Monday, January 07, 2008

Favorite Songs of 2007


There is a long and respectable tradition of music geeks making lists of top albums. The geekier of the geeks also make lists of favorite songs. As a geekier geek, I hereby give to you my favorite songs of the year CD mix. Your mileage may vary.

(Okay, I can't resist saying more: I worry about how the songs hang together and since I give a playlist of these songs to family and friends, I also worry a bit about the kids in the audience. My favorite song this year is Springsteen's "Long Walk Home" but for various reasons I couldn't make it fit on this playlist. So I went with Bruce's wonderful-remake-of-10th-Avenue-Freeze-Out "Livin' in the Future.")

1. “Tournament Of Hearts” by The Weakerthans from Reunion Tour
2. “Reinvent the Wheel” by Bright Eyes from Four Winds EP
3. “Livin' In The Future” by Bruce Springsteen from Magic
4. “Killing The Blues” by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss from Raising Sand
5. “Butterfly Nets” by Bishop Allen from The Broken String
6. “1 2 3 4” by Feist from The Reminder
7. “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” by Spoon from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
8. “We're From Barcelona” by I'm From Barcelona from Let Me Introduce My Friends
9. “The Angels Hung Around” by Rilo Kiley from Under The Blacklight
10. “The Golden State” by John Doe from A Year in the Wilderness
11. “Tell it to the Raven” by The Mendoza Line from 30 Year Low
12. “Fire In The Canyon” by Fountains Of Wayne from Traffic And Weather
13. “Two” by Ryan Adams from Easy Tiger
14. “The Part Where You Let Go” by Hem from Home Again, Home Again
15. “The Temptation Of Adam” by Josh Ritter from The Historical Conquests Of Josh Ritter
16. “Missed the Boat” byModest Mouse We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
17. “A Bad Sign” by Michael Penn from Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 [2007 mix]
18. “Down Here Below” by Steve Earle from Washington Square Serenade
19. “I'm On A Roll” by Over The Rhine from The Trumpet Child
20. “Heavenly Day” by Patty Griffin from Children Running Through
21. “Sky Blue Sky” by Wilco from Sky Blue Sky
22. “Without a Struggle” by Golden Smog from Blood On the Slacks EP
23. “Words” by Lucinda William from West

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Golden State is an amazingly well written. Might be my favorite song of the year. Great list.

Tom said...

Yeah, "The Golden State" is great. I think that whole album is pretty darn strong. I didn't listen to it very much just after I got it, but when I started thinking about my annual, year-end list, I put all my 2007 songs on shuffle on my iPod for a while. Just about every time a song from that album came on, I'd stop and think, "That's nice...who is that?"

Thanks for the compliment on the list. I know that you know that the Penn song is a bit of a cheat (but the record was at least re-released in 07).