20 FROM 2007

By SOME PEEPS

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In an effort to loose ourselves (and you) from the traditional consensus picks of the year, we asked our writers to each give us their favorites from the past year. The result is a plentiful panoply of pieces designed to cut a wide swath in the critical crop circles. Also, our writers know their shit.

AGAINST ME!

NEW WAVE

Wishful thinkers predicted New Wave would be a Nevermind for the MySpace generation. But even with Butch Vig producing, demented cheerleaders in the "White People for Peace" video, and a moody ex-indie dude at the band's helm, New Wave failed to give us a cultural revolution. We had to settle for awesomeness. [BARRY THOMPSON]

ALISON KRAUS & ROBERT PLANT

RAISING SAND

From Aleister Crowley to Alison Kraus, Robert Plant's muses have been as varied as the ways his old band sodomized groupies. Who could've guessed he would age best after Zep disbanded? This diverse Kraus collaboration is alive with ragged, earthy harmonies and textures; it feels unlike anything either has ever created. [ROB TURBOVSKY]

AMIINA

KURR

Amiina released their first full-length release amidst knitting, giggling and being so rosy-cheekedly adorable. Whether performing as a classic string quartet or coaxing rhythms from bells, glasses of water and saws, these frequent collaborators of Sigur Rós and Efterklang create music so ethereal and complex it conjures waterfairies in their native Reykjavík. [CHRISTINE LIU]

ARCADE FIRE

NEON BIBLE

I really hyphed out on this in 2k7. It had so many jams that I ran out of toast. I picked this over many other records based on how many songs I actually liked on the album, and would pick a different artist if we were talking about singles, but "The Well and The Lighthouse" blows my mind. [SAMEER NASEEM]

BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW

DANDELION GUM

Black Moth Super Rainbow carve out nostalgic little electronic jams as if they were archaeologists discovering '80s public television soundtrack music and workout videos a century from now. Vocoders and synths have never sounded this rustic and warm, like teatime at the cottage with all your old moldy robot friends. [MARTIN PAVLINIC]

BROTHER ALI

THE UNDISPUTED TRUTH

Brother Ali's albinism, Muslimism, single-fatherhood and poverty aren't gimmicks. They're realities that inspired contemporary hip-hop's most eloquent new generation griot to orchestrate a boom bap statement on par with no other 2007 rap release. It helped him get noticed in an ocean of over-propped, intellectually fraudulent dunces. [CHRIS FARAONE]

BURIAL

UNTRUE

2006 album of the year nod from The Wire be damned, reclusive dubstep beatsmith Burial trumps his pioneering eponymous debut with a more expansive, orchestral and somber effort that casts a gorgeous chill over his patented underground-UK style. The antidote to London's club-ready music filler, Untrue is a masterful 21st century headphone symphony. [KIRAN ADITHAM]

CHROMEO

FANCY FOOTWORK

Put on these Montreal-based electro-disco macks and just listen to your lady friends ask: Is this some '80s shit? Is this a remake? What is this? Why are you touching my knee? Just assure them it's awesome and everything is OK. Better than OK -- it's bumpin', sexy, sleazy and hot -- damn hot. [DAVE WEDGE]

JUSTICE

†

Harnessing the power of the internet, two visionary French dance/punk artists cut a harder, better, faster, stronger definition of dance music. With literally thousands of unauthorized remixes on the darknet, Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay stood as the world champions of technologic music consumption -- then "†" dropped. Turns out the album is still relevant. Who knew? [DAVID DAY]

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

SOUNDS OF SILVER

From "Get Innocuous" to "All My Friends" to "Someone Great," this band of merrymakers (actually, just James Murphy) made the most complete album of 2007: dance-happy, perfectly moody and as current as a Mozilla RSS feed. As he sings on the title track, "makes you want to feel like a teenager." [DAVID DAY]

MARY TIMONY BAND

THE SHAPES WE MAKE

Imagine a role-playing game in which the best weapon is a guitar instead of a sword. In Mary Timony's latest adventure her guitar riffs and sarcastic lyrics slay her enemies, including Ted Nugent and anti-abortion activists. Cape of invisibility and magical fairy dust not included. [CAROLINE ROBERTS]

M.I.A

KALA

Everyone thought that Mathangi Arulpragasam was just a product of Diplo's beats. Everyone thought that her agit-pop framework would not stand up to a second album. Everyone thought that after such scrutiny and under heavy expectations, the M.I.A. concept would fade with the passing of time and trends. Everyone was wrong. [DEBBIE DRISCOLL]

MOBILE

TOMORROW STARTS TODAY

Swinging for the fences on every song, this Canadian band affects the style of their influences (U2, Oasis, The Killers) but makes them look silly in comparison. From the acoustic melancholy of "Dusting Down the Stars" to the hard-charging piano and orchestral swells of the poignant and dramatic "See Right Through Me," what it may lack in originality it makes up for in near-perfect execution. [LUKE O'NEIL]

MODERN LIFE IS WAR

MIDNIGHT IN AMERICA

In their home state of Iowa, this album has replaced the defibrillator. Should your heart stop, headphones are lodged firmly onto your lobes before someone shouts "clear!" The brutal punk/hardcore sound shoots through the nervous system with a defiant yet sincere shock. Soon enough, the flatline jumps and you're back. [SCOTT MURRY]

PANDA BEAR

PERSON PITCH

Panda Bear grew bigger than Noah Lennox's other band (Animal Collective) due to a simple mix: classic melodies, gorgeous vocals and embarrassingly sincere lyrics combined with modern sample-based production and loose song structures that allowed for both classic 12-minute jams and the year's best song ("Take Pills"). Person Pitch is a gem through and through and through. [DANIEL SHVARTSMAN]

THE PIETASTERS

ALL DAY

The Pietasters turned in one of the most surprising discs of 2007, a soulful and lively homage to Motown, '60s garage band rock and good old-fashioned ska and reggae. Scared of ska? One listen to the skanked-up cover of Petty's "Listen to Her Heart" should soothe your honky soul. [MIKE PANGKOS]

ST. VINCENT

MARRY ME

Thank goodness Annie Clark took time off from playing with Sufjan Stevens and Polyphonic Spree to make this year's brilliant Marry Me as St. Vincent. Evoking Tin Pan Alley on one track and Talking Heads the next, this album establishes the backup musician as one of indie's foremost virtuosos. [RYAN WEAVER]

TALIB KWELI/MADLIB

LIBERATION

Quietly dropping as a free internet download in January, Liberation provides Kweli with an obstacle course of drooping bass lines and stuttering drum kits courtesy of Madlib that whip Talib's lyrical skills back into Olympic condition. An inspired hip-hop collabo, not to mention the best free download duo since Kim and Ray J. [MARTY CABALLERO]

THE FIELD

FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME

Axel Willner's music project is a woozy, unstable and repetitive mess of layered electronic samples from some of the most recognizable pop songs of the century. But this isn't that unlistenable Girl Talk mash-up-40-songs-in-30-seconds gobbledygook; it is in fact quite the opposite. Willner takes one snippet and stretches it into a song -- one beautiful song after another. [DAVID DAY]

THURSTON MOORE

TREES OUTSIDE THE ACADEMY

Thurston Moore's first solo album since 1995's Psychic Hearts, Trees Outside The Academy finds the Northampton legend exploring a softer, more understated rock palette -- but Trees is full of nostalgic traces from every corner of Moore's shape-shifting career. You even get to hear Thurston, at age 13, haphazardly channeling (Italian Futurist) Marinetti. [DANIEL LOPATIN]