2008 Favorites: Books

I returned to reading again in 2008 for various reasons beginning with a need for books for my travels through Europe when I read Next, unfortunately the last Creichton book I will ever read as the author who blurred nonfiction and fiction to create an altogether unique experience passed away.

I also started reading comic books, or graphic novels, for the first time in my life. My closest friends joined me, as we shared novels we had bought and I soon started gobbling up all the library could offer in this regard as well. I quickly graduated from "comic" graphic novels featuring superheroes to graphic novels that depicted stories without heroes.

Then again the last couple of months of 2008 my voracious appetite for reading returned in force. Perhaps it was because I felt isolated living at home away from my friends, but either way, I started reading a lot. So much so that I even started reading the books my students were reading - from Brave New World to Twilight. The Twilight books were so interesting on so many levels - on one I found the books online, for free, and also because I too became quickly addicted to Stephanie Meyer's stories. Looking back I realized the deep flaws in Meyer's characters and concepts but still had to respect her ability to rope in teenage girls with ease.

That being said this list will seem quite eclectic as it jumps all over the place, featuring graphic novels, historical fiction, and "classic literature".

5. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
I had a lot of fun reading Marjane Satrapi's books. I read this book in a day and devoured Persepolis II (Persepolis: The Story of a Return) the next. The story is so much fun, full of a resounding humor that pierces the seriousness of Satrapi's look at history, religion, and family. The drawings complement the story just as well, sticking with you for quite some time. For me, it took me a while to get the story - and the images - out of my head. And to me, that is the mark of a great book.

4. World Without End by Ken Follett
Pillars of the Earth is my favorite book of all time. The story roped me in being as I was, susceptible to historical fiction, an intriguing story, and relishing the concept of becoming lost in a world that spanned over 1000 pages. So it is no surprise that Follett's sequel to my favorite book would be something that interested me. I loved the book - and really do need to give it another read - but it was a tad disappointing - following Follett's Pillars of the Earth formula way way too closely. Characters were slight variations of Pillars characters, plotlines developed along identical lines...you get the point. But still very good.

3. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
The hype surrounding this book from my friends, as well as the movie promotion, made me skeptical of the quality and power my friends would not stop talking about. But then I read Moore's book and it knocked my socks off - I read the book in a handful of days, unable to put it down. This examination of superheroes and of people in general is particularly striking, making Watchmen so much more than a comic book or even a graphic novel. Each character seemed to be so vivid, so different, so much more than the average novel character. I considered putting Loeb and Sale's The Long Halloween in this superhero/graphic novel slot but the Watchmen were too much for Batman to handle.

2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
I needed a book to read for my month in Europe so I went to the used book store and bought a couple and I took some of my favorites that I wanted to read again. It wasn't until I got to Italy (three weeks later) that I finally cracked The Road and read it in a day or two. It was another book that simply mesmerized me, as All the Pretty Horses had the year before. I could not put it down as I frantically turned page after page, dieing to know what happened to our two protagonists walking the desolated world that remained. The book, like many of McCarthy's other novels seemed to be a perfect blueprint for a movie and I soon found out that a movie was already in the works, with Viggo Mortensen to star. Viggo is the perfect choice and I look forward to seeing the movie of the book that blew me away.

1. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
I set out to read the classics I never read in school, and so I read a good deal of Steinbeck novels. This one rose above the rest to become my favorite book of the year. There is something about simplicity that is so appealing, so difficult to vanquish. Here the story of two men, their friendship and their struggles seemed so powerful. I don't really know what else to say besides to urge you to read this book if you have not already, for it will stay with you forever.

2008 Favorites Introduction

Last year I thought I was so clever with my rant on why these lists should be called favorites instead of best ofs. This year, everywhere I look it seems like every blog and their brother are spouting similar thoughts on “favorites” over “best ofs.” Basically I’m saying I’m a genius who was way ahead of the curve.

2008 was a weird year for me. It began weird and ended in a way I never would have believed. Here on pulpeverything there were just 16 posts in all of 2008 – less than the entire month of July 2007. Hell, I couldn’t even get it together to post ANY of these lists until early January, but it is what it is.

I got caught up in the burst of my other blog, SaltyStix, which became more and more of the webzine I wanted it to be – only to die abruptly towards the end of 2008. I left my apartment and my independence to return home while I was a student teacher. Beyond consuming loads of my time this also reduced my daily music consumption from four albums or so a day to less than half and my daily movie consumption from about one a day to about one a week. While media consumption decreased I found my appetite for reading return, allowing me to post my favorite reads of 2008!

Again, for all of the lists I will post – books, songs, albums, movies, and dvds – I use a sliding scale where each is relatively better than the one before – to me of course, since this is all about opinion.

Favorites? Best ofs?

I love lists. I mean, "Top 10" is one of the major phrases of my vocabulary. And now that I read a lot more blogs, end of year time pushes that into overdrive as there are retrospective lists as we all fall all over ourselves to outdo the next person. Sometimes these best of lists boggle me. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead? Really? That goes on there? Ratatouille? BEST of? I think that it just begs the question of opinion.

