Favorites from 2007

So, I've seen a lot of people making their "best-of" lists for 2007. I started trying to think of things, but realized I don't have much. So, here are some lists. They aren't in any order, and they weren't even necessarily released in 2007. It's just what I can remember that I've been into this past year.

Music: More than anything, it feels like I have to view this year as the year I got old. I look at the big 2007 lists from the critics and I just don't get 90% of it. So many people like Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, but man: it just sounds like crap to me. stupid crap.

-Josh Rouse- Just discovered him this year and particularly got into the projects Nashville & Subtitulo. He's very pop/folk with a smidge of some jazz chords here and there.

-William Fitzsimmon, Goodnight. I typically don't like buying music from itunes, but I found this online and the only way I could actually get a CD would be to order it. After going back and forth on it for about a month, (more than enough time it would have taken for a CD to arrive in the mail), I downloaded it from itunes. The best I can describe this CD would be Iron & Wine vocals, folk instrumentation with the addition of trippy beats and loops as unto The Postal Service. The difference between this and Iron and Wine is that for some reason, it doesn't strike me as so precious and the melodies are more interesting to me. Besides just the gentle finger-picky guitar, he does have a lot of keyboards/piano on this thing. One of the reasons I may like it so much may be because his keyboards sound a lot like the way I play. This is definitely MELLOW, so don't be thinking you'll rock out to it.

-Ingrid Michaelson- Girls & Boys. Folky/poppy New York chick. Somewhere between Lisa Loeb, newer Norah Jones, and Coldplay/Keene (but again NY, not UK). Honestly, I can't stop listening to this CD. She's got a real effortless, 'real-world' kind of voice that I like. One interesting thing that I realized listening to one particular song: It starts out with a nice staccato guitar figure that hangs pretty well (again, it reminds me of something that I might do) and at the end of the 1st verse this 16th note hi-hat comes in. When I first noticed it, it felt so good, just because, in the studio, it's so rare to hear a drummer come in like that and play it so perfectly in time. I'm starting to think that my producing/recording experience may have left permanent scars...

-Suzanne Vega- Beauty & Crime. It didn't capture me like Ingrid did, but I've listened to it quite a bit. I've never been a Vega fan, but I like this CD and she's kind of taken Jonatha Brooke's place in my heart, because I couldn't really get anything out of her new record, Careful What You Wish For.

-Bruce Springsteen- Magic. I can't say that I'm in love with it. I LOVE The Rising and there's a lot that I like about Devils & Dust. However, I keep popping it in to listen to it some more, so that seems to say something to me.

Looking forward to the new Sam Phillips CD that's supposed to be coming out in February.

Movies:

Boy this category is dismal. 1)I've not seen many movies this year but 2)There really haven't been many movies worth watching.

I did love Pan's Labyrinth and regret not getting to see it in the theatre.

The only movie I can think of seeing in the theatre has been No Country for Old Men. Although that movie was really good and probably the best movie I've seen in the theatre of late, it's VERY dark and VERY bleak, and I don't know if I could put it as a favorite. I do love a lot of the Coen Brothers and Fargo is high on my favorite movies. More than a couple of times, I've described No Country as sort of Fargo set in TX but without any of the fun. Did you hear that peeps? It's DARK with a capital D.

Again, I don't know if this would be a favorite, but I saw my very first theatrical 3D movie about a month ago when I saw Beowulf 3D at the new Razorback theatre. The U2 3D trailer at the beginning about made me wet my pants and I will figure out a way to see it, but of all 3D movies I could see, Beowulf was pretty great to see that way.

Books:

-Crazy for God by Frank Schaeffer. I've wrote enough about this book. Go back and read previous blogs if you want.

-I've read a lot adolescent fiction since I've spent almost all of my mentoring money on books for my classroom library. I've not really hit any that I really love, but maybe I can't really love them anyway. I'm proud that I turned at least one student on to a book called "Touching Spirit Bear" that is pretty good.

That's all I can think of right now.