Making a List, Checking It Twice

The holidays are a time of family, schmaltzy Christmas commercials that somehow make you cry and, for music journalists, list-making. Lots and lots of list-making.

Over the past few years, the availability of year-end critics' lists has multiplied faster than the worry lines on Ben Bernanke's brow. Mark our words, this month the Internet and your Barnes & Noble's magazine rack is brimming over with head-spinning, eye-glazing permutations of praise for the following albums: Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, the National's Boxer, Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, M.I.A.'s Kala, Radiohead's In Rainbows, LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver and Battles' Mirrored.

If you want to parse the exact sequence of those records in your favorite publication or blog, feel free. We're going in a different direction.

In cities from Miami to San Francisco, we asked musicians, MCs, DJs, athletes and, in one case, a Michael Stipe-impersonating electrician to tell us what music they loved most this year. It could be albums, songs or an artist's collected works and need not be dated 2007. We just wanted to know what was moving our interviewees right now.

This just seems more like the way we listen to music now—with everything available to everyone free and on demand, the old days of anticipating the release dates of and then treasuring new albums seem to be seriously on the wane. —John Nova Lomax, Executive Music Editor, Village Voice Media

 

Dallas

The best live shows of 2007 came where you expected them least

One of the overarching themes for Dallas' year in music was the continued decentralization of the local music scene.

Deep Ellum, the storied entertainment district near downtown, is still struggling to maintain relevance as its clubs shut down. There are exceptions, but the bulk of North Texas' most interesting musicians practice, perform and live outside the city's longtime artistic center, like the Lower Greenville area and in Denton, Fort Worth and other cities.

With members hailing from Plano and Denton, Nouns Group is one of those non-Dallas bands that are starting to dominate the North Texas music scene. Singer/guitarist Chris Mosley (formerly of Early Lines), drummer Nick Martin and bassist Britt Robisheaux make a propulsive racket of jagged melodies, discordant, slashing guitar and vocals more shouted than sung. Megan Carroll's electric violin, screaming over the din like a frantic banshee, elevates Nouns Group from serviceable harsh post-punk to something beautiful in spite of its frequent ugliness.

Mosley, the most obsessive record collector I've ever met, was disappointed with this year's albums. Getting him to name one he enjoyed is like trying to catch an eel. He'd rather discuss how the single-song instant gratification of music on the Internet is leading to an anti-album culture, as well as publicist-driven manipulation of the media.

Finally, he names an album he liked, though he doesn't go so far as to name it his album of the year.

"As far as other-genre stuff [other than rock], probably the most consistent rap releases are coming from Devin the Dude," he says. "Waiting to Inhale was really good."

Mostly, though, he was unimpressed with 2007's albums.

"I really thought a lot of standby stuff like Shellac, Melt Banana or Deerhoof would have been a little better," he says. "They were still good, but I think with some of my favorite bands, I was expecting too much."

Keep in mind that this is a guy who doesn't enjoy Radiohead because he's so familiar with their influences—even their almost universally acclaimed OK Computer and Kid A were inferior imitations of stuff he'd been listening to years before. He has slightly higher standards than most. While he didn't have much to say about In Rainbows, he grudgingly admired the band's distribution method, while pointing out that their studio budget and self-perpetuating popularity is unrealistic for most bands.

As far as singles, he named Yellow Fever's "Culver City" 7-inch and former Early Lines bandmate Daniel Francis Doyle's "Your Cursive."

His song of the year was "The Greater Times," from Electralane's No Shouts No Calls.

"There's a part where the woman's voice cracks when she's repeating the chorus, and I thought that was the greatest moment of the year," he says. "She's singing so passionately that her voice actually cracks. That record, along with a couple others, was why Nouns Group went to record [at Key Club] in Michigan. They were telling us about how when they were recording it, a lot of times the band and engineer had to convince the singer [Verity Susman] to keep it. In the end, I think the record really reflects a lot of good decision-making. Some of the best recordings are about the decision not to edit things...You're either the band you want to be or you're not. You're not going to fix it with Pro Tools."

Asked about his favorite musical moments of the year, almost everything he comes up with is a live performance.

"For a long time, I was just a CD and record collector dork," he says. "My behavior has changed as I've gotten older. I want to support things in a more direct way."

Following are Mosley's favorite live shows of 2007:

Health at Eighth Continent in Denton

"I saw them play at Metrognome Collective [in Fort Worth] too. They're one of these bands that get a lot of blog attention...It was cool to see a band that gets that much attention at a place that small, and for them to actually transcend their hype. They killed it."

Angry Businessmen at 715 Panhandle in Denton

"Panhandle is always packed. They were in their element, and everybody was dancing and getting into it—even people who were not necessarily into it, because I brought a bunch of people who liked it. They're just bass and drums. A surf-rock punk band that sings about root beer doesn't sound good on paper, but they pull it off live."

Silver Apples at Hailey's in Denton

"I wasn't expecting to enjoy it that much because there are only two original members, and one is not part of the reunion. Simeon did it all himself. He had his oscillator with the whole one-man setup, and [he] had a video projector set up to show what he was doing. I was especially impressed with how he pulled off the songs from the first two albums."

AIDS Wolf at Public Trust in Dallas

Mosley sees the Public Trust, the gallery formerly known as Art Prostitute, as a promising sign that it's possible to do live music outside of clubs and theaters in Dallas. Most of his favorite shows took place in someone's living room. He sees nontraditional venues as a necessity for a thriving music scene.

"It was a really good show—kind of frightening how good it was. They had a lot of Seripop prints with them—they make their own prints and posters—and it was a one-night showcase. It was interesting to see a band travel as visual artists. I was really impressed by their aesthetic. I thought their being able to work as visual artists—and then have the artists come out and make a bunch of noise—was great."

Noxagt at House of Tinnitus in Denton

"They're predominantly instrumental. They used to have a viola, and that was a real big influence on Nouns Group, as to how to include strings in harsher music. They went on at 3 a.m., and it was one of their heavier shows."—Jesse Hughey

Houston

Teeing off with Scarface

Remember how everyone thought Snoop Dogg wearing golf gear in 2004's Starsky and Hutch and those Chrysler commercials with Lee Iacocca was so funny? Well, a couple of days before Thanksgiving, on-again, off-again Geto Boy and Houston rap legend Scarface strolls into the clubhouse at the Hermann Park Golf Course clad in a white Wildcat Golf Club polo, navy shorts and his sock feet (no spikes allowed inside), and no one bats an eyelash. He is, after all, here almost every day.