I’ve accepted that physical mix CDs aren’t in vogue in 2008, so I’ve included links for the entire CDs and the artwork for my best of 2007 2CD set. Many of these songs have been pared down in order to fit onto an eighty-minute CD, so download presumed duplicates. If you want to receive a physical copy of the CDs—the packaging, as usual, is involved and not a task well-suited to anything other than my assembly-line production—send an email to Sebastian @ this domain name. Otherwise, here is the track listing and my commentary on the first disc of music (111 mb). The second disc and artwork uploads are forthcoming.

101 / Epic45 / “The Stars in Spring” / May Your Heart Be the Map / Make Mine Music

“The Stars in Spring” was the clear highlight of the lite post-rock May Your Heart Be the Map. Thankfully absent are the listless vocals cluttering other songs on the album, thankfully present is a focus to the layered arpeggios and drifting electronics.

102 / Prints / “Easy Magic” / Prints / Temporary Residence

I’ve played Prints’ “Easy Magic” for a number of people and the response is either “I wanted to stop listening to it, but I couldn’t” or “What in God’s name are you listening to?” I fall on the former side of things, obviously. My favorite song of 2007.

103 / Pelican / “City of Echoes” / City of Echoes / Hydra Head

The first time I heard about Pelican was from Centaur drummer Jim Kelly after they’d shared a bill in Chicago. Upon hearing their debut EP, I was surprised that the sludgy instru-metal band raved about Hum. While I caught hints of this affection on The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw, the title track for City of Echoes could essentially be a blueprint for a Hum reunion. The dueling leads of “City of Echoes” extract Tim Lash’s flourishes on “Isle of the Cheetah” and “Dreamboat” and combine them with the churning riffs of “Stars” and “Winder.” I would prefer Pelican not to be an instrumental version of Hum, but if this track is any indication, I would wear any potential tribute record out.

104 / The Acorn / “Flood Pt. 1” / Glory Hope Mountain / Paper Bag

Whereas Canada’s more famous indie export spent 2007 disregarding the memories that made their debut a success and taking little joy in commenting on the present, the Acorn provided everything that their countrymen sorely lacked. “Flood Pt. 1” is an organic trip through the singer’s mother’s native Honduras. Given their folk origins, the quieter songs on the record are just as great, but “Flood Pt. 1” does a great job of mirroring the subject matter in the musical composition.

105 / Dinosaur Jr. / “Crumble” / Beyond / Merge

I wanted to include one of Lou Barlow’s excellent contributions to Beyond, since “Back to Your Heart” and “Lightning Bulb” surpass anything Barlow’s done since maybe Bakesale, but “Crumble” was too good of a J. Mascis anthem to pass up. Lou gets the shaft again.

106 / The Narrator / “SurfJew” / All That to the Wall / Flameshovel

All That to the Wall had four songs up for consideration—scorching opener “Son of Son of the Kiss of Death,” the chiming surge of “Breaking the Turtle,” the preemptive regret of “Start Parking,” and the hit single charm of “SurfJew.” It probably came down to my fondness for the doubled vocals on “And on this day son, you’ll be a man / Or on this day, you’ll be just another one of us / Who knows.”

107 / Blonde Redhead / “23” / 23 / 4AD

When I overhead Blonde Redhead’s shoegaze homage “23” in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I figured that my time with the song was coming to a swift and unjust end. Thankfully this did not occur.

108 / Deerhunter / “Hazel St.” / Cryptograms / Kranky

My first listen to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms fizzled out after the first half, which meant that I missed the album’s indie rock payoff. Whoops. “Hazel St.” is a great coming-of-age story that reminds me of a half-asleep (and considerably less saccharine) version of Poster Children’s “He’s My Star.”

109 / Errors / “Salut! France” / “Salut! France” 7″ / Rock Action

Errors should have a full album out in 2008, but the “Salut! France” single was almost enough to tide me over. I’m putting the over/under on the length of their record at 35 minutes. I am going under.

110 / The Berg Sans Nipple / “Of the Sung” / Along the Quai / Team Love

Noticeably absent from this year’s list are Do Make Say Think, whose last three records were in my top fifteen for 2000 through 2004 (a list which needs to be updated). You, You’re a History in Rust took a wrong turn toward Broken Social Scene territory. While I enjoyed finally getting to see them back in March, I was more impressed by their opening act, The Berg Sans Nipple, and spent far more time with their record than with DMST’s album.

111 / Wilco / “Impossible Germany” / Sky Blue Sky / Nonesuch

Two quick points about "Impossible Germany": first, I always hear “Impossible jiminy / Unlikely Japan,” second, the three-guitars-resolving-parts-at-once moment at the end of the song makes me smile regardless of its classic rock cheese factor.

112 / The Forms / “Oberlin” / The Forms / Threespheres

The Forms practice a dangerous brand of lyrical economy. While “Oberlin” floats along on barely recognizable syllables, album opener “Knowledge in Hand” has its more effective vocal melodies worn thin by far too many iterations of its title phrase. I chose less inflammatory option.

113 / Picastro / “Hortur” / Whore Luck / Polyvinyl

Picastro still hasn’t released a fully engrossing album, but “Hortur” is easily on par with past highlights “Winter Notes,” “No Contest,” and “Sharks.” Liz Hysen sounds like she’s sleepwalking through an intense dream, never letting her laconic delivery match the lyrical tumult. It’s a deft trick in which the lulling cello and anxious piano are fully complicit.

114 / Bill Callahan / “Sycamore” / Woke on a Whaleheart / Drag City

Woke on a Whaleheart never fully clicked with me, perhaps because I spent most of 2007 enamored with Callahan’s last release as Smog, 2005’s A River Ain’t Too Much to Love. Yet “Sycamore” stood out when I saw Callahan at the Museum of Fine Arts and not just because of the “I want to be the fire part of fire” lyric.

115 / Menomena / “My My” / Friend and Foe / Barsuk

I never got into Friend and Foe as an album, but “Muscle ‘n’ Flo” and “My My” stuck out as quality indie rock songs with excellent production values. “My My” made the cut because its tone fit the mix better, but both are worth hearing.

116 / Explosions in the Sky / “The Birth and Death of the Day (Jesu Mix)” / All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone Remixes / Temporary Residence

I had initially planned for this song to represent both Explosions in the Sky and Jesu; I prefer it to any of the original versions on All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and many of the best Jesu songs from 2007 were too long for inclusion (“Conqueror,” “Sun Rise,” “Weightless & Horizontal,” “Farewell”). Eventually I caved on that logic, giving Jesu a song on the second disc. “The Birth and Death of the Day (Jesu Mix)” was one of the few post-rock epics that didn’t disappoint this year. Whereas All of a Sudden lacks the narrative scope of past EITS albums, this remix succeeds through churning layers rather than cathartic crescendos. It may not surpass Broadrick’s remix of Pelican’s “Angel Tears,” but it comes very close to equaling it.

117 / Stars of the Lid / “A Meaningful Moment through a Meaning(less) Process” / And Their Refinement of the Decline / Kranky

I’m fairly sure that putting the ambient classical piece at the end of the disc after the epic post-rock song is an enormous cliché, but it just fit better here. The highly affected piano chords in the last half of the song were too great to pass up.