The 60 Best Albums of 2007

From tech house to Radiohead and Americana to indie and everything in between, the 60 best albums of 2007 included many of the 2000s' best albums.

                                      
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Pictures by Sarah Zupko / Words by Karen Zarker.

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The 60 Best Albums of 2007

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From tech house to Radiohead and Americana to indie and everything in between, the 60 best albums of 2007 included many of the 2000s' best albums.

For its 60th anniversary, the Newport Folk Festival has not one but two mysterious headlining slots and will welcome a new supergroup and may even have more up its sleeve.

Mavis Staples has witnessed the great transformations that have been made in terms of race relations in American life. But she is not satisfied on We Get By.

Legendary soul singer Mavis Staples employs decades of work in her potent new release Live in London.

With the inaugural Grandoozy music festival brought to the Mile High City by the co-creators of Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, the expectations — and temperatures — continued to soar. Guess who beat the odds?

Another weekend at the Newport Folk Festival provides some amazing musical memories, especially the Jon Batiste-led star-studded finale.

When Mavis Staples says she's uniquely troubled by the current climate in this country — by the guns and the police violence and the president she blames for reviving old enmities — there's good reason to listen.

Mavis Staples: “I’ve been making people cry down through the years, and this time I wanted to make them smile.”

When Galactic explores the deep, it's the places we all found before, explored, had a little fun with, left, and sort of forgot about for a while.

Merle Haggard, St. Vincent, and the Flaming Lips headed up another eclectic year at Ohio's Nelsonville Music Festival.

Though only four songs long, her latest, Your Good Fortune, offers a succinct summation of Staples’ range and ability.

Forgoing the obvious hits and contemporary pop star collaborators, iconoclast Van Morrison raises the bar for what duet albums can and should be.

Age has slowed her a bit, but at 75, the gospel great delivers

Greg Kot's I'll Take You There is really the biography of a musical family, centering on not one but two life stories: Mavis Staples', and that of her biggest influence, dear ol' dad.

Critically, commercially and historically, gospel is the great overlooked American music, maybe because few genres of music force you to confront your beliefs so immediately.

See all the night’s performances in order from best to worst.

At the largest show in a five-night run, it is easy to believe a smaller crowd won’t roar like this opera house audience did when the house lights dimmed.

You are at Bonnaroo. You do not sleep. You are not a wimp.

When a legend comes home, it has to be great, even if (or especially if), there's little of the superstar aura.

Pictures by Sarah Zupko / Words by Karen Zarker.

A decade before "I'll Take You There", the Chicago soul family released this spiritual gem.

An icon frees her voice by revisiting the past she could never escape.

Staples: "What has really changed? I'm 67 years old, and I was here the first time around and it's still not fixed. We can't let Dr. King shed his blood and die for us trying to get justice and live in a world like this."