Vote

Anjani: Blue Alert

Bruce, Bruce, Bruce! Magic towers above everything else I've heard in a very long time. Definately a long term keeper and an '07 winner.

Kate Bush: Aerial. There have been better albums in 2007, but I can't resist her.

Masters and Commanders, Erich Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops SACD-60682 Recorded 2/5/07. Easily and the best sound and performance of this wonderful sea-worthy music.

Oh, there are so many wonderful choices: Brittany Spears, Hannah Montana, Justin Timberlake, Soljer—just to name a few! Oh thank you record execs, thank you!

At first, I thought this one would be easy. Then I realized that all but two of the CDs I purchased this year as "new" releases were from 2006 or before. One 2007 release that I think is quite good happens to be Raising Sand—the unlikely combination of Robert Plant and Alison Krause. While I'm sure that the bona-fide Zeppies out there are going to hate me for suggesting such a thing, it's time that Robert Plant took his sixty-year-old self into different territory. The man's a versatile musician with a glorious past, so why not? I think the combination of Plant and Krause works quite well (along with Burnett and company)!

Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

Aman Iman: Tinariwen +10:1 The music speaks for itself .Question; if you allowed reissues,wouldn't those be most of the respones? Kind of sad that you even had to not allow them.

Ron Carter: Dear Miles

Jars of Clay: Good Monsters. Though not as well recorded (sound wise) as past albums (Who We Are Instead, Eleventh Hour), when produced by Stephen Lipson & engineered by Heff Morraes (who produced past Annie Lennox albums), this is a phenomenal combination of songs that continues to show their evolution as a group. They continue to get better on each album, and I thought Who We Are Instead could not be topped. Their single release, "Waiting for the World to End," from the soundtrack Chronicles of Narnia is a good example of their "house" sound & strong cohesiveness as a group that has been around years.

Magic by Bruce Springsteen. The only drawback is that the sound quality is poor.

Rock/pop: Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall, 1971, an old live solo concert newly-issued that shows what a powerful songwriter and performer Neil was as a young man. Classical: Marc-Andre Hamelin, Symphony for Solo Piano.

Wow! Is it 2007 already? Where did the twentieth century go? I bought some new CDs, but I put them in the 400 DVD changer and lost track of titles, sigh. Yo-Yo Ma, Some fancy orchestras, some Stirful CDs, and a Cartridge in a Pair tree ... Stereo, the new Mono!

My favorite classical new release for 2007 is… …not released yet! But before setting this question it would be better to define the term “favorite release.” Favorite: is meaning (at the same time) An excellent performance AND an interesting music score AND of course a “high resolution” medium (meaning a musical medium, like LP or SACD). There are many excellent performances from the finest artists on very poor mediums, like CDs (the matter that our CD players cost a lot of money, little change on musicality) There are also a few interesting music scores having usually poor performance (we all know why) And there are only a very few releases (for how long?) on “high resolution” mediums (meaning musical mediums) like SACDs or good LP discs, usually with poor performance (in this case the performance is the one that is not musical!). Can someone seeing even a very small light at the end of this 25 years old tunnel (the CD TUNNEL) give us some hope? Happy New Year to everyone

Tierney Sutton's On the Other Side. A wonderfully dry look at happiness.

CD : In My Element by Robert Glasper.

New music for grown-ups was rare in 2007. What a shame!

Everybody's favorite train wreck, Amy Winehouse's Back To Black. Great stuff.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals: This Is Somewhere. Other than that, all I found worth buying was used CDs and used vinyl.

Amy Winehouse: Back to Black

Russian Nights by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Great music and great sonics.

in rainbows by Radiohead.

Kill To Get Crimson by Mark Knopfler.

Over The Rhine: trumpet child

Suzanne Vega: Beauty and Crimes.-Her best in years. Buy the vinyl version, it has musc better sound!

My favorite might be...uh, how about The Shins' Wincing The Night Away? Yep, that is definitely what comes to mind. Now, of course, if I go back and really look at everything I bought in the last year, I might find something better, but just off the top of my big fat head I'll go with the Shins.

Muse with their CD Black Holes And Revelations.

Radiohead: In Rainbows. It isn't even my favorite Radiohead record, yes black record, and they are not even my favorite band, though I certainly have been a fan for years, but In/Rainbows is the outstanding release of '07 because of its innovative approach to the commercial part of the music business. With creative efforts like this, a workable approach may be implememted one day, hopefully soon, to replace the old, broken model. Much very fine music was released in '07, but I choose this for its creative commercial value.

The Clientele's God Save the Clientele. Excellent writing, performance, production, and sound. You can sense the excitement of unbounded creativity in this music.

The Flaming Lips"At War with the Mystics. I can't explain why I like them, but I find genius in everything they do