Take a look at this brand new and lovely video from Beirut, for the tune "The Rip Tide" of the outfit's newest album of the same name. Beirut, and young front man Zach Condon, will be playing the Fox on September 3. Find pre-sale tickets here. Password: disco.

Now, at Sfist we use the collective and most sacred "we", but this time, this is strictly mine. I invented the list. (Tomorrow, check out what the rest of the Sfist staff picks as their top album of 2007.) It seems that I always have some sort of emotional connection to my favorite music. These artists bring back specific moments and memories from 2007 that might have been forgotten without these incredible albums.

This list covers the artists that I found provocative and interesting throughout 2007. Obviously yours will be different, so let us know what your favorite album of 2007 was. Here's my top 15:

Check out the list, after the jump...

Show is at 8 at the Independent. Tickets are $15
After Party starts at 10:30 at the Poleng Lounge 1752 Fulton Street

Best show you've ever played and what made it great?
We have played a lot of good shows and I never remember them. The best ones are when I go of stage whit a blank in my head..

Where are the best fans?
At the moment Germany, but I have high hopes for San Francisco!.

Lamest crowd request?
-I wear ear pluggs..

Favorite song off the new album?
I love them all,

What should people be expecting at the SF show.
A big shock! We always tend to surprise people with our heavy sound being only two in two band.

Jason Poranski (he’s in the red t-shirt) plays guitar, ukulele, and mandolin in Beirut and was kind enough to answer some questions for us about the band and tour.

Why the name ‘Beirut’?
The name goes back further than the band’s live shows, further than 'Gulag Orkestar', to Zach’s earlier home projects. Somewhere when he was a lot younger, maybe fourteen or fifteen he came up with that name. It is in no way was supposed to be political. It probably just seemed like an exotic place that was a lot different than New Mexico.

Any hints of what people can expect at the SF show?
A mix. A lot of new songs, a lot of gulag songs, a lot of stuff off the new record. People who have been to our shows before should expect it to be more vibrant, there’s a lot of energy in music. They should expect to have fun.

What’s your favorite song to perform live?
A new song off 'The Flying Club Cup' called “In the Mausoleum” It has a lot different flavor from the others we perform. There’s a groove to it, its fun to play.

Favorite song off the new record?
It’s hard to say. I like Owen Palat’s [Final Fantasy/ Arcade Fire] song on the record. It’s a nice break on the record to hear a different voice. I like his arrangements.

Photo by Kari Sharff

We’ve got our things-to-be-thankful-for list ready. Easy peasy! One item shines a bit brighter than others. That would be hanging out with author/chef/TV personality Tony "Cast Iron Stomach" Bourdain after his City Arts & Lectures sold out ($19 a ticket) conversation with Isabel Duffy on Monday night.

Some of the meatiest tidbits/quotes Tony offered while chatting with Ms. Duffy?

--He couldn’t get over how sweet, nice, and great the US Marine Corps were when he was recently evacuated from Beirut. He later elaborated to us that they were young men (ages mostly 18-22) with the best manners.

--One of the reasons he ended his relationship with the Food Network is they didn’t want any more shows where "people talk funny."

--Eating good food leads to sex, hell yes. Well, at least it should. (We think he’s smart to recognize this one! Who doesn’t want to get laid?!?)

--Watching a family butcher, gut, and eat a seal was truly one of the most heartwarming scenes, once you get past the preconceived notion of what a meal looks like. Seeing a family that close was something to behold.

Just like other network effect services, a new Craigslist sites takes time to develop as people in the far-off reaches (say... Centre County, Pennsylvania) don't just wake up and start using Craigslist.

But after a while, even the most languid of Craigslist locations will start to pick up, either filled with miss-postings (Why anyone in Israel would want to go to buy a 1975 Mercedes Benz 450 SL located in Los Angeles is beyond us) or with Spam. However, the newest batch of Craigslist enabled cities included one choice which has proven to be both sad and ill timed -- Beirut.

We wish this Craigslist page provided some amazing inside track to understanding how the people in Lebanon are doing, or even provided a snap shot of the day-to-day existence of this newly ravaged country, but the 200 posts on this page, almost all of which are written by Americans in the "Rants and Raves" section do almost nothing to help us picture the conflict there. Instead of acting as a local community page, this Craigslist appears more like an anachronism, a Fed-Ex truck among a backdrop of bombs, missiles and hatred. Nowhere is this more apparent then on the Community page where miss-placed adds for Seattle Canine grooming and a ride from the Ferry building to Daly City sit side by side with venomous pleas for the bombs to stop.

We recommend going over to Craigslist Beirut just to see what a bare Craigslist looks like, maybe even read some of the posts. It is an experience to see Craigslist emptied -- not because this country is particularly poor or its citizens are without technology or even because it is a new Craigslist site, but because right now there are rockets flying over their heads and they fear for their lives.

Our little Craigslist is growing up! Craigslist went from around 200 to roughly 300 sites this last week with the addition of 97 new and exciting Craigslist locations. While a cynic might view this expansion as a way to get a foothold in other places before competition from Google and Microsoft comes stopping in, we think that it has more to do with people clamoring for these locations.

Of all the new cities out interest was most piqued by the Penn State location, not only because we have spent some time in the great wilderness of Central Pennsylvania, but because it is the only Craigslist location not tied to an actual geographic location. Unlike The Bay Area or Duluth, Minnesota, Penn State is a University, not a city. It is located in a borough called State College (or in "University Park" - depending on who you ask), meaning that this is an institution's Craigslist site. Tying a web page like Craigslist to a non-geographic boundary could lead to some interesting questions. Such as: "What if Penn State moves?" and "Does this web page cover the roughly 20 Penn State satellite campuses spread out across the entire 29 million acres of Pennsylvania?"

While we doubt that Penn State University will ever move or that anyone will confuse the main campus with Penn State Hazelton, it does seem pretty weird that Craig and his minions did not tie this page to a physical location. We guess you could call us Craigslist traditionalists because we like our Craigslist locations to be easy. Like Cote d'Azur. Or Beirut.

Another big change that this expansion brought is that the home page of Craigslist no longer contains a list of all Craigslist sites. For example, go to Craigslist and try to find the link to Santa Barbara. A few days ago, you could just click the link directly, but now you first need to click on "California" then on "Santa Barbara." This tiny cosmetic change represents a big change -- from Craigslist, a collection of postings among a few lucky communities to Craigslist, a site so large that you need to drill down geographically to find your community. We are not going to read too much into this and say that Craigslist is now a real business, because it isn't. Instead, we will at this as another interesting fold in the ongoing Craigslist saga. And try to figure out why Penn State.