The Daily Growl

2007. Another year over, a new one almost begun. Here’s my last post of the year before i head off on my parent-with-child-friendly NYE break, I have some unfinished business to take care of.

When I say unfinished business, I mean exactly that. After struggling last year to whittle down my favourite songs into a top 20, I thought I’d expand it this year to a top 30. Was that any easier? Of course not. I really don’t have the time or inclination to work on this any more, so I present you with an unsorted list of 32 tracks from 2007 that did it for me in different ways. Even though I’ve deliberately avoided a specific singles list, most of them are. The absence of tracks from many of my albums of the year is largely due to my inability to select a particular stand-out from what were wholly excellent records. And oddly, there’s a lot more British representation here than in my very American-centric top 20 long-players. For what it’s worth here they are (sans mp3s, sorry):

Emmy The Great – The Easter Parade
Loney Dear – Saturday Waits
Slow Club – Sunday
LCD Soundsystem – Freak Out / Starry Eyes
Bjork – Earth Invaders
Magic Arm – Outdoor Games
Low – Violent Past
MIA – Paper Planes
Laura Marling – New Romantic
Richard Hawley – Serious
Akron/Family – Ed is a Portal
Emmy the Great – Gabriel
Battles – Atlas
Scout Niblett – Kiss
Eugene McGuinness – Bold Street
Taken by Trees – Lost and Found
Animal Collective – For Reverend Green
Vampire Weekend – Mansard Roof
The Young Republic – Modern Plays
Basia Bulat – I Was a Daughter
Lightspeed Champion – Galaxy of the Lost
Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Tickle Me Pink
Blonde Redhead – 23
Black Lips – Dirty Hands
Crystal Castles vs. Health – Crimewave
Jamie Woon – Wayfaring Stranger (Burial remix)
King Creosote – Admiral
Turbulence – Notorious
Laura Groves – I am Leaving
Let’s Wrestle – I Won’t Lie to You
Feist – Sealion
Glasvegas – Daddy’s Gone

Next year I’m probably better going for a top 100 or something. Urgh.

To bring the seasonal list-fest to an ignominious close, there’s no best films of the year, because being the year of the Baby Growl, I don’t even think I got to the cinema 10 times, never mind selecting a top ten bests. That said, my film of the year was The Lives of Others, a brilliant movie, which marked my last trip to a cinema about 8 months ago. Here’s hoping there will be at least some trips in 2008.

Now the opportunity for some further linkage.

Albums of the year 20-11.

Albums of the year 10-1.

Top 10 gigs of the year.