The Best CDs of 2007
Just look at the best music of 2007 and imagine how great radio could be if it stopped wrapping its big, nationwide arms around easily marketable mediocrity. Sure, there are two genuine hitmakers residing on this list, but each one of the other discs contains songs that could set all the charts ablaze. So just be a 21st century digital boy or girl and make your own radio; this list of great albums could be your foundation for a brave new world in which the most-overplayed song of the year, OneRepublic’s “Apologize,” does not exist. Yes, that limp megahit inspires a great deal of focused anger around here, but everything on this list can act as a potent antidote.
1. M.I.A., “Kala.” Maya Arulpragasam detonated her astonishing pancultural dance explosion “Arular” only two years ago, but “Kala” makes “Arular” sound sedate. M.I.A. displays more range with “Kala,” augmenting her political tribal hip-hop with Bollywood rave-ups (the exuberant disco of “Jimmy”) and angry dream pop (“Paper Planes”), and even invites Timbaland to the party without doing any real damage. “Kala” is the sound of the world’s pop music rising up and blasting away global boredom, as if Arulpragasam abducted the No. 1 acts from every country and forced them to make an album together.
2. LCD Soundsystem, “Sound of Silver.” James Murphy is doing much more than restoring lost luster to club music. He packs “Sound of Silver” with trenchant social satire set to unstoppable beats and rich melodies. “Someone Great” sounds like the transcendent pop hit the Human League forgot to write after “Don’t You Want Me.” If this weren’t enough, Murphy ends “Sound of Silver” with a piano ballad, “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” that is so good, it’s not difficult to imagine Cole Porter coming back as a 21st century cynic, disillusioned at the squeaky-clean Bloomberg Manhattan before him.
3. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “100 Days, 100 Nights.” A long-standing vocal powerhouse in the underground R&B scene teams with a band of twentysomething retro purists to make a killer soul album. Jones can stand tall with the best soul singers of the past, but “100 Days, 100 Nights” never feels like a dress-up party — instead, it sounds like a genuine lost classic unearthed from the vaults of Stax Records.
4. Radiohead, “In Rainbows.” Never mind the hoopla over Radiohead’s paradigm-shifting sales platform: After years of working with texture and high concepts, “In Rainbows” is a return to writing great songs, and Thom Yorke’s formerly polarizing vocals achieve real warmth. Just when it felt like Radiohead was sailing into the ether, gorgeous ballads such as “Nude” and “All I Need” bring this great band triumphantly back to Earth.
5. St. Vincent, “Marry Me.” Singer-guitarist Annie Clark spent time as a not-so-secret weapon for the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’ angelic horde before creating this rewarding and altogether gorgeous art-pop album. Tulsa-born Clark has a gift for intricate chamber pop containing unexpected sharp edges, and at 25, she is writing songs such as “Marry Me” and “All My Stars Aligned” with a level of artistry that some artists spend entire lifetimes trying to match.
6. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, “Raising Sand.” At first, the unlikely pairing of Led Zeppelin’s golden god and the high priestess of bluegrass feels unexpectedly sleepy, but “Raising Sand” yields its rewards over time. This is slow-burning twilight music, and these voices match better than anyone might have imagined on this collection of Gene Clark gems and voodoo-infused spooky blues.
7. Ween, “La Cucaracha.” On Dean and Gene Ween’s ninth studio disc, the fake brothers get happy and smear their magic all over your record collection. Whatever they take on — whether it’s a mariachi horn section, David Bowie or old-timey jug band breakdowns — Deaner and Gener never fail to bring an insane smile. “Woman and Man,” Ween’s 10-minute take on the Book of Genesis, is so remarkable in its patchouli-scented portentousness, it should come with its own gatefold sleeve.
8. Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black.” Having set up what seems like a permanent home in the tabloids, it’s tempting to completely write off Winehouse, except “Back to Black” is filled with timeless songs — no R&B ballad of this year can compete with the doleful soul of “Love is a Losing Game.” There is enormous talent at work here that is now being eclipsed by a seemingly unrelenting self-destructive nature. Let us hope she pulls out of her spiral.
9. Kanye West, “Graduation.” On the surface, “Graduation” sports a shiny, stainless architecture, featuring samples of Can and Daft Punk, but inside is what makes it valuable. West makes a genuine effort to examine his own nature on “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” and “Big Brother” analyzes his complicated relationship with Jay-Z in a manner that rarely takes place in hip-hop. Packed front to back with great moments, West’s “Graduation” achieves with honors.
