Top New Releases of 2007... So Far

This is shaping up early to be a good year in music. So I decided to highlight my favorites. It was hard enough to make my selections. Ranking them is even harder. However, I did it just for fun and to create controversy. So Here goes...

1) Patty Griffin - "Children Running Through"

2) Assembly of Dust - "Recollection"

3) The Broken West - "I Can't Go on I'll Go on"

4) The Shins - "Wincing the Night Away"

5) Son Volt - "The Search"

6) Charlie Louvin - "Charlie Louvin"

7) Modest Mouse - "We Were Dead Before the Ship Ever Sank"

8) The Greencards - "Viridian"

9) Joe Ely - "Happy Song from Rattlesnake Gulch"

10) Bill Kirchen - "Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods"

11) Norah Jones - "Not Too Late"

12) Martin Sexton - "Seeds"

13) Don Rigsby - "Hillbilly Heartache"

14) Two Cow Garage - "Three"

15) The Dexateens - "Hardwire Healing"

Notably Left off was Lucinda Williams new album. Admittedly, a dispassionate review would easily put this album in the top 10. Some of the songs on "West" are classics. However, lyrically some of the songs on this album are so depressing and dark that I would need Xanax just to listen to them more than a few times. So I just can't put it on "My" list. (Maybe a few sessions with a therapist will allow me to put it on my year end list.)

Another great album I hated to leave off was Tommy Womack's "There I said it." Oh well, I had to end the list somewhere and 15 seemed like a good number.