Domenica 6 Gen 2008, 22:55

Well, 2007 was a shitty year, which means music has been huge for me the last 365 days. I discovered several new bands that have become immensely important to me, and I've gone to some INCREDIBLE concerts.

After kicking off the year with Jet Black New Year, followed by Tomorrow I'll Be You my 2007 was off with a bang. I spent the most of my remaining winter break enjoying The Fray's How To Save A Life and perhaps my biggest guilty pleasure, Meg & Dia with their Something Real. Over the break I watched a lot of late night MTV music videos, and it was the singles How To Save A Life and Monster that got me into the two bands.

Sadly, pretty much everything before the start of summer break shows up in my charts with minimal representation, as my iPod was getting almost all of my love at the time, for various reasons.

Spring semester was dominated by 3 albums for me, all again motivated by singles I had heard over winter break. Oh! Gravity got me into the incredible album Oh! Gravity by Switchfoot. For Sam's Town by The Killers it was Bones, as well as When You Were Young. The third big album for me was the aforementioned How To Save A Life. For a considerable amount of time my playlist with those three albums was all I listened to.

Other albums that received a large amount of listens my spring semester include Far From the Lies by Greeley Estates, The Rising Tied by Fort Minor, Telling Secrets to Strangers by Self Against City (with whom I've got a somewhat personal connection to), both All That We Needed and Every Second Counts by Plain White T's (while simultaneously rolling my eyes at all the Hey-There-Delilah-fags), and lastly A Fever You Can't Sweat Out by Panic! At the Disco.

Individual songs not included above that also got a good amount of plays that semester were Mix Tape by Brand New and Forever and a Day by Silverstein.

Sadly, I made my way to zero concerts the first five months of the year. All of the worthwhile ones in the area stopped by the day before big midterms for epic fail.

The free time of summer vacation brought about an incredible boom in the number of scrobbled tracks and concerts.

Simply put, Bayside DOMINATED my summer listening (as well as the year as a whole, the case could easily be made). All three of their albums got an incredible number of listens after their single, Masterpiece nudged me down the slippery slope after sitting around on a sampler for several months. With the release of their third album, Arrivals and Departures, Silverstein managed to solidly occupy the #2 slot in my summer listening. Encouraged by knowing I'd be fortunate enough to see them live twice during the Warped Tour stint, The Matches also ended up garnering a considerable number of listens, chiefly on Decomposer. The charts show that Motion City Soundtrack also got a decent number of listens at the start of summer, along with a The Format.

Concert season was in full swing for me come summer, with the awesome turned up all of the way. It started with Warped Tour in San Francisco (and ended with Warped in Sacramento; <3 the way they scheduled it). Bayside and The Matches were the main draws for Warped (Bayside was solid at both, The Matches were OMGWTF holy shit awesome in SF, so-so in Sac). The other summer concerts I went to were Motion City Soundtrack, which was one of the best live performances of the year, Silverstein, who weren't bad but still somewhat disappointing live, and finally, The Format, who seeing live was a great experience.

The fall came rolling in with the Bayside wave going as strong as ever. Then, after finally getting into From Autumn to Ashes and The Fiction We Live, which I've had forever, Motion City Soundtrack's newest album, Even If It Kills Me dropped, ushering in a crapload of MCS listening. Although the album is a little more flat-line in sound, the lyrics, music, emotion, and subject matter are still good old Motion City, including one of my new favorite songs, Even If It Kills Me, which kind of reminds me of If Work Permits, although dare I say…better? I don't know, it's a close call. Either way, I love the album.

During fall semester I tried out Chiodos, seeing as they were headlining a concert I was going to, but I just couldn't get into them, however pleasantly enough the concert led me to stumble upon another band I had heard plenty of, but never actually heard, Scary Kids Scaring Kids. Emery was another band I liked releasing a new album (I'm Only A Man) this year, and theirs was unfortunately the biggest disappointment. Oh well, I'll just stick with The Question. mewithoutYou received a very considerable number of plays fall semester, but nearly all of them came on my iPod. Along with my big spring semester bands, mewithoutYou has to be my most underrepresented artist in my charts. 2007 wound down with an upsurge of Straylight Run (along with some of Bayside's Acoustic; it was a mellow end of the year).

