Next Best Records Blog

I decided not to do a "Best of 2007" list here on the NBR blog.  Not that I don't like "Best of" lists . . . it seems like I spent December perusing them, even finding a few records I missed out on during '07 that I'm gonna check out soon.  Really, I don't feel like I really listened to the breadth of records during '07 to make my "Best of" list worth much to basically anyone.  Tons of good stuff came out last year (obvious favorites include records by TNV, Psychedelic Horseshit, and Spoon, and the Pollard records have slowly been growing on me), but I guess my having not listened to the Panda Bear record yet ultimately disqualifies me from making any kind of list.

So, with that said, I give you my "Top 5 Reasons I'm Psyched for Early 2008".  After all, like Mark McGwire said, we're here to talk about the future, not the past.  Right?

1. Times New Viking, Rip It Off (Matador, out Jan. 22): As Roger Brown would say, word is that the top record of the year is TNV's Matador debut.  And Roger Brown will be the first one to tell you: anonymous, possibly non-existent sources are usually right.
2. Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (Drag City, out second half of '08-ish): Has it really been three years since the last Joos album?  Almost (it's been two and a half, but who's counting?).  I really dug the last S.J. record, Tanglewood Numbers, and after listening to D.C. Berman & Co. for 10 or so years, it was nice to see them when they made a stop here at Little Bros. (RIP) during the accompanying tour.  Berman's said LMLS has more "epic settings" and "foe-heroic" songs, which sounds good to me.  Now that the Silver Jews consists of a semi-stable, sorta-touring lineup around Berman, I've got a good feeling LM, LS will hit just as hard as Tanglewood Numbers (which has to have one of the all-time best 1-2-3 opening combinations in "Punks in the Beerlight", "Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed" and "K-Hole").
3. Prisonshake, Dirty Moons (Scat, out Spring-ish): Yeah, I know I've already blabbed on and on about how awesome this and the new Times New Viking are going to be.  I'm serious, though, Prisonshake's still got it.  Their first proper lp in 15 years (!) is gonna rule.  Don't trust me?  Listen.
4. Robert Pollard, Superman Was A Rocker (Happy Jack Rock Records, out Jan. 21): Were the recently released Coast to Coast Carpet of Love and Standard Gargoyle Decisions as good as Alien Lanes or Bee Thousand?  No.  But really, what is?  Like I just said, though, Pollard's 2007 output (those two + Silverfish Trivia were the major releases, I guess) have been growing on me.  The "format" of this record (a 30-minute record, apparently produced by Pollard and featuring "classic era" and other assorted GBV alums) makes for a potentially interesting departure from the Tim Tobias-produced "Merge era" Pollard output.  Will Superman be a "return to form" for Pollard?  No.  But I'm guessing it will be good, and there's a decent chance it will be great.
5. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Real Emotional Trash (Matador, out March 18): I know -- this list is fairly narrow.  It's worth what you paid for it.  Anyway, like Pollard, Malkmus's "solo" output isn't on par with his former band's, but I'd be willing to be that anything he throws at us is going to be better than most anything else.  I dug the Malkmus solo set I saw in Chicago this past summer.  The new songs sounded good, and I'm interested in how they translate from the thrown-together acoustic setting to the Jicks setting.