The 40 Best Albums of 2007
40 - 31
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30 - 21
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20 - 11
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10 - 2
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NUMBER 1 |
New Wave
Antiestablishment anger is as crucial an element of rock'n'roll as cars and girls, but where do you turn when the escapism becomes as stultifying and stringent as the world you're seeking to escape? Where do you go to scream when punk rock is the establishment? No small thanks to producer Butch Vig, who knows a thing or two about helping scrappy, sneering underground acts craft big-sounding Big Statement albums, New Wave is a beacon: Come this way, and come as you are. Yet where Nirvana (publicly, anyway) retreated from and undermined Nevermind's poppier, crowd-pleasing tendencies, Against Me! revel in New Wave's -- the bop-bop-bop chorus of "Thrash Unreal" is more liberating than a thousand middle fingers, although punk purists may beg, loudly, to differ. From the title track's opening strums and chimes -- every bit the drop-what-you're-doing clarion call of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" -- Howitzer-throated Tom Gabel and his Gainesville rabble-rousers use every inch of space that Vig's Imax-size palette allows, even if the message within is as simple as it ever was: Question authority, question yourself. But it's got a massive beat, and you can (slam) dance to it. In a perfect world, New Wave would have been greeted with the adulation and success the similarly agitpop American Idiot received. But in a perfect world, Against Me! would have no reason to exist. STEVE KANDELL
Against Me! / Photo by Andres Gonzalez
40 - 31
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30 - 21
|
20 - 11
|
10 - 2
|
NUMBER 1 |
