Obligatory Top Ten Albums of 2007 List
I’ll start with a little bit of background.
I read a lot of album reviews, and a lot of top ten lists. A few years ago, I decided that I should start writing out a top albums list at the end of each year. It’s been a lot of fun so far, but it’s gone from a two-hour list-making session to a 2000-word exercise in completion. That being said, this list doesn’t encompass everything I listened to this year – just the albums that I thought were noteworthy.
Also, these albums are (of course) ranked subjectively. That’s one of the things that is so great about music: there is no way to objectively evaluate whether something is better or worse. At some point, the argument boils down to which album you like more than the other one. These are what I think are the top albums of the 2007; If you agree or disagree, that’s great! I would love to see your top ten lists. Post them in the comments. Like I said, I love reading lists and hemming and hawing over what other people think about music.
Before we start, here’s a quick explanation of the categories:
- The Top Ten Albums of 2007. This should be self-explanatory.
- Notable Omissions. These albums were in the conversation, but didn’t quite make it into the top ten list. If this were a longer list, they would follow the top ten in some order.
- Honorable Mention. Not Top Ten quality, but these are albums that I enjoyed over the past year anyway.
- Most Disappointing. I was expecting a lot this year. I got it, but not from these discs.
- Reader Suggestions. I asked for these this year, and got them in spades. I made a quick judgment on each of them and wrote it down in a sentence or two.
- The Jury is Still Out. I need to give these albums a more critical listen before making a final decision on them. At least one or two of these will probably have crawled up into the top ten a year from now.
Now, without further ado…
The Top Ten Albums of 2007
10.
If nothing else, Arcade Fire has proven that they can put out a cohesive, full album. Neon Bible works a lot better as a whole (well, minus the tacked-on final track) than most albums released this year, and there are no must-skip tracks like there were on 2004’s Funeral. Neon Bible surpasses its predecessor in most aspects, but there isn’t any one killer track. “No Cars Go” and “Keep the Car Running” are great songs, but there seems to be some crucial element missing. I don’t know if this Canadian collective will ever write another song as good as Funeral’s “Rebellion (Lies)”.
DOWNLOAD: “No Cars Go,” “Keep The Car Running”
Hinge Benefits
Do me a favor, the next time you find yourself in the old Fine Arts Building, take a moment to examine the Koehler gallery.
No, don’t allow yourself to be distracted by the art within, though the black sculptures of banana’s do present a compelling portrayal of the contradictions manifest in the human condition.
Instead, examine something far more interesting:
The doors. More specifically, the hinges.
You’ll notice that, of the six hinges, one is not like the other. One just doesn’t belong. One, is missing a hinge pin.
That’s because that particular hinge pin was anonymously delivered to me by people claiming to be the “so-called Art Vandals.”
The meaning was clear. The perps responsible for “hacking” the Koeler gallery- switching the professional pieces with student pieces- didn’t need a key.
All they needed was some sort of tool, like say, a chisel and hammer provided in Sculpture I, to remove the hinge pins from the door.
Then, they easily removed the door from the hinges, stepped inside, completed their nefarious plan, and then put the door back on its hinges.
Yes, they used the same sly tactics featured in the hit heist movie: Ever After.
Whitworth responded by changing the lock (which didn’t help much) and locking the outside doors of the art building, which did even less.
There are three — count ‘em three — categories of ways to easily break into the Art building after hours. And each of these ways have dozens of different iterations and variations. I would detail exactly how this can be done, but I don’t want to inconvenience art students even further.
You see, some art students have even broken into the Art Building after hours for the express purpose of working on their art pieces.
You know we live in a twisted world when students are breaking rules, dodging security, and sneaking into locked buildings late at night for the express purpose of working on their homework.
Obviously, this massive inconvenience for Art students, some of whom have to work until 11:00 at night. Art students would just work at home, if only their Arend dorm room came equipped with a pottery wheel.
And what’s the benefit of all this inconvenience. Nothing. All it does is keep the honest students from working on their art pieces. Today, art students could pull the exact same prank. In fact, it would be even easier, because they don’t have to worry about some other art student catching them. They have the building all to themselves.
I’m no George Clooney. But I’m confident that even I could get into the Koehler Gallery after hours and replace all of Ruben Trejo’s pieces with identical forgeries. In fact, who’s to say I already haven’t?
Can you tell the authentic banana sculpture from the fake?
Whitworth should open up the art building again. They trust music students in the music building. They trust theater students in the theater building. They trust Media students in the HUB. Remember, nothing has ever been damaged after hours because of art students.
They should focus on making the Koehler gallery more secure instead. This can be easily done in two ways. The hinges should be put on the inside of the door. The downside, is that this would mean that the door would swing towards the inside of the gallery, instead of outward, possibly obscuring artwork.
