This is Fifty Second Week.

Hope you all had a good Christmas. Welcome to the third annual year-end roundup column, where I try to zip through just about everything I heard and didn’t review over the past 12 months in about an hour. I call it Fifty Second Week for a couple of reasons. First is the obvious pun – it’s the 52nd week of the year. But also, to maximize the number of reviews and minimize the time I spend on them, I give myself 50 seconds to set down my thoughts about each one. When the timer rings, I stop typing, mid-word or no.

I’m staring right now at a pretty daunting stack of CDs – 56 of them, in fact. These aren’t new records, but rather ones that I bought, listened to, mentally filed away, and then for whatever reason completely forgot to review. But all of them are worth at least a mention in this column, so here we go. The forgotten albums of 2007. This is Fifty Second Week.

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Follow the Lights.

The second Adams release of the year is a seven-song EP that strikes me as a stronger work than Easy Tiger, his middling full-length album. His take on Alice in Chains’ “Down in a Hole” is a keeper, and the live-in-the-studio stuff is very good.

Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam.

Everyone loved this noisy pop excursion from this band, so I bought it to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out, not too much – it’s got a nice foundation, but it’s a little too poorly thought out, and the production is a bit too self-consciously noisy for me.

The Bad Plus, Prog.

I owe Erin Kennedy for this one. Imagine a jazz trio doing takes on Tears for Fears and Rush songs, and you have the right idea. They aren’t a cheesy lounge act, though – their versions of these songs rock, particularly their take on David Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” and the originals are just as strong.

Band of Horses, Cease to Begin.

Another critical favorite, but this one left me mostly cold. It’s got a bunch of boring one-four-five ballads on it, and one extraordinary song, the superb third track, “No One’s Gonna Love You.” Buy that song off of iTunes, and leave the rest behind.

Battles, Mirrored.

Don’t even try to tell me prog rock is dead. Not after hearing this percussive, complex, mostly instrumental and totally awesome album. I feel ashamed that I didn’t review Mirrored during the year, and even more ashamed that I didn’t give it the honorable mention it so richly deserves.

Beastie Boys, The Mix-Up.

I may have listened to this once. This album is entirely made up of the jazz-funk instrumentals that have peppered the Beasties’ albums since Check Your Head, but by themselves, they don’t inspire much of a reaction. Blah.

Cartel.

Some pretty standard melodic modern punk, which means this isn’t punk at all, but rather loud pop. That having been said, there are some good tunes here, but there isn’t anything on this album that makes Cartel stand out. Which is probably why they resorted to a reality TV show to draw some attention.

Chemical Brothers, We Are the Night.

The Chems have their thing down by now, and there are very few surprises on this album. You get the minimalist dance stuff, the psychedelic stuff, and the jokey song, this time called “The Salmon Dance.” Not bad if it’s your first and only Chemical Brothers album, but nothing special.

Paula Cole, Courage.

I suppose releasing this dreck was sort of courageous. I used to like Cole, but here she imitates Norah Jones a little too much, and a little too poorly. This is somnambulant jazz balladry at its worst, guaranteed to cure insomnia and stop her career comeback cold.

Collective Soul, Afterwords.

Tony Shore really likes this one, and I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t strike me as any better or worse than any record they’ve done, really. Ed Roland is in his groove, and the only difference I can tell between this and their last four albums is that I had to go to Target to get this one. Damn exclusive deals.

Nick Drake, Family Tree.

Let the exploitation of Drake’s legacy begin. Here’s a hodgepodge collection of tape scraps and demos and basement recordings, some sung by his mom, and none of it really adds to the perfect three-album catalog he left behind. Skip it.

Eagles, Long Road Out of Eden.

Holy shit, this is lousy. You think you’ve heard lousy before, but if you haven’t suffered through more than an hour and a half of over-the-hill soft rock mixed with subtle-as-a-brick environmental statements, you really haven’t. Thank God you can only get this at Wal-Mart.

Feist, The Reminder.

Everyone liked this one too, and I don’t really get it. The Reminder reminds me of nothing more than Sade, and I don’t recall her being this critically adored. This is pretty good stuff, and some of it is memorable, but most of it just lies there.

The Field, From Here We Go Sublime.

I like this one, but not as much as many other critics seem to. This is nice, passable techno-ambient instrumental stuff, but nothing makes me want to throw away my old Orb albums. I dig it, though.

Field Music, Tones of Town.

Now this one, I really like. Imagine if Gentle Giant had gone pop, like they did anyway, but had retained a lot of their bizarre song structures and instrumentation along the way. This is a brief little record, but it packs a punch. Very good.

The Flower Kings, The Sum of No Evil.

In which Sweden’s best prog band ditches the jazz and fusion elements that have characterized their recent material and strikes gold with a classic prog sound. Especially excellent is the 24-minute “Love is the Only Answer,” a classic Flower Kings tune on a classic Flower Kings record.

Girlyman, Joyful Sign.

For me, this is the last album Girlyman gets to make like this. Their third album is exactly the same as their first and second ones, centered on the trio’s heartrending vocal harmonies and their down-home songwriting. But there isn’t much growth here at all, and I think they need to shake it up next time.

Great White, Back to the Rhythm.

I admit it, I like this band a lot. They’re a holdover from my long-hair days, but Great White has always been more of a straight-up rock band with Zeppelin overtones. This reunion album is exactly what I’d hoped for – a bunch of solid songs played and sung with conviction. If you ever liked them before…

Hanson, The Walk.

It’s a function of the alphabet that my two guilty pleasures are right next to each other. Hanson has finally made the album they’ve been trying to make for years. This is a mature pop record that leaves memories of their teen pop past in the dust. There are some especially good songs on here, and they deserve a chance to impress.

