Best of 2007 -- Music

Hmmm. I recently bought a sweatshirt that proclaims "Traveling 33 rpm in an ipod world." Sadly (or not) this describes me in more ways than one. An example: as I write this, I'm listening to an old Joe Sample album (yes, kids, on vinyl!) from 1979. When I worked in record stores back in the '80s and early '90s, my colleagues and I used to make up Top 10 lists at the end of the year, and it was always a fun challenge to narrow that year's best music down to ten titles. [My friend Steve, who I worked with back then, recently blogged his "albums of 2007." While his tastes and mine didn't always match up, they often did, so I'm sure some of the stuff on his list is worth checking out. You can find it at www.moorgard.com, scroll down to the albums of 2007 post.] I don't think I bought 10 new CDs in 2007, and I'm sure of the ones I did, most of them weren't released this year. I just checked the copyright dates on some of the ones I did buy recently, and mostly what I learned is that my eyesight isn't good enough to read the tiny print on the CD labels anymore. I will, however, say this:

Even if I'd heard every new release of 2007, I'm sure one of best (if not the best) releases of the year was Lucinda Williams new disc, West. I always said Lucinda could sing the phonebook and make it sound sexy. It's hard to pick any "best" songs out of the 13 here, 'cause every one is an absolute gem. That said, the song "Fancy Funeral" made a huge impression on me, probably for obvious reasons. I don't think this disc left my CD player for weeks when I first bought it. All I can say is it's amazing. Go out today and buy it, or order it, or I suppose, download it. Whatever. You need this record.