How Are All of These Classic Records Celebrating 15 Years This Month?
2007 may have been "the year" for indie music and these albums from The National, Wilco, Battles, and Handsome Furs are defining entries
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2007 was a pivotal year for me. I moved an hour down the road from my hometown to Denver to finally finish up that degree after a year of soul searching in Portland. I was looking for that new challenge to move me to the next phase, whatever that may be. Let’s be honest, though. I was also looking for more places for my band to play.
A trio, we all started new day jobs and had the opportunity to explore the long list of clubs that might book the rather weird indiejampop we played. There’s a whole other article here for another time, but let’s just say everyone in Denver at that time mostly sounded like The Fucking Fray - we had a lot of pre-show laughs at the bar.
At the end of the summer, I would meet my future wife, and life would take me in so many other unexpected directions.
One of my favorite Instagram follows posted an entry from the new 33 1/3 book about the recording of The National’s breakthrough album, Boxer, and how many defining indie rock albums came out in a brief span fifteen years ago. This led me to look up all of the record releases in May of 2007, and it instantly took me back to those freewheelin’ days.
Here are four records celebrating anniversaries that were an enormous part of the soundtrack to my life at that time.
The National - Boxer
Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me in the Bathroom is required reading for anyone with even a small interest in the early-00s New York City rock scene. In a book full of memorable moments, I often come back to these quotes from members of The National about having a rehearsal space next door to Interpol:
Matt Berninger: I remember saying, “Listen to that band next door.” I was blown away by them. We thought, “This is where the undiscovered bands come to practice, the people who are good.”
Scott Devendorf: We’d stop playing and hear songs off that first record and we’d be like, “Oh great. We got a long way to go.”
Matt Berninger: A month later Spin magazine was doing a big feature on them in the hallway of this practice space. They had, like, props and ballons set up and we had to kind of weave around. They had their suits on and we had our khaki pants and our work shirts. We were walking through what was probably Interpol’s first photoshoot. It felt humiliating but also motivating. “Those fucking guys right next to us!? Yesterday they were right next to us, and now they’re in Spin magazine?” That kind of shit happened a lot.
Thinking about Interpol in their black suits and chic haircuts with The National in their Midtown work khakis is a hilarious juxtaposition, but is also what gave The National their unique identity in the scene. Alligator is a great starting point for the band’s brooding brand of rock that reflects on day job regret and stable relationship bitterness. Boxer is where The National entirely comes into their own, though, and was the group’s first tasting of the charts.
As I’ve mentioned here before, 2007 was also the year I went to Bonnaroo. It was a little less than a month after the release of Boxer and the record was an obsession amongst my friends. In a transition year for the festival which introduced more indie acts, The National had a Thursday night slot, and we made sure to get there early just to hear the Brooklyn sulkers. Playing in front of a half-empty field while most people were still shuffling in for the weekend, The National didn’t meet the expectations.
Luckily, that wasn’t the end of my relationship with The National’s live show. Having seen them many more times in the club and theater setting, they are better each time. Whether writing music for the Cyrano score or working with Taylor Swift on her most significant records yet, the band is definitely in a much more prosperous place fifteen years later. They haven’t released a bad album yet, but Boxer is one special album if you were there.
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
There’s been a heavy press cycle for the twentieth anniversary of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and rightfully so. It’s the culmination of everything that Wilco was working toward during their first phase, and Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett put it all on the line (before Wilco quickly kicked Bennett out of the band). We can talk Summerteeth and YHF all day, but Sky Blue Sky is a fantastic record that deserves praise.
It’s hard to imagine Wilco without guitarist Nels Cline, but Sky Blue Sky featured further personnel change and it’s their first record to feature Cline, who joined during the A Ghost is Born tour. The vet jazz guitarist immediately changed the group’s sound and there’s no better introduction to this new phase than the back-to-back tracks “You Are My Face” and “Impossible Germany.” Cline took the band into a more “day set jam band” phase and the interplay between him and Tweedy on “Impossible Germany” is still a career highlight for the prolific Chicago band.
The dweebs at the Condé Nast Music Rag ™ gave Sky Blue Sky a real shitty review at the time, labeling it dad rock. The band has embraced the moniker, even if they are more stoner dad rock, fitting in with classics like Steely Dan and My Morning Jacket. Sky Blue Sky isn’t boundary-pushing like YHF, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s instead a mellow embrace of Tweedy’s pop genius and never fails to perfectly soundtrack some summertime backyard beers.
Oh, and last year the Condé Nast Music Rag™ dweebs finally pulled their heads out of their asses by last year labeling Sky Blue Sky an “essential album.” Go figure.
Battles - Mirrors
While revisiting these four records, I enjoyed none more than Mirrors, the debut from the (mostly) instrumental experimental band Battles. In the mid-00s, math rock was having a resurgence thanks to groups like The Mars Volta and my personal favorite, Minus the Bear. Formed by members of the scene, Battles successfully straddled the line between the geekiness of math rock and the indie scene.
This thing is as wild as I remember and never sits still throughout its fifty-minute run time. “Atlas” is everything you want out of a seven-minute single, and “Tonto” is way ahead of its time, sounding something more like what you would hear from electronic jam bands like Lotus. It’s not perfect - the last few minutes of “Tij” are incredibly grating - and I still think the band’s best single would come on their next record in the form of “Ice Cream,” but this album is still fun as hell.
Handsome Furs - Plague Park
I’m saving some deep dives into the side projects from phenomenal Canadian indie legends Wolf Parade members for a rainy day. In the meantime, it’s worth revisiting Plague Park, the debut record from co-singer and guitarist Dan Boeckner. For three albums, he paired with his former wife, Alexei Perry, with excellent results. Boeckner is one of those people I could listen to them sing the phonebook, and Handsome Furs is a fun indie-electro project that offers a different side to his regular indie alternative act.
If you dig Plague Park, don’t miss out on their final record, Sound Kapital, where the ex-couple master their sound by taking it back to the 80s.
Do you love any albums from 2007 that are bonified classics? Drop me a comment!
Remember being at The Aggie when this picture was taken!
I remember that night.❤️