5. Dizzee Rascal - Maths And English: My brother and I often talk about the tendency of rappers to put out sub-par third albums. Hip-Hop is so mired in redundant tropes that you can almost see the bad third album coming as soon as the debut drops. The first album always brags about how street and real the artist is, about how he comes from nothing. The second album - especially a second album that quickly follows the first one - is a platform to revel in the success of the first, to brag about the fruits of the labour. By the time the third album is on shelves, the artist has become an attractive target for younger, “streeter” haters, and there’s nothing substantial left to say. Until Hip Hop lets go of its fixation on ghetto mythology, it's going to happen again and again. British rap, on first glance, seems immune to this failing, but once you peeled away the Hackney veneer, Dizzee’s first two albums adhered to the rules, and in a way this one does too.

It was distressing to see this same arc play out, in a weirdly distorted way, with The Streets’ third album. It seemed like Mike Skinner’s only real peer, Dizzee Rascal, would fall into the same trap, but the fact that Maths & English partially succeeds is the surprise of the year. Granted, there are some bad tracks on this album - and like Skinner’s album, the bad tracks are appallingly bad - but somehow the songs that DO hit the mark hit it so convincingly that you can almost forgive the misses. Almost. Much has been made about the fact that this album was never released Stateside, despite a sound that’s been described as American, but it’s exactly those moments where the production and accents veer towards contemporary American sounds where things sag. All the best moments on the album would sound very foreign on local radios - Even the flawless UGK collaboration Where’s Da G’s which progressively builds momentum like a master class in beat production. [track artist=Dizzee Rascal]Sirens may well be the best thing to happen all year, those apocalyptic drums and crunchy guitars coming from some place between Rage Against the Machine and Children of Men. No number of listens can reduce the shock when, two and a half minutes in, the beat manges to become even more threatening. [track artist=Dizzee Rascal]Hard Back (industry) dodges third album ego inflation by disassembling the ladder of fame in easy steps without sounding trite. A current of anxiety and emptyness ran through Dizzee’s first two albums, and it’s still apparent enough in the best moments of Maths & English - it’s the empty spaces around those highlights that’s the problem. Still, the best half of the album impresses enough to earn a spot half-way up the list.

Best moment: Those relentless drums on Sirens.

Worst Moments: There are many, but Suk My Dick becomes unforgivable even before the melody of Yankee Doodle Dandy inexplicably shows up midsong.



4. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky: Beyond this point on my list, things become a little more unclear. Any of the next four albums could easily vie for the top spot. Perhaps the reason I’m denying Wilco a higher placing is because I am so far off in Tweedyland that I’ve lost any objectivity when it comes to this band. When people ask me if Sky Blue Sky was any good, I joke that I don’t even know, but there’s a bit of truth there - I’ve bought into Wilco so fully and completely that I’ve lost a bit of perspective.

When Wilco played Massey Hall earlier this year, somebody called out to Jeff Tweedy from the balcony “Sky Blue Sky is brilliant!”

“Oh Yeah?” snapped Jeff, “Like, Beatles brilliant?”

He knows that Sky Blue Sky isn’t capital-B Brilliant, but I don’t think it was meant to be. Wilco already have one, and maybe even three, records that can survive being placed next to Abby Road or the White Album on the shelf. After spending the better part of the last decade marrying the avant-gard to the acuff-rose, it seems like Wilco are content to move down a more familiar path. All Wilco albums are conscious of the last fifty years of popular music, but Sky Blue Sky is much more overt with its references, references that are more than likely in your Dad’s record collection. What’s surprising is that the current version of Wilco is made of up unconventional rock savants who stepped in when more traditional musicians couldn’t keep up. In some weird way, Jeff Tweedy seems intent on pushing his bandmates out of their own comfort zone, whether that means compelling Jay Bennett sound more like Brian Eno, or Nels Cline sound a little like Glenn Frey.
There are plenty of odd angles on this album too, but when a band is expected to redefine boundaries with each outing, it’s the moments of quiet restraint that stand out. Title track Sky Blue Sky shuffles forward with a steady strum and gentle brush beat that ably carry the beautiful melody, and on [track artist=wilco]Hate it Here, Jeff Tweedy demonstrates his newfound ability to bend notes as if he’s finally found his blue eyed soul. Sky Blue Sky is not Tweedy’s, and Tweedy’s alone, though. On Walken, and many other moments of the album, Wilco clearly sounds like a six-headed monster with a warehouse full of tube gear - this is the work of a band, and not a bandleader.

Now if I could only justify the trip to Chicago to see Wilco play everything they have ever record, maybe then I could decide where Sky Blue Sky really fits in to their catalogue.

Best moment: Glenn Kotche’s weirdly off-time drum fills on Shake It Off.

Worst Moment: The uncharacteristically unfocussed and meandering Leave Me Where you Found Me. It unspools the momentum of the album at an important point; but then again there are people that would say the same about fifteen minutes of droning static.



