Just wanted to take a second and let everyone know we’ll be back after the new years for another exciting year of pop culture goodness. Things usually slow to a grinding halt for news, but check back every now and again as we might have some stuff for you. We’re going to take a much needed rest and recharge the batteries and get things in order for a bigger and better year.

Be safe if you must drink a lot to deal with your family. Be merry and all those good tidings. Also remember, your holiday could be worse. You coulda been Han Solo trapped with Luke Skywalker and forced to take Chewie back to his home planet to see his family of Life Day.

How bout that make up and perm job on Mark Hamill? That’s what we call bad.

We’ll keep this brief because you’ve probably tired of the ever growing year end list. We’re getting fatigued as well just trying to keep up and trying to sort stuff out as well. Seems every time we come across another list there is always something there to remind us of what we loved in 2007. We narrowed our fav songs down to 20! Yes 20! From an initial list of about 100 and still we’re not quite happy with it. Wish we had more time, but time is something we just don’t have.

Download and listen, all the songs are in Mp3 or M4a file format, or buy the albums and the songs but always throw your hands up in the devils horns and gently rock out.

After looking over our songs, we find it strange that most of them are very poppy, lots of them have horns and piano in them and are very accessible to listen to. Did we become boring in 2007? That’s a fair question to ask, of which we don’t have an answer for.

On our list we tried to just include one song from an artist, despite say, LCD Soundsystem warranting like 10 and we also really just tried to inlcude the songs we loved and not necessarily the artists “best” song. So, say Feist is on here but not for the uberpresent “1 2 3 4.” Great as the song is (and to be clear it’s not just a catchy song it’s got a lot going on and it’s near and dear to our heart even without the help from Apple), we’re always bugged that she can’t correctly count to ten.

Instead of providing stupid commentary, we’ll let the songs sing for themselves. Anyway without further ado, the songs that kept us grooving this year.

Our 21 Favorite Tunes for 2007…
21. The Boggs - “Poor Things”

20. Kate Nash - “Mariella”

19. White Rabbits - “The Plot”

18. Tegan and Sara - “Back in Your Head”

17. Blitzen Trapper - “Country Caravan”

16. Elvis Perkins - “All the Night Without Love”

15. Kevin Drew - “Backed Out on the …”

14. Menomena - “Wet and Rusting”

13. Feist - “I Feel it All”

12. Patrick Watson - “Luscious Life”

11. Miracle Fortress - “Hold Your Secrets Close to Heart”

Take the jump for 10-1.  And don’t forget these tracks will only be available for a limited window. MORE »

Brevity is the devil’s gift my friend. We’ll keep it to a paragraph for each of the following albums. It must be noted ahead of time that we excluded the following albums from consideration:

• Feist - “The Reminder”
• Radiohead - “In Rainbows”
• LCD Soundsystem - “Sound of Silver”
• Arcade Fire - “Neon Bible”

Not because we didn’t love those four albums, we did, but because at this point the fellatio parade has been going on for the better part of a month now. If you are inclined to hear from me, when so many others have put it so much better, just how tasty these albums are, then it shouldn’t be difficult. I figured it’d better to exclude those four and point out four other albums that I particularly loved this year.

If you are scoring at home, and you must know, then LCD Soundsystem was my favorite album this year. James Murphy and Co. really stepped up to craft something that was tighter, more adventurous and more thrilling than their last album. I don’t trust any year end list that doesn’t have this album in one of the top three spots. That’s really all their is to it.

So here are the favorites that kept The Sly Oyster offices rocking in 2007.

12. Tegan and Sara - “The Con” As Whitney over at Pop Candy so noted, “I like my pop songs like my skirts: short and tight.” Nothing was as sort and tight this year or offered such unexpected enjoyment.

11. White Rabbits - “Fort Nightly” Cutting across the grain when so many indie acts so the same, these guys seemed fully formed and unique. Plus no other album had such a dance-ableness and youthful verve as this one did.

10. Wilco - “Sky Blue Sky” Clearly divided most of music fans. You either loved it’s subtle intricacy and deft guitar work from Nels Cline or you thought it was boring. We’re most certainly the former.

9. Apples in Stereo - “New Magnetic Wonder” I think we might be the first publication to include this disc anywhere. Sure it was over long but there were numerous pleasures to be had, with their brand of psychedellic folk pop gems.

8. Kevin Drew - “Spirit If . . .” Probably the best Broken Social Scene record that isn’t actually a BSS full-length. Kevin Drew brought his A-game and it shows on this confident, rocking collection.

7. JJ Grey and Mofro - “Country Ghetto” I’m slowly turning into a redneck country boy, it won’t be long before my top albums consist of Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Brooks and Dunn. Actually that will never happen.  These guys have a great swamp funk sound, like they’re sitting on their trailer park steps, swatting away the flies and making earnest, provocatively good tunes.  It’s not original but it’s a sweaty slice of goodness.

6. Ryan Montbleau Band - “Patience on Friday” Soulful, jazzy, playful, funny, romantic, heartfelt and exquisite. Lots of adjectives come to mind when listening to this disc. This is often times the kind of album that gets over looked when it comes to critical type of lists that are self-important but this one has been on my player non-stop since picking it up.

5. The New Pornographers - “Challengers” Sure we’d like more Dan Bejar and Neko Case, but settling for Carl Newman isn’t such a bad thing. This is a grower of an album, unlike The National’s. Good in the beginning, fantastic in the end, offering similar pleasures to past efforts, but in entirely different ways.

4. Patrick Watson - “Close to Paradise” Classy album all the way. Full of ambient pop gems that sound like Jeff Buckley, the tunes soar and fall and feel so right in between a pair of headphones.

3. Iron and Wine - “the Shepherd’s Dog” Didn’t know Sam Beam had this in him, but I’m sure glad he did. No one elevated their musicianship more than he did with the full backing of a band. He takes African instruments and makes a glorious celebration of life.

2. Lucky Soul - “The Great Unwanted” I kept waiting for the magic of this album to wear off and it never did, I suspect because it’s the real deal Holyfield. The UK band had me shimmy shimmy shaking at the soda fountain and though they appropriated a lot from music in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s there was something about it that sounded so punk. Like we’re going to do something no one else is doing and just not care, but we secretly hope you like. Well like it we did.

1. Spoon - “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” A brisk album that delivered more in 10 songs than most bands deliver in an entire career. The band has never been more soulful, more packed with energy, more poignant and more spot on. I can’t wait to see what they have planned for an encore next time around, but I’m going to savor this one for a long, long, long, long, long time.

We still might take the time to put together a holiday mix tape for you, since we have so many unorthodoxed Christmas songs to share, but if we don’t get to it sometime tomorrow, which, given that we haven’t yet finished or even started our Christmas shopping, is a distinct possibility, we thought we’d turn the floor over to the irrepresible Heather Browne and her I Am Fuel, You Are Friends Mix.

It’s a doozy and she never disappoints.  Don’t forget to check in tomorrow, however, to look for ours.

With all the DVD releases recently, you may have missed Michael Moore’s SiCKO. It is even possible, you weren’t really looking for it. Isn’t Michael Moore over? Hasn’t he shown he isn’t really a documentary filmmaker but a propagandist? In short, isn’t he just a little too biased?

The short answer to that question is: Of course, he is. But let us examine the bias inherent in asking that question. Due to the fact that Moore’s chosen medium is the film documentary, pundits tend to get very hung up on how “factual” his movies are. While I believe that Moore strives not to include any INCORRECT information in his pieces, that does not guarantee that his films are factual or even correct for that matter.

Everyone knows that it is possible to tell the truth, without necessarily telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yet, there is something which Moore’s critics just don’t get: Whether or not his films are completely “factual” DOES NOT MATTER.

First of all, even the most balanced documentary is innately biased. Just as in so-called hard news, there is a built-in slant merely by choosing your subject or the story you choose to tell. Look at the administration’s attempt to get news stations to not report only the “bad news” from Iraq. Although Moore makes documentaries, he has no aspirations toward journalism. He is a provocateur. Not an agent provocateur, for he is no covert operator. On the contrary, for Moore, the more overt, the better.

Moore’s goal is two-fold: Making films entertaining enough so that he needs a wheelbarrow to go to the bank, and in the process provoke debate. Along the way he’s become a lynchpin figure, someone so divisive it’s difficult to look past the personality and examine only the content.

Does he let us know where he stands on the issue? Sure. But can we give movie-goers a little credit, here? No one who watches Sicko is going to come out thinking to himself, “Gee! I think I should move to Cuba since they have such nifty health care.”

The visit to Cuba is there for the shock value and the contrast. It would be as if Moore had visited Iran, been arrested as an enemy combatant, and found himself granted the rights of habeas corpus and due process. We would sit up and notice because we would not expect justice under such a repressive regime, and because it would throw our own deplorable policies into such stark relief.

A lot of folks have avoided this film thinking that it is Moore’s plea for “socialized medicine” for the U.S. The actual subject of the movie is people who HAVE insurance, yet still somehow manage to not get the care they need when they need it.

At least with Moore, you go in knowing up front that you are going to get a specific point of view. Moore does not pretend to be “fair and balanced.” But his films pose some important questions.

How do we save communities when corporations move their jobs elsewhere? Why does the US have so many gun deaths compared to any other country? Why did the middle class vote against its own self-interest when Bush was transparent about his desire to take care of the rich and corporations over them? Why do we accept that government can be trusted to be relatively efficient and equitable when providing police and fire protection, roads and bridges, and Social Security but not health care? Why are we satisfied having the most expensive health care per capita in the world? All important questions indeed.

Moore’s critics would rather harp over minute details, like say changing the issue to his going to Cuba, than answer the important overarching issues. Moore does not attempt to provide answers himself; nor should he. He knows he is not a policy maker. But thank God there are still some people out there, journalists be damned, who are willing to ask, “Why?”

Interesting map of the world, reshaped to resemble the world where the largest countries in land mass are the largest countries for exporting oil.  Of course, the Middle East is the largest and only relevant area on the map.  What’s also interesting is countries are shaded based upon how much oil they use and according to this map, at least, the United States is using double the oil that any other country in the world uses.

Some interesting commentary as well if you follow the linkage.

Spin has a fascinating year end look at Kanye West. 2007 again, turned out to be a very good year for the rap star, despite losing his mother and several dust ups that tainted his once clean image.

You made a conscious effort to shape Graduation for the next level of mainstream success? A conscious effort to take it to the next level in every form of success. More black people bought this album than any I’ve made.

Does that make sense to you? Uh-huh. Because I made the album blacker.

You think Graduation is blacker than The College Dropout? Way blacker. “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” — how hood is that record? “Good Life” is straight Steve Harvey, all day long. “Flashing Lights”? I never had a record that was that black. But it’s white at the same time. Certain things are so good it doesn’t have to be white or black. That’s what Graduation is. Take “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” It’s a white sample, but everything I do to it is to make it as black as possible. So I’ma make the bass as black as possible; I’ma make the lyrics as intense as possible.

Are these choices strictly artistic, or are you thinking as a marketer, too? Can you separate those roles? I can’t. I’m a pop enigma. I live and breathe every element in life. I rock a bespoke suit and I go to Harold’s for fried chicken. It’s all these things at once, because, as a tastemaker, I find the best of everything. There’s certain things that black people are the best at and certain things that white people are the best at. Whatever we as black people are the best at, I’ma go get that. Like, on Christmas I don’t want any food that tastes white. And when I go to purchase a house, I don’t want my credit to look black. [Laughs]

Interesting how he has to deal with these realities, and despite his fame, I don’t think this is something I’d personally wanna have to straddle. If you become too “white,” well, you’re gonna lose your cred and vice versa. Strange world to inhabit and always have to be conscious of.

New York Magazine’s blog Vulture has a pretty awesome compendium of the year in quotes.  It’s worth taking a look at just to get a good laugh.

Some of the hightlights include:

“It’s easy, if you’re a poet, to write complex verses like, ‘I’m coming after you like VWXYZ.’ Just think about that. It’s like, ‘Yo, V does come after U! That’s fucking crazy!’ My mind thinks like that all the time, coming up with crazy clever metaphors and rhymery thingies.” —Will.I.Am on his creative process

“Somebody came to CAA with a project [starring] Jackie Chan and wanted to attach Pearl to it.” —Proud father Adam McKay on the attention daughter Pearl received following her performance in Will Ferrell’s viral video “The Landlord”

“I reckon Martin Scorsese is sitting somewhere in an office in New York and he sees [the title] American Gangster and he’s like, ‘Fuck! And I went with Casino?’” —Russell Crowe

“I do want to apologize publicly for that tape. Not for the tape … just for hanging out with Scott Stapp.” —Kid Rock on the sex tape he made with Creed front man Stapp and four women

Just a sampling, but the whole list is rather good and some are very poignent quotes and not just ridiculous pap.

KITT from the hit 80’s show Knight Rider, and so to be remade or updated or just basterdized by NBC, is on sale at eBay. The car’s owner was murdered before he was set to cop a guilty plea for a multimillion dollar fraud case. “The April 2006 fatal stabbing remains unsolved,” according to reports.

But we don’t care about any unsolved murder. KITT is on sale! Hopefully, it comes with a talking computer, the ability to drive itself and a drunken Hoff.

The eBay listing remained in low gear yesterday, with no bids.

“We just listed it a few days ago,” said lawyer Patrick Gil, the court-appointed executor of Kissel’s estate. “We’ve got some people interested, but we haven’t gotten a bid yet.”

According to Gil, the black Trans Am - with only 5,000 miles on it - was one of just four made specifically for the TV series. And it’s the last asset remaining in Kissel’s estate, he said Thursday.

The car is in California, where Kissel bought it for $69,000 in 2005, Gil said. The buyer must pay for any transportation costs to ship the car, and Gil wants a minimum bid of $20,000.

Since Kissel’s death, Gil said, he has sold off an assortment of the real estate developer’s property - including a boat named the Special K and a 1920s automobile called the KisselKar.

“He was such an egomaniac,” Gil said.

Creditors already have claimed more than $30 million owed by Kissel when he died. Money from the sale of the “Knight Rider” car would go to help pay them off, Gil said.

The 46-year-old Kissel was discovered with his hands and feet bound and stab wounds in his back.

His brother, Robert Kissel, was killed three years ago in Hong Kong by his wife. She fed him a strawberry milk shake laced with poison and then bludgeoned him to death.

Sounds like a family I want to be a part of! Also, love how the lawyer has no probs with besmirking the guy long after his death. Hurray for lawyers.

I feel ya Jack.  Still get shivers hearing him scream that at Kate.  Luckily audiences will be able to return to the Island with Jack, Sawyer, Kate!, Hurley and gang on January 31, 2008.  Taking over Grey’s Anatomy’s time slot Thursdays at 9 p.m.

Unfortunately it will be for only eight measley episodes.  Seems ABC needs some ratings and despite producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s insitences of waiting ABC to wait for the final eight episodes, that’s not the case.

As excited as I am for the fourth season to start, especially after watching the extended promo trailer, I feel like Lindelof and Cuse have earned my respect and if they wanted to wait to show all the episodes, I woulda waited until 2009 to see them all together.  I guess ABC wasn’t so virtuous with the whole patience thing.

Also, be sure to watch the mobisodes.  They’re really short but pretty awesome.

A much buzzed about horror flick has finally gotten an “official” high-def trailer, which can be viewed over at Apple. The Signal debuted at Sundance way back in early 2007 and then had screenings at SXSW. It’s a strictly low-budget affair, but word on the street is that it is no less scary because of that.

We’ve decided to embed the teaser trailer for you below.

The Plot is not altogether original, but it sounds fascinatingly suspenseful. “It’s New Year’s Eve in the city of Terminus and chaos is this year’s resolution. All forms of communication have been jammed by an enigmatic signal that preys on the fears and desires of everyone in the city. Told in three parts from three unique perspectives by three visionary directors, The Signal is a horrific journey towards discovering that the most brutal monster might actually be within all of us.”

Here’s what Harry Knowles from AICN has said, now this is to be taken with a grain of sand because Harry is sort of known for blowing five-year-old retarded sloppy kisses all over every movie that gets released.

This group of very young and under-financed filmmakers not only nailed it, but did so with style, flourish, intelligence emotion and panache that we haven’t seen combined this well, perhaps ever … and get ready for horror like you haven’t seen in ages. This is something altogether new in how it is played out and performed. Brilliant work.

Still the extended trailer for the film looks pretty darn fantastic and creepy.

I never realized how much I’d miss certain aspects of Boston. There are things you don’t think of when you move from the only place you’ve ever really called home. Living out in Portland, Ore. amongst the constant drizzling rain and the perpetually nice people, the deliciously brewed beer and darkly roasted coffee, there are days when I’m tinged with aching. It’s a subtle longing for certain things of which I can’t quite put m