OK, I'll admit it: I like the music of white guys. If they're bookish, or a bit too clever for their own good or back after a long layoff, so much the better. I've tried for diversity, tried to broaden my horizons, but my time is limited these days, so I seek out the aural equivalent of comfort food. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I'll peruse all of the dozens of other lists out there, look for some commonalities and continue to build my "to-be-heard" list so that when I do someday get some time, I'll know what to see out.

In the meantime, if smart white guys with guitars are your thing, you could do worse than to check out these 25 discs. As always, you get a sort of annotated top 10, a second 10, another handful and some comments about those that missed.

Overall, it felt like a good year for music. I'll be curious to see who tops the Idolator and Village Voice polls, because nothing really struck me as a runaway obvious best-album choice for the masses. My pick was easy, but I doubt Joe Henry cracks the top 25 most anywhere else. Sure, critics like to single out things that don't get airplay -- when they're not busy ironically touting mainstream pap because it's subversively derivative... or whatever -- but not white former alt-country also-rans on the edge of 50 who make more money producing than performing. That's fine: Joe can be my little secret.

For me, 2007 was the year of the welcome return. Henry was back after several years away from his solo career while producing, while Nick Lowe also returned after a long layoff. Seth Tiven, Dumptruck frontman, issued his first solo album this year, the great Solitude, after a few years away as well. Then there's Glenn Mercer, the former Feelies frontman, who came back after nine years away from recording and more than 15 years since the Feelies hung it up. Add to that nice discs by Ian Hunter, John Fogerty and Dinosaur Jr., and it's like the old folks home ran out of room and sent a bunch of 'em to the recording studio to sleep on cots.

OK, enough pontification. On to the list.

Joe Henry – Civilians
Any time Joe Henry enters the studio, you ought to clear a spot in your top 10 list. When he does so with a batch of his own songs, there’s little point in considering anything else for the top spot. With Civilians, Henry may well have crafted his best disc, one that seems a culmination of every twist, turn and blind alley of his career without rehashing any of it. He surrounds himself with different players each time out, and no two albums sound alike. Despite that, he has created an inimitable, yet readily identifiable sound of his own, and Civilians is a shining example of that excellence.
web site
Metacritic
TIRBD Monday Interview
"Time is a Lion" MP3

Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
Andrew Bird’s music is a strange amalgam of old-time string band, soul, rock, folk and classical elements that mesh to create something unique and readily identifiable. On Armchair Apocrypha, Bird offers the best synthesis of all those disparate elements, presenting it with his strongest batch of songs. Here, all of his tools are used to maximum effect, the Jeff Buckley vocals, the sweet whistle, the violin used in myriad ways and the obtuse way of looking at a melody. The only thing better is seeing him live, accompanying himself with a sequencer that allows for a jaw-dropping one-man band performance.
web site
Metacritic
"Heretics" MP3

The National – Boxer
As with Okkervil River (see below), the National followed a breakthrough album with something less expansively startling but probably more lasting. Boxer is a sublime album, one that actually seems to contract a bit from the sonic landscape of Alligator, refining that sound to create something more insular and self-contained. The focus is still on Matt Berninger’s vocals, his gruff tone helping one to realize what Tindersticks would sound like with a spur to the side, though the rest of the band is integral to the sound, its restrained playing conveying Berninger’s tales of hope giving way to despair. It’s the kind of album people will find two decades from now and wonder why it wasn’t huge at its time.
web site
Metacritic
"Fake Empire" MP3

Radiohead – In Rainbows
By the time the dust settled in the grand discussion about how we got to first hear In Rainbows, it seemed as if most people forgot to talk about what we were hearing. The what, of course, is Radiohead's seventh album, one that nicely synthesizes much of what came before it while still sounding fresh, a sort of "all the colors of the rainbow" sort of moment if Radiohead could ever be that obvious. It does continue the path of Hail to the Thief in its shedding of overt ambient and electronic overtones, as if Thom Yorke exorcised those tendencies -- for the time being -- with his 2006 solo debut, The Eraser. While Radiohead is never likely to make another OK Computer, for the first time since, it has made a record that seems to indicate that the band is similarly comfortable in its own skin, and that's a beautiful thing.
web site
Metacritic