As all my favorite movie blogs posted their “best of 2007” lists I tried to write mine. Then something dawned on me. I didn’t remember 2007! No, my realization was more along the lines of, what makes a movie the best? I mean, when it comes to entertainment, nothing is objective, you like what you like. If I said Knocked Up was the best, my friend Katherine (Heigl – we go way back) would probably call me a chauvinist while if I said No Country for Old Men over There Will Be Blood some might say I chose blood…over oil? Maybe there isn’t a good joke to be made there. But what I’m trying to say is that favorites are the way to go because it (barely) escapes the pretension of “best of” lists.

2007 Favorites: Movies

So I have two lists: the favorites I saw on DVD (Nitflix+HBO=Godsend) and the favorites I saw in theatres. All in all, since we started the blog in May, corresponding to when I started keeping track of all the movies I saw, I have seen 175 movies. I know, I know, I should go out more. Blah blah blah.

So, if you want, you can peruse the list of movies below. Forgive me for not hyperlinking all of these badboys. There are a HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE of them, so cut me some slack. Another preempt, living alone (mostly) all summer (like, literally, middle of nowhere with your friends six hours away) makes you watch lots of things you wouldn’t watch, like ANYTHING that’s on TV. Hence, the cornerstone of my defense as to why I watched so many romantic comedies – hey, they were on HBO (or the airplane…). They are rated mostly contextually (confusing, I know) – The Protector was leaps and bounds better than Ong Bak, just as I thought Shooter was way better than The Bourne Ultimatum, Hidden Fortress was the most entertaining (first viewing) Kurosawa movie I saw, and so on. Also, keep in mind I’m trying to keep it short and sweet how I feel about the movies – a lot of them have full reviews here at PulpEverything or at SaltyStix and I would have hyperlinked them but my internet is too sluggish. If you’re really curious why I liked Superbad better than Knocked Up, sack up and read my whole review.

Pride and Prejudice (2005) 10, Love Actually 10, Knocked Up 10, Ghost World 10, Amelie 10, Bad Education 10, Juno 10, 12 Angry Men 10, He Got Game 9.5, Sideways 9.5, Imagine Me & You 9.5, Sweet Mud 9, Cold Mountain 9, Million Dollar Baby 9, Serenity 9, North Country 9, Pan's Labyrinth 9, Me, You, And Everyone We Know 9, The Dreamers 9, The Fountain 9, Freedom Writers 9, Human Nature 9, Superbad 9, The Incredibles 9, Dark City 9, 3:10 to Yuma 9, Gone Baby Gone 9, No Country for Old Men 9, Attonement 9 Hollywoodland 8.5, Brick 8.5, Bend it Like Beckham 8.5, Chasing Amy 8.5, Tristan + Isolde 8.5, Elephant 8.5, Shooter 8.5, Hard Boiled 8.5, Badlands 8.5, All About My Mother 8.5, Newspapers and Flowers 8, Little Heroes 8, Jarhead 8, Y tu Mama Tambien 8, Poseidon 8, In Her Shoes 8, Live Free or Die Hard 8, Great Expectations 8, Sicko 8, A Very Long Engagement 8, A Better Tomorrow 8, A Better Tomorrow 3 8, Constantine 8, Red Dragon 8, About Schmidt 8, Hot Fuzz 8, Papillon 8, Thumbsucker 8, Shoot em' Up 8, Mississippi Burning 8, Amarcord 8, La Dolce Vita 8, The Protector 8, Hable Con Ella 8, American Gangster 8, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 8, Hidden Fortress 8, Ransom 7.5, Point of No Return 7.5, Catch a Fire 7.5, The Tao of Steve 7.5, The Age of Innocence 7.5, The Mark of Zorro (1974) 7.5, The Flower of My Secret 7.5, I Am Legend 7.5, Charlie Wilson's War 7.5, Paper Dolls 7, Spiderman 3 7, La femme nikita 7, Dream Girls 7, Napoleon Dynamite 7, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 7, The Painted Veil 7, The Constant Gardener 7, Clerks 7, The Bourne Ultimatum 7, Run Lola Run 7, The Mark of Zorro (1940) 7, Swept Away 7, O 7, Breach 7, Akahige/Red Beard 7, La Strada 7, Black Robe 7, Bad Habits 7, I'm Reed Fish 7, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets 7, Young and Innocent 7, The Killing 7, The Great Debaters 7, Casanova 7, Days of Thunder 6.5, Highlander 6.5, The Last King of Scotland 6.5, Hitch 6.5, Kinsey 6.5, sex, lies, and videotape 6.5, Once a Thief 6.5, The Golden Compass 6.5, Janem Janem 6, John Tucker Must Die 6, Ocean's 13 6, Music and Lyrics 6, Stranger than Fiction 6, Monsters, Inc 6, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry 6, The Simpsons Movie 6, Practical Magic 6, Before the Devil Know's You're Dead 6, Rashomon 6, Cellular 5.5, Natural Born Killers 5.5, The Conversation 5.5, Because I Said So 5.5, Eragon 5.5, Clueless 5, The Holiday 5, Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End 5, Bloodrayne 5, Suspect Zero 5, The Pacifier 5, Cecil B. Demented 5, Last Kiss 5, Ghost Rider 5, The Ron Clark Story 5, Teaching Robert Lee 5, Detroit Rock City 5, Raising Arizona 5, Just Friends 5, The Rocky Horror Picture 5, Good Luck Chuck 5, Letters from Iwo Jima 5, Hitman 5, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles 5, The Family Stone 4.5, She's the Man 4.5, For the Love of the Game 4.5, For Love or Money 4, 16 Blocks 4, A Scanner Darkly 4, Bad Girls 4, Sunshine 4, Rumor Has It 4, A Better Tomorrow 2 4, Rising Sun 4, Message in a Bottle 4, Mean Streets 4, The Brother's Grimm 4, The Boys Next Door 4, Heart of Darkness 4, The Perfect Score 4, Luther 4, The Producers 3.5, Robots 3, The Goonies 3, The Chinese Connection 3, Ratatouille 3, My Super Ex-Girlfriend 3, Princess of Thieves 3, Lady Jane 3, The Ultimate Gift 3, American Dreamz 2.5, Bandidas 2, Sexy Beast 2, Evan Almighty 0, Be My Baby 0


