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Updated May 1, 2026The best albums of 2007
2007 is the year Radiohead released In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis and changed the music industry's commercial assumptions overnight. It's also the year Kanye West released Graduation and won the public debate with 50 Cent about which kind of hip-hop the decade wanted. Arcade Fire released Neon Bible. LCD Soundsystem released Sound of Silver. Spoon released Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. M.I.A. released Kala.
The streaming era wasn't quite here yet — Spotify launched in October 2008 — but 2007 felt like the last year of the download economy and the first year something was obviously about to change. The best albums of the year have a quality of completion: artists who'd been building to something for a decade finally landing it.
01#1 · 2007
In Rainbows
RadioheadGoat avg 99/100
“The warmest Radiohead album since The Bends.”
The warmest Radiohead album since The Bends. After the electronic austerity of Kid A and Amnesiac and the slight overreach of Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows found the band making songs again — "Nude," "All I Need," "Reckoner," "House of Cards." Thom Yorke sounds like he means it rather than performing alienation. "15 Step" and "Bodysnatchers" provide the requisite intensity; the back half of the record is as beautiful as anything the band made. Released for free and still #1.
02#2 · 2007
Sound of Silver
LCD SoundsystemGoat avg 98/100
“The decade's best song about time.”
James Murphy's second album is about aging and the city and being the kind of person who cares too much about music. "All My Friends" — seven minutes of piano, bass, and accumulating regret — is the decade's best song about time. "Get Innocuous!" opens the album with 80s synth minimalism that gradually explodes. "Someone Great" is as affecting as any 2000s ballad. Murphy making music explicitly for people who remember when disco was worth hating.
03#3 · 2007
Graduation
Kanye WestGoat avg 95/100
“Settled a decade-long aesthetic debate in hip-hop in one chart.”
Kanye outsold 50 Cent head-to-head the same week, which settled a decade-long aesthetic debate in hip-hop in one chart. The album itself — stadium synths, chipmunk soul samples blown up to arena scale, "Stronger" built on a Daft Punk loop — is the most maximalist thing he'd made. "Can't Tell Me Nothing," "Good Life," and "Champion" are the album's commercial core; "Homecoming" (with Chris Martin) is the one that doesn't belong and somehow fits.
04#4 · 2007
Neon Bible
Arcade FireGoat avg 94/100
“The difficult second album that refused to be difficult.”
The difficult second album that refused to be difficult. Neon Bible is darker and more explicitly political than Funeral — the Bush-era religiosity and creeping surveillance are the album's explicit themes — and it's heavier in arrangements (pipe organ, string sections, a Welsh choir). "Keep the Car Running," "Intervention," and "No Cars Go" are the singles; "The Well and the Lighthouse" and "My Body Is a Cage" are the album's actual peaks.
05#5 · 2007
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
SpoonGoat avg 94/100
“The most perfectly produced album of the decade.”
The most perfectly produced album of the decade. Britt Daniel's guitar arrangements are stripped to their minimum — every note is there for a reason, every silence is deliberate. "The Underdog" is brass and percussion with almost no guitar. "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" is three chords and the most kinetic rhythm section Spoon had put to tape. "Don't Make Me a Target" is the album's funniest and most serious political song simultaneously. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is 33 minutes and wastes none of them.
06#6 · 2007
Kala
M.I.A.Goat avg 93/100
“The most globally-aware producer making pop music.”
Arular introduced M.I.A.; Kala proved she was the most globally-aware producer making pop music. Recorded across Jamaica, Trinidad, Liberia, India, and Australia while denied a US visa, the album collages dance-hall, grime, hip-hop, and world music with a lyrical politics that hadn't been attempted at this pop level before. "Paper Planes" — which samples The Clash and became a massive hit when used in the Slumdog Millionaire trailer — is the accessible entry point. "Bamboo Banga," "20 Dollar," and "Hussel" are the album's core.
07#7 · 2007
Person Pitch
Panda BearGoat avg 93/100
“Influenced ten years of indie pop production.”