Emerson Hart, Cigarettes and Gasoline.

The solo debut from Tonic’s frontman is straightforward and earnest, just like his band was. Hart has a few solid songs here, but overall, it’s pretty unmemorable stuff. His voice, though, is terrific, as always. I give it about a C+.

Darren Hayes, This Delicate Thing We’ve Made.

I’m a sucker for double albums. I should learn my lesson. The Savage Garden frontman’s solo effort is a synth-heavy excursion that is sometimes effective and sometimes very, very bad. There’s a decent single album in here, but it would still not rate very highly.

Bruce Hornsby/Christian McBride/Jack DeJohnette, Camp Meeting.

The first of two devilish surprises from Bruce Hornsby in this list, this is a straight-up jazz trio album that gives Bruce the chance to show off just how good he is. And what can you say about McBride and DeJohnette – they wouldn’t play with Hornsby if he weren’t worth their time.

Kaiser Chiefs, Yours Truly, Angry Mob.

Second album by these modern popsters, and it’s not much better than the first. It’s okay, especially the first couple of tracks, and most especially the hummable single “Ruby.” But there ain’t much here to sink your teeth into.

King’s X, Live and Live Some More.

Superb live album from the venerable Texas trio, who seem to be on a bit of a comeback streak. This is a 1994 show, and proves that King’s X are a force to be reckoned with on stage. “Moanjam” is particularly awesome.

KMFDM, Tohuvabohu.

I’m not really sure why I buy KMFDM albums anymore. They’re all the same, and this one is no exception. Here are the martial beats, here are the samples, here are the synths, and here are the typical fight-the-power lyrics, shouted out over and over again. This is a band that hasn’t changed in 20 years.

Mark Knopfler, Kill to Get Crimson.

I love Knopfler’s work, so I’m not sure why I didn’t get around to reviewing this during the year. It’s another sterling solo album from the former Dire Straits guitarist, full of slow burners, lovely ballads and some of his trademark lead playing. I could listen to Knopfler play all year and not be bored.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo.

Not so the Mars Volta singer/guitarist, who drops another slab of guitar jams and fusion workouts here. What once dropped my jaw now bores me to death, and I’m not looking forward to the new Volta next month at all.

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, It’s Not Big, It’s Large.

Truth in advertising alert: the Large Band is only on one song here. The rest is standard Lovett – jazz-country gospel with a healthy dash of clever and wry. It’s a good record, but I was hoping for more horns.

Marilyn Manson, Eat Me Drink Me.

Manson ought to be stuck in a rut by now, but he keeps coming up with new twists on his sound. This album is a slow, creepy piece that eschews the industrial noise of the past in favor of a more Alice Cooper-esque sound. Which fits, since he stole his whole shtick from Cooper.

Scott Matthews, Passing Stranger.

A genuine surprise. Matthews’ work bears a strong Jeff Buckley influence, and his debut is full of little interludes and detours. The result is a fully enjoyable disc. As much as I don’t need another musician named Matthews in my life, I really like this album.

Nellie McKay, Obligatory Villagers.

This mini-album is actually McKay’s best effort yet, from the sarcastic feminism of “Mother of Pearl” to the wonderful horn and string arrangements throughout. McKay can be tedious in large doses, but this 30-minute effort is just right.

Megadeth, That One Night: Live in Buenos Aires.

What’s surprising about Megadeth’s second live album is how much crap Dave Mustaine resurrected for this 2005 show. There are classics here, like “In My Darkest Hour,” next to shit like “She-Wolf.” It makes me wonder if he has any sense of quality control at all. Thankfully, his last two albums prove he does.

Thurston Moore, Trees Outside the Academy.

Another one that probably deserved an honorable mention. This is a surprisingly pretty album from Moore, the astonishing guitarist of Sonic Youth. This record sounds like Moore aging gracefully. You probably won’t believe it’s the same guy.

Meshell Ndegeocello, The World has Made Me the Man of My Dreams.

Wow, this is a crazy record. It’s a headphone trip, a soul workout, an ambient soundscape and a pop record all at once. Ndegeocello has never been a pigeonhole kind of artist, but this is her most out-there (and artistically successful) record yet.

Joanna Newsom, Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP.

I love Joanna Newsom. This three-song EP documents her Ys tour, for which she employed a host of musicians to replicate the string arrangements of the album. New song “Colleen” is a thigh-slapping highlight, and the new take on “Cosmia” is amazing.

Sinead O’Connor, Theology.

O’Connor produced two versions of this collection of spiritual songs, one on acoustic guitar and one with an array of studio musicians. Comparing the two is fun, and O’Connor certainly has a captivating voice. But the songs are kind of mediocre throughout.

Dug Pinnick, Strum Sum Up.

Second solo album for the King’s X bassist, and it’s much like the first – low-down grooves, repeated lyrics, not a lot of imagination or beauty. This record includes some extended jams, and they’re the best part, except for the 11-minute “Coming Over,” which is like Chinese water torture.

Queensryche, Mindcrime at the Moore.

A live album containing both Operation: Mindcrime and its sequel, and putting a cap on the project. Here you can really hear just how inferior the second installment is, and Geoff Tate’s voice has definitely seen better days. But it’s nice to have this as a memento.

Qui, Love’s Miracle.

I love me some Jesus Lizard, and David Yow’s new band is just as fucked up as his old one. This is slow, loud, explosive stuff, with an unhinged rabid dog at the microphone. And they do a fantastic version of Zappa’s “Willie the Pimp.”

R.E.M., R.E.M. Live.

The honorable Georgia band’s first live album documents their worst tour ever, and is chock full of lousy late-period songs, especially from their latest snooze-fest, Around the Sun. What I really want is a document of some of their early shows, not this Bill Berry-less waste of time.