Top 10 Favorite Movies (I saw at home) in 2007

10. The Protector
This was a movie that was a pleasant surprise because after Ong Bak, I expected the worst, and instead, got ridiculous original fight scenes and a much better plot.

9. Amelie
This movie was simply too beautiful to not make the list. No, not in that flowery romantic way, but the colors and cinematography…and Audrey Tatou…

8. He Got Game
Probably the grittiest movie on this list, so intense it almost hurts, another movie that is great cinematically as well as for it’s story.

7. Imagine Me & You
Piper Perabo and a pre-300 Lena Heady are great in this movie; it’s a different kind of romantic comedy that keeps you guessing until the end. Beat out Tristan + Isolde on ingenuity alone.

6. The Dreamers
What year goes by without a sexual awakening? This movies do a damn fine job of exploring sexual taboos and edges out Y tu Mama Tambien by having a great ending (or maybe just better than Tambien).

5. Pride and Prejudice
Keira vs Keira! P+P narrowly beats out Love Actually here because I thought P+P was literally a flawless movie, not just a perfect romantic comedy.

4. Ghost World
Thora Birch is simply amazing in a story that should have seemed slow but never was. I liked Thumbsucker here too, a similar movie that took the road more traveled.

3. Serenity
Serenity got a big push because it was another huge surprise: I had seen the previews, and posters, and the movie looked like a cheap imitation. But it brought some serious game, causing me to scramble for the only season of Firefly (I failed). Dark City was close here too.

2. Me, You, And Everyone We Know
Just as Amelie scored points for beauty, this scored points for total originality – not sure I experienced a movie that was so un-Hollywood yet so good.

1. Brick
This movie’s unique take on film noir (a la high school) was extremely powerful, as was Josephy Gordon-Levitt’s performance, which made it an easy choice for my #1 favorite.

Top 6 Films (I saw in theaters) in 2007

6. Knocked Up
This movie heralded the return of the R-rated comedy, launched the careers of Apatow, Heigl, Rogen, and showed comedies can have (serious) plots too.

5. Superbad
The follow up to Knocked Up just did a lot more for me because it was just seemed truer – more real – maybe I can relate to a high school story because I’ve been down that road but not a pregnancy because, I haven’t been down that road.

4. Gone Baby Gone
This movie was a pleasant surprise (I thought both Afflecks would disappoint) but instead turned out to be a more entertaining and suspenseful version of Mystic River (I use “version” very loosely here).

3. No Country for Old Men
This movie is usually in the top two of most of these lists but the weak ending and the convoluted “message” that comes out pushes this movie back behind some stiff competition.

2. Atonement
I expected something drastically different, and like I said in my review, the first hour of this movie was close to the best I have ever seen. Why is it #2? I said the first hour was perfect, but the second half was about average.

1. Juno
This movie was my favorite by far and the only movie of 2007 that I saw twice in theatres. The story, the music, the characters, the…everything…just sort of clicked for me, like I assume it did for a lot of other people.

The movie had a lot of hype – the threequels toward the middle of year and a few other movies that were big disappointments, but the year ended strong, hopefully 2008 will be even better!

2007 Favorites: Events

Here’s a brief look at 12 events that intrigued me. Some you will remember, others you won’t, but at the very least, hopefully it will be education.

January 4: Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female speaker of the House of Representatives.
Talks a pretty big game but doesn’t really end up doing anything, and a few days later Bush announces a troop surge in Iraq. Other Democratic goals like the Minimum Wage Bill and SCHIP (Children’s Health Care) can’t survive vetoes and the Dems continue to fail to change course on Iraq. I thought Pelosi would be good, but she didn’t really do anything and proved herself to be just another politician.

February 4: The Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI
A great season by the Bears who were exciting to watch, and managed to overcome some serious injuries to put up a pretty good game against the heavily favored Colts, steered by a great season by Rex Grossman. The loss was disappointing, but not nearly as disappointing as the Bears’ follow up season in the later half of 2007.