10. Of Montreal, “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?” Kevin Barnes started out as a lo-fi member of the Elephant 6 alternative pop collective, but like his most recent efforts, “Hissing Fauna” is super high-tech psychedelia. Barnes multi-tracks his voice into choirs that rival “Bohemian Rhapsody” in their tight operatic harmonies, and then shifts into Prince-style, wild-eyed funk just to keep his deranged party going strong.
TV Review: “Law & Order,” Season 18
Jeremy Sisto
Nearly 400 episodes are in the can, and I’ve never seen anything like it: Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto) is running down the middle of a street in pursuit of a kidnapping suspect who is fleeing the scene on bicycle. The neighborhood is in the middle of a blackout, so it’s quiet. And he’s periodically blowing a whistle — a beat cop whistle! — as he’s barreling through this neighborhood after the scumbag in question. It’s a nice touch, but it’s not the last one.
Longtime viewers are conditioned to expect this to end soon and move on to the next “card,” but it doesn’t. As Lupo turns a corner, he is joined by a half-dozen other cops, almost in formation, and they keep going, and Lupo keeps blowing that silver whistle. It’s a great scene, an uncommon scene and it was one of many surprises in the double-shot premiere of the 18th season of “Law & Order.”
We don’t expect these surprises, especially from a show nearing its 20th year on television and particularly one that was considered to be in its death throes. But Dick Wolf shook up the snow globe, and given the changes that are in effect on “L&O” this season, it could go on for another five years. As of Wednesday’s premiere, it is no longer my comfort food show, my go-to place when I’m too tired to do anything else. I will be excited to watch how the season unfolds.
Milena Govich, right, as Nina Cassaday, being chewed out by Chevy Chase.
Lupo replaces Det. Nina Cassaday, who was played by Milena Govich, who many Oklahoma City readers will remember for her stage work with Lyric Theatre. Govich is great — she was the best thing going on the short-lived semi-”L&O” series “Conviction” – and I’m sorry to see her go, but Nina Cassaday was not a character. She was a pawn. The show runners’ failure to write a character and just let Govich wander through the season, waiting to contribute, was a disservice to the show and to the actress. She deserved better.
But kudos for the hiring of Sisto, who is spectacular at playing eccentrics — his Billy Chenowith on “Six Feet Under” got under viewers’ skin like no other character on that show. Cyrus Lupo is introduced at the beginning as the brother of an assisted suicide. He comes back to New York to be with the family after a few years in some purposely vague duty overseas: he’s rumpled, unshaven and wearing sweats and aviators when we first see him, and who knows what’s going on with this guy.
But in a past life, he was a uniform cop under Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), and he talks his way into investigating another assisted suicide linked to the death of his brother. The first hour is good, with a great guest turn by Brad Dourif as a Kevorkian type and a thoroughly surprising final scene — none of that boring old recap by the ADAs to be seen here — but things really got rolling in the second hour, “Darkness.”
Linus Roache
This is where we really get to know Lupo and Executive ADA Michael Cutter. Cutter is played by British actor Linus Roache, who is probably most recognizable to U.S. audiences as Dr. Thomas Wayne in “Batman Begins,” and co-starred with Sisto on last year’s short-lived “Kidnapped.” Cutter is a genuine change of pace after 14 years of by-the-book work by Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), who has been appointed interim DA to replace Arthur Branch (Fred Thompson). He’s all about getting things done, and a key plot point in “Darkness” involves his willingness to go around legal procedure to save someone’s life. Roache plays him as a fully believable person, and his workaround doesn’t bite him as bad as it might have if this happened, oh, last season. Like I said, genuine surprises, and Roache is already administering a welcome jolt to the show.
It should also be noted that his second chair, Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza) has become a real human being in Season 18. Some of the changes are cosmetic — de la Garza has been freed of the ridiculous helmet hair that Wolf inflicted on her last season (she looked like some kind of voluptuous “lawbot”) — but mostly it comes down to Rubirosa actually having things to do and say. Unlike Govich, de la Garza survived her poor treatment last season.