Rush, Snakes and Arrows.

Another one I can’t believe I didn’t review. This is Rush’s most energetic and best studio album in a long, long time. Even the instrumentals pulse with life, and Alex Lifeson hasn’t sounded this alive in more than a decade. Rush fans, pick this up. (Like I need to tell you.)

Shellac, Excellent Italian Greyhound.

It takes Steve Albini and his band an awfully long time to make records, considering they all sound about the same. You know what to expect from Shellac by now – pounding, slow, drum-heavy minimalist rock, punctuated by bursts of abrasive guitar. You either like it or you don’t. I do.

Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby.

Here’s the other stunner – a bluegrass-jazz combo that works miraculously. The new versions of Hornsby songs here are terrific, Skaggs’ high and lonesome voice working very well with Bruce’s new arrangements. And you haven’t lived until you’ve heard these two whiter-than-white guys slam through “Super Freak” on piano and banjo. It’s awesome.

Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

Another one the critics went – pardon me – ga ga over. This is probably Spoon’s best album yet, and it still sounds sort of unfinished, like the band came up with a few good grooves, some smart piano parts, and a few stray melodies, but didn’t fashion any memorable songs from them. Alas.

Bruce Springsteen, Magic.

There’s precious little magic here, unfortunately. This is Springsteen’s most compact-sounding album in a long time, his standard reach-for-the-sky anthems compressed within an inch of their lives. It’s okay, but it sounds like a pale imitation of The Hold Steady, one of Springsteen’s acolytes, and that’s a shame.

Stars of the Lid, And Their Refinement of the Decline.

This is excellent stuff. Two CDs of constantly blossoming instrumental ambient drones with great titles like “December Hunting for Vegetarian Fuckface.” Play this loudly in the car while driving at night. It’s pretty amazing.

Symphony X, Paradise Lost.

Hey, remember Yngwie Malmsteen? If you think he was the shit, you want to try Symphony X. Their latest is a screaming collection of power prog-metal, with a firmly ‘80s mindset. It’s loud and cheesy and proud of it.

Serj Tankian, Elect the Dead.

Solo debut by the frontman for System of a Down, and it’s about what you’d expect. That is to say, it’s awesome. It’s intelligent, crafty metal with a hundred different musical surprises buried along the way, and Tankian brings all his cartoony voices with him. It’s like a metal band fronted by Mel Blanc.

Richard Thompson, Sweet Warrior.

Thompson’s so consistently excellent that it’s almost hard to praise him anymore. This album finds him plugging in his electric guitar again and letting rip, and he pisses all over Eric Clapton with every note. Especially fine is “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me,” about a soldier in Baghdad. (Dad for short, get it?)

K.T. Tunstall, Drastic Fantastic.

Tunstall’s second album is neither drastic nor fantastic, alas. It is a pretty solid slab of tuneful pop music, sung in her husky voice. I quite like “Hopeless” and “I Don’t Want You Now.” I don’t really remember much of the rest.

Various Artists, Instant Karma: The Campaign to Save Darfur.

Let’s hope this collection raised some much-needed cash for the effort to halt the genocide in Darfur, ‘cause it’s not much good as a piece of art. These are John Lennon’s solo songs, performed (and often massacred) by a smattering of pop stars young and old. Not so good.

Eddie Vedder, Into the Wild.

A brief soundtrack piece from Vedder, who shines on a cover of “Hard Sun” but comes off as slight pretty much everywhere else. The packaging is much better than the record, unfortunately, and from what I hear, Sean Penn’s movie is better than them both.

Rufus Wainwright, Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall.

I’m sure Wainwright loves the double entendre in that title. This is a faithful recreation of Judy Garland’s 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall, with a full orchestra and some special guests (his mom, his sister). It’s fun stuff, and Rufus resists the camp urge – this is all played straight and respectfully.

Waking Ashland, The Well.

I’ve heard this second album from piano-poppers Waking Ashland probably six times, and I can’t remember a note of it. I like to think that has more to do with the poor quality of their songs than the poor quality of my memory. I wonder if a seventh listen will do the trick.

The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour.

Very successful comeback record for this band, who impressed with Reconstruction Site a few years ago. This is heartfelt indie rock of the highest caliber, with clever lyrics and good melodies. It will fly by without sticking unless you really concentrate, but let it in and it’s pretty great.

Kanye West, Graduation.

Last but not least, here is West’s third album, which isn’t quite the masterpiece his second, Late Registration, was, but is still a pretty damn good hip hop album. You’ve heard “Stronger,” I’m sure – that’s the best song, and it gives you a taste of the synthesizer sound of the whole thing. This is good, if not brilliant stuff.

And that should do it. One hour, 20 minutes. I’ve grown to enjoy this annual tradition – it’s a good way to cap off the year. I’m writing this on December 22, and I’m flying out to the East Coast tomorrow. There will likely be no column on January 2, but I’ll see you all a week later.

Thanks for sharing my 2007. Year eight, here we come.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m still not sure what kind of year it was.

If you were reading all year, you probably noticed the see-saw of emotions and proclamations I made at regular intervals. 2007 was the best year ever one month, and a sad disappointment the next. I sailed into December certain that the year was a mediocre one, and that 2007’s top 10 list wouldn’t stack up to those of the past two years – two of the best years I can remember, both personally and musically.

Well, that list appears below, and if I do say so myself, it holds up nicely. I was worried for no reason. I still think 2007 wasn’t quite as good as its two predecessors, but I discovered, as I was digging through the more than 100 CDs I bought this year, that there were some fantastic gems hidden there. I rounded up 12 honorable mentions as well, and two additional favorites that were ineligible for the list. I also found a couple dozen excellent songs from lesser albums that colored my year, some I’d all but forgotten.

