<big>2007 Playlist</big>

After the joy of creating my cinematic top 10 a few days back, I decided to take a stab at a lesser-qualified list, music. I love year-end music lists because it gives me the opportunity to go download a few dozen songs I missed from the year to keep me going through the generally drab group of releases that happens in market-low January and February. Though certainly as much a part of my life as film, I've never felt particularly informed on music. But my iTunes suggests, its there for me everyday, and 2007 found a good thousand tracks added to my iTunes library.

My music tastes are pretty much across the board, and are heavily influenced by a half dozen people in my life who seem constantly informed on artists and bands that become everyone's favourite a year later. I basically taste test their tastes, as well as the tastes of some blogs and magazines I read on a semi-regular basis, and this results in what I listen to during the 20 hours a week or so I spent walking or in transit.

The list that follows is nothing out of the ordinary. It varies drastically from true artists whose entire albums could have made a top 100 list to manufactured pop sluts whose album found more of a place in my iPod rotation than I had expected. Its loosely representative of said library's "most listened" function, though I decided to exclude artist repeats (or else Feist would have five songs in my top twenty), and tinkered with the rankings (the pop-hook-that-makes-you-repeat-it qualities of songs like Rihanna's "Umbrella" made it the unchallenged #1 most-listened), to create a good representation of the 25 songs that found themselves in heavy rotation in my 2007 ears.

1. The Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running

2. Beck - Time Bomb

3. Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly

4. Feist - 1234

5. Rihanna - Umbrella

6. Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks

7. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

8. Spoon - You Got Yr Cherry Bomb

9. M.I.A. - Paper Planes

10. Amy Winehouse - Rehab / Britney Spears - Radar

11. Nine Inch Nails - My Violent Heart

12. Bloc Party - I Still Remember

13. Rilo Kiley - Silver Lining

14. Pink feat. Indigo Girls - Dear Mr. President

15. Bjork - Earth Intruders

16. Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby

17. Tegan & Sara - Back In Your Head

18. Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position

19. Jimmy Eat World - Here It Goes

20. Kylie Minogue - 2 Hearts

21. Of Montreal - Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse

22. Lily Allen - Smile

23. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy

24. Bright Eyes - Four Winds

25. Mary J. Blige - Just Fine

Multiples from artists that deserve a slot despite my "rules": The Arcade Fire - Intervention; Feist - I Feel It All & My Moon, My Man; Britney Spears - Piece of Me; LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum; M.I.A. - Jimmy; Lily Allen - LDN; Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good; Bloc Party - The Prayer; Nine Inch Nails - In This Twilight; Bjork - Innocence