50 Top 10 Lists of 2007

Top 10 Albums

#8. Raising Sand
by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

He brings the arena rock gray beards, she brings the credibility. Mutual exploitation? Absolutely. But it's also a lovely little trifle in which two voices flirt and harmonize over a set of should-a-been classics. The moments when Krauss abandons her precision soprano and lets loose are breathtaking, but it's Plant, toned down to a delicate mountain twang, who's the real surprise; you can actually count the moments he showboats on one finger. Producer T-Bone Burnett deserves credit for making all the right instrument choices and then shaking his record collection for obscurities (Roly Salley's Killing the Blues, Everly Brothers' Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)) so good they make you wonder why they were ever obscure.

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