Picks of 2007: The Big Mac of albums

This was a year when rock let me down and hip-hop kept me afloat. I expected big things from Wilco and Ted Leo and got what I wanted from Sean Price and Phat Kat. I thought I'd found this year's Format in The Hoosiers and Office, but it turns out I'd only found hit-and-miss pop rock albums with a few gems between them. Ghostface Killah released approximately 500 albums this year (or two less than Lil' Wayne did), and I finally found one I like! It's been an interesting year, to say the least.

And not just in music, either. After the 2006 election, most Americans were ready for some changes: In the economy, in Iraq, in attitude, stuff like that. But we didn't really get very much change at all. We've seen the criminalization of incidental celebrity with the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Nicole Ritchie, Paris Hilton and Pete Dougherty, among others. We saw authorities respond really quickly and efficiently to wildfires that somehow reminded us of Hurricane Katrina. Multiple religious figures got caught up in sex- or money-related scandals, so of course you know a few politicians had to get into the act. The debate on climate change has basically ended, but the debate about whether we should do anything about it continues at a fever pitch, leaving the United States the last industrialized country to abstain from signing the Kyoto Protocol. Also, we basically got richer, fatter and more wasteful for the 40th year or so in a row.

As I was driving home the other day, I was thinking about items that sum up the American experience in 2007. I thought about the H3 (gas-guzzling, but not as much as it used to be!), the 60-inch plasma TV, the superyacht, the Swarovski-crystal-covered toilet, but as I drove by the McDonald's a few miles south of my apartment, it hit me like a soggy sandwich: It's the Big Mac.

It could be the Big Mac every year. Over-processed, fatty, cheap, disposable packaging, quickly assembled by underpaid labor (non-Union, of course), and yet delicious almost without fail. Also, it's the flagship sandwich of the most aggressively expansionist American fast-food chain. The Big Mac IS postmodern America.

To pay homage to this delicious and guilt-inducing burger, I want to assemble a Big Mac from the ground up ... with my favorite albums of this year. Let's get started, shall we?

13. Sesame bun heel: James Morrison - Undiscovered
The bottom bum sometimes gets a bit ripped apart amidst the Big Mac devouring process, but without it, you'd be mashing your thumb right into sauce and lettuce, so it's an important part of the sandwich. James Morrison's debut album helped me see that white-boy R&B is not dead, and in fact is living well in Britain. This album spawned at least three U.S. radio singles that I heard, and the young man had a very successful U.S. tour this year, so I think he's off to a great start. Plus he made my list!

12. First Special Sauce layer: Menomena - Friend and Foe
This is the first layer of the tangy sauce to touch your tongue if you're eating the sandwich right-side up. Very crucial. Way back in January, this was one of the first albums of the new year to make me perk up my ears. The Portland, Ore., trio (or quartet, whatever) plays with the conventions of rock music in an artful and playful way, leaving us with something I originally described as "one part Modest Mouse mixed with two parts Flaming Lips and a dash of Dire Straits." If you're into that sort of sauce.

11. First onion layer: Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Some may order their Big Mac (and other burgers) sans onions, but for those of us who love onions, they're a treat and a key infusion of flavor that mixes well with the beef. Similarly, I've met many people this year who were unimpressed by Amy Winehouse's introduction to the U.S. market. But despite all of her tabloid trip-ups and terrible, terrible (TERRIBLE) live performances, I still appreciate the brassy voiced broad from Britain. I can listen to this jazzy, sultry, sexy album all the way through. I can't do that with her debut album, "Frank," but this one is faboo.

10. First lettuce layer: Ghostface Killah - The Big Doe Rehab
It just came out this week and I'm already convinced: This is one of the top albums of the year. Much like lettuce, this album was a refreshing entry by the Wu Tang's most critically lauded solo act. It's a welcome return to grimy, gutter New York beats and some of the best lyrical storytelling in the business. Nobody says "oh, shit" like Ghostface and makes you really feel like someone's been shot/stabbed/robbed.

9. American cheese slice: Freeway - Free at Last
The lone piece of cheese in our sandwich is represented by Philadelphian rapper Freeway's first album since 2003's "Philadelphia Freeway," and I'm absolutely relieved to hear young Free avoided the sophomore jinx. Soulful and plaintive, and then hard and threatening in equal measure, this album showcases what it is I've been missing from the former State Property member for the last few years.

8. First beef patty: Lil' Wayne - Da Drought 3
Last year I went back and forth on whether or not to include mixtapes on my albums list, but then I saw everybody and their mom put various mixtapes on theirs, so I decided I'd include tapes but only if they were ones I'd absolutely listen to all year. Lil' Wayne, who really needs to just put out "Tha Carter III" already, keeps putting out about a tape a month, either alone or in conjunction with others. He had a bunch of these "Da Drought" tapes and I heard one of them he did with Jadakiss and was completely turned off by it. Thankfully, this one is much better. Two CDs full of New Orleans' finest (and possibly the hardest-working, best rapper recording right now) over jacked beats from other hitmakers. This tape takes me back to the heady days before 50 Cent made it big, and it seemed like there was a new G-Unit tape out every week with Yayo and Curtis spitting over the latest hot beats. I don't know how Wayne stays this focused and hungry, but he is. He's the definition of beef.

7. Sesame bun middle: Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
This was the album that officially ended my Pitchfork readership. I already related the tale of 50 Cent vs. Kanye West, but when I saw Pitchfork gave this album a 5.5 (out of 10), I realized I would never so much as click on a Pitchfork link again. The novelty of this album has worn off a bit since I first heard it, but there's no denying Ritter's got some of the best lyrics I've heard since, well, the last Josh Ritter album on here. It's dynamic and folksy and rockin' and very accessible. To be honest, I don't know how to relate this album to the middle bun. Sorry.

6. Second Special Sauce layer: Sean Price - Jesus Price Supastar
More tangy sauce, more tangy rap. When I first heard the name Sean Price, though, I accidentally confused him with that annoying reggae-rap dude Sean Paul. Thankfully, I found out the difference and got hip to Sean Price's history: He's Ruck from Heltah Skeltah! Dude is one hard rapper and he's been working hard the last few years with Boot Camp Clik, among others. This album came out in January and although I didn't discover it until about September, I quickly made up for lost time with repeated spins. Raps about being broke and rapping, selling drugs and getting high while watching "The Wire" = genius.

5. Second onion layer: Jay-Z - American Gangster
How unfortunate: Onions and a dude with huge nostrils. Not a good mix in real-life, but it's the only fit for Jay-Z's "American Gangster," officially the most surprising album of 2007. When I heard that the dude who released "Kingdom Come" upon an unsuspecting rap populace was "coming out of retirement" to release a concept album that he was inspired to do after seeing an advance copy of the movie "American Gangster," I was dubious about the quality of his work, to say the least. It didn't help that he supposedly threw it together in a couple weeks. But Shawn sounds about as inspired and fresh on this album as he's sounded since the beginning of his career. It's not his best work, but it's a significant step up from "Kingdom Come" and "The Black Album," and it sucked all the air out of the discussion over whether Kanye West or 50 Cent would have the best mainstream hip-hop album of 2007. This is it.

4. Second lettuce layer: A-Trak - Dirty South Dance
More crisp refreshment, this time from the annals of mash-up-inflected electronica. Turntable wunderkind A-Trak mashed up some of the most ridiculous rap to emanate from over-bassed car systems in the last few years to create wholly creative and danceable new compositions. I still have this CD in the car and I always wonder what a rap aficionado walking by my car would think about hearing sped-up Rich Boy and Rick Ross over hyperactive beats. It makes me giggle.

3. Pickle slices: Black Milk - Popular Demand
This was an intense year for Detroit hip-hop. It lost its leader in super-genius producer J Dilla, but Dilla material continued to spew forth in a somewhat 2Pac-ish manner. His formerly LP-only "Ruff Draft" was released in special-edition CD, an unfinished work, "Jay Love Japan," officially hit the streets, and a few other compilations and tributes paid homage to the depth and breadth of his work. Black Milk, as part of the Detroit/Stones Throw collective B.R. Gunna, had worked with Dilla's old partners, Slum Village, and fellow Detroit rapper Phat Kat, among others, but I hadn't realized it until this year. Milk finally released a solo album, and with a little help from his friends, helped savvy heads realize how much talent the Detroit area holds. Black Milk is obviously influenced by some of the best, including Pete Rock, Kanye West and his Dirty District contemporary Dilla. Excellent, excellent hip-hop, plain and simple. Cool as a pickle, for real.

2. Second beef patty: LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
The greatest thing about the Big Mac, to me, is that it's got all that bread and lettuce and sauce, but it's also got that second patty of beef to even everything out. If it was only one patty, it'd be too light. But the second slab of beef-like product gives it the weight to fill me up. In 2007, LCD Soundsystem brought the extra beef. This album is absolutely one of the most complete pieces of music I've ever heard. From February, when it was released, until now, I haven't stopped marveling at the beauty, balance and rhythm of James Murphy's second full-length album with techno-dance masters LCD Soundsystem. If you like music of any kind, you will be able to find a song you like on this album. I say that with utmost confidence.

1. Sesame bun top: Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
But even though LCD/beef is very important, very fantastic, very timeless, something sits on top of this year in music/this burger, and that thing is Spoon's "Ga^5"/the sesame seed-speckled bun crown. When "Ga^5" came out, I was just a slight bit underwhelmed. I remembered the last album, "Gimme Fiction," and how it relatively quickly challenged for the ATR-specific title of "Best Spoon Album," and I didn't feel the same immediate punch of greatness from the new stuff. It felt just a little disjointed, a little uneven. But as I continued to listen to this still-great-at-the-time album, I found my favorite track was skipping around the album. At first it was "Don't You Evah," then "Rhthm and Soul," then "The Ghost of You Lingers," then "Black Like Me," and then ... well, I think you get my point. This album has stuck in my car, in my earphones, in my mind, in my soul and it has grown on me like perhaps no other album ever has in my entire life. It caused me to go back and listen to the entire Spoon catalogue again, questioning where in the canon this new slice of greatness fit (can you tell Spoon is my favorite band yet?) and then facilitated the most pleasant discovery of all: That trying to rank these albums is a hopeless task for someone as in love with this music as I am, and that I can let go of my male tendency to rank and list with this beautiful band. Now, thanks to this album, I just Enjoy The Music.