Aural Fixation: My Best Songs Of 2007

Challenged by Mr. Orn, I put together my "best of" list for 2007. I'm a month late, but let's just say it was a busy month.

For this list, I have one basic rule... Only one song per new album - even if the whole album is worthy of being on the list. It's a bit of a long list, but each song has its own distinctive reason why it's on the list. Some songs just have interesting, new sounds. Some songs have meaning. Some just rock.
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My top 10

Intervention - Arcade Fire. Church organs, acoustic guitars, and a desperation filled lead vocal. "Working for the church while your family dies" is an allusion, evidently, to Bush's war efforts. The Church, with an obvious meaning, and family, meaning country. And now deep thoughts...

No One's Gonna Love You - Band of Horses. This is one of the best break-up songs I've heard in a while. This Band of Horses' song reverberates loss, but it sounds great.

Sandy - Caribou. Caribou used to call themselves Manitoba, until a band with the same named sued. The name Caribou came about during an acid trip out in the Canadian wilderness, suggested by none other than a grizzly bear. Anyway, these guys have a very unique sound, blending 60s vocal harmony with some cues from modern electronica. Irene and Melody Day are also good tunes from these guys.

Boy With A Coin - Iron and Wine. This whole album is very chill, and this was a toss-up. It's got an interesting acoustic lead-in, a simple drum beat, and the use of clapping as percussion. Lovesong of the Buzzard is another great tune from this album.

Bodysnatchers - Radiohead. I love the dissonant crunch on the guitar riff starting the song, which quickly evolves into the most rocking song off of the whole In Rainbows album.

Hljomalind - Sigur Ros. Despite being totally in Icelandic, this is a great song. It kinda has a Radiohead spaciness to it, yet with the anthemic explosiveness of a U2 song.

Mistaken For Strangers - The National. A song about distance and alienation. I love the line, "You wouldn't want an angel watching over you. Surprise, surprise. They wouldn't want to watch."

Sleeping Lessons - The Shins. The new Shins disc was one of my favorites of 2007, and occupied a great share of my personal earspace. This song starts off with a soft keyboard note progression and distorted vocal, but then it just jumps out of the speakers as the acoustic guitar joins, followed by full bass and drums. I saw these guys with Orn and a few others, and they played this first, which was a great way to kick off the concert with a ton of energy.

Either Way - Wilco. My favorite song off of Sky Blue Sky. I love the chill instrumental feel of the song, and I even like the solo, which one critic maligned as "Pat Methany-esque." Who even knows what a Pat Methany solo is supposed to sound like in the first place??? I also really like the message of the song, which is acceptance and resignation. Sometimes, you just need to throw your hands up at the things you have no control over. "I will try to understand, either way..."

Pink Batman - Dan Deacon. This is probably the most random of my list, but I really liked this song the first time I heard it. I would imagine it's the kind of song played during some kind of montage during an indy film. Wow, I just said montage. (We need a montage!)

Honorable Mentions

I'm On Fire - Bat For Lashes. A stirring cover of the Bruce Springsteen original. One of the few covers that does justice to the antecedant song.

September Shirt - Buffalo Tom. I've liked the music of Tom's lead singer, Bill Janovitz, after attending several of Peter Gammons' Hot Stove-Cool Music charity benefits in Boston. There's nothing particularly remarkable about this song, other than the way it all fits together into an ode to an article of clothing.

Give It Lose It Take It - Field Music. These guys use an interesting blend of vocal harmony, acoustic guitar, and piano. I've seen them called "alt-psych-folk-rock." I didn't know you could string so many genres together.

The Minaret - John Vanderslice. A haunting premise for a song - a soldier who comes to sympathize with Iraqi insurgents. I was first attracted to the chunky piano riff and distant sounding electronic drums, but the thought provoking chorus is an interesting side effect.

Take My Time - Junior Senior. These guys are hilariously retro-80s, but their sound is their own. If this were a single in the 80s, I would put my money on it being a hit.

All My Friends - LCD Soundsystem. Like Sleeping Lessons, another song that has a great build. It starts off with an initially annoyingly redundant piano chord, which leads into a frenetic drumbeat and a great progression. .

My Favourite Book - Stars. This could be the "make-out" mix song of the year. Yes, that was very 7th grade of me, but it's a good song.