2007 wasn’t bad, all told, but I’m still not ready to sing its praises. I think there are two reasons for my lingering disappointment. First, the year gave me nothing that stopped my heart and made me weep. Here’s the thing – the last three years each had that one album that shot to the top of my list – the indisputable choice, the most extraordinary piece of music I heard. In rapid succession, we got Brian Wilson’s SMiLE, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, and Joanna Newsom’s Ys. You can’t beat that, and 2007 didn’t even try – I won’t downplay how much I dig the album atop my list this year, but it isn’t even in the same league as those three.

Secondly, so many of my regular favorites let me down this year. Some of them, like Rufus Wainwright and Ryan Adams, put out acceptable records when they should have made extraordinary ones. But many more of them squeezed out efforts that were just beneath them. The New Pornographers, Wilco, They Might Be Giants, Bjork and Marillion all made sub-par albums, and in fact I was ready to call Marillion’s Somewhere Else the biggest disappointment of my year, before Neil Finn resurrected Crowded House for the lousy, boring, unworthy Time on Earth.

So it took a while to look beyond the badness, but there’s nothing like formulating a list of the good stuff to make you see the silver lining. My top 5 records this year surprised the hell out of me – here’s a band I had written off, a couple others that hadn’t impressed me much until now, and a number one that came out of nowhere. The top 10 this year contains no old standbys, two artists I’d given up on, and a bunch of albums that honestly shocked me with their sheer quality.

You wanna see it? Okay, okay. First, let me get the rules out of the way. As usual, only new full-length studio albums count – no live records, no covers albums, no compilations, no rarities collections. Only albums released between January 1 and December 31, 2007 are eligible, and entrants are graded on composition, performance, production and personal taste. Your mileage may vary.

I nearly revised a rule this year, and I may very well end up rewriting it next year. Here’s why: for the first time ever, there’s an album in my top 5 this year that isn’t technically out yet. I usually confine my list to those records out in physical formats in record stores, but one of them (and I bet you can guess which one) was only released digitally. The CD version of that album comes out on December 31, saving me the moral dilemma, but I see the writing on the wall. I know this is the way of the future, and you can bet next year will see more of these, and I’ll likely include them in the list, if they’re good enough.

Just to clarify, though, I love packaging and physical formats, and I’ll be sad to see them go.

So anyway, here are some honorable mentions for you before we get to the list proper. We start with two of my favorite collections of the year, neither of which is eligible for the top honors. First up is Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, who defied all expectations with their wonderful Raising Sand. It’s all covers, you see, but they’re extraordinary covers, Plant and Krauss winding their harmonious voices together over earthy, smoky folk and blues tunes. They do the Everly Brothers, Tom Waits, Mel Tillis and Townes Van Zandt, and they do them all beautifully.

And then there’s New Moon, the two-CD collection of unreleased music from Elliott Smith. If you were expecting a hodgepodge of rarities and demo-quality basement recordings (like Nick Drake’s Family Tree, for instance), you were likely blown away by the consistency and quality of New Moon. It’s very much like getting two terrific new albums from the late, great Smith, and I’m grateful for these songs. Smith was hailed as one of the best songwriters of my generation, and New Moon gives you another two dozen reasons why.

We go back to the first quarter of the year for the first of our honorable mentions. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Bloc Party and their swell sophomore album A Weekend in the City. It’s slower and deeper than their debut, but it’s better, and in an album or two these guys should be on the list. With “Hunting for Witches,” Bloc Party also wrote one of the coolest songs of the year, with what I think is 2007’s best guitar riff.

Tegan and Sara made their best album with the brief, melodic The Con, while Joy Electric produced a vocally-driven winner with The Otherly Opus. Marc Cohn broke his nine-year silence with Join the Parade, a different kind of album for him, and with “Dance Back From the Grave” wrote the best post-Katrina hymn I’ve heard. And Rilo Kiley put together their best record with the sugary, glossy pop gem Under the Blacklight. (That sound you just heard was my friend Jody squealing with delight.)

I criticized Fountains of Wayne for clogging their fourth album, Traffic and Weather, with novelty songs, but further listens have convinced me of the effervescent pop wonder in this record. There’s some crap, like “Strapped for Cash” and the terrible “Planet of Weed,” but when they’re on, they turn out witty smilers like “Someone to Love” and “’92 Subaru.” And when they’re at their best, they tug on the heartstrings with tunes like “I-95” and “Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim,” maybe the year’s sweetest love song. It’s not their best, but it’s better than I first thought.

Terry Taylor brought the Swirling Eddies back from a decade-plus hiatus for The Midget, the Speck and the Molecule. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Taylor would make a terrific album, but it did – I was dreading a jokey, half-hearted chucklefest, and what I got is a worthy successor to Zoom Daddy. It’s dark, it’s clever, and it’s definitely funny, but Taylor has written some of his best latter-day songs here about faith in a materialistic world. It’s super.

Minus the Bear practically redefined majestic with their third full-length, Planet of Ice. They refined their complex geometrical rock, delivering eight-minute epics and two-minute pop thrillers with equal ease. They were bettered, but only slightly, by Explosions in the Sky, who took their instrumental soundscapes to new heights with All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone. It’s an album as gorgeous as its New Orleans-inspired cover art.

Modest Mouse produced their finest album yet with We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, bringing former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr into the fold. Many people criticized the album for moving too far away from the scrappy, unfocused roots of Modest Mouse’s earlier records, but as you might expect, that’s exactly what I liked about it.

