Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
Bon Iver is Justin Vernon. And Justin Vernon writes moody and emotional songs that manage to tug on the heartstrings. This should be a problem, as one must always be vigilant when it comes to those things that seek to manipulate emotions, yet there is a sweetness and loneliness to the music that has the power to disarm one’s self-defenses. Vernon’s odd falsetto, with its crackings and groanings as he struggles to reach higher notes or push his voice where it regularly would choose not to go, has an openness, a sort of inviting beauty to its sound. The voice has fullness and range, but never too much of either, as it does not dominate the songs. Merely, it serves to add another layer of instrumentation.
At first listen For Emma, Forever Ago seems just like any other indie folk-rock album: easy on the ears, lo-fi, lots of strummed guitar, smart lyrics. But as one stays with the album and commits to the experience of listening, For Emma reveals itself to have deeper qualities. There is no question it is all the things mentioned before but on a more passionate scale. One believes Vernon when he laments a love gone or going sour, it does not appear to be some sort of DIY pastiche from the indie rock handbook. Instead it feels authentic, that he is able, in some way, to share with us the quality of an emotion. Not merely to recount his experience, but to present it to us so that we to are able to know it.
Camus writes of the experience of having an “exalted emotion,” which is to say an emotion that is not bound by the constraints of the moment in which it is felt, but is felt in the rawest of possible ways: without mediation nor the intrusion of other jumbling emotions. Vernon relates just such a thing to his listener, a credibility of feeling, of the danger that one must expose oneself to if one wants really to feel.
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Best Albums of 2007
The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
A strange album mixing Scottish folk, indie rock, and anthemic 1980s arena bombast. And yet somehow it all works, producing a piece of music that is at once both melancholy and joyous. It is an album about the pain of loss and the soothing power of memory.
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Accessible and interesting, it’s an album not just for diehards, but for the casual fan as well. It still works for those who are in love with Kid A but seems also to be written for those who swear that The Bends changed their life. The fact that one can buy it directly from the band at the price one is willing to pay gives the album a democratic quality that allows the listener to feel that she is more than just a consumer: that she matters.
Kathy Diamond – Miss Diamond to You
A dance record that doesn’t require any dancing. To put it simply, this is an album about dance music: the idea of it and the experience of it. Almost a comment on the genre, it provides an example, not only to those that love it but also to those that hate it, of the magic of possibility that is available to dance music.
Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City
A marvelous concept album that revolves around a single “weekend in the city.” It is a tale told in different voices, but each story illustrates the struggle to survive in an increasingly unstable world.
A Place to Bury Strangers – A Place to Bury Strangers
A moody and noisy album descended from the likes of My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. This Brooklyn based band artfully mixes reverb and walls of guitar to create an attacking sound that is never only aggressive but serves to reveal complexities to the music.
Best Single
Rihanna – Umbrella
A sexy and delightful song about friendship and love that manages to be edgy when it should have been cheesy and sweet when it should have been saccharine. Everything about Umbrella works perfectly resulting in four and a half minutes of pop magic.
Most Disappointing Album
 
A tie between Explosions in the Sky’s All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and Interpol’s Our Love to Admire. While both albums are perfectly enjoyable, they are too immediately familiar, seeming as if each band chose to rest on its laurels and past acclaim, deciding to produce an album that sounds like it’s supposed to but ultimately feels like a semblance of the real thing.
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