Noah Lennox (Animal Collective's Panda Bear) recorded these seven songs by layering vocal samples and Beach Boys harmonies over drum loops in his Lisbon apartment. The result influenced ten years of indie pop production. "Bros" — nine minutes of slowly shifting loops and Lennox harmonizing with himself — is the defining track. "Take Pills" and "Good Girl / Carrots" are more accessible entry points. Person Pitch is technically a solo album; culturally it's one of the decade's most influential records.
08#8 · 2007
Cross
JusticeGoat avg 91/100
Ed Banger Records' two-man French house duo made the heaviest dance record of the decade. "D.A.N.C.E." is a tribute to Michael Jackson written with the mechanical precision of a computer; "Phantom" is distorted synths pushed past the point of comfort; "Genesis" is a club track built to blow speakers. The album's cross symbol is on a thousand T-shirts; the record itself is more extreme than its merch suggests. Daft Punk's influence is obvious; Justice's own voice is distinct.
09#9 · 2007
Mirrored
BattlesGoat avg 90/100
Math-rock for people who didn't know they liked math-rock. Battles looped, layered, and distorted guitar and keyboard until they sounded like machines that had been taught to swing. "Atlas" — with Tyondai Braxton's pitch-shifted vocals — is the decade's strangest hit. "Leyendecker" and "Tij" demonstrate what the band can do when they slow down. Mirrored is exhausting and meticulous and genuinely unlike anything released the same year.
10#10 · 2008
The Seldom Seen Kid
ElbowGoat avg 91/100
Technically 2008 but written and first performed extensively in 2007, and it won the 2008 Mercury Prize. Guy Garvey's songwriting about Northern English working-class life — small pleasures, friendship, grief — is the most emotionally specific thing rock music produced in the late 2000s. "One Day Like This" is the anthemic centrepiece. "Grounds for Divorce" and "The Bones of You" are the record's darker edges. An album that sounds modest and turns out to be enormous.
2007 is the year before everything changed. Spotify launched in 2008. The iPhone (announced January 2007, released June 2007) was about to restructure how people listened. The album format itself was being questioned in ways it hadn't been since the 8-track. The best albums of 2007 feel like records made by people who understood a window was closing.
In Rainbows was Radiohead's answer: release it for free, see what happens. What happened was one of the decade's best albums found one of the decade's largest audiences. That seems like the right note to end on. Rate these on Goat Music.
Questions.
What is considered the best album of 2007?
Radiohead's In Rainbows is the near-universal critical choice. It's the warmest, most song-oriented record they'd made since The Bends and the one where Thom Yorke sounded like he was enjoying himself. LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver is the strongest argument against it.
How did the In Rainbows pay-what-you-want model actually work?
Radiohead released the album as a digital download in October 2007 with a "pay what you want" model — the average payment was around £4. A boxset version at £40 was also offered. The album then released physically in January 2008 and debuted at #1 in both the UK and US. The total revenue exceeded their previous album Hail to the Thief, which had been released through EMI. The experiment proved that a fanbase large enough would pay.
What was the Kanye vs. 50 Cent competition about?
Both Graduation and Curtis were released September 18, 2007, with 50 Cent publicly claiming he'd retire if Kanye outsold him in the first week. Graduation sold 957,000 copies; Curtis sold 691,000. 50 Cent did not retire. The result was interpreted as the music industry's official endorsement of Kanye's more eclectic approach over 50's harder-edged gangsta rap, and it shaped what major-label hip-hop sounded like for the next five years.
What is Sound of Silver about?
LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy made an album about growing up, growing old, and the specific melancholy of caring about music in your 30s. "All My Friends" is the most direct statement — 7 minutes about watching your social life disintegrate as everyone moves to different cities. The piano ostinato that opens the song and builds throughout is the decade's most effective musical metaphor for time passing.
What 2007 albums are most underrated?
Panda Bear's Person Pitch is the most consistently underrated — Animal Collective's Noah Lennox made a solo record of layered vocal harmonies and Beach Boys-influenced psychedelia that became enormously influential on the next decade of indie pop. Also: Justice's Cross and Battles' Mirrored are both excellent and get overshadowed by the bigger names.
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