PJ Harvey nearly made the list with her haunting White Chalk. It’s a fragile, un-PJ Harvey kind of album, one that will chill you to the bone. But I realized pretty quickly that I’d overrated it based on how it made me feel. In the end, this is a ghostly experiment that often works, but it doesn’t hold a candle, compositionally speaking, to anything on the list. If you want an unnerving experience, though, you can’t do better than this.

And that brings us to number 11, and it’s Over the Rhine’s lovely The Trumpet Child. Karin Bergquist and Linford Detwiler crafted a tribute to the old-time jazz and gospel albums in their record collections, and in so doing took their sound to some beautiful new places. Bergquist remains one of the best singers we have, and if not for the dismal “If a Song Could be President,” this record may have ended up on the list. I certainly won’t quibble with anyone who likes this better than some of my top 10 choices. If you’ve ever liked OTR before, get this. You won’t regret it.

Which brings us to the list proper. It starts with a band I’d never heard before this year, and ends with an unlikely masterpiece. It’s a solid, surprising collection of 10 very good albums, putting lie to the notion that ’07 had nothing going for it. And here it is:

#10. Loney, Dear – Loney, Noir.

Emil Svangenen is Loney, Dear, and for years he’s been making these ornate pop records all by himself, playing a bevy of instruments and layering his high, wavery voice again and again. You’d think the result would be insular, and maybe a little canned-sounding, but instead it’s glorious. Sub Pop released Loney, Dear’s fourth album in the U.S. earlier this year, and it’s a brief charmer – 10 delightful slices of chamber-pop graced with horns and strings and sweet melodies. I’m going to treasure this one – if not for the band at number 7, this would be the discovery of the year for me.

#9. Bright Eyes, Cassadaga.

It took Conor Oberst long enough to live up to his own hype, but here it is, the first Bright Eyes album with no tracks I want to skip. It’s the biggest-sounding record Oberst has made, with oodles of guest artists, stacked instruments and sound effects, and that certainly helps. But what makes this album so good is that it contains the 13 best songs Oberst has ever written, all in a row. It’s all over the place stylistically, from the country-rock of “Four Winds” to the minor-key folk of “Middleman” to the classic balladry of “Make a Plan to Love Me,” but Oberst handles each style with aplomb. And the closing tracks are heartbreaking, particularly “Lime Tree.” Hopefully this is Bright Eyes’ Great Leap Forward, but even if he never makes one like it again, Cassadaga will remain excellent stuff.

#8. Tori Amos, American Doll Posse.

Excuse me while I do a little dance to celebrate Amos’ return to this list. She’s one of my favorite artists, and has been since high school, but for the last 10 years, she’s churned out overlong, uninteresting, sloppy records like Scarlet’s Walk and The Beekeeper. I had written her off, truth be told, and I wasn’t holding out much hope for Posse, another 78-minute concept album. But it’s awesome, a loud, bold, engaging record that cranks up the guitars and finally, finally wakes Tori up. Posse is the first of her albums in a decade that sounds inspired, and it doesn’t waver – there are only a couple of bum tracks out of 23, a remarkable ratio for latter-day Tori. It’s no Little Earthquakes, but Amos is back, and I couldn’t be happier.

#7. Okkervil River, The Stage Names.

I always feel a little stupid when I discover a band that’s been around for years. The Stage Names is Okkervil River’s fifth album, but it’s the first one I’ve heard, much to my chagrin. I knew within the first minute of “Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe,” when Will Sheff’s voice shot up that extra octave and the pianos kicked in, that I’d found something special, and the rest of the record didn’t disappoint me. They’re a classic rock and roll band, but I defy you to find sadder songs this year than “Savannah Smiles” and “A Girl in Port.” And I dare you to stay neutral on this band once you’ve heard the way they work “Sloop Jon B” into the crashing closer, “John Allyn Smith Sails.” This is a great album from a band worth watching, and the discovery of 2007 for me.

#6. Monarch, Lowly.

I didn’t expect this. Brennan Strawn’s Monarch used to be just another dramatic rock band, but their second album (which feels to me like Strawn’s first solo album, truth be told) is a stupendous set of soaring anthems and orchestrated wonders. Strawn has a voice that most frontmen would kill for, and on this album, he uses it to its fullest, penning stratospheric melodies and singing the hell out of them. His songs are about love and faith and holding on to both, and while I love the hummable pop numbers like “Lose it All,” I am fully taken in by his slow-build epics, like “Find Others” and the amazing “Save Your.” The record comes in crummy packaging, but don’t let that deter you – head here and add this to your collection post haste.

#5. Radiohead, In Rainbows.

In many ways, Radiohead was the biggest story of 2007. Everyone wanted to talk about the release of this album as an MP3 download, with no label support, and everyone wanted to use it as the model for the changing industry. But while everybody discussed the format, nobody talked much about the music – a shame, since In Rainbows is far and away the best Radiohead album since OK Computer 10 years ago. The secret? They jettisoned the cold, mechanical, insular sound of their work since then, and made the warmest, most human record of their career. They also wrote their best, most melodic songs in a decade for this album, including the wonderfully simple “House of Cards” and the semi-sweet “All I Need.” In Rainbows is going to be remembered for its release strategy, but it deserves to be remembered for its music, too.

#4. The Arcade Fire, Neon Bible.

I’m surprised, too. After this band’s debut, Funeral, had the indie-rock cognoscenti all a-twitter, I tried it, and reservedly liked it. But I was blown away by the follow-up, a grandiose art-rock project with song after song building towers of sound. This is a powerful record, one that proves that ambition is not a thing of the past among the new crop of artists. From the creeping strings of “Black Mirror” to the thick organ of “Intervention” to the joyous horns of “No Cars Go,” Win Butler and his band have built a monolithic pop album here, one that still knocks me flat after dozens of repeat plays. Funeral was the prelude. This is the real thing.