Back In Your Head - Tegan and Sarah. A fun song by a duo of identical twins from Canada. I like the simple yet hard-to-forget piano riff, and Tegan (or is it Sarah?) has a flirtatious voice.

YES WE CAN!

Barack Obama just won the South Carolina primary with a decisive majority. Great winning speech too.

Baseball Junkie

Peter Gammons' blog is one of my favorite reads, and he was kind enough to share his favorite reads to the online universe. Here's a link to the page.

I've taken some of these site suggestions, as well as a few of my own baseball favorites, and published a Google Reader feed. Check it out here.

In other baseball related news, tabloid site TMZ.com reported that producers of Fox's hit reality show, Moment of Truth, have approached Roger Clemens with an opportunity to appear on the show to clear his name. All winnings, of course, would be donated to charity. While such an event has a slim-to-none chance of ever happening, the mere fact that it was proposed is comical by itself.

New Music - Jan 08 Edition

Hegs recently asked me if I had heard any good new music. Truthfully, I've been remiss in my usual listening. It turns out that it's so cold here in Minneapolis that my iPod often freezes up, so it's sitting here on my desk.

But, there are a few tunes I remembered I've heard lately that are pretty sweet...

Hjomalind - Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros is an Icelandic band, and their songs are not in English. However, as someone who has a hard time deciphering lyrics anyway, that's ok by me. This song speaks for itself.



Time To Pretend - MGMT

I caught MGMT (pronounced management) on David Letterman a few weeks back. I'm not in love with their music, but it's interesting and fun. "Time To Pretend, " which I think is about youth and excess, has some pretty witty lyrics, and they definitely have a different sound.

"This is our decision to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun."

Electric feel is also a good track from their album "Oracular Spectacular."

J.J. Abrams at TED

Great talk from J.J. Abrams, one of the creators of LOST. As fans of LOST could agree, Abrams is great at creating mystery, and this is probably one of the reasons why I can't help but be addicted to this show. Abrams' lesson here is that great stories should be told with the "mystery box" in mind. Don't give readers/viewers everything they want. Leave something to the imagination.

Architecture Pushing The Limit

Here are some really interesting building projects underway around the world.

Crystal Island - Moscow, Russia


Burj, Dubai, UAE


Chicago Spire, Chicago, IL

Fantastic Ad

I was reminded of this ad last night before I saw Juno with my girlfriend and some buddies. It's a British ad for the Sony Bravia, and it's a shame the only place I've seen it in America is on the net and (yesterday) on a movie screen. I love the song too... great use of a lesser known Rolling Stones song.

Amazing Song

Thanks to Kenny Kellogg for introducing me to the Band of Horses. This is one of the more amazing songs I've heard in some time.

My Favorite Word of the Week

Add this to your lexicon....

Man + Vacation = Mancation

As defined in the Urban Dictionary....

mancation	144 up, 39 down
	When normal males engage in "guy" activities that involve sports, camping, gambling, chasing women and most of all drinking amongst their all and only male friends. No wives, mistresses or girlfiends allowed. Done in order ot get in touch with their male-primal roots. Jack and I hiked 25 miles to trout fish in the Sierras. With many beers and stories, it made for the perfect Mancation.

The Seattle Times published a recent article bringing some light to this trend.

Link courtesy of extra texture.

Tipping Point Debunked?

According to Duncan Watts, a former Columbia University professor of network theory science, some of the core tenants of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point Theory are bogus.

As described by Gladwell, a tipping point is "the moment of critical mass . . . the boiling point" which, when reached, can assure the success of, say, a product or a political candidate.

Gladwell conjectures that the tipping point can be more hastily wrought if key social influentials are engaged in the process. The effect, potential or actual, of these "social alphas" is one of the key takeaways from Gladwell's Tipping Point hypothesis.

Watts, after performing some of his own research, found that these "social alphas" have just as much effect on a Tipping Point as do everyday "social betas." Instead, a trend's stickyness depends on society's willingness to accept that trend.

Great read. Thanks to Rahul for sending along this article.

Phone Trees Must Die

I love when I call a company's customer service line and immediately get a person. Southwest and Tivo are two purveyors of the humanized customer service approach, and it makes such a difference in this world of labyrinthine phone trees.