Josh Ritter – The Historical Conquests of…
Ritter took some heat this year from people who actually criticized him for making an album that was too good, too polished and too poised. Sure, this lacks grit, a clearly self-conscious stab at making a great album. But guess what? Somewhere along the way he succeeded. He shares with Okkervil River's Will Sheff the title of year's best lyricist, and wedded those enthusiastically poetic words to some of the year's best melodies. The progression this young artist has made over his five albums is startling, and I'd imagine that we'll look back on this the way we do early work by... well who has made five increasingly great albums and not imploded? I'm sure Ritter will be criticized for the hubris of a long career, too.
web site
Metacritic
"To the Dogs or Whoever" MP3

Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
Sam Beam’s earliest recordings were hushed, intimate affairs, and it would have been reasonable to expect that this was his best – and perhaps only – forum. Then he hit the road with Calexico and seemed reborn as a sort of low-key Dylan circa the Rolling Thunder Revue or Van Morrison of our time. The experimentation, energy and volume (both in terms of sound and the sheer amount of stuff on the tape) carried over the The Shepherd’s Dog, a disc that makes all that came before it seem like a black and white snapshot in contrast with its vivid 35mm Technicolor. Snapshots are nice and have their place, but this is Cinemascope and it only hints at where Beam might eventually land.
web site
Metacritic
"Innocent Bones" MP3

Okkervil River – The Stage Names
There’s no, um, fifth-year senior slump here. After breaking through big time with its fourth album, Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River refines things and delivers with The Stage Name. Singer and songwriter Will Sheff continues to harness the wild caterwaul of his instrument, using it to great effect on these songs that ostensibly deal with rock music and performance. These are clever compositions, but never to the detriment of a consistent listen. From the number song name check of “Plus Ones” to the ingeniously organic sprouting of “Sloop John B” in “John Allyn Smith Sails,” this is a lovingly crafted disc that rewards repeat listens and shows that Okkervil River has reached its potential while leaving plenty of territory to explore.

web site
Metacritic
"Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" MP3

Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Spoon is the only act on this list that didn’t better its last outing. In equaling it, however, it easily earned a spot in the Top 10. Since Girls Can Tell, Britt Daniel has been honing his music, stripping it down to the barest essentials on Kill the Moonlight before starting to rebuild things – very slowly – on Gimme Fiction and Ga⁵. No longer can he sneak up on listeners; he’s a known quantity who satisfies rather than stuns, getting by simply by offering another batch of great songs. The instrumentation on “The Underdog” shows where he can take things if he chooses, while “The Ghost of You Lingers” proves there is still a bit of territory left to explore.

web site
Metacritic
"The Underdog" video

Nick Lowe - At My Age
Lowe has aged quite gracefully, actually, adding this great disc to what is becoming the strongest part of his catalog. Leaving behind the broad jokes and pub-rock glory of his career peak, he has recast himself as an adult crooner who sings songs the coolest hipster wouldn’t be embarrassed to spin. Mixing covers rendered as lovingly as his own compositions with some of his own strongest songs to date, Lowe proves the fiction of one of the standouts from his last disc, “Lately I’ve Let Things Slide.” Rather, he has stepped up to deliver another gem.
web site
Metacritic
"The Club" stream

Glenn Mercer – Wheels in Motion
This disc defines the term “welcome return.” Its 11 songs sound current at the same time they feel perfectly aligned in spirit with Mercer's two-decade-old Feelies work. You feel right at home from the start, as the acoustic guitar strums and organic drums drive the song. Things ebb and flow nicely over the course of the next nine songs, as Mercer shows off his delicate guitar work and uncanny way of creating compelling melodies with a limited vocal range. By the time he reaches the end, with an inspired medley of George Harrison's "Within You, Without You" and "Love You To," it becomes clear that Mercer hasn't lost a step.
web site
TIRBD Monday Interview