#3. Aqualung, Memory Man.

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked up Aqualung’s third album. I’ve enjoyed Matt Hales’ work before, despite the awful nom de plume he’s picked for himself, but his take on Coldplay-style piano-pop has never made much of an impression. Not so this album, Hales’ giant step forward – Memory Man is a masterwork, a modern pop album of such emotion and invention that I’m honestly surprised at how little attention it received. Memory Man is a lot of things – it’s a winning collection of piano-based pop songs, sure, but it’s also a headphone album of the highest order, chock full of little sonic touches that take time to discover. And it’s a song cycle about holding on, about living through the worst the world has to offer. In the crushing final track, “Broken Bones,” Hales pleads over a static-filled CB connection for a little more time before the world collapses, and I don’t think I heard a better final track all year. I don’t know if anyone else is watching Hales’ ascension, but I certainly am, and Memory Man is a great sign for his future.

#2. The Shins, Wincing the Night Away.

Wincing, the first great album of the year, came out in January, and held on to best every album but one. That should tell you how good this thing is. James Mercer obviously loves the same records I do, and the Brian Wilson influence looms large here. But he’s also exploded his band’s sound with moody pieces like “Sealegs” and “Black Wave,” setting them next to ultra-melodic stunners like “Australia” and “Phantom Limb.” With the closer, “A Comet Appears,” he penned one of the prettiest songs of the year, the perfect ending to this nearly perfect album. For the first time, everything came together for the Shins – this is their first top-notch album, and I had a few sleepless nights about relegating it to the number two spot. Anyone calling Wincing the Night Away the album of the year won’t get any fight from me.

But I can’t, because the record at number one surprised the living hell out of me. It’s a modern pop masterpiece from the unlikeliest of sources. Here it is:

#1. Silverchair, Young Modern.

Yes, Silverchair, the Australian trio that started off as a Pearl Jam tribute band. Many people my age remember their first two albums, Frogstomp and Freak Show – the first for its ubiquitous hit “Tomorrow,” and the second for its ridiculous songs about eating disorders. They were terrible. I’d ask you to cut Daniel Johns some slack, since he was a teenager when he wrote those albums, but they’re so bad that he deserves no quarter.

If you tuned out then, I wouldn’t blame you, but you missed an astonishing evolution. Over two increasingly better Silverchair discs and a side project called The Dissociatives, Daniel Johns grew into one of the best pop songwriters on the planet. And Young Modern is where he proves it. You will not believe this is a Silverchair album. There has never been one like this, and though the band must be aware they are asking people on this side of the pond to overcome a lot of baggage, this record is so very worth it.

Young Modern is a candy-coated sonic thrill ride, and every time you think you know where it’s going, you end up surprised. “Young Modern Station” and “Straight Lines” are the most typical things here, and even they are hummable and memorable. But by track three, all bets are off – “If You Keep Losing Sleep” is a psychodrama lush with strings and creepy percussion and brilliant melodies. And the hits keep on coming, right through to the end.

I can’t overstate just how much I enjoy the album’s centerpiece, the seven-minute “Those Thieving Birds/Strange Behaviour.” As the pianos pound and Van Dyke Parks’ string arrangements wind in and out, Johns delivers his master’s thesis in complex pop songwriting. The melodies on this thing are unbelievable, and they never quit. The second half offers sweet ‘70s pop in “Waiting All Day,” punky glam-rock in “Mind Reader” and an ELO tribute in “Low,” and the songwriting never falters.

There are several Great Leaps Forward on this list, but none as thrilling as the one Daniel Johns makes with Young Modern. He’s gone from laughable to brilliant in 10 short years, and this album is his pinnacle so far. When I bought Young Modern, I didn’t expect to find an album on par with some of the best stuff Jellyfish produced, but here it is. It’s not only the best album Johns has made yet, it’s the best record of the year, and it points toward a bright future for the still-young wunderkind at the wheel.

Hey, look at that, we’re done. I want to thank Dr. Tony Shore for his friendship and musical knowledge – he and I agree on the year’s best album, so I have no qualms about directing you to his blog here. And I want to thank you all for reading and sharing Year Seven with me. Next week is Fifty Second Week. Have a merry one, and be safe.

See you in line Tuesday morning… and to all a good night.

Thanks to everyone for your indulgence last week while I attended the wake and funeral of Albert Ferrier.

I’ve known Mr. Ferrier for almost as long as I’ve known his son, Mike. I met Mike in eighth grade, and we bonded over comics and Transformers (and often comics about Transformers). It’s hard to believe I’ve known him for more than 20 years – time just disappears when you’re not looking.

And I’ve always loved his dad, from the first time I met him. Mr. Ferrier was a kind-hearted man with a great sense of humor. He was a scientist with the heart of an artist, a musician with an analytical mind – you don’t often find those qualities in concert, but they were there. Mr. Ferrier was pragmatic and down-to-earth, but also had a twinkle in his eye that let you know he was up for an adventure.

Mike and I certainly sent him on more than one. Our last three years of high school were dominated by this massive video project we did largely in our spare time, this science fiction epic that found us dressing in funny costumes and pointing plastic guns at each other. Even then, our shared intention to never grow up was at the fore of our personalities, and while my parents often scoffed at the amount of time and energy we were investing in this thing, Mike’s dad was always 100 percent supportive, following us around and filming our exploits.

He even appears in the finished movie more than once, and I remember he cheerfully played any part we asked him to. From the befuddled pharmacist to the drop-cloth-wearing man of mystery to the hapless fortress guard, Al Ferrier was up for anything. Even if it meant donning a plastic helmet and being knocked out by yours truly.

