apples in stereo, rilo kiley, interpol, new ponographers. . . good stuff.

Golden Smog, bravo, and Victor and I could have used that for our mix cover a week or so ago.

Lots of good stuff. I appreciate your dilemma about creating a best of 2007 mix. I've had numerous rough mixes and there were so many good albums this past year. I've ended up creating a series of mixes featuring recent releases but no one definitive best of the year mix. With that said... I like everything here.

love to see these best ofs, catches me up on what i missed.

The usual sterling effort from Mr.Kulcher. Lavender Diamond, just discovered them and like what I heard.

I tried my best to find a song on here I didn't like, and failed miserably. Great choices, mate. Glad someone else appreciates The Hold Steady.

Wow, I share a favorite "Challengers" track (and one of the best songs of the year) with AOTM's world-class Pop Kulcher! I feel so validated :) Wish I felt the same enthusiasm as you towards the latest Fountains of Wayne, but it seriously lacked, I thought. On the other hand, it's great that you're giving due credit to Rilo Kiley, Tegan & Sara, Lavender Diamond, Josh Ritter, The Thrills, Apples in Stereo, and Band of Horses. I would've used I'm from Barcelona on my 2007 round-up as well, but the disc was available so early in 2006 that I equate it much more with that year than this past one. Nevertheless, they are one of the most positively pleasurable indie pop acts out there right now, so yay!

we only really overlap with the shins, apples in stereo & wilco - though i do like the ryan adams song & love the hold steady cover from the i'm not there soundtrack. the shins track is actually one of my couple favorite songs of the year...

If we're being honest--provided you wanted me to, as usual, give you a frank account of where we agree and differ--I have to say that this mix is comprised almost entirely of bands that I once loved but that have, for one reason or another, fallen from the "top priority" shelf of my music listening over the past couple of years. It's actually uncannily that way, as that specific list is quite large--New Pornographers, Bright Eyes, Fountains of Wayne, Apples in Stereo, Ryan Adams, and the Thrills; as such, I haven't listened to any of their releases for this year, despite the fact that I probably have copies somewhere of most of those. On a slightly different note, I tried and tried at different points to care one way or the other about Rilo Kiley, Golden Smog, Editors, Feist and Interpol, but none of those bands ever inspired any kind of reaction from me with past work... okay, Interpol and the Editors inspired more of a negative than positive reaction...). And, in the last category, there are two bands here that I love--Wilco, the Shins and the Hold Steady--who, IMHO, all released seriously sub-par albums the last time around, and the latter, at least, are probably about to fall into the first category listed above. You did pick favorite songs of mine from both the Shins and Wilco albums, despite what I just said. The rest of the bands/songs here are unfamiliar to me, so I can't say much about them. :-)

Actually, the third-to-last sentence of my last post should read:"And, in the last category, there are two bands that I love (Wilco and the Shins) and one band that I like very much (the Hold Steady) who, IMHO, all released seriously sub-par albums the last time around, and the Hold Steady at least, are probably about to fall in the first category listed above."

Geez! Rob writes an entire essay on this mix, yet he fails to mention even once the enormity of those accordions on the cover (or perhaps the photographer hired a very petite model). Anyway, sub-par or not, I enjoyed many of the above as well this last year -- like that really obscure Feist track, New Porn, the Thrills (my fave from that release) and the Shin boys.

Wilco, the Shins, Feist and Ryan Adams all made my list (and Rilo Kiley was on the bubble) but we differed on the tracks. I need to get some I'm from Barcelona, really like what I have heard.