So has 2007 lived up to the rest of the "7" years so far?

1997 > OK Computer

b* h*** n**.

Tony Wilson used to bang on about the idea of the numbers coming together. You know '66, '77, '88. Hmm '00 was pretty good i recall.

In Rainbows" supposedly smashing the paradigms of musical consumerism

O please

I've bought the fewest records this year of any year so far, but that could just be 'lol u old'

this is superstitious crap

but some good music this year for sure

I never understood 1997 being tossed around as a 'classic year for music.' The AV Club had a feature attempting to draw a parallel between 97 and 67, but it ended up being pretty lame and basically just a list of releases by bands from the standard Indie Rock cannon. OK Computer was released that year but is absolutely no reason to go OMG REVOLUITON

I think '97 was one of those years where people confused "hey not bad" with "fucking indisputably classic" - a trendsetting year in this way

would you say overall that we have succeeded in keeping the spirit of "7" alive?

I think Blueski and Adamj are OTM here. There's nothing magical about "7" years, especially 1997.

Has it even been a good year for music?

Heck yeah. Perhaps the best of the Noughts so far.

Can we hold it up with the years that spawned Punk, Rave, Flower Power, and err... well whatever happened in 1997?

Who knows? Probably not, I guess, but only if the criteria being used is whether a year signals a "revolutionary" change in music. There's been no such revolution this year. But if the criteria is abundance of good new music, this has been an awfully good year.

(Besides, (a) there's been "revolutions" in lots of non-"7" years, e.g., grunge (which was, what, 1992) and (b) you're right: "whatever happened in 1997," anyway?)

THE WAY YOU MOVE IS A MYSTERY

97 = speed garage/2 step double helix

this is the best of the 00's by a noticeable margin. and i'm still yet to lay hands on a load of current stuff.

Is this truly the best of '07?
http://www.metacritic.com/music/bests/2007.shtml
What are they missing?

67 > 77 > 87 > 97 > 07?

Deerhunter, Justice, Kanye, Menomena, Liars, Animal Collective. I'm probably missing some.

I've spent more time in 2007 listening to 2007 music than I spent listening to 2006 music in 2006, that's for sure.

xpost

IT'S DEVOLUTION BABY

shakey & j0hn both OTM

Let's remind the OP that there remain almost two months before the end of 2007.

this year has kicked all sorts of ass though, and i only like three or four of the albums on that metacritic list!

they are missing A Place To Bury Strangers

they are missing A Place To Bury Strangers

Yeah, that's a crime. I hadn't even thought of APTBS before. This has been a really good year for rock music, e.g., APTBS, Low, Radiohead, Deerhunter, Liars, Iron & Wine (sorta rock-ish these days), Arcade Fire, Wilco, Spoon, The New Pornographers, The Shins, The Nat'l, Battles, etcetera, etcetera. Good year.

I can't find the thread that was started at the end of the year about years ending in "7" generally being classic or revolutionary years for music.

I'm excited about this decade's Appetite For Destruction/Marquee Moon/Sgt. Pepper's being released this year.

what happened in 1997 = BIG BEAT

KALA.

Fantastic year.

I think overall it's been one of the best years for music in recent history. It is getting harder and harder for acts to revolutionise music I suppose, the last big change being acid house and balearic music afaik. That said, I'd say that there's been a general shift towards "maximalism" if there's such a thing - Justice, Caribou, Of Montreal, Animal Collective, Radiohead, Battles and a whole load of others, seem to be pulling out all the stops as far as layering up sounds and grabbing influences from pretty much everywhere; mixing up genres in interesting ways etc. Compared to last year where the house was minimal, the dubstep was spacey and the rock was rootsy, it feels a bit like that's been turned on it's head. This is all being very sweeping and generalistic I accept.

cheers for finding the link, gr8080

1997 was great, but not revolutionary.
1987 was a disaster, making hair metal huge and launching house. Plus hip-hop got bigger which was awful too.
1977 was revolutionary, but pushed music in the wrong direction.
Which leaves us with 1967.....

4 is probably the best:
1964: British Invasion
1974: Lots of great prog and pomp pop
1984: Commercial pinnacle year for New Romantics (which was quality-wise better a year or two earlier though)
1994: Britpop
2004: Well. Better than most earlier 00s years at least.

what happened in 1997 = BIG BEAT

Big Beat had been around for years, only it didn't really break commercially until 1997
Same about Electronica, that made it big in the US in 1997, then vanished from the public interest shortly afterwards.

1987 was a disaster, making hair metal huge and launching house. Plus hip-hop got bigger which was awful too.

i seem to recall that there was a thread all about 1987 that would dispute this outrageous claim sir ..

House definitely went commercially big in 1987. With hip-hop you could make a case for 1984 or 1986 too. And it didn't get beyond the novelty one-off stamp until a few years later.

In the case of hair metal, it had been around for some time, but 1987 was when - at least in the US - hair metal albums started outselling albums in other genres. Def Leppard topped the Billboard charts for ages, for instance.

memory jogger..

Top 1000 Albums of 1997
http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1997

Top 1000 Albums of 2007
http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2007

mark e - is right there was a good ILm thread on 1987, but where is it? It's not the one started by Chuck Eddy but another that was a group effort that listed well over 100 great albums from 1987

There weren't 100 great albums in 1987. Hardly even 50. One of the worst years for music ever.

mark e - is right there was a good ILm thread on 1987, but where is it? It's not the one started by Chuck Eddy but another that was a group effort that listed well over 100 great albums from 1987

suspect it was a sanbox thread as the bugger has flipped into the ether, as i too have been digging away for it.

Geir needs to look at this:

Top 1000 Albums of 1987
http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1987

Geir needs to read this book:

Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock
by Simon Reynolds
http://members.aol.com/blissout/bo.htm

I would pay a small amount of money to watch a televised debate between Geir and DJ Martian.

Geir needs to was his hands before meals such as this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/redbaerd/baloney.gif

Geir, why isn't Susanna's album on your 2007 list yet? it's melodic and from Norway - get with it ;-)

Susanna - Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos
http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/susanna/sonata_mix_dwarf_cosmos/

myspace - Susanna
http://www.myspace.com/susannasonata

For her solo debut Susanna Wallumrød has written 12 highly personal songs that make up this beautiful and quite extraordinary album. In these fast and restless times of instant entertainment and shortways to possible success, it´s a rare treat to witness a young and genuinely talented singer and writer that operates to such a degree outside trends and fashions. We are delighted with this lovely addition to the catalogue, a work of uncompromising dedication inviting us to reflect and to listen. Susanna plays piano and guitar, guests include her brother Christian Wallumrød (piano), Magical Orchestra partner Morten Qvenild (piano, synth), Big Bang leader Øystein Greni (guitar), Ola Fløttum (guitar) from The White Birch, Pål Hausken (drums) from In The Country, Helge Sten (guitar, mellotron), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (bass), Barbara Buchholz (theremin) and Giovanna Pessi (harp). The album is produced by Deathprod.

Never heard. There are a bit too many of those young female singer/songwriters on the Norwegian scene right now though.