Thursday, August 26, 2010

Party like it's 2007

2007 was the best year for music and film in recent memory. In 2007, these came out:

Movies:
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood
The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters
Zodiac
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
Persepolis
Ratatouille
The Bourne Ultimatum
Control
The Lookout

Music:
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Battles - Mirrored
The Austerity Program - Black Madonna
Yea Big & Kid Static - s/t
PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Wu-tang Clan - 8 Diagrams
Nina Nastasia & Jim White - You Follow Me
Dälek - Abandoned Language
Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals

Plus on TV, there were the premieres of Mad Men (thus paving the way for Breaking Bad and the makeover of AMC as a powerhouse of critically-acclaimed drama series), Pushing Daisies (which had characters doing musical numbers well before Glee) and Burn Notice (the best post-24 action series and the template for a new genre: the "expert helps out regular people" show).

I don't have top ten from any other year that can touch those in terms of quality, diversity, or cultural significance. And I doubt we'll see another year like this anytime soon.

This year, for example, I can't even scrape together a top 5 of movies I've seen so far. I liked Inception and... what else has there been? Music? I'd rather not talk about it. This decade is not off to the most promising start.

But maybe I'm holding it to too high a standard. Not every year can be like 2007. And maybe I'm even wrong about that. Has there been a better year that I'm totally forgetting?

2 comments:

Wendy McMillan said...

I'm not crazy about your music list from 2007 except maybe Dalek and Yeasayer. But the movies and TV shows sure were great. Perfect way to describe Burn Notice btw.

Let's see...Robin Hood...yeah that's the only one besides Inception that I can think of. And now you have yet another Spoon and Yeasayer album and I like the new Spoon better than Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (is that enough Ga's?).

Austin said...

I've only seen 2 of those movies, haven't heard of the last 2, and plan to only see one more on that list (Persepolis).

I don't know any of those bands, not surprising, as I've never been on the cutting edge or any edge of music.

And Wendy, there can never be enough Ga's. Never.