Albums of 07

Ryan switched up a bit from our 5 of the now format, and gave us his favorite full albums of last year.

I'll admit, I'm as big of an album fan as him. As much as I like just finding new music, and skipping around in my playlist, I'm still thoroughly impressed and amazed when I find an album that truly works from start to stop. This should be obvious I guess, Floyd never put out anything as a single that wasn't ten times better within the context of the album.

I had to stretch a bit to figure out my 5 favorite of last year. I can't say it was the best year for the album, but these were all at least ones that earned repeat from me. Also, this is a list of albums I enjoyed this year, not necessarily albums released this year.

1. Shooter Jennings - The Wolf
Yeah, this probably seems obvious, I'm a huge Shooter fan. That said, even I was amazed how much I liked this album. It just grew even better over time. Hands down his best effort yet. See you in August, Shooter.

2. Timbaland - Timbaland Presents Shock Value
This stretches the concept of album a bit. The amount of collaboration here makes it difficult to get a consistent theme going...or does it? The consistent theme here is Timbaland's continued incredible production value. That and the fact that I kept finding a new track to be my favorite. "Bounce" is the current one - Missy and Dre along with JT, that's just good business.

3. Z-Trip - All Pro
Old-school hip-hop masters, with some nice metal behind it. Where was this in high school?

4. Aesop Rock - Fast Cars, Danger, Fire, and Knives
This album and I had some difficult times. I often referred to this as the devil album, due to it having superhuman DRM from iTunes somehow. I also thought that it wasn't nearly as good as some of his former or his current album. I was wrong, it just took some time.

5. Various Artists - Lost in Translation Soundtrack
Yes, this is fairly old at this point. I just finally got around to watching this movie this year though, and then getting the soundtrack. RZA is a master minimalist.