10
Dec
Following are my picks for Top 15 Albums of 2007 (revised to include CDs I heard after the end of the year). These are the CDs that I have listened to most this year, and also those that I think are vocally, lyrically, and musically superior to everything else I’ve heard. Click the links for reviews, purchase links, and mp3s or audio links.

1. Mavis Staples: We’ll Never Turn Back

2. Damien Dempsey: To Hell Or Barbados

3. Anaïs Mitchell: The Brightness

4. Glen Hansard & Marketa Iglova: the Once soundtrack

5. Eleni Mandell: Miracle Of Five

6. Sylvie Lewis: Translations

7. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raising Sand

8. Maria Muldaur: Naughty, Bawdy & Blue

9. Sarah Borges & The Broken Singles: Diamonds In The Dark

10. Pamela Means: Jazz Project Vol. 1

11. Eilen Jewell – Letters From Sinners & Strangers

12. Xavier Rudd: White Moth

13. The Avett Brothers: Emotionalism

14. Jeremy Fisher: Goodbye Blue Monday

15. Alice Smith: For Lovers, Dreamers & Me

Annotations….

* Honorable mention to Luminescent Orchestrii’s Too Hot To Sleep (which would have topped the list except it was released in 2005).

*My 2006 Top 10 Albums list has been revised to include CDs that were released last year but not reviewed by me until this year – such as Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black and Hem’s Funnel Cloud.

5 Responses to “2007 Top 15 Albums”

The Mavis Staples is great (and what a career!). Not the sort of thing most music bloggers pay much attention to — but should.

Amy
December 13th, 2007

This is the first mention I’ve seen in anyone’s music lists of Mavis Staples…which is a shame, as it is a really great album; my favourite of that genre since Bettye Lavette’s covers album. Thanks for a list that is original!

Divinyl
December 17th, 2007

Amy & Divinyl – Thanks for the feedback! I know most of my other picks are a bit obscure, but I’m surprised Mavis hasn’t been on more lists.

muruch
December 17th, 2007

[...] on March 24th. The band’s previous album Diamonds in the Dark was one of my favorites of 2007, and witnessing their wonderfully raucous Mountain Stage set made me love their music even more. So [...]

[...] of The Frames, along with Marketa Irglova of the film Once (the soundtrack of which was on my 2007 Top Albums list). The Swell Season derive their name from Hansard’s favourite novel by Josef Škvorecký, and [...]