3. The White Stripes - Icky Thump: With each album, The White Stripes expand the walls of their little room just enough. They have somehow managed to stay true to the spirit of their experiment while still courting a fanbase that stretches from the frat house to the art school to the minivan. There seems to be a persistent rumour that once Jack and Meg are done stomping around the world for this one - a tour that was delayed while Meg recovered from a distressing illness - they will hang up the red and white. It would be a sad musical landscape without them, but it makes sense. They have nothing left to prove.
Using the same ingredients rockers have been stirring up since Robert Johnson signed his soul away, Icky Thump rocks harder than just about anything else that came out this year. It’s easy to see the appeal of the Stripes; when there is so much bullshit out there, it’s hard to resist a band that sound like the world’s most talented amateurs - and I don’t intend that as a slight of either of their abilities. Meg seems to discover ways to thump out more texture with each album, and Jack can coax sounds from his gear that sound like somebody let Alan Lomax’s subjects loose in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Icky Thump was whipped up in record time - a record, because it was the longest recording period for the White Stripes, but we’re still talking about a band that works in weeks, not months. By working fast, the band captures the sound of immediacy on tape. Where other bands would labour over ideas and tones, The White Stripes take risks and live with the results, a warts-and-all approach that cleverly dodges failure by ignoring it. The result is an album that is sometimes weird Conquest, sometimes funny Rag & Bone, sometimes buoyant I’m Slowly Turning Into You, and always completely awesome.

Best moment: The keyboards in Icky Thump that sound like a pot about to boil over.

Worst Moment: There really aren’t any, because the Stripes are always at their best when they’re loose. There are plenty of fans that have criticized the over-loud, compressed mix, but the vinyl pressing has all the analogue warmth of anybody would ever want. 



2. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible: People may try to debate whether the definite article belongs in this band’s name, but there are probably fewer people who would take issue with this album being the album of the year. I’m holding them off the top spot for reasons that are probably more sentimental than anything, but for a slightly younger generation of music listeners, this is the 2007 album that will resonate five or ten years from now. More than anything, it has been exciting to watch The Arcade Fire in the process of creating their own mythology, with their guerilla appearances in crowds, concerts at high schools, surprises on stage appearances with legends, etc. None of that hype and hyperbole would matter, though, if they hadn’t created such a remarkable album. It’s easy to imagine Neon Bible fitting into the context of a long career, and the band deserves credit for shying away from the easy route when a twin sister to Funeral would have seemed like the sure way to fast-track their success. 
Neon Bible has perhaps the most consistent tone and sound of any album on this list; the reverse echo-chamber effect applied to Win Butler’s voice gives the whole thing the sound of an album recorded in a hallow well, a little disjointed from time and place. There are plenty of clumsy rhymes and forced emotions that other bands would fumble, against the themes of the church and the state, even the inelegant moments feel well placed.

This album isn’t well suited to being disjointed from itself in single-song servings on random; divorced from the context of the surroundings, individual songs feel either slight (Neon Bible) or overwrought ([track artist=the arcade fire]Black Mirror[/song) on their own. As an album, though, with everything in its right place, this one ranks with the greats.

Best moment: The monstrous church organ that slams into the climax of album-standout My Body Is a Cage. The effect, at the peak of a song coming towards the end of an emotionally trying album, is heart stopping.

Worst Moment: The French lines in Black Mirror. That artifice can only go so far.



1. Radiohead - In Rainbows: I thought I would have a hard time handing the top ranking to Radiohead in a year when so many other bands put out career-best albums, but in the end I have to give Radiohead the pole position for two reasons: they accomplished the seemingly impossible task of creating an album that can stand up against the twin leviathans OK Computer and Kid A; and they unleashed it on the world in a game-changing way. None of the hoopla about the pay-what-you-can download, sneaky street dates, and label-baiting antics would matter if the album couldn’t back up the hype, but In Rainbows works on almost every level. In a way, it’s the album that a lot of people have been waiting a long time for Radiohead to make - it’s probably the album that EMI wished they had submitted the last three times. Those that say Radiohead hung up their guitars ten years ago are wrong, but there are one or two fuzzed-out radio rockers on this one that rock on Radiohead’s own terms, sounding more like revelations than compromises. A generation of musicians have grown up weaned on Radiohead’s holy scriptures, but the bridge on Bodysnatchers and, and the moment when Thom Yorke upshifts to falsetto on Jigsaw Falling Into Place are enough to put them all to shame.

It’s in the gentler moments, though, where In Rainbows makes its most lasting impression. For the first time in a long time, Radiohead seem comfortable sounding human. Nude is practically ancient, but it has a perfect home on this album - Jonny Greenwood’s subterranean string arrangement is inimitable. Faust Arp is so deceptively perfect, it’s not hard to imagine it sounds like something John Lennon hadn’t written yet.

Few bands labour over tone, sequencing and pacing like Radiohead, and the efforts almost completely pay off. Unlike Hail to the Thief, which aimed to be complete by surveying all of Radiohead’s assorted sounds and characters, In Rainbows finds its will quickly and holds it for nearly an hour - the quality that made Radiohead the biggest band in the world in the first place. This was a year with a lot of great albums, but only In Rainbows gave me goosebumps the way music did when I was fifteen years old.

Best moment: The moment when my brother told me that a new Radiohead album was coming out... in a week.

Worst moment: The awkward shift from Nude’s sublime swell to the oddly spiraling Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. I’m sure the sequencing was well considered by the band, but I can’t help but feel like there should be something else to bridge those two songs.