March 8: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admits Israel had planned an attack on Lebanon in the event of kidnapped soldiers on the border, months before Hezbollah carried out its kidnapping.
Probably no one really knows what this story is about, but it references the Israeli-Lebanon war during the closing months of 2006, an embarrassing debacle for Israel. Olmert’s admission confirmed that many thought that the US and Israel had been looking for a way to strike Hezbollah. I guess it interests me because it’s closely tied to this year’s debate topic…

April 12: Don Imus is fired by CBS for making controversial comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.
Seems like we average about one of these a year now since the Limbaugh-McNabb fiasco a few years ago. It boggles my mind that people say this stuff, ON THE RADIO! What were they thinking? Even if you do harbor those thoughts, why would you broadcast that? Anyways, the story damn near KILLED my interest in EVER watching ESPN, as they just would not let it go.

May 6/May 10: Nicholas Sarkozy is elected as President of the French Republic and Tony Blair announces he will resign as British Prime Minister.
The political dynamics of Europe take a strange turn when the pro-Bush PM Blair leaves office in disgrace while the pro-Bush President Sarkozy takes office with great flair. While Blair’s successor looks to push Britain farther away from the U.S., Sarkozy looks to strengthen US-French ties. Blair seemed kinda cool, Sarkozy seems kinda weird, although his girlfriend is totally hot.

June 29: Apple’s iPhone is released in the United States.
Steve Jobs’ company is great at churning out hip new toys, and the iPhone is no different. It started with a great ad campaign during the Super Bowl (or maybe it was the Oscars) with typical Apple-Cool fashion and a catchy song by Eberg. The touch screen interface and vertical and horizontal sensor feature, people couldn’t get enough of it, snatching up this $500 toy like there was no tomorrow. My interest in this skyrocketed when one of my roommates got one, sparking jealous desire.

July 7: Live Earth concerts are held in nine cities throughout the world.
Featuring a great, diverse collection of musicians, nine near simultaneous/consecutive concerts happen to raise awareness about climate change. The 22 hour live (web)broadcast set a record with 15 million internet streams. I planned on watching it, but never got around to it.

August 7: Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s home run record with his 756th home run.
To many this was inevitable, while I was one of the few people who hoped and prayed Bonds would suffer a career ending injury. Instead, he pulled it off, albeit he did have to wade through all the steroid talk and the humbling hilarity of his record-setting ball being branded with an asterisk before being given to Cooperstown. I never liked Barry Bonds because he seems to have serious attitude problems while also coming off as the type of guy who wouldn’t hesitate about cheating.

September 26: Emperor Akihito swears in Yasuo Fukuda as Prime Minister of Japan.
Another even that probably went unnoticed by everyone. But it ended the reign of Koizumi, another extremely pro-Bush PM who was one of my first favorites. Well, in the sense that I did a lot of debate-related research regarding him over the last few years. But most Americans will probably never remember him, considering they’d heard of him before.

October 28: The Boston Red Sox win the 2007 World Series, completing a four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies.
The Red Sox getting a second World Series so soon made me jealous that the Cubs continued to go without one of their own in the last century or so, losing this year to the Arizona Diamond backs in three straight games. I guess there’s always next year.

November 27: The Annapolis Conference is held in Annapolis, Maryland, to try to restart the Middle East Peace Process.
I thought it was hard to tell whether Bush was actually trying to do this, or just trying to mend his image and attempt to get something done on which he could hang his legacy. The conference including many nations with tenuous relations with the United States, which is an accomplishment in itself, but it achieved almost nothing. Again, this interested me because of this year’s debate resolution.

December 27: Former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto is assassinated, with at least 20 others in a bomb blast at an election rally in Rawalpindi.
This tragic event capped a momentous December. What makes this all the more shocking is how an event on October 18 is overlooked when Bhutto returns after 8 years in exile to barely escape a suicide attack that killed 136. This time, she did not escape. The incident pushed Pakistan even closer to the breaking point than it was with all of Musharaaf’s States of Emergencies. Hopefully 2008 will bring peace to Pakistan.

For more 2007 events, click here.

2007 Favorites: Songs

While a bunch of these songs are just my picks from my favorite albums installment below, there are a few songs from albums that didn't quite get the cut or were too "old." Basically, this is what I like to think of as the soundtrack of my 2007, but it's really just some slim pickings. So this is my 2007 playlist - the songs aren't "ranked" - it's pretty hard to do that considering they are all so different!

I posted links to the music videos because I lack the ability to post streaming clips. But there are some pretty cool music videos and live clips. Baby's Gonna Die Tonight gets pretty interesting in the end, Men's Needs is pretty funny, and Music is My Hot Hot sex is pretty cool throughout.

"Baby's Gonna Die Tonight" by Adam Green
This is a recent discovery but I love it! The song is addictive, and the cool stuff he does with the drawings at the end is cool.


"Men's Needs" by The Cribs
This was the first video I watched of them - and I was read the top comment on the youtube board and it talked about some naked girl. So I was ready for the girl that danced/stumbled across the screen while the band was playing, but the black boxes covering her were a surprise - and pretty clever.

"Girls Who Play Guitars" by Maximo Park
This is just the song with some random-ass pictures. Sorry. But the song is pretty good.

"Chillout Tent" by The Hold Steady
One of my favorite songs of late. I think I'm a sucker for pop duets with a female voice and a male voice.

