The idea of making an entire album compromised of neo-classical “vignettes” all hovering around the minute mark so they could be used as ringtones sounded ludicrous to me. What I like about classical music is the movements, the crescendos, the prolonged emotions: one can’t do this in a minute.And this is not what Richter tries to do. Instead he does just as the title promises. He somehow creates musical snapshots where the atmosphere is immediate, the scene set within a matter of seconds. I'll admit I've not used any for my ringtone but there's always time.
There’s not much else I can say about this album other than I love listening to it.
- Austin
49. Nico Muhly - Mothertongue
I really love this album, but I'm not sure I understand it. Who are the multiple voices supposed to be? What is the relationship to folk music? Is there a connection between the first and second halves of the album? I fell asleep once to this album; my dreams are terrifying. Yet I find myself returning to Muhly again and again, for a kind of music I've never experienced before. That kind of album doesn't come around very often.- Michael
48. Lucinda Williams – Little Honey
Though she's often thought of as tough and difficult, part of Lucinda's appeal has been her giddy pop songs. Don't believe me? She actually wrote "Passionate Kisses", which Mary Chapin Carpenter took and made into a pop country hit (it also won a Grammy!). But it was no fluke single. Between 1988 and 1998 Lucinda made three albums loaded with these strange, immediate pop singles that should have been mega hits had anyone somewhat normal sung them. Perhaps it was the songs in between, full of anger and spit that turned people off, or it could have been her voice. I don't know.There is hardly a week that goes by when Abby and I don’t listen to her unfuckingbelievable 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road or her equally awesome self titled album from 1988. Unfortunately, her most recent album, West, which wallowed in sub-Time Out of Mind ramblings and weightlessness, was an enormous step in the wrong direction, so unworthy of its predecessors that I couldn’t even believe it was her. It shattered me. Lucinda always tried to get at something profound, but at least I could sing along to her pain.
That's what made me so depressed about West: it was no fun.
Apparently she’s tired of wallowing in her pain, too. Little Honey is about as happy as anyone can rightly expect Lucinda Williams to be, and nearly half of the songs sound like were back in the the middle of her very good 1992 album Sweet Old World. Not exactly top of her game, but still a joy to listen to.
I'm particularly fond of "Tears of Joy", "Little Rock Star" and "Real Love". It derails sometime around "Honey Bee", which is kind of filthy and obnoxious. But after West I didn't expect to Lucinda to get back