Our contributor girlwithguitar has submitted her list of top albums of 2007 (in no particular order)
Paramore – Riot
Anberlin – Cities
Jordin Sparks – S/T
Family Force 5 – Business up Front…Diamond Edition
Aly & AJ – Insominiac
Hannah Montana2 / Meet Miley cyrus
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Ashley Tisdale – Headstrong
Jonas Brothers / S/T
Britt Nicole – Say It
When I heard that Krystal Meyers was making a dance pop album, I automatically thought,”Oh, no. A pop album? This is gonna be terrible!” But when I finally heard her album, I was pleasantly surprised.
Instead of just putting out an okay album with songs about boys, she released a well made, catchy record with a lot of meaningful songs. (Yes, it is possible.) “Make Some Noise,” (which was used by ABC to promote ‘Desperate Housewives,’ ‘Brothers and Sisters’ and ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’) “Feels So Right” (Every time You look at me I’m on a high/I need Your loving cause it makes me feel alive) “Love It Away” (If you’re hurting, feeling afraid/He will love it away/…What is broken/What’s been stolen/Our Father will restore) and “Beautiful Tonight” (In my sickness can You make me beautiful tonight?) are just a few of those songs.
But she can’t totally leave her old music style. And it shows through in “S.O.S.” “My Freedom” and “Up To You.” (The former she sings ‘I am in distress/Come and save my life/This is my S.O.S./Screaming up to the sky.’) While her newest album’s musical uniqueness from her two older ones is awesome, it still is nice to hear the music she started with.
S.O.S.
Even if you didn’t like that she “sold out” from her rocker style, you gotta admit: she did pretty good on this album, all things considered. Her best one by far. I already can’t wait for her next one.
-girlwithguitar
Rating: 5 out of 5
Another Take:
This album is one of my “guilty pleasures” of 2008. It was “OK” to like her when she was playing guitar rock but truly sophisticated critics aren’t supposed to like “this” kind of music. But dang it, Make Some Noise and Shine have been playing on a regular basis on my Zune. Ms. Meyers has now proved she can do two styles of music effectively and who’s to say she can’t do just about anything. If this is selling out then maybe it’s not so bad! -drivebyMEDIA
I know this looks like an April Fool’s joke but really it’s Hawk Nelson and Amy Grant on “One Little Miracle” from the new album ‘Hawk Nelson… Is My Friend’ that released on April 1, 2008 
Listen to it here
(a full review by gwg coming soon)
Oh, yes, The Afters. You remember their song, “Beautiful Love”, right? Oh, those were the days…
Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but this album was definitely due. At least they didn’t wait as long as Inhabited did, (I can almost hear some people saying, “Who?”) so they weren’t almost forgotten by people.
On their latest effort, “Never Going Back To Ok”, they have a track list that sound kinda-sorta similar to their last album, “I Wish We All Could Win” but overall, they’ve improved greatly. They start off with ‘The Secret Parade’ a psychedelic/rock song reminiscent of The Beatles, which unfortunately, lasts less than two minutes, but any sadness of that track being cut short is soon forgotten when their title track starts playing, a song that could easily fool people into thinking they’ve become an Alt. Rock band, rather than remaining the status quo. Well, they’ve definitely remained the status quo, but don’t get me wrong, the record is still good; in fact it’s probably one of the best I’ve heard this year. (But the year is still pretty young, there’ll be other albums.) Some of the highlights from the record (including the two I’ve named) are ‘Tonight’, ‘One Moment Away’, “Ocean Wide’ ‘Beautiful Words’ and ‘Myspace Girl’, a sweet song based on the true story of how their former bassist met and got to know his wife through MySpace. (Gee, why do you think he’s their “former” bassist? Hmm…)
Now while it’s an excellent album, there’s one thing I didn’t care for: its Let’s-Start-Out-Slow-But-Then-Later-In-The-Song-We’ll-Kick-In-The-Guitars continuum on lots of tracks. But don’t think that’s a bad thing, it just got a little irritating for me. But nonetheless, still a great album, and well worth the (long) wait.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
review courtesy of girlwithguitar