"Who's Gonna Sing" by The Prototypes
The dude in the video is pretty funny. And the vibrant colors are pretty crazy.

"Music is My Hot Hot Sex" by Cansei De Ser Sexy
It took some wikipedia reading for me to realize that all the girls were not the same, but the 5/6 girls in the group! The bass line is ridiculous, and the part that goes beyond the iPod commercial is awesome.


"Jerk it Out (Ahlund)" by The Caesars
I know I know, three iPod commercial-songs in a row, but I do have this whole album. The energy of this song has a certain air of fun that the other songs on this list don't.

"Liquefy" by The Servant
I'm probably the only one in the world who loves this guy's voice - but it sounds kinda like how I would sing if I had those skillz. Perhaps that's not a ringing endorsement.

"Your Honor" by Regina Spektor
I LOVE the drastic contrast between the hard/soft screaming/sweet singing. And I'll admit I like the soft part better - that chorus is amazing. Live recording from Bonnaroo was the best I could do.

"Loose Lips" by Kimya Dawson
Not surprising that Kimya doesn't make music videos, but this is a live recording. I love this song for so many reasons - the chorus is great, the fast talking intro is awesome, and the lyrics throughout are only rivaled by "Underground."

"Famous" by The Magnetic Fields
This song is such a great beginning to such a good album.

"In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel
I love the strumming beginning and when he first begins to sing...so good.

"Our Swords" by Band of Horses
I couldn't get enough of this song for the longest time, playing it over and over.

"Take Me to The Riot" by Stars
Deeply emotional, I've already waxed poetic about this song on my 2007 albums send-up, just enjoy the song.

"Pick Up the Phone" by The Notwist
I loved this song mostly because of the video's funny rabbits. But it's also kinda awesomely-haunting.


"2nd Period: Shoot Down the Stars" by Gym Class Heroes
My favorite video of theirs is probably for Cupid's Chokehold, but this is my favorite song of theirs for the tempo and the delivery.

"Don't Forget 'Em" by Consequence
Probably the most boring video on this list, but I played it back to back to back to back so often and put the page in the background. It just has a great hook.

"Everything I Am" by Kanye West
Again this song was discussed in detail in the 2007 albums send-up, but it's another addicting song that is great.


Other 2007 Favorites:
2007 Favorites: Albums

2007 Favorites: Albums

So I’m stuck at the airport and I finally had the motivation (and time) to finish off this article that it seems like I started ages ago. So I guess, out of the bad, comes some good, much like everything else. Also, for some of the song stuff I attached the link to the youtube video for their music video because I don't know how to stream songs. I know, no point in having a music blog without that vital skill, but I'm trying here people. And besides, some of what drew me to these bands are these music videos I'm linking up here.

One of my friends who have their own music blog asked me what my favorite group was. After answering “The Red Hot Chili Peppers” I was informed that my music sucked and I had to start listening to “good” music. What followed was the beginning of a humongous amount of new music that I listened to regularly in the last six months. I also started using youtube more as my own private radio station – something I strongly suggest. Unable to get a hold of most of these albums, I bought a bunch of them on Amazon, used, for a few dollars, and Amazon, being the trusty sales-person they are, recommended some more music. Checked those out on youtube, and bought some more.

I started listening to a few instrumental acts (Explosions in the Sky and Ratatat) after I discovered explosions on NBC’s Friday Night Lights. I also started listening to a bunch of lo-fi/indie-pop/anti-folk acts (Stars, Neutral Milk Hotel, Regina Spektor, Kimya Dawson) suggested by my friend. When Kanye’s new CD, Graduation was about to come out, I bought a bunch of CD’s from “harder” rappers (Nas, Jaylib, Madlib, Madvillain, Danger Doom, MF Doom) and checked out Gym Class Heroes after I saw them on the MTV Video Music Awards. My last discovery came when I was tinkering around on youtube and stumbled into foreign (mostly European) pop music (The Cribs, The Servant, The Prototypes, CSS, Maximo Park).

So that was a pretty big span of four drastically different genres. And bear with me here, since I didn’t do this last year, and my friend did, there were a bunch of great 2006 albums, so this year I included 2006 albums in my top ten, while notably including some of my favorite older albums I started listening to this year: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998) by Neutral Milk Hotel; Soviet Kitsch (2004) by Regina Spektor; Holiday (1994) & Get Lost (1995) by The Magnetic Fields; Neon Golden (2002) by The Nowtist. Also, since I didn’t really have time to do album reviews this year, this article is really my only chance to blog about them, and so if the entries get a little long for you, I apologize.

