Tops of My Pops for 9/30/07

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending September 30, 2007
1. Simple Minds
2. Iron & Wine
3. Ulrich Schnauss
4. Klaxons
5. Underworld & Gabriel Yared
6. Wire
6. Cepia
6. Maps
9. Spoon
10. Beastie Boys
10. Josh Rouse

The grind to catch up with my real-time listening continues... I will pause briefly to reflect on the ongoing tidal wave of musical goodness that is 2007: fantastic albums from Iron & Wine and Klaxons enter the fray this week, upping the current tally for my year-end Top Ten to around two dozen contenders.

Worries about Sam Beam selling out on The Shepherd's Dog turn out to be entirely unfounded. While there are more instruments and more musicians and even more singers on this one, he's continuing to refine that exquisite pastoral melancholy that we all know and love.

Klaxons were this year's Mercury Prize winners for their debut Myths Of The Near Future (technically a 2006 release, but only just now making it over the Atlantic). On it they've delivered a reckless, brilliant, modern, electrifying UK rock sound the brazenly reaches across the gap between the quirky indie camp and the stadium rockers. They're hooky and perplexing as you might imagine, but there's a hot swagger to it that rivals anything Bobby Gillespie ever aspired to. Listen to "It's Not Over Yet" before you tell me I'm wrong.

Finally, I can hear you all asking: what the hell is Simple Minds doing at the top of this week's chart? Before all the Breakfast Club mega-stardom rotted their brains and begat all the sonic garbage that followed, the band released five bold, experimental and ultimately cinematic masterpieces of pop music in four short years: Empires And Dance (1980), Sons and Fascination / Sister Feelings Call (two EPs released in 1981 and later combined on CD), New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) (1982), and Sparkle in the Rain (1984). Lo and behold, all have been remastered and the first three are now available in iTunes Plus format. I have proudly (re)purchased the 1981-82 releases and listen in awe and respect. So there.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives