mixtape songs /

2007! This year I couldn’t, well I didn’t want to, limit myself to a top 10 or 15 list of my favorite albums. Those lists are great, and don’t get me wrong, I love lists. But there’s always an album you want on that list that doesn’t make it. I was worried, especially in the case of 2007, to have to exclude a lot more than just one valid album from a “top10 list”.
So, this is a tape I made of songs from albums made in 2007. It’s not a countdown of my favorite albums though; they’re just in chronological order of release. It’s just a tape collecting songs from albums that were released in 2007.
I can remember dancing to Of Montreal in January on the cold gray campus of UBCO, trying to get anyone who came into HMV to buy Arcade Fire in the spring, listening to Miracle Fortress when the sun was coming up after a long night of partying, dancing to Justice with a strobe light topless in 446’s living room, and waiting and waiting and waiting for Beirut to come out in the fall.
It’s sorta like reliving the year through music. ooooh!

That being said, my favorite album was probably The Flying Club Cup or Neon Bible (how the latter didn’t win this year’s Polaris Prize is beyond me)

I named the tape after my favorite song of this year.

Side A Up on Your Leopard

01. Menomena – “The Pelican” from Friend and Foe – 3:39
[barsuk – jan 23 2007]
“take it when I’m enjoying/ take it from my mouth while I’m still chewing”
02. Julie Doiron – “Me and My Friend” from Woke Myself Up - 2:46
[jagjaguwar – january 23 2007]
03. Of Montreal – “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse” from Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? – 3:18
[polyvinyl – january 23 2007]
“… she gets me straight/cause my own inner cosmology has become too dense to navigate”
04. Arcade Fire – “Intervention” from Neon Bible – 4:19
[merge records – march 5 2007]
“Who’s gonna throw the very first stone?/oh, who’s gonna reset the bone?/walking with your head in a sling/ wanna hear the soldiers sing”
05. Andrew Bird – “Heretics” from Armchair Apocrypha – 3:33
[fat possum – march 20 2007]
“and then I hear you say ‘thank God its fatal thank God its fatal’”
06. Panda Bear – “Bros” from Person Pitch – 12:30
[paw tracks – march 20 2007]
“I mean no offense to you but grow up/can’t you just grow up ?/When are you going to
give it your own go?/give it your own go/I know I’m being way too hard/but I know that I’m trying”
07. Feist – “1234” from The Reminder – 3:06
[cherry tree/interscope – may 1 2007]
“sweetheart, bitter heart now I can’t tell you apart/cozy and cold put the horse before the cart
08. Wilco – “What Light” from Sky Blue Sky – 3:35
[nonesuch – may 15 2007]
“and if the whole worlds singing your songs/ and all of your paintings have been hung/ just remember what was yours is everyone’s from now on”
09. Miracle Fortress – “Next Train” from Five Roses – 4:17
[rough trade - may 22 2007]
“I’ve been had by the girls of Wisconsin/telling their boyfriends about me”
10. Ladyhawk - “War” from the Fight For Anarchy EP – 2:55
[jagjaguwar – may 22 2007]
“Men of the world see the city walls crumble/ run for the cover of bunkers in basements”
11. The Choir Practice – “I See Things” from The Choir Practice – 3:02
[mint – june 12 2007]
“There is a place/ a place to go/ where snow and sand/ go hand in hand”

Side B Upon the End of Your Feral Days

01. Justice – “D.A.N.C.E.” from cross – 4:02
[ed banger/vice – june 11 2007]
“stick to the b-e-a-t /get ready to ignite”
02. St. Vincent - “Marry Me” from Marry Me – 4:41
[beggars banquet - july 10 2007]
“Let’s do what Mary and Joseph did…without the kid”
03. Okkervil River – “Unless it’s Kicks” from The Stage Names – 4:39
[jagajaguwar – august 7 2007]
“what breaks this heart the most is the ghost of some rock and roll fan/ exploding up from the stands/ with her heart opened up/ I want to tell her your love isn’t lost/ say my heart is still crossed”
04. Animal Collective – “Fireworks” from Strawberry Jam – 4:32
[domino – september 11 2007]
“It the trees of this day/ that I do battle with for the light/then I start to feel tragic/ people greet me, I’m polite”
05. Les Savy Fav – “Patty Lee” from Let’s Stay Friends – 3:51
[frenchkiss – september 18 2007]
“back before Babylon shit was cool/not we’ve all got our cells on,we drive to school”
06. Prairie Cat – “Better Friends Than Lovers” from Attacks! – 2:34
[fuzzy logic – september 2007]
“The times I prayed you would’ve stayed again, again/ the times I’ve prayed outweighed the gain again”
07. Iron & Wine – “Innocent Bones” from The Shepherd’s Dog – 3:43
[subpop – september 25 2007]
“Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window/ Abel bought a bag of weed”
08. Sunset Rubdown - “Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days” from Random Spirit Lover - 4:47
[ jagajaguwar – october 9 2007]
“Well, shit, I know were all growing old/where there’s a will there’s a way, so way to go”
09. Jens Lekman – “Opposite of Hallelujah” from Nights Falls over Kortedala – 4:22
[ secretly canadian – october 9 2007]
“I picked up a seashell to illustrate my homelessness/But a crab crawled out of it making it useless”
10. Beirut – “Forks and Knives (La Fete)” from The Flying Club Cup – 2:22
[bada bing! – October 9 2007]
“your family may not wait, sir, keep on believing/our parents rue the day, they find us kneeling”