Well lots of people seem to be throwing their top ten albums of last year about in the blogosphere so I guess I will throw my hat in the ring. But I’m not going to write it in any particular order as I couldn’t be that organised about my music tastes! Besides, is the album not dead with the advance of digital music? – Well, no I don’t really believe that, but it is true to say I have been a little bit out of the loop when it comes to keeping up with the latest releases over the last year or two. I’ve been listening to a lot of old stuff and mixes and the like. My Last.Fm quilt here on the side of the blog and profile will give you a better idea of what I’ve been listening to when I have the scrobbling turned on. Meanwhile my vinyl collection has been gathering dust and taking up space, perhaps I might sell it all.

So back to the topic at hand, here’s a few I enjoyed that were released in 2007 :

The Pale – Contents Of A Shipwreck
Sarsparilla – Karahee
Grinderman – Grinderman
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Saul Williams – The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!
Paul Hartnoll – The Ideal Condition
Herv – Flot and Retent
Dan Deacon – Spiderman Of The Rings
Cathy Davey – Tales of Silversleeve
Bjork – Volta
Battles – Mirrored
Chemical Brothers – We Are The Night
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

No need for reviews for the above, they were all (and still are) a joy to my ears!

I also liked Zoid vs The Jazz Musicians of Ireland although technically I only got the CD in 2008, I performed the visuals for the launch in Crawdaddy a few months back and was very impressed by the sounds.

Other music I really like was that which is on the Tara Compilation CD, which is a lovely mix of many types of music, both contemporary and traditional. There is an another one for the Vigil camp also which I don’t have, but by no doubt it is good too and worth checking out. Support the warriors!

On heavy rotation from previous years, there was a whole lotta Serge, Íse, The Clash, Tool, Mouse On Mars, Howie B, Hot Chip, Neutral Milk Hotel, Halfset, Four Tet, MC Paul Barman, Dangerdoom and more in that mixed bag.

As far as mixes are concerned I’ve been kept entertained by the ThinkToy podcast and in recent weeks by offerings from the Freebird (Vinyl Room) crew; Halfdutch, Pasta Masta and Goldy.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of Alan Watts which is music to my ears and I sometimes blend him with some tunes using Djay or by more ad-hoc means!

This is hilarious! Dear Rockers is a website which encourages you to send some love, in the form of hard currency to music artists who you like but might not have obtained all of their music legally. The site contains copies of some great letters sent to the likes of Axl Rose, Maroon 5, Sufjan Stevens and Billy Joel to name just a few. At first is seems like a pisstake but it’s apparently not. It’s a novel little idea which at the least highlights some of the holes in the recordings industry’s case on the war on piracy. Compare for example iTunes to Napster’s services on price alone. Should digital cost the same per track on average as a CD? There are no production costs. This article on Ars Technica shed more light on this debate especially in the comments that follow.

Anyway, back to Dear Rockers. Here’s what it is all about… Read more