Top 12 Albums, early list, 2007

[koganbot]

Here are my top 12 albums as of November 7.

1. Aly & A.J. Insomniatic
2. Miranda Lambert Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
3. Britney Spears Blackout
4. A-Trak Dirty South Dance
5. Kelly Clarkson My December
6. The Veronicas Hook Me Up
7. Ashley Monroe Satisfied
8. Ashley Tisdale Headstrong
9. Gogol Bordello Super Taranta!
10. Jordan Pruitt No Ordinary Girl
11. Travis Tritt The Storm
12. Gretchen Wilson One Of The Boys

Other contenders would be:

A.R.E. Weapons Modern Mayhem
John Anderson Easy Money
Blake Shelton Pure BS
The Sirens More Is More

I'm not hearing a lot of full albums this year, but I've got a viable top ten/twelve anyway. Order is provisional, the only albs sure to be standing at P&J time being Insomniatic and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. (The Aly & A.J. and the Miranda Lambert are the Pats and the Colts of LPs. The rest are barely in their league. So Britney would be the Packers [like, what the fuck's s/he doing (here)?]. Kelly'd be Pittsburgh, A-Trak the Titans.) I'm listing 12 in case I jettison the two Ashleys. Monroe's alb hasn't been released and may never be; Tisdale's I only heard a couple times last February and what I remember is superb for five tracks, then good to lousy after that, but the five might carry it over (three of those five are singles, all three ace). Ashley M's got a strong Dolly/Lee Ann voice that she goes cute with, with girly Jewelishness too; I haven't decided if she's too much or just right, wish the radio would give her a shot. A-Trak is a dance mixer-and-masher on great hip-hop material. Tritt's a blue-eyed blues and soul guy who found his career in country, has often been disappointingly weak, given his great growly pipes; but this time the mush songs are good ones, like Michael Bolton if Bolton had been good, and the searing, burning blues rockers sear and burn.

Not many guys on the list. Must be the much-ballyhooed crisis of masculinity.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I'm going to need to pull a few contrarian/left-field rabbits outta my hat to steer somewhat further away from a carbon copy of your top ten list this year! Our #2, 3, 5, and 9 are identical (weird) and there two other overlaps. But I don't foresee my list changing radically between now and end of December. (I'm hoping two or even three more albums will find their way into my top 10, though.)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Look for Keke Palmer to take a dark horse #10 spot on my list if I decide not to include "Hyphy Hitz."

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Tisdale really suffers from methods of pop consumption these days: even five years ago we would've heard her first big hit, loved it without ever needing to think about her lack of character; after a few months had elapsed we'd have the second; and so on. Like Holly Valance or someone. And I probably wouldn't have gone near the album, and my relationship to her music would be nicely uncomplicated. But hearing the album first...I love love love at least four songs off it, but the thought "my GOD she's boring" still rises in my mind.

You've seen my potential list, it isn't changing but Lady Saw and Will Saul are making late-season rushes towards it.

Why and how is it that CHRIS SODDING MARTIN provides one of the best moments on the Kanye album? "Fireworks at Lake Michigan..."

[koganbot]

I don't know if I've spent more than twenty minutes total listening to Coldplay, but that track Chris Martin cowrote for Nelly Furtado last year was really nice too. Guess he's a subject for further research. I haven't heard "Fireworks on Lake Michigan," yet. (I lived in Chicago over the summer of 1975, so I might have seen fireworks at Lake Michigan, on July 4, though honestly I don't remember.)

[koganbot]

Yeah, that's just something that happens when people start sharing their music, they end up hearing what each other hears and voting for similar stuff. Happens to me and Xhuxk a lot.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah it was, as was the track he wrote for Jamelia ('See It In A Boy's Eyes' - it'll be on youtube if you haven't heard it), as was the Brandy song which sampled 'Clocks', as was the Brandy song where she sang about being miserable and listening to Coldplay. I'm just surprised that Chris Martin himself, with his horrid voice, is so amazing on this track - it's called 'Homecoming', it's just the line "fireworks at Lake Michigan" which gets me.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

(I have listened to a lot of actual Coldplay and it's all draedful and/or dull.)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Sufjan Stevens steals "Clocks," Chris Martin hits him right back with Lake Michigan!

