Top 25 Albums of 2007

It's that time of year...!

Nope, I'm not talking about the holiday season. Also not talking about winter time. What I am so pumped up about is that it is time for year-end "Best of" lists.

Oh yes, it is that time of year indeed, and the lists are starting to appear in full force. Being an obsessive music lover, of course I've been excited about making my Top Albums and Top Songs lists. In fact, I've been looking forward to it since...ehhh...October. That was when I started the "Best of 2007" playlist on my iPod. Two months too early? No way.

I started the playlist and have been adding to it, subtracting from it, adjusting it, etc. for the past 6 weeks. I had to start thinking about this early so that it would have time to settle, so that I would be able to arrive at the wisest decisions for finalists and rankings. These choices cannot be made haphazardly. These lists are IMPORTANT. (<--obsessed?)

Why so important? Well, it's quite easy to get depressed and stressed during the holidays. Christmas always depresses me (depression: check). Additionally, this is the busiest time of the semester and I'm considering going to my professors' houses and burning my papers on their doorsteps (stress: check). It's just not a fun time of year, frankly.

Forming and tweaking and finalizing these lists, therefore, has been my salvation as of late. Music, in general, has been my salvation. HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!

It helps that this has been a tremendous year for music. And this list of 25 albums leaves a lot of albums out. I just didn't get to hear many albums that I wanted to hear, as a lot of my music listening this year was spent on older albums.

Nonetheless, I heard an overwhelming amount of good music this year, and a couple of these albums will go down as some of my all-time favorites. To me, for the year 2007, these are the essential albums to hear. So if you haven't heard them, get on it.

Also: There are three EPs that get an honorable mention, because I didn't want to include short EPs on the list. They are:

Grizzly Bear - Friend
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is
Black Kids - Wizard of Ahhhs

All three EPs are incredible. So here is my list, the top 25 albums of 2007. Finally, something to feel good about this season.

Enjoy!

25. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
24. Justice - Cross
23. The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
22. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
21. The Tough Alliance - A New Chance

20. Band of Horses - Cease To Begin
19. St. Vincent - Marry Me
18. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
17. Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
16. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
15. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
14. Handsome Furs - Plague Park
13. Kanye West - Graduation
12. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
11. Jay-Z - American Gangster

10. Feist - The Reminder
9. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
8. Okkervil River - The Stage Names
7. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
6. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
5. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
4. M.I.A. - Kala
3. The National - Boxer
2. Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
1. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Be sure to check out my list of the top 50 songs of 2007!

C'est tout!