The next 10:

11. Caribou – Andorra
12. Chuck Prophet – Soap and Water
13. Richard Thompson – Sweet Warrior
14. Bruce Springsteen – Magic
15. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
16. Josh Rouse – Country Mouse City House
17. Thurston Moore – Trees Outside the Academy
18. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
19. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings – 100 Days, 100 Nights
20. Danny & Dusty – Cast-Iron Soul

Five more in no order:

Crowded House – Time on Earth
Band of Horses – Cease to Begin
Mark Olson – Salvation Blues
Seth Tiven – Solitude
Graham Parker – Don’t Tell Columbus

And now for the part where I list the albums I thought would be on the list above. First up, Steve Earle, whose Washington Square Serenade seemed great -- on paper. Shaking things up with a Dust Brother behind the board sounded like a great idea, but bells and whistles -- or in this case, a drum machine -- can't polish subpar songs. That and the fact that Earle spends so much time touting his new wife, Alison Moorer -- yes, Steve, she's a dish, but you're just this side of Dennis Kucinich in the "look, a babe married me, I'm not a weirdo" sweepstakes, and that's kind of embarrassing --add up to a pretty boring album from a guy who has been a lot of things in his career, but rarely that... The New Pornographers are clearly a talented bunch, and I admire anyone willing to mess with their formula, but Challengers, from its godawful cover art to the inclusion of three Dan Bejar songs -- if I want to hear Bejar, and I don't, I'd listen to Destroyer -- is simply an overly crafted, joyless exercise in style... The Shins made a good record with Wincing the Night Away, but not a great one. "Phantom Limb" is among the best songs of the year, but where past great songs were among peers, here it's head and shoulders above, and that's disappointing... How can we miss the White Stripes if they won't go away? As with the New Pornographers, I admire Jack White for continuing to mess with the formula, and Icky Thump certainly has its moments, but it feels more like an exercise than an album. Artists like Bruce Springsteen get in a rut where they try so hard to make a Bruce Springsteen album that they forget to make music they love; on the flip side, these younger artists sometimes seem to be trying so hard not to make a New Pornographers or White Stripes album that they forget to play to their strengths and embrace what got them here in the first place.

A few artists came close and are definitely in the rotation on any "best of '07" playlist around Chez TIRBD, but they just didn't make the cut. It was nice to get Neil Young back -- the Young that cares little about convention and is willing to throw something together because it feels good. Chrome Dreams II isn't a great Young album, but it's better than I'd have hoped for at this point... Ian Hunter made a strong return on Shrunken Heads, including the great track, "I Am What I Hated When I Was Young," that embraces his age and experience, rather than run away from it like most artists of his vintage seem wont to do... Speaking of which, it was nice to see John Fogerty blow the roof off on Revival, a not-so-coyly named return to form for the Creedence chief. "I Can't Take It No More," might not be "Fortunate Son," but it's still a blast of welcome vitriol... Dinosaur Jr. joined the "improbable reunion club" founded by the Pixies, and actually cranked out a decent album in the process. Beyond has some great moments, including a couple of Lou Barlow's strongest songs in recent memory.

Lastly, two young'uns laid the groundwork for nice long careers with some impressive debuts this year. Jason Isbell is no stranger to rock fans, having penned some of the strongest tracks on the Drive-by Truckers' four most recent albums, but stepping out solo for the first time with Sirens of the Ditch, he proved he can deliver more than two or three songs every couple of years... the Broken West also didn't technically debut this year, having released an EP as the Brokedown before signing to Merge and issuing the great I Can't Go On, I'll Go On this year. But that disc came completely out of left field for me, a fully-formed and catchy blast of pop that stayed in the player for quite a while this spring. It fades as the album progresses, which kept it off the list above, but with a few more songs like "Down in the Valley," they'll soon be in the upper reaches of lists like this one. Read more about the band and singer Ross Flournoy in this TIRBD Monday Interview.

Labels: criticism, lists, music