2007 listening diary - the main event

As I've done every year for the past I don't know how many years, at year-end I've put together a mix consisting of tracks from my top 20 albums of the year. (As earlier entries in this listening diary make clear, in recent years I've also put together a large-format mix of songs I listened to during the year - regardless of when they came out. All the tracks on this list are from 2007 releases.) The previous entry (c'mon, just scroll down: you don't need a link all the time, do you?) lists those 20 albums, along with a bunch more and the usual verborrheac commentary.

The sequencing bears no relation to the ranking of the albums the songs are drawn from; I just put them together in an order that sounds good to me.

So: A Pillow Fight in Leather Pants: Makura-Nage.

1. The New Pornographers "All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth" (Challengers)
2. Maximo Park "A Fortnight's Time" (Our Earthly Pleasures)
3. Charlotte Hatherley "Love's Young Dream" (The Deep Blue)
4. Field Music "Working to Work" (Tones of Town)
5. The Caribbean "Bees, Their Vision and Language" (Populations)
6. The National "Squalor Victoria" (Boxer)
7. The Hidden Messages "Over" (Animal Actors 1 and 2)
8. Interpol "The Scale" (Our Love to Admire)
9. Radiohead "Faust Arp" (In Rainbows)
10. St. Vincent "Your Lips Are Red" (Marry Me)
11. Caribou "Sandy" (Andorra)
12. Future Clouds and Radar "Malice of Stars" (Future Clouds and Radar)
13. Spoon "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga)
14. Of Montreal "A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger" (Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?)
15. Paul McCartney "Ever Present Past" (Memory Almost Full)
16. The Fiery Furnaces "Navy Nurse" (Widow City)
17. Von Südenfed "Flooded" (Tromatic Reflexxions)
18. Kristin Hersh "Day Glo" (Learn to Sing Like a Star)
19. John Vanderslice "The Tower" (Emerald City)
20. Low "Murderer" (Drums and Guns)

For what it's worth, the albums I had the most difficult time with in selecting a single track to use were the Future Clouds and Radar album (just buy it, okay? there are like 20 excellent songs on it, and even the filler's fun, and short), Hatherley, Field Music, and Of Montreal. A curious coincidence: two tracks here feature somewhat disorienting distortion, which seem to be of a similar type (sounds like overloading a digital signal rather than analog distortion): the Vanderslice (he and co-producer Scott Solter use this sound extensively on Emerald City) and the Fiery Furnaces tracks.

Top albums of 2007 discussed at length.

Previous entry in the 2007 listening diary.

Check the comments for a link to the zip file.