In 2007, I didn’t listen to nearly as much music as I usually do. In fact, seeing as how I was between blogs last December, it was not only necessary but perhaps even appropriate that my best album picks were broadcast via Twitter.

Not so this year. New blog, new attitude.

I’ve narrowed my list down to five favorites (with three runners-up that needed to be called out). In an effort to rank the albums arbitrarily and not give deference to any specific choice, I’ve arranged them in ascending order of the album cover’s average lightness value.

TV On The Radio
Dear Science

This band gets better and better with every release. They still create complex harmonies, evocative lyrics, and dense productions. Dear Science, though, is a much more accessible, melodic album than previous albums. I love this album more than their past efforts, and I love their past efforts.

Amazon MP3 Store

Girl Talk
Feed the Animals

I’m not sure even Gregg Gillis knows how brilliant he is. Girl Talk’s mash-ups are booty-shaking romps that also deserve careful consideration. His ability to love and skewer popular culture may fall somewhere between Weird Al Yankovic and Negativland, but even that description defines his skill too narrowly. I will be bold enough to say that Girl Talk is (hyperbole warning) the most important musical artist of this decade. He captures the cacophony of the entire musical landscape and molds it into a listenable work of art that is so much more than the sum of its 300+ parts.

eMusic / Download directly from the source

MGMT
Oracular Spectacular

It’s not often that I have a favorite album that actually makes me happy, but maybe I’m just happy these days. Their new-wave, soul-injected Brian Wilson schtick shows no signs of wearing off on me. I wonder just how good this album would have been without the influence of Dave Fridmann, The Flaming Lips’ go-to producer. Whoever deserves the credit, nevertheless, earned it with this incredibly silly yet strangely sophisticated album.

Amazon MP3 Store

The Kills
Midnight Boom

The album cover looks exactly like this album sounds. Dark, brooding sexual tension wrapped in sludgy blues coupled with a distant, alienating drum machine — it might as well have been recorded on that messy bed. I probably listened to this album more than any other this year; I just get lost in it when it starts playing. It sounds like a really bad night in a really good way.

Amazon MP3 Store / eMusic

Marnie Stern
This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That

Marnie Stern almost defies words. It’s all in her riffs, the way her fingertapping style leads to constantly moving, often pounding rhythms. Coupled with the voice necessary to pierce those rhythms, “This Is It…” is quite a propulsive ride.

Amazon MP3 Store / eMusic

Buy the Albums

Each album above has a link to eMusic and/or the Amazon MP3 store, my favorite ways to purchase music now. And yes, I purchase music. Most of these bands are on independent labels who need your money just as much as the band does.

None of these links are affiliate links, either. I will make no money off of these purchases.

You should also go see the bands live.

Runners Up

This time in alphabetical order by band name, each described simply with two words:

The Bug, “London Zoo”: Urgent dubstep.
Fucked Up, “The Chemistry of Common Life”: Epic hardcore.
Vivian Girls, “Vivian Girls”: Dreamy lo-fi.

Next Year

My old college roommate Clint has a nearly fetishistic relationship with tracking data. His annual movie list is no exception. I will say, though, since I’ve been playing this pretentious role of pretend music pundit, I’ve become fascinated with the prospect of tracking all of the albums I hear in a year, and not just the newly released ones. For example, I recently listened to all of Foo Fighter’s post-The Colour and the Shape albums and decried them as now being in the same category as Nickelback (earning me some jeers on my Facebook wall). So starting this year, I’m going to make track my feelings about every album I listen to that’s new to me, no matter when it comes out. I’m looking forward to the exercise, and I’ll share the results next December.

(Okay, perhaps Clint is not nearly as obsessive about data as Nicholas Felton, but I know Clint personally, so he got the nod.)