2007's Best Moments in Song

Slightly more specific than other lists, but probably not all that different, here is my list of the 11 Best Moments in Song for the Year 2007.

Download the Best Song of 2007 and have a read.

The National - "Fake Empire", 0:00-0:31
I love the way the feedback meanders for a few seconds at the very top, seemingly searching for the right chords. Then, piano gallops in so confidently. Then, Matt Berninger, his voice deep as hell, throws out a couple lines about going out and getting wasted. At first, they don't seem remarkable. Nice pictures for sure, but nothing more. But you hear the song a few more times and you remember how your friends would spike their bottles of juice with vodka rather than buy drinks at the bar. And you realize that singing the phrase "super late" is "super" funny. There's some other great moments in this song, like when the horns kick in at 2:37 and the lonely piano notes contrast spurts of violent drumming from 1:29-1:43. But the beginning is perfect. A perfect start to my favorite album of 2007, and a perfect start to this list.

Of Montreal - "Cato As A Pun", 1:39-1:51
Hissing Fauna has plenty of good moments, but for some reason this line always sticks with me. It's clever. It's simple. It's true. "..don't say that I have changed, because, man, of course I have." What's so wrong with flip-flopping?

M.I.A. - "Paper Planes", 1:43-1:54
While the chorus might be the most memorable part of this song, I wish it was just four minutes of verse. Also, anyone who reads this must only speak to me in this cadence from now on.

David Vandervelde - "Nothin' No", 0:47-1:03
A little jamming and then – Bam! – right into the chorus. Fuck the verse! If it ain't as good, then why start the song with it? I never thought it was appropriate to use the phrase "drenched in reverb" until I heard this song. The young Vandervelde sounds ancient, like he's lived 50 or 60 grizzled years, when he cries, "Nothin', no, is gonna keep us apart."

Vampire Weekend - "Oxford Comma", 1:20-1:49
Two things.
1. The dramatic and yet seamless change from verse to chorus and back again. The drums start marching. Some keyboard notes get held. And then we're back, still in the groove we left 20 seconds earlier.
2. A lazy delivery that's only topped by Stephen Malkmus. If I start trailing off at the end of words, will I sound cooler? Or does it only work in song?

Andrew Bird - "Plasticities", 1:18-1:33
The change from verse to chorus isn't as smooth here. I'm gonna guess that this song was a cut and paste job. Bird wrote a great big fucking chorus and just attached it to whatever scrap of a verse he had lying around. Listening to the song takes patience because there's long stretches of boredom between choruses. But when it finally hits? I literally feel like I'm Aladdin, soaring on a magic carpet, looking down at the Sphinx, knowing I'm gonna get laid by a Princess later in the night.

The Weakerthans - "Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure", 2:43-2:55
My love for the bridge of a song probably has something to do with Weezer. "Say It Ain't So", "The World Has Turned", "El Scorcho", "In The Garage", "Across the Sea". Ridiculously awesome bridges. This one? Pretty good. A long, meditative part leads into it, the drums get louder and he starts really belting. It's also noteworthy that this song is written from the perspective of a cat, and it's somehow not stupid.

Patrick Wolf - "Bluebells", 3:15-3:24
The idea to have these missile sounds lead into big drum explosions throughout this song would really piss me off if it was done by Conor Oberst. I'll be more jaded in a few years and it probably won't work for me anymore, like how the boy's sister couldn't hear the silver bell in "The Polar Express" when she got older. For now, I believe in Patrick Wolf. I believe the conviction with which he yells "Ringing!" and the ringing noise that comes after it.

Animal Collective - "Fireworks", 5:05-5:18
I could have done, "Fireworks, 0:00-6:50", but that would defeat the purpose of my list. This is my favorite section of the song, I suppose. The lyrics "lift you up" come right as the song lifts up, and Avey Tare's scream is frighteningly catchy.

Okkervil River - "John Allyn Smith Sails", 2:14-2:33
The transition to "Sloop John B", and, specifically, the recognition that this motherfucker Will Sheff is actually singing "Sloop John B", might have been my favorite musical experience of 2007. As if the lyric, "My friends, I'm gone," wasn't dramatic enough...

LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends", 6:37-7:37
Not much to say about this that hasn't been said already. I'm certainly surprised that James Murphy penned my favorite line of last year, "When you're drunk and the kids look impossibly tan..." There are many obvious reasons to love the end of this song, but my personal reasons have much to do with that section of the music video being unfathomably exciting.

2005 List
2006 List