Glide's 5th Annual Best of 2007: From the Artists' Perspective

Paul:  Dirty Projectors
Touring with the Dirty P's was such a thrill.  Their live show pretty much outdoes everyone else's on the planet.  There is such urgency to the music, it's fun, scary and beautiful all at the same time.  I love them.

Jon: Loney, Dear
We played a couple shows with them recently, and, at one of them in particular, they just blew all the other bands off the stage, us included.  At first, the audience was largely indifferent to them, but by the end of the set, Emil and his merry band had completely won them over with their amazing energy on stage and unbelievable songwriting.  It is always amazing (and really rare for that matter) to see/hear a single set affect everyone in the audience and transform the mood of an entire room, and by the end of Loney, Dear's set that night, every single person was filled with utter joy and excitement.

Jon: For a couple of our shows in New York, we somehow got about 20 trumpet-playing friends to join us on stage for a song, and it was a horn player's wet dream: about 25 of us blasting away on various brass instruments, creating this thundercloud of sound.  Fun fun fun.

Paul:  I discovered Scott Walker last year, but it has been an ever evolving relationship ever since.  His music means different things to me every time that I hear it.  Easily one of the most inspiring artists in my life.

Paul: Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, is easily the best film that I have seen since Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven.  And don't even try to talk shit about Richard Gere, Richard Gere was in Days of Heaven, fuck the haters.

Jon: Two disclaimers: 1)  I didn't get to see many films this year; 2) I'm a sucker for any great noir.  That said, and believe me, it pains me to say the following about anything Affleck-related, I thought Gone Baby Gone was truly spectacular.  The story is a clinic in masterful plotting, and I thought it really was an exceptionally well-crafted and clever film.

Paul:  “We Love” by Jurgen Paape

Jon: Bishop Allen – “Like Castanets.”  I'm a tad biased, because I play with these guys from time to time, but I really feel that they are world-class songwriters. Justin Rice is simply the best lyricist I know, and this song in particular is a perfectly written gem.

LCD Soundsystem – “Someone Great.”  I always end up listening to this song on plane trips, and I always get choked up.  I don't know why, but it does that to me, and I'm a sucker for songs that affect me in ways I don't understand.

Paul:  Vincent Moon and Chryde at La Blogoteque.  Their contribution to music, film, and public consciousness cannot be understated.  I feel that their work may be the single greatest contribution to art in the last year.  Even if they never make another web video, their work has destroyed and reinvigorated music video.  Not since D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back has the world been able to consume music visually in such an amazing way.

Jon: I'll stick with music for this one.  The friendly and erudite folks at Rough Trade in London turned me on to this super-exciting young artist, a Brit named Ben Garrett, who has released stuff under the name frYars.  They gave me a little homemade 4-song EP he made, and it's fantastic.  He's only 18, and definitely has, to borrow from the RT folks, "a shed-load of talent"; I'm excited to hear what he comes up with in the coming year (and in years to follow).

Jon:  I think my bandmates would say that my music collection is almost entirely comprised of guilty pleasures. But since I feel no guilt or remorse about my musical tastes, mocked though they may be by others in the Beirut family, I have to go to another medium for this category.  I am,  however, more than a little mortified that I have come to love Veronica Mars.  It is easily the most girly and tween thing I have ever enjoyed, but it is pretty fantastic.

Paul: Me getting to sing Siki Siki Baba in Copenhagen because Zach's voice was shot.  That was nutty.  Real nutty.