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

I like that our lists frequently overlap but never duplicate each other. Anyway, some glaring things your list doesn't mention but mine most certainly will: Rihanna, Fallout Boy, Against Me!, and New Pornographers. I'll probably overlap with your choices of Aly & AJ and Kelly Clarkson. Some dark horse choices: Paula Cole, Carrie Underwood, Chana Rothman, Dashboard Confessional, The Dragonettes, Iron & Wine, The Noisettes, Streetlight Manifesto, and Jay-Z. My list will probably include some choices from there.

Actually, Frank, I'm far more interested in seeing your list on singles. I'm having a much harder time whiddling down my list and maybe I'll post my 50 singles list at some point so you guys can help me decide :-P

[koganbot]

Well, my top ten singles list is up to sixty, but I'll post it when I get back to Denver this week. A couple of men, even, have a shot at my top ten: Yung Berg and Keak Da Sneak could sneak in. (Last year my number ten single was by Yung Joc, so I've obviously got an affinity with Yungians.)

Don't know if I've heard Streetlight Manifesto or Against Me! And I've never heard of Chana Rothman or the Noisettes.

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

My provisional Singles list. This is both far longer than I'm allowed to have (for any of the given polls) and shorter than I expect it'll be when I start actually remembering all the songs I've loved this year. Asterisks indicate that I'm unsure if I can include the song (due to the release year). I think it's a very diverse group, though as usual I have far more emo music than the average pollster, and the pop choices seem to be duking it out with the indie choices over the song battlefield. Also! I have 3 musical tracks (Grey Gardens, Spring Awakening and HSM2) which is really unusual (in my experience) for these contests. I'd post the list on Rolling Teenpop, but I think the screen scroll might burn some eyes. So I'll post it here, and if ya'all want it on Teenpop, lemmi know. (7 emo songs, 11 pop/teenpop songs [and yes, I'm including Avril in both those numbers], 9 'indie' songs, 3 musicals, Paula Cole and The Stooges.) Oh, also: I haven't listed any of my hip-hop choices, since they are back in NYC (and I'm in Chicago for Thanksgiving).

Dawn Landes - Kissing Song
Aly & AJ - Potential Breakup Song
Against Me! - White People For Peace
* Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
Carrie Underwood - So Small
Dashboard Confessional - Thick As Thieves
Dragonette - I Get Around
Iron & Wine - Boy With a Coin
Kelly Clarkson - Never Again
Lil' Mama - Lip Gloss
Mark Ronson - Stop Me (Feat. Daniel Merriweather)
The New Pornographers - My Rights Versus Yours
v/a - You Are the Music in Me (HSM2)
Paula Cole - "14"
R. Kelly - I'm a Flirt Remix
Rihanna - Umbrella (feat. Jay-Z)
Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive
Streetlight Manifesto - Down, Down, Down To Mephisto's Cafe
Two Hours Traffic - Jezebel
The 8th Day - C.D.S.G.
The Arcade Fire - Black Mirror
Avril Lavigne - I Don't Like Your Boyfriend
Fallout Boy - This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race
Fallout Boy - I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)
* Mickey Avalon - Jane Fonda
* Amy Winehouse - Rehab
* Taylor Swift - Teardrops on My Guitar
Modest Mouse - Dashboard
The National - Fake Empire
v/a - Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind (Spring Awakening)
Natasha Bedingfield - Babies!
Christine Ebersole - Revolutionary Costume of the Day (Grey Gardens)
The Stooges - Trollin'

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

And of course, the moment I hit submit, I remember five more songs. Le sigh.

[koganbot]

"Teardrops On My Guitar" was definitely released this year as a single. (It may even be eligible next year if it doesn't peak on Top 40 and Disney until January or February.) Also, I'd say at this point the Taylor Swift album would be eligible for this year even though it came out in late October 2006, since it entered the top ten on the Billboard 200 for the first time last week (is now down to 16, but will probably hang around in the top 50 for a long time while big albums rise and fall around it. (Also, technically Taylor Swift can count as an indie choice, since Big Machine is an indie label; I don't know how the album's distribution is being handled. But of course it doesn't sound "indie.") But I voted for it last year already.

I'm not sure of this, but I think that "Rehab" got its U.S. release this year.