Best Song: LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends."
You have no idea how much it pains me to agree with Pitchfork.
Movie of the Year: Superbad
I'm really disappointed with the year-end best film lists coming out now. Was there a critically acclaimed movie this year that wasn't pretentious as all get-go and too long? Last year, The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine counterbalanced the pointless Babel in the Oscar's Best Picture category. Dump Atonement or American Gangster from your top movie list and put in this deceptively low-brow Apatow comedy (is there any kind?). It touched a nerve with a lot of people because a lot of people remember their high school years as a less extreme version of Seth, Evan and Fogel's misadventures. In the end, nobody explicitly got what they really wanted. Besides, you could film 90 minutes of Michael Cera swearing like a sailor and it would be funny.
Best News Story: The Vice Presidency exists in a separate dimension
Somewhere, a lawyer who probably wasn't making some contrived Con Law joke said that since the Vice President is President of the Senate, his office is not subjected to Executive Branch document release protocols and since the VP is part of a unitary executive, his office isn't subject to Congressional sunshine laws. That's right, people who passed the bar claimed the OVP behaves as some sort of singularity or Stargate to a parallel cosmos in which you can shred a document with your mind and have a man apologize to you when you shoot him in the face.
Best Album: Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
It's never guaranteed that a band's new album will be as good as the old stuff you know and love. Deviations from the old sound are sometimes hard to swallow (see M.I.A.'s Kala), but putting out more of the same is disappointing (see TL/Rx's Living With the Living or Spoon's Gagagaga).For three straight albums now, Of Montreal has made each new record better than the one preceding it. Plus, OM is one of the few acts on tour now for which the show is a supplement to the recorded work instead of just a recital. Honorable mentions: The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America, Les Savy Fav, Let's Stay Friends, Apples in Stereo, New Magnetic Wonder.
Best Local Product: "Crank Dat CTA"
Hip-hop has long operated with a largely unexamined paradox: rappers dedicate most of their work product to explaining how much money they have and how nice their material possessions are, yet "credibility" rests on staying connected to the street. Most of the folks on the streets in question don't drive Escalades; they take the bus. Why should it be so strangely refreshing to see Chicago locals Dro and Glove make a low-carbon-footprint response to Soulja Boy's ubiquitous jam?
Best Concert: I'm From Barcelona @ Southpaw, Brooklyn, August 6, 2007
IFB is like The Polyphonic Spree without the creepy cult overtones. This summer, they played McCarren Pool, Pitchfork and the show I saw, making their total U.S. stage time shorter than the flight back to Sweden. That Southpaw gig was a collective liberation from reality the likes of which I've never seen before.
Best New Foodstuff: Cinnamon flavored Sun Chips
How come nobody ever thought of this? It's the satisfaction of a sweet snack with the delivery device of a salty snack! Yeah, America is still #1 in innovation.
Best Supreme Court decision: Mass. v. EPA
This standing and admin law case had it all: a benchslap to the "loyal Bushies" mucking up an important agency, Stevens With an Attitude and a brand new doctrine. Exciting stuff.
Leave a comment