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(You can listen to these tracks on Rhapsody for free — click here and download their free player when asked.)

I. Great Albums

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Washington Square Serenade by Steve Earle
Cut: City of Immigrants

I’m sad to see Texas-born Earle moving further afield, leaving “Guitar Town” (”This place never been my home,” he laments in the opening cut Nashville Blues) for New York City (I suspect he was chasing a skirt). But so far the effect on his music has been positive, especially on my selected track City of Immigrants. Earle tends to write the same rock and roll song over and over, but on this album he’s all over the map stylistically, with far more hits than misses.

Barenaked Ladies Are Me - Barenaked Ladies
Cut: Running out of Ink

I haven’t been crazy about the Ladies with the exception of their brilliant debut album Gordon. But they’ve shrugged off their major label and figured out how to do things their way. This album is a gem, with singer-songwriter quality writing and top-pop-act quality arranging.

Alright Still - Lily Allen
Cut: Smile

This cheeky bird from England had a huge hit with Smile across the pond, and it did OK here. Her album packages shallowness as product, with most songs dissing ex-boyfriends (”When I see you cry/It makes me smile”) or guys with the audacity to flirt with her. I only discovered her because I was showing a friend Rhapsody and he thought she was cute and clicked on her.

Five Score and Seven Years Ago - Relient K
Cut: Bite my Tongue

If you were looking for rock on the dial in 2007, your best bet was the Christian stations. This Green Day-esque quartet dropped a fun album with half religious themes, half young-and-in-love songs. My favorite was probably “Faking My Own Suicide” but I chose “Bite my Tongue” as more representative.

Here & Now - America
Cut: One Chance

Two thirds of the trio from the ’70s has been soldiering on with state fair appearances for thirty years, recording lots of albums that everyone ignored. But suddenly it all came together again for them in a great album. Sadly this album, one of my most-played in the first half of 2007, mysteriously got pulled from Rhapsody mid-year.

Lifeline - Ben Harper
Cut: Fight Outta You

I live with a young, hip, musically-inclined theology student who turned me on to Ben Harper.

Soundtrack to I’m Not There - Various Artists
Cut: Pressing On - John Doe

This album of Dylan covers could have been my album of the year but it just overwhelmed me. It goes on for about two hours and for every cut I wish I knew when it was written, what else Dylan was writing then, and what else the covering band has done. This one I know: about 1980, during Dylan’s evangelical era (Gotta Serve Somebody), recorded by one of the two principals of legendary L.A. punk band X.

II. Great Cuts from Less-Great Albums

Someday - John Mellencamp

Like “Lay My Hammer Down” from Steve Earle’s album, this is a millennial vision from a non-religious album.

The Simpsons Theme - Green Day

OK, this isn’t a great cut, it’s a proxy. My real album of the year was Green Day’s American Idiot, released in 2003 but discovered by me in 2007 and played about 50 times.

Heart of Glass - The Puppini Sisters

This British trio got a lot of play in the NPR crowd with their Andrews Sisters-style covers of 40s hits. Enjoyable enough, but they only broke new ground on their covers of slightly-more modern hits. Here, someone transcribed and harmonized a skat.

Hop a Plane - Tegan and Sara

The third album from these Canadian identical twins is full of songs I almost like.

Living in the Future - Bruce Springsteen

After a two-year detour into traditional folk (see my 2006 best-of list) the Boss returns to rock. Not any better than his old stuff, but then again not any worse.

South Texas Girl - Lyle Lovett

Probably my least-favorite LL album but still full of stuff worth paying attention to. My family had a Ford Galaxy growing up, a close relative of the Ford Fairlane in this song, so it puts a lump in my throat.

The Longer the Waiting - Josh Turner

My favorite love song of the year. The Irish sea-ditty is an underutilized genre among country artists.

Vietnam Cowboys - Ray Davies

Kinks’ songwriter Davies delivers the album I keep hoping Mark Knoppfler’s new albums will be — mild satire, with a groove.

Too Much of Everything - Tinsley Ellis

I don’t know anything about this artist, I just loved the guitar work on this cut from someone else’s 2007 best-of-the-blues list.

Candyman - Christina Aguilera

Christina 1, Britney 0 (if the metric they care about is appearances on my best-of list). Though Brit’s Piece of Me came close.