First, the close but no cigar discs: Prototypes (2006) by the Prototypes which had a lot of energy and flair, but not quite the, how do you say, English lyrics to realty compete here. I mean, I loved two of your French singles, but asking me to find a spot in my heart for those French “filler” songs that I can’t understand, is a lot. Our Earthly Pleasures (2007) by Maximo Park was an album that I liked, that I thought was similar to The Cribs’ Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever, but I was wrong. While it has (maybe) a better single in “Girl’s Who Play Guitars,” it just doesn’t have the consistency or the quality of Men’s Needs. Boys and Girls in America (2007) by The Hold Steady was the closest, and the hardest one I had to cut. It might be better than some of the albums on this list, and I listened to it about ten times in the last week or so, but I couldn’t take one of the albums below, off that list. Although I have to say that “Chillout Tent” is probably one of my favorite songs of the year. Now, Here are my ten favorites:

10. Don't Quit Your Day Job! (2007) – Consequence
Favorite Song: Don’t Forget ‘Em
Favorite Lyric: “Man I promise, when I get old enough/I'ma buy you a limo, and we gon' go to Red Lobster"
I foolishly missed Consequence despite loving Kanye’s The College Dropout, where Consequence guest starred on two tracks. However, my dad sent me an article from the Cinci Enquirer about him early in the year when he heard I had started listening to some rap music. I tried to get a listen on iTunes, but those samples don’t tell you much, and I soon quit. When I started using youtube again, I remembered and I checked him out. The first music video I watched, “Don’t Forget ‘Em” was boring and not very flashy, but the song was downright addictive. Of all the songs I have watched on youtube, I struggle to think of a song I listened to more. It didn’t take me that long to get my act together and buy the album on Amazon for $2. ‘Quence uses a few pretty funny skits (which is saying a lot because I normally get annoyed by most rappers’ skits) to tie together a strongly thematic album about the desire to make it big, and also the fears of making it too big. The singles on this album are very strong: Don’t Forget ‘Em, Callin’ Me, Grammy Family, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. The filler around them is just okay, and for a while I thought the album wasn’t going to make it. But it sneaked in, right here at #10.

9. How to Destroy a Relationship (2007) – The Servant
Favorite Song: Hey Lou Reed
Favorite Lyric: “I don't want to be no one/I dream my dreams/Suck in my screams/I don't want to be no one”
These boys should not to be confused with the Christian rock band of the 70’s. I stumbled onto these boys when I was bored in my room one day and it suddenly came to me that I wanted to listen to that crazy song from the Sin City preview. I finally found them and on the iTunes comments page, someone had posted their website where they have their entire discography posted for you to listen to in streaming. This was AWESOME – I got to listen to both of their full-length albums and their half-length albums and really got into them. They were really the first Euro-pop group I started listening to before I started looking for more. How to Destroy a Relationship is a pretty good album, but it isn’t nearly as good as their self titled, The Servant (2004). That was the album I really fell in love with at first – it had more and stronger singles, and the filler didn’t seem like filler. But that album was too old for this list, and I started listening to How to Destroy a Relationship more. It’s still pretty damn good, and the single, Hey Lou Reed along with a bunch of the other songs have more humor than the group’s more serious debut. And I think that humor pays off and makes some of the non-singles sound better and more fun to listen to.

8. Cansei De Ser Sexy (2006) – Cansei De Ser Sexy
Favorite Song: Music is My Hot Hot Sex
Favorite Lyric: “Why is that we stand so still?/People gonna start thinking we're statues”
I will be the first to admit that I found these girls (and one guy) when I went looking for, “that song from the iTunes iPod touch ad”. And I found them, in a big way, and after some wikipedia reading, I found a bunch of their songs and music videos on youtube. This time, I wasted ZERO time in buying their album on Amazon. This also helped me rediscover The Prototypes, who I had listened to earlier in the year (also because of their American single being used in an iPod ad – what can I say, they pick good music). CSS’ music video for Music is My Hot Hot Sex is really cool – they do some cool things with light and texture that make the video a lot of fun, and all the girls have a good stage presence that this video accentuates. When I first got the album and listened to it on my way home one weekend, I thought that one good single couldn’t push them into this top ten list. After a few more listens I realized that I loved a bunch of the other songs: Patins, Alala, Art Bitch and Alcohol (plus the obvious singles). I loved their attitude, I loved the flavor they brought to their music, and the bass beat they lay is damn good. The strongest personality though, front woman Lovefoxx has a great voice that fits perfectly for the group. I’m looking forward to their follow up to their first internationally released album.

7. Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever (2007) – The Cribs
Favorite Song: Men’s Needs
Favorite Lyric: They were all equally intriguing...(okay, I'll be honest, I plain couldn't choose - it's not about the lyrics with them)
I found this group all on my lonesome and mostly by accident. During my obsession with Quence’s “Don’t Forget ‘em” I would occasionally branch out to listen to his other songs when I grew tired of listening to “Don’t Forget ‘Em” four or five times in a row. So one time, after typing ‘Consequence’ into youtube, I clicked on the song “Consequence” by The Notwist. And then I somehow found The Cribs. Hmm…that story doesn’t make a lot of sense to me now, but it did when I started writing it. More substantively, this album was probably my favorite Euro pop-rock album that I started listening to, and the album has this great energy that makes it easy to listen to and easy to get into. The funny music video for the single, Men’s Needs sure helped too – it’s pretty funny, and shows off everything the band is about. This album earned it’s spot here though because the whole album is consistently good, without any major disappointments, as each and every track is just as strong as the next, with a few standout favorites of course (Our Bovine Republic, Moving Pictures, Men’s Needs).