I think it was this sense of adventure that made him such a good complement for Mike’s mom. Where she was Mr. Ferrier’s caution, he was her mischief.

Al Ferrier died in hospice care after a long battle with leukemia. He was 78 years old, and had a good long life, but that won’t stop everyone from wishing it was a little longer. His absence leaves the world a little colder, and a little less fun. I hope I learned from Al Ferrier how to grow older without growing old, and to take advantage of the adventures life brings you with a wink and a grin.

Ladies and gentlemen, Albert Ferrier. May he rest in peace.

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We’re officially in the holiday doldrums, which means new music is pretty scarce. January and February are shaping up nicely, with new records from the Magnetic Fields, the Eels, Joe Jackson, the Mars Volta, Robert Pollard (Again! I haven’t even reviewed his two albums from this year yet…), Chris Walla, Mike Doughty and Nada Surf, among others. But until then, we got nothing.

Thank God, then, for Jeffrey Kotthoff and Lo-Fidelity Records of Chicago. For years, Jeffrey K. and his label have supported that circle of spiritual pop musicians I love, and this year is no different – there are two new Lo-Fidelity releases just in time for Christmas, and both are swell. One of them is a holiday album by the great Lost Dogs, and the other is a live album from one of the best rock bands in the world, the 77s.

We’ll take the Christmas record first, since ‘tis the season. The Lost Dogs are Terry Taylor of Daniel Amos, Mike Roe of the aforementioned 77s, and Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong of the Choir. They’ve been described as the Traveling Wilburys of the spiritual pop set, and that’s not far off – their stock-in-trade is country, blues and gospel music, digging deep into their Americana roots with a tip of the Stetson.

Their holiday collection is called We Like to Have Christmas, and is a send-up of those bargain bin Christmas compilations you’ll find at Wal-Mart. It’s made up of old and new recordings, and runs the gamut from gut-busting to heartfelt. It opens with a holiday message from Taylor’s televangelist alter-ego, Dr. Edward Daniel Taylor, and then segues into the band’s 1999 take on “The Chipmunk Song.” This one features robot voices standing in for band members at certain times, but most strikingly, it includes their co-founder, the late great Gene Eugene. It’s nice to hear his voice again.

Several tunes from Taylor’s long-out-of-print EP Songs for the Day After Christmas get updated Dogs style here, including the delightful “Big Fruitcake from Hell.” The Choir’s contribution to the late ‘80s Christmas collection Noel, “Babe in the Straw,” is here untouched. Hindalong gets a rare lead vocal on a cowpoke take on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and the album ends quietly, with several traditional songs performed reverently. The final track is the prettiest, Daugherty lending his angelic voice to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

If you’re not a Lost Dogs fan already, I’m not sure We Like to Have Christmas would make you one. But for those of us who love this band, it’s a treat, an unexpected holiday confection. However, it’s Lo-Fidelity’s other December release, by the 77s, that I’ve been cranking in the car. It’s called Ninety Nine (a counterpoint to the 77s first live album, Eighty Eight), and it documents a blistering show by the Mike Roe-Mark Harmon-Bruce Spencer lineup of the band.

This is the full 77s rock show, a thunderous blues-laced powerhouse led by the incomparable Roe on six-string. Many people associate Roe with the clean playing of his solo records, or the acoustic beauty of Say Your Prayers, but here he lets loose, and it’s an awesome thing to behold. The disc starts with a punked-up version of “Blue Sky,” but the early highlight is a nine-minute take on “Outskirts,” one of the band’s best blues-rock pieces.

These longer workouts are punctuated by relatively quieter strolls through “Flowers in the Sand,” “The Boat Ashore” and “Best I Had,” which is good, because after the astonishing “The Stellazine Prophecy,” you’ll need a break before diving into their extended jam on the Smithereens’ “Blood and Roses.” Keyboardist Scott Reams gets some solo sections, trading with Roe, and the whole thing comes crashing to a climax with a raucous take on “Snowblind.”

I’ve seen the full-on 77s show only once, but I remember it vividly. This is a band that should be playing sold-out stadiums, and their tight interplay and ballsy energy makes Ninety Nine leap from your speakers. You can get that and the Lost Dogs Christmas album here and when you’re done there, try the back catalogs of both groups here and here.

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So this is my last Doctor Who review of 2007.

I know that’s no doubt good news for many of you, who are sick of reading about this little show, but I’m still enjoying trekking through the available DVDs and writing about them. I’m unsure whether I’ll continue these rambles into the new year, but I haven’t burned out on the good Doctor yet, and as long as I’m still having fun, I’ll probably keep doing them.

Anyway, we’re still not done with Tom Baker’s seven-year run as the Doctor, but we are done with what many consider the golden age of his time, the Hinchcliffe-Holmes years. Graham Williams took over as producer in 1977, and while his three-year tenure started off well with Horror of Fang Rock, it didn’t take long for the rot to set in. Fang Rock is a well-made creep-fest set in a lighthouse under attack, and while it’s true that the BBC just didn’t have the money or resources to do a lighthouse story and make it convincing, the finished product holds up pretty well.

One year later, though, and we’re in the Key to Time saga, which in its 26 episodes delivers everything that’s right and everything that’s wrong with the Graham Williams era.

Season 16 was, at the time, a unique idea – an entire season dedicated to telling one story. The Doctor’s Tardis is intercepted by the White Guardian, who gives him a new companion, Time Lady Romanadvoratrelundar (Romana for short, played by Mary Tamm), and sends him on a quest for the six segments to the Key to Time. It’s very similar in structure to The Keys of Marinus, William Hartnell’s fifth adventure as the Doctor, but instead of six episodes, this one’s told over six complete stories.