The phone tree is not going away, but there are a few ways around them. One of my favorites is Bringo, a site that actually calls the company for which you have an issue, navigates the phone tree, and calls you when someone is on the line.

Another great site, though a step behind of Bringo in terms of convenience, is Get Human.
Gethuman.com shows you the phone numbers to call and provides with numeric responses to the interactive voice response menus.

Get Classy, Indianapolis

Do people hate the Patriots to the extent that they will boo a 12 year old girl (Anna Grant, the most Googled search term on Jan 15th) on an important accomplishment? This has to be one of the worst displays of fan rancor since Eagles fans, well, Eagles fans existed.



Thankfully, the Patriots are honoring her before Sunday's AFC Championship.

http://www.wsbt.com/sports/13824997.html

Extreme Beers

I liked this article out of the New York Times, which showcases a (tasty) trend among microbreweries - taking beer to the extremes. To the point of this article, one of my favorite beers is "Hop Wallop," a seasonal hop filled beer characterized by the drunken 49er, Horace 'Hop' Wallop. It's so damn hoppy that it tastes like Christmas trees, but it's fantastic. It's made by Victory Brewing Company out of Downingtown, PA, an upstart brewery who has recently received national distribution for their delicious beers.

Hop Wallop is only around during the winter, but it's (I dare classify) lighter cousin, Hop Devil, is also a phenomenal brew.

ebay Insights: It's all about "winning"

Outside of what Apple has done in the prior 2 years in marketing and advertising, the new ebay campaign, "Shop Victoriously," is one of the best marketing efforts I've seen from the tech world.

Previously, ebay ran the "it" campaign, which emphasized that ebay essentially sells whatever you want to buy. I wasn't a huge fan of that campaign (because I already got "it"), though I think that it may have helped educate a greater mass of consumers as to what ebay can offer.

(I couldn't find an existing "it" commercial online, so I supplied this user generated parody instead)



"Shop Victoriously," on the other hand, is a much smarter campaign, and instead of telling consumers that ebay is a huge marketplace, it's taking us a little deeper into consumer psychology. People view auctions as win/lose battles! "Shop Victoriously" is essentially exploiting the fun and excitement people get out of participating in auctions. Let me also note, however, that ebay is also exploiting what psychologists know as commitment bias, which, like my earlier post on cognitive biases, is a serious flaw in human cognition. That said, I still think it's an effective ad, cleverly illustrating the competition dynamic of online auctions.

Mashups: My favorite user content

Over the last twelve months, and especially around last year's SuperBowl, the advent of "user generated content" became one of those hackneyed marketing phrases that can induce nausea. While I have no doubt that "UGC" will continue to grow as consumers become more internet friendly, technically savvy, and openly creative, I don't personally think that UGC would ever seriously threaten or out-pace, as some prophesized, the established creative talent machine (e g. ad agencies, movie studios).

The advent of "mash-ups," which is often exhibited as a grafting of two or more media "mashed" or combined, is one of the more interesting trends. Like UGC, it's produced by your average tech savvy consumer, however it usually sources some pre-existing media. Like the clips below show, mash-ups are a fun way to enjoy snippets of your favorite entertainment. I hope you get some laughs out of this James Earl Jones mash-up...

New Years Resolutions: Channeling Professor Brian Uzzi

One of my favorite lessons I learned at Kellogg involves the fallibility of the human mind in business situations. More specifically, we're prone to all sorts of cognitive biases. Instead of (or perhaps in addition to) quitting smoking, losing 10 pounds, or training for a marathon, it might be a good idea to try to avoid doing any of these...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Two of the most common biases I see in the working world are the confirmation bias and the anchoring bias. (I'm sure my readers, all thousands of you, have some experiences with a few on that list as well.) If you recognizes these biases, you can use this recognition to make better decisions and avoid having derail meetings. To avoid the confirmation bias, make sure you're answering why you shouldn't be making a certain decision. To avoid the anchoring bias, try to re-anchor your audience on a different idea if they seem to be getting off track.

And in the words of the enigmatic Professor Brian Uzzi, whose class I really enjoyed, "Yeah . . . good . . . " (inside joke - sorry outsiders).