Above all else, the writers are working hard, as are the directors. You see it in the cinematic camera work that replaces the staid, line-em-up-and-shoot-em style of the last half-decade or so, and the dialogue: wisecracks are out and real character interaction is in. The show does not feel like a filmed flow chart anymore, and it looks, by the tone of things, that the trend of bringing in cheesy guest stars (Chevy Chase as a boozy racist?) is probably on the wane.
“L&O” nearly died last year, and it seemed like the NBC entertainment president at the time, Kevin Reilly, was bent on killing it — ironic, since Reilly was the show’s supervisor during its first season. Reilly left NBC in May to go to Fox, where he won’t be able to kill it even with “American Idol” — “L&O” runs at 9 p.m. Central after Simon, Randy and Paula have finished their staged bickering. The WGA strike leaves “L&O” as one of the few scripted shows with first-run episodes, and so it has a shot at a new life and a reevaluation by viewers. Based on the first two episodes, it deserves it.
Random 10 for Jan. 3, 2008
1. RJD2, “You Never Had It So Good.” As a major exponent of Definitive Jux, RJD2 created adventurous underground hip-hop soundscapes, which is why 2007′s “The Third Hand” is such a wild pitch — this is beautifully rendered indie-pop that is a million miles away from Cannibal Ox or Aceyalone. He should produce Coldplay, or at least Athlete.
2. Fujiya and Miyagi, “Ankle Injuries.”
3. Amy Winehouse, “Mr. Magic.”
4. Nellie McKay, “I Wanna Get Married.” I understand that Nellie stewed up a reputation as a troublemaker in the run-up to 2006′s “Pretty Little Head” and Sony’s subsequent dumping of the disc and its creator. I also understand that McKay’s genre-skipping M.O. is hard to market, but there is no reason that someone this abundantly talented should be releasing music through her own indie. Verve or Blue Note, where art thou?
5. Lindsey Buckingham, “Countdown.”
6. Radiohead, “Reckoner.”
7. Afghan Whigs, “Creep.”
8. Anjali, “Hymn to the Sun.”
9. The Melody Unit, “Kona Song.”
10. Kate Nash, “Pumpkin Soup.” She’s pleasant enough, but I’m not yet fully sold on Nash, and this video should explain my misgivings. It’s overly cutesy by a long shot, and besides, being a Kate Nash fan is a little like being a Gerry and the Pacemakers acolyte in a Beatles world. A little like preferring Georges Braque to Pablo Picasso. Quite a bit like preferring Inspiral Carpets to the Stone Roses. Or “Growing Pains” to “Family Ties.”
Random 10 for Jan. 2, 2008
1. The Flaming Lips, “Free Radicals.” Believe it or not, I’m not screwing with the randomness of the list today — this is what came up when I powered up Podsie this morning. The New Years Eve concert at Cox Center was pretty extraordinary, even for those of us who were at the Zoo in 2006. It might suffer from comparison, but only because I don’t think there was the uniformity of adoration in the audience — a lot of people were there because it was the biggest thing going around Opening Night. Also, the arena was a sweatbox — the heat must have been turned up around 85 in there — which might have been causing people to fall asleep or pass out. But Wayne (shown that night in the above photo by The Oklahoman’s Matt Strasen) was in top form, and when he played ”Taps” using a Ceremonial Bugle — an electronic bugle used at military funerals when musicians are unavailable — to lead into “Waiting For a Superman,” the Flaming Lips achieved a certain magic that no amount of lasers and balloons could match.
2. Led Zeppelin, “All My Love.”
3. Hot Chip, “Down With Prince.”
4. Blonde Redhead, “Misery is a Butterfly.”
5. Liquid Liquid, “Cavern.” This song by an early ’80s New York art-funk band led by vocalist-percussionist Salvatore Principato provided the musical template for Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “White Lines.” Fun, baby.
6. Kevin Devine, “Just Stay.”
7. St. Vincent, “We Put a Pearl in the Ground.”
8. Bettye LaVette, “Down to Zero.”
9. The White Stripes, “Effect and Cause.”
10. The Besnard Lakes, “Disaster.” Brian Wilson was honored last month at the Kennedy Center, which brings to mind how some of the most interesting music of last year owes such an unpayable debt to the man. Panda Bear’s Person Pitch and The Besnard Lakes’ The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse came out around the same time in 2007, and while Panda Bear’s aural collage is more out there on the sonic bent, the Besnard Lakes seem to get Wilson’s melodic sensibility better, but harder.