With The Key to Time, I’ve come full circle to the stories that rekindled my interest in the classic Doctor Who run back in June. I must say, though, that watching them again after half a year of collecting and viewing these old shows is a completely different experience. I’m able to roll with the low production values a lot more, and I’m actually delighting in many of the things that turned me off before. But given the perspective of six months of immersion, I can see that The Key to Time is not particularly good Doctor Who – it goes through the motions, but it’s hollow, empty stuff.

Anyway, the Key to Time is this clear gemlike square that can stop time indefinitely. Its power is said to be too great for any one being to control, so it was broken up into six bits and scattered to different corners of the universe. The White Guardian needs it to do something vague and unexplained, so he enlists the Doctor (rather than using his seemingly great power to just gather the segments himself), and tells him to beware the Black Guardian, who also wants the Key for, naturally, nefarious purposes. An unimaginative, but sturdy framework for a season-long arc.

The saga starts well, with Robert Holmes’ The Ribos Operation. This is a miniature stage play about a con job on a distant planet, which comes to a bloody end. It’s Shakespearean in places, especially with the dramatic performance of Paul Seed as the Graff Vynda-K. With the exception of the $60 monster, this is a fine enough little tale, warm and funny and self-contained.

It’s with The Pirate Planet that things start going off the rails. You’d think I’d be ecstatic to see Douglas Adams’ first contribution to Doctor Who, given my lifelong fascination with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But it’s not Adams that lets the side down, it’s the cheap effects and the way-over-the-top performance of Bruce Purchase as the pirate captain.

The standard Douglas Adams whirlwind of ideas is here – the story is about a planet that can teleport and materialize around other, smaller planets, force-mining them, and the secret reason why is pretty great, actually. There’s a very good story hiding here under mountains of plastic effects and the bellowing histrionics of Purchase, and it’s a complex one too, one that also includes a colony of telepaths and a very cool hiding place for the second segment of the Key. I just wish it looked better, and was more fun to watch.

The Stones of Blood is the 100th story of Doctor Who’s original run, and as such, it contains several diverse elements, giving a good overview of the many faces of the series. It starts off as a gothic murder mystery, moves on into a horror story with mobile, pulsing (and cheap-looking) stones as the monsters, and ends up as a sci-fi legal drama, the Doctor on trial on a huge spaceship hovering over the Earth. It’s pleasant enough, but doesn’t quite hold together as a single story.

Three segments down, and we hit The Androids of Tara, my favorite of the lot. It’s almost Doctor Who does The Princess Bride, with robots, swordfights, daring escapes and some very funny scenes. This one’s a delightful romp, giving Mary Tamm two roles to play and letting Tom Baker breeze through a lighthearted fantasy story. Thumbs up for this one.

Ah, but then it goes pear-shaped. The Power of Kroll isn’t bad, but it isn’t good, especially for a Robert Holmes script. It’s about a mining station on a planet of primitives, and about the giant squid the primitives serve. It’s also about gun-running and the environment, but the dialogue is so dull and the monster so poorly executed that any points Holmes was trying to make are lost. Some parts of it are amusing, and the hidden location of the fifth segment of the Key is a surprise, but overall Kroll is an also-ran.

And then there is The Armageddon Factor, the six-part finale. Man, is this one tedious. I haven’t had this much trouble sitting through an entire Doctor Who story since The Web Planet. Sadly, this story as well has the germ of a good idea hidden beneath its surface. The Armageddon Factor is about two twin planets at war, one run by a blood-hungry military leader and one by a computer, stuck in Mutually Assured Destruction mode. There are some good points to be made about the futility of war here, but the story makes none of them.

Instead, we follow the Doc, Romana and their robot dog K-9 as they run up and down corridors, transport themselves to other corridors, and contend with a cackling baddie called the Shadow, who wears panty hose on his head. The story completely disintegrates when we meet Drax, another Time Lord who seems more like a homeless guy, and the Doctor shrinks to six inches tall. Really. It’s terrible, it’s long, it’s boring and it borders on the unwatchable.

It also concludes with the appearance of the Black Guardian at last, and the denouement of the Key to Time saga. I suppose it couldn’t have ended any other way, really, but to press the reset button after 26 episodes is kind of a cop-out. Baker gets a good scene about the implications of the Key’s power, acting like Frodo Baggins under the spell of the Ring, but the season-long story ends on a note of pointlessness. Everything is back the way it was before The Ribos Operation.

That wouldn’t bother me so much if I felt that this story had any effect on the characters involved. But the show has become a plot-driven enterprise by this point, weighted down by jargon and conceptual ideas to the detriment of character. Mary Tamm’s Romana gets only these six stories to make an impression, and we end up knowing very little about her. The show is a plastic engine moving us from one plot point to another, and it never lingers on any of the people it parades in front of us.

There is one exception – Binro the heretic, in Ribos. He gets the best scenes in the entire saga, and I ended up caring about him more than anyone else here, including the Doctor and Romana. By this point, Tom Baker is comfortable in the role, and is playing it with humor and charm, and with almost mechanical effortlessness. This era of Doctor Who is still fun to watch, mostly, but I don’t love it the way I love most everything else I’ve seen so far.

Ah, but next time I do one of these reviews, I’ll be talking about City of Death, one of my favorite Tom Baker stories. So it does rebound. I’m still buying the DVDs one a week, and I’ve moved on from Tom Baker to his successor, Peter Davison, whom I like immensely. The Key to Time isn’t horrible, but it is one of the low lights of the original run, and thankfully, it gets better.

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Where did the year go? Next week is my top 10 list, and after that, it’s Fifty Second Week. And after that, it’s 2008. Hope your year was a good one.

See you in line Tuesday morning.