Fall semester I definitely continued to make up for the slow start to the year in terms of concerts. It started with an acoustic show by The Matches in Rasputin in Berkeley. Not only an incredible and convenient opportunity, but I even got my Matches guitar pick I caught at SF Warped signed by Shawn. Fucking awesome. Then the next Saturday, the Saturday before Halloween, I got to go to their L3 show in Oakland and let me say, bands in their home venues are incredible. Oh yeah, and I can't wait until I get a copy of Who Let the Yankees in the Chip Shop?. Should be on their new album, which is apparently done.

Another thing I've discovered to be fucking awesome is concerts on holidays. Halloween I went to the second SF date for the Bone Palace Ballet tour. I bought the ticket because Emery was the second name on the bill. Seeing as opening bands get shorter sets, I figured I'd give some of the other bands a listen. As I already mentioned, as much as I wanted to, I couldn't get into Chiodos, however Scary Kids Scaring Kids was another story. I spent a day listening to their first album and decided it didn't really grab me. The thing was, after I tried listening to some other stuff all I wanted was to listen to SKSK. I just couldn't get enough of their sound and nothing else would do. Long story short, they were the best part of the concert and beat the shit out of Emery.

Then November rolled around with, what do you know, concerts by my top 3 bands within 2 weeks. Thursday was first, the Monday after the USC game. I know they're without a doubt one of the best live bands around today, but every time I see them they blow me away again. Jesus christ that concert was fucking remarkable. Even though Circle Takes The Square and Portugal. The Man royally suck balls live. The next weekend I got to see Bayside live a third time and they were way better than at Warped. Like, if at Warped they were a 7/10, they were definitely a 10/10 headlining their own concert. Highlights: the entire place going pitch black during Montauk as they sung the lines, "The lights went out, the lights went out, darkness filled the house, on a tiring night, under a Long Island sky."; when they played an acoustic Megan; and of course, the rabid fans. Concerts for the year ended with Motion City Soundtrack. I have to admit, their popularity is starting to eat away at the quality of the experience with the crowd growing full of more…erm…preppy jr high girls, but it was still great to see them play Last Night as well as The Conversation and Hello Hellicopter on the piano.

I can't wait to see what next year brings.

Most Plays in 2007:
1. Bayside: 3,722
2. Motion City Soundtrack: 2,001
3. Silverstein: 1,767
4. Scary Kids Scaring Kids: 1,017
5. The Matches: 994
6. The Format: 852
7. Thursday: 757
8. Barenaked Ladies: 503
9. New Japan Philharmonic: 461
10. Straylight Run: 446
11. From Autumn to Ashes: 385
12. Emery: 318
13. Greeley Estates: 256
14. Self Against City: 182
15. The Killers: 141

Top Tracks of 07:
1. Bayside – Devotion and Desire: 113
2. Bayside – Phone Call From Poland: 112
3. Bayside – They're Not Horses, They're Unicorns: 111
3. Bayside – Poison in My Veins: 111
5. Bayside – Kellum: 110
6. Bayside – Carry On: 109
6. Bayside – Masterpiece: 109
8. Bayside – Duality: 106
9. Bayside – Dear Tragedy: 105
9. Bayside – Montauk: 105

Perhaps it's no surprise Bayside dominated, taking the top 34 slots on the chart, and none of these songs particularly surprise me either that they're at the top. Interestingly, my iPod disagrees, saying How To Save A Life was the #1 track with 84 plays.

Best live performances of 07:
1. Thursday, 11/12 at Slims
2. Bayside, 11/17 at Slims
3. Motion City Soundtrack, 7/7 at Great American Music Hall
4. The Format, 8/3 at Great American Music Hall
5. The Matches, 7/1 at Shoreline Amphitheater Warped

Now, most opening bands I see definitely deserve to be just opening bands, I feel, but there were a few bands that I'd never heard before that truly impressed me. Sherwood at the first MCS date, Anberlin at the second MCS date, and Steel Train at the Format concert were all great.

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