6. Everything All The Time (2006) – Band of Horses
Favorite Song: Our Swords
Favorite Lyric: “Out on the wall sounds of banging is constant coming from your head/And desperate the calls came and ringing from those wanna wring your neck”
The best part about being given this album was how good it was. The worst part was buying their follow up album, 2007’s Cease to Begin and being completely disappointed. But this album is great. It has a sort of soft intensity that is hard to explain. Maybe that’s a poor word choice, but that’s what comes to mind. The words and lyrics fit perfectly with everything else they have going on, and contrary to most of the other groups I used to listen to, and characteristic of my favorites now, you can really enjoy the lyrics. I got this CD toward the end of July right before I did a lot of driving in my car and I basically alternated between this album and two others. I probably listened to it over ten times in about five days. The album doesn’t get old, and only gets better. I became addicted to “Our Swords,” often listening to that song alone even if I just had to run a short errand. After that I developed other favorites: the aptly titled “The First Song,” “The Great Salt Lake,” and “St. Augustine.” It seems to me that the songs on this CD have perfect beginnings and endings. And the middle parts are damn good too.

5. As Cruel As School Children (2006) – Gym Class Heroes
Favorite Song: Shoot Down the Stars
Favorite Lyric: “This isn’t how it was supposed to be/Reminiscing don’t stand so close to me”
This is another album where I can almost pat myself on the back for finding it on my own, but it was really my search for the destruction of my soul (the weird desire to watch the MTV Video Music Awards to blog about them). I decided to check out the music for the big single from the artist of the year award (or whatever it’s called) that led me to the great video for “Cupid’s Chokehold.” The song was pretty good, but the video was hysterical, and I loved it so much because it actually fit the song (one of my pet peeves are abstract music videos). On a whim I decided to buy the album for a couple bucks when I bought Quence’s album – never thinking that this poppy-er, more accessible album would be the one I liked more. Again, this was another album where I really loved every song – and the flow and the mix were perfect. Just as people jumped on the (unfortunate) Limp Bizkit bandwagon over rap-rock, I would love it if Gym Class Heroes led a rap-pop wave. The only (mild) annoyance was the three skits on the album that were mediocre at best and made me want to skip over them when I listened to the album frequently in one car-sitting.

4. Begin to Hope (2006) – Regina Spektor
Favorite Song: On the Radio
Favorite Lyric: “But I wake up in fear/You will never be my/You will never be my fool”
This was the first album I got this summer that really took me. I thought that if I was actually disciplined enough to make a top ten list, this would surely get the top spot. Why didn’t it? Not for lack of trying. I love every song through and through, and the first four, Fidelity, Better, Samson, and On the Radio, are downright addictive. To illustrate how much I liked this album: I listened to it over twenty times in the last four months, on my laptop alone. That doesn’t count my iPod or in the car. That’s a hell of a lot. Three things contributed to this album slipping to fourth place. First, I loved Soviet Kitsch a hell of a lot too (listened to it about just as much as BtH) and it was tough to separate the two, and when I did I realized I didn’t get “Your Honor,” which might be my favorite two-minute song ever (I guess Band of Horses "Our Swords" is pretty close too). Second, the albums below really stood out, and it should be a testament to them when I say how much I loved this album. Third, in particular, the album below took a little bit of the wind out of Regina’s sails – not that they are that similar, but I viewed them as similar, and in the last month or so, Kimya leapfrogged Regina.

3. Remember That I Love You (2006) – Kimya Dawson
Favorite Song: Loose Lips
Favorite Lyric (this is the only place where I indulged myself and refused to make a choice): “Call me up before your dead, we can make some plans instead/Send me an IM, I'll be your friend”; “So I tattoo instructions on my ass/That say "don't ever put this body is a casket/Burn it and put the ashes in a basket/And throw them in the Puget Sound”
I think I’m done beating the “before Juno” drum and I can get into the comments. This album knocked my socks off. It took me two or three times through before I realized that some of Kimya’s songs were REALLY sad. Maybe that means I’m a shitty listener, but the WAY she sings to me seems to be so happy and light that I couldn’t believe the songs were that sad. By the fourth or fifth times (and I lot more times after that) I began to really get to the depth of the emotion in these songs. Instead of making me sad, I just developed a deep respect for the album and turned it on a lot. Regina’s lyrics were great, and pretty clever too, but Kimya’s here are leaps and bounds above. Of all the albums here (and first place makes this close, but Kimya still wins), this album has the best lyrics. I downright love almost every word she says (the one bump on an otherwise perfect stream is her “FUCK BUSH” rant on Loose Lips that seems out of place to me). What she says just rings so true, and obviously I don’t have to deal with things like a child growing inside me, but I like to think I can relate to some of the other stuff. And the stuff that I haven’t had to deal with now, I feel like I will relate to those events based on these songs, especially “My Mom.” If Juno didn’t make you run out and buy her latest, hopefully I convinced you. Maybe? A little? Come on…

2. Graduation (2007) – Kanye West
Favorite Song: Everything I Am
Favorite Lyric: “Everything I’m not/makes me everything I am”
I started this list a while ago. And up until about five minutes ago, this album was in the top spot. It felt so right for me to put it #1. It represented a lot of what I wanted to say I did in 2007. To me this album shows a confidence, maturity, and skill that were missing from Kanye’s first two albums and mix tapes. I feel like I could talk about each of those three factors in relation to every song on Graduation, which, apart from Barry Bonds and Drunk and Hot Girls, is the closest to perfect of any rap album I’ve listened to (I’ll admit that’s pretty limited). Instead, I will focus on my favorite, Everything I Am, which crystallizes all three factors. A huge part of confidence is identity, knowing who you are (and who you aren’t) goes a long way to shaping your conception of self, which seems to be the cornerstone of confidence. Everything I Am’s premise, is obviously a song about identity, and Kanye’s confidence in the lyrics go beyond his boyish arrogance to reach true confidence “I never be picture-perfect-Beyonce/Be light as Albi or black as Chauncey/Remember him from Blackstreet/He was as black as the street was/I'll never be laid back as his beat was.” He calls out a bunch of people and identifies some stereotypic paths he could have pursued, but he didn’t. The next line is a piece of wisdom beyond Kanye’s years – “I never could see why people'll reach a/Fake-ass facad they couldn't keep up.” I think this speaks to his maturity, as a person, and as a performer. He clearly understands the faces people put on to make it big in the business and he didn’t mince words here, or leave this open ended. Additionally, a subtler sign of maturity is the efficient, waste-free album free of skits and jokes – some miss those skits, but I sure as hell don’t. Also adding to the polished, less-rap feel of the album is the intro, Kanye’s best (Good Morning) that mixes the benefit of the classic rap intro with, well, a song. Now the chorus, or the repeated verse, “Everything I’m not/makes me everything I am” is ridiculously addictive (yet simple) and represents a new stage in Kanye’s skills. Before, I was drawn into Kanye’s songs by his hooks and his beats, that were different than other rap acts – they were poppy-er, and more musical (to me). What made me love his songs, like Never Let You Down, was the beat. You sang along with the song Kanye sampled, and that was what stayed with you. On this album, you better believe you’re singing along with, and loving the lyrics themselves – the beats are still great (much better than on Late Registration) but the words are even better. Those three things meant a lot to me for a while, confidence, maturity, skill. I thought I’d come a long way in all three. Then I realized that my confidence boost was artificial, I still felt like a teenage kid, and “skill improvement” was just out of reach. But still “Everything I’m not/makes me everything I am” stuck with me, and almost pulled off the top spot. I don’t think I have a clue who I am, or who I’m going to be, but I did know who I wasn’t, and that was a big part of who I was – who I am. If you can’t look past “Stronger,” you need to; Champion, I Wonder, Good Life, Flashing Lights, and Everything I Am are too (ridiculously) good for you to not listen to.

1. In Our Bedroom After the War (2007) – Stars
Favorite Song: Take Me to the Riot
Favorite Lyric: "You despise me and I love you/
It's not much but it's just enough to keep...”
Bedroom was another one of those three CD’s, along with Everything all the Time and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea that I burned at the end of the summer and kept in my car for a while. It must be obvious now that the album that received significantly more play that Everything, was this album. I was much more likely to listen to this song back-to-back-to-back than probably any other album I listened to this summer (and maybe ever). The album benefited from the fact that it was so different than everything else I was listening to at the time. It’s tough for me to really say that this album is “better” than Set Yourself on Fire, which I just bought recently, but I know for sure that this album will always mean more to me. And one of the reasons this song squeaked into the top spot was that this album, and Stars, brought a substantial wave of new music down upon me. Much more than Kanye did. Or at the very least, the music that I started listening to because of Stars was a lot better than the post-Kanye/Graduation music. Perhaps this disc got an unfair advantage because I listened to it an hour before I completed this list (and made the switch), but I would like to think it was much more than that. I mean I could talk about how great the music was – I loved the synergy and flow between the first three songs, and while I think every other person who has blogged about this song has hated the second track, The Night Starts Here, I loved it as a great lead in to my favorite song, Take Me to the Riot. After that the album continues it’s greatness and takes me to synth-pop-bliss. Maybe that’s not what I should call it, but I just did anyways. I do like to think that the greater reason this album is my 2007 favorite is that it really captures my most powerful memories from the course of the year. Well, for the most part, my life is pretty simple, but that simple life changed a hell of a lot between May and July and I think I will forever remember some of them with In Our Bedroom After the War as their soundtrack, or maybe their anthem. Again, I could probably go through all of the songs – because the whole album, really does speak to those experiences, but I will focus on my favorite, Take Me to the Riot. Now I’m not the only one to pick this one as their favorite song, and those music purists probably know more about why the song is so “good,” but I’m talking about why it’s my favorite. I won’t pretend to know the meaning of the song (can you ever know for sure?) but I will talk about what the song means to me. I’ll start with my favorite lyric of the year, “You despise me and I love you/
It's not much but it's just enough to keep...” It is a phrase that I find incredibly powerful and exceptionally heart breaking. Not sure what else to say about that, I shouldn’t really have to. The two verses a verse or two before make it even more powerful, “What now kid?, which way love?/Will we ever make up and be friends?” Another somber question that is (perhaps) answered by the sad “answer” above. The synth charged ending, the repeated “let me stay” wraps it all together…begging to stay and falling on deaf ears. Cut away all that emo crap I just mumbled out and you still have an amazing album.