sure how long the vinyl will last…
John:
Regarding Rich Mullins: Yes, he is renowned for horrendous cover art. The production on his recordings is showing a little age, but underneath many of his songs are real gems. If you enjoyed Liturgy, you’ll probably also enjoy some of the songs on the two World As I Best Remember It discs (and cringe at others).
In many ways, Mullins was a victim of modern evangelicalism and miserable developments in church worship music. Sometimes by Step, in its original form, was a fantastic song, but its tough to hear it today and not wince. But there are times when his music still stirs me, as much today as the first time I heard it.
[...] In my recent “new music in 2007″ post, I mentioned the fascinating documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, in which Mark Oliver Everett (lead singer of Eels) sets out to find out more about his late father, Hugh Everett III, and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which Everett Sr first proposed. [...]
[...] my previous posts in this series (covering 2006 and 2007, respectively), I only reported on the “new” (to me) artists I’d come across [...]