Another, easier method might be to replace the hinge. The use of non-removable pins, safety studs, or fast riveted (crimped) hinge pins can deter this sort of breaking in. You can find these at your friendly neighborhood Home Depot. Six hinges at $3.72 a pop with an 8 percent sales tax: $24.11
I’m sure art students would more than willing to donate money for these security precautions, if it would mean they could work in the art building after hours.
On another note, it’s been interesting to see so many people blame the pranksters for the art building being locked after hours. To me, that’s as silly as a historian blaming the United States for Pearl Harbor, because of the oil embargo the US placed on Japan (*cough*HowardZinn*cough*)
There were a number of ways Whitworth could have responded to the prank. Locking the building at midnight was just one method — and in my opinion, one with a far greater cost than benefit — of dealing with the situation. Students shouldn’t be blamed for the overreactions applied to their actions.
95 things I love about Whitworth.
I do a lot of criticizing of Whitworth. I think the school is full of a variety of deep-seeded problems, and I express that opinion regularly. Part of that’s because, well, complaining about what’s wrong often forces changes. Going on and on about good things may make people feel fuzzy inside but usually doesn’t get much done.
But some people look at my screeds against various Whitworth problems and assume that I hate Whitworth. That’s incorrect.
If anything, it’s the opposite. I care deeply about Whitworth. I want it to be successful. That’s why I get so upset when I feel that things are changing for the worse.
It’s just like people criticize the colorization of black and white movies, not because they hate old movies, but because they love them.
But sometimes what I like about Whitworth is lost in the flurry of writings about what I hate about Whitworth.
Hopefully this post will help rectify that situation. I’ve given around 100 things, some huge and overarching and others very small, that I love about Whitworth. Some of these may seem slightly backhanded. Some of the things that I love about Whitworth, you may hate. That’s fine. The comments section has been left wide open for such commentary.
I hereby present, in the tradition of other, similarly-numbered lists, 95 things I love about Whitworth.
1. Teachers that actually teach. At other schools professors often foist off their “pedagogical drudgery on their TAs.” Not so at Whitworth. You’ll never find teachers more engaged and enthusiastic than at Whitworth.
2. The fact that Whitworth’s professors are there for the small school and the personalized environment, not for the cold hard cash and the world prestige. Their commitment, their reason for being there, shows.
3. Whitworth’s small enough that every student, guy or girl, can be a “Big Man on campus.”
4. The way the Whitworth’s lampposts glow in the fog.
5. The twin lunch lady powers of Loretta and Dee.
6. The Sodexho Hot Chocolate machine, which is somehow blessed with the perfect mixture of cocoa and hot water. This isn’t Starbucks hot chocolate sludge, people. This is pure delicious goodness. Now, if they’d only stop taunting me with “Out of Order” signs and just fix the darn thing.
7. The “Angry Pasta” international dish. More like Angry if the cafeteria doesn’t have it pasta.
8. That so many students can feel free to leave their doors unlocked and backpacks unattended. For the most part, Whitworth is a very safe place.
9. Warren Peace.
10. Compared to many Christian colleges, the campus newspaper is free to print stories on any topic. As a result, we get far more engaging discussion. And the occasional story on !!!—->SEX<—!!!
Dead Things
Writing on the wall in the painting room of the art building.
And there are too many dead things in there.
About the photo: Although the actual taking of this photo isn’t the most intriguing thing (besides getting the composition set in a way to make it interesting, especially with the white edge to the right), the editing may provide a note of interest. It was shot in a file format called RAW, which doesn’t apply all the things like white balance, sharpness, saturation, hue, contrast and compression that is applied to every JPG image whether you like it or not. It allows for a lot more flexibility in editing the image afterwards. The downside is that each image ends up being 6-8mbs each. For this image, I used an editing technique called HDR or Tonemapping through a program called Photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/), to bring out the shadows and tone down the highlights.
Unreasonably testy?
I followed a few stories about a British teacher in Sudan who almost got executed for a student project. Apparently, Gillian Gibbons asked her students to name a class teddy bear with their favorite name. The young students went with “Mohammed.” Gibbons was jailed and faced more jail time and even 40 lashes as punishment for blasphemy and insulting the prophet. People even gathered outside the jail calling for her execution.
This reaction probably seems a little extreme. However, it is not at all foreign to this part of the world.
Back in March 2007 there was a heated controversy over another “blasphemy” or perceived insult against a holy figure -Â this time a life-sized statue of Jesus in the buff, made out of chocolate. The artist received angry responses that “included death threats over the work” from offended Christians.
Where should the criticism be directed in these cases? Do these people get upset too easily, or should we blame the “offenders” for expressing things that may upset other people?