Transient Music: 2007 Year End Thoughts
12.22.2007
2007 Year End Thoughts
How odd that winter begins and ends a year. At a year’s end, the slow
diminution of botanic life, from the proverbial descent of autumn’s leaves to
the death of all the grass around us, seems to contradict the frenetic nature
of the holiday season. While consumerism reaches yearly heights in
November and December, our surroundings suggest that everyone should
take a step back, relax, and reflect upon eleven months of undoubtedly
eventful change and growth. In fact, it seems to be the only way I can
write this reflection. School just let out early, and I have nothing better to
do for the next few hours other than watch the ice pellets fall and think.
I hardly remember the beginning of 2007 musically. Of course, I remember
my own performances- various jazz band performances on bass guitar while
scrapping away at acoustic guitar in an indoor drumline. Yet none of those
events stick out as definitive; they feel more like a blur. Winter begins each
year as well, where nature seems to hibernate, letting whatever
precipitation the sky rains down upon us bury nature’s dead. The
environment never notices the change of a year; after all, the calendar is
an inexact science made by man. Fittingly, the music industry laid dormant
through the beginning of the year. Aside from a few notable releases
(including Eluvium’s Copia, my favorite album of the year), the world had
to wait until spring for the industry to pick up in activity. From March until
November, the music world remained incredibly active, with the ascent and
descent in activity paralleling the change of seasons. From the end of the
year through the beginning of the next, however, the record industry lies in
wait.
Looking back in recent history, this seems to be the normal wave of activity
throughout the year. An unusual constant, however, was the consistently
good material released in 2007. I lack the hindsight to truly look back on
other years with experience, but I can say this: I truly enjoyed the music
of 2007. Currently, I rate six albums from this year a 4.5/5, where at the
end of 2006, I had three (note: I do not believe in rating albums a full 5/5
upon their release). Undoubtedly, I will discover more gems from the year
as time moves on, and hopefully, I can look back in later years and
remember 2007 as a fantastic year for music.
Transient Music: 2007 Year End Thoughts
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Regardless, the year had its drawbacks. The issue of music piracy exploded
in later months, beginning with the shutdown of OiNK.cd, the most popular
site for advance releases on the Internet. From there, Albumbase and
Demonoid were taken down. While these sites encouraged illegal activity,
the authorities had little legal ground to stand on when arresting the site
owners. The sites had no central servers where they held these albums.
They provided links to the albums instead. It seems more like arresting a
school principal for a student possessing illegal drugs in his locker rather
than arresting the student. And, as OiNK argues, Google provides many of
those links with a simple search. Type “Frank Sinatra.rar” and many links
to torrent downloads appear on the first page of Google’s results. While I
am not taking sides to this argument, I contend that the record labels
putting a bounty on these sites only infuriates the labels’ consumers,
therefore moving them further to piracy. Something must be done.
Once again paralleling the progress of nature’s seasons, too many
musicians have died in the last few months. Ike Turner, Casey Calvert of
Hawthorne Heights, and Kevin DuBrow of Quiet Riot have made the most
headlines, but many others have perished within the last month. András
Szöll sy, the Hungarian classical composer and contemporary of Béla
Bartók, died on December 6th. Pimp C, who recently appeared on the new
Chamillionaire album and part of the hip-hop duo UGK, died on December
4th. And of course, we lost Luciano Pavarotti on September 4th. The list
goes on…
Personally, the year means something much more than a collection of great
albums or a year to remember great musicians. 2007 marks my first full
year as an active writer and reviewer, and, looking upon my first review of
that year, I feel confident in my improvement as a writer. I worked to
break my formulaic style, and I feel that I have succeeded in that effort,
although I still use fallbacks and cliché statements here and there. Through
consistent writing and listening, I attempted to make keener musical
insight. With various different genres, I continued to broaden my horizons,
delving into more mainstream music at points (James Blunt, Yellowcard)
and working on writing negative reviews of higher quality. As Sputnikmusic
gained popularity on the Internet, I gathered more contacts with record
labels as a means to establish a reputation not only for myself but also for
the website.
Most importantly, however, I discovered a purpose to my writing. I do not
review to gain attention or inflate my self esteem but rather as a means to
express my views on art and music as a whole. I try to promote innovation
and originality over the refined borrowing of ideas and repeating the same
process over and over again. I love when artists grow and change, when
they experiment, when they forget what their record labels want and
express their own creative motives above all. While my opinion may be
small and ineffective to the music world as a whole, I feel a need to
express these opinions. Jaga Jazzist titled their 2005 landmark album What
We Must. This is what I must, and shall continue, for years to come.
Transient Music: 2007 Year End Thoughts
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Posted by Tyler Fisher at 3:03 PM
2007 Best Albums:
15. Ken Andrews- Secrets of the Lost Satellite
14. The Pax Cecilia- Blessed are the Bonds
13. Ghastly City Sleep- Ghastly City Sleep
12. Telescreen- The Solar Sea EP
11. Caspian- The Four Trees
10. Burial- Untrue
9. Oceansize- Frames
8. Terence Blanchard- A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)
7. Radiohead- In Rainbows
6. Between the Buried and Me- Colors
5. Paul Marshall- Vultures
4. Lindsey Boullt- Composition
3. Minus the Bear- Planet of Ice
2. Thrice- The Alchemy Index Vol. I and II: Fire and Water
1. Eluvium- Copia
Worst Albums of 2007:
5. Architecture in Helsinki- Places Like This
4. The Nightwatchman- One Man Revolution
3. Daughtry- Daughtry
2. James Blunt- All the Lost Souls
1. Soulja Boy- Souljaboytellem.com
