High Notes of 2007Jody Rosen takes readers' questions about this year's musical hits and misses.

Slate music critic Jody Rosen was online on Washingtonpost.com on Thursday, Dec. 20, to take readers' questions and recommendations on the best music of 2007 (the topic of discussion in Slate's ongoing " Music Club" back-and-forth).

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Jody Rosen: Hello, Germany. You make a great point. I do think lyrics and, as you say, "social context" are overemphasized in popular music criticism at the expense of the music itself. Most critics, yours truly included, could stand to bone up on their musicology, or at least get conversant with basic music theory.

On the other hand, music is a famously difficult thing to write about—dancing about architecture and all that. It's tough to strike the the right balance between technical analysis (which may bore readers to tears) and the broader view. Very few people do it well. Jon Pareles of the New York Times and the New Yorker's Alex Ross and Sasha Frere-Jones are the three writers who, for my money, do this best.

Also, pop is rather unique: in order to understand Beyonce you need to take into account everything from the timbre of her voice to the recording technology employed by her producers to, yes, her latest appearance in US Weekly. Anyway, your point is well taken.

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Anonymous: What's the best soundtrack of the year?

Jody Rosen: Gotta be Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, doesn't it?

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Brad Paisley: Jody, where you think Paisley rates as a guitar player? Not just among his country peers (as a singing gun-slinger I think he is better than Keith Urban and about equal with Vince Gill) but in all of pop music.

Jody Rosen: I'd put him right at the tippy-top. Check out his solo in "Make A Mistake" (on Time Well Wasted CD). Better yet, just see him live. Blazing. And he never overplays. A tasteful shredder.

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Washington: My favorites this year, are Neon Bible by Arcade Fire, Sky Blue Sky by Wilco, Cease to Begin by Band of Horses, and The Crane Wife by The Decemberists. Looking forward to (hopefully) getting for Christmas the Alison Kraus/Robert Plant CD. Based on this grouping, what should I be looking for on the horizon next year?

Jody Rosen: Hmmm ... how about I recommend a CD from this year that you may have missed instead? Try Oakley Hall's I'll Follow You. They're a Brooklyn-based alt-country band that write great tunes and really bear down on their songs—they rock hard, in other words. I think you'll dig 'em.

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Earle: Best CD of 2007—Steve Earle's Washington Square Serenade.

Jody Rosen: You old lefty, you.

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Washington: Any artists out of the District of Columbia that moved you in 2007?

Jody Rosen: Yes! I really liked (Go-Go legend) Chuck Brown's We're About Business, actually. And he runs that town, right?

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Jody Rosen: Okay, this was fun. Sorry about the typos, folks. That's why they pay editors the big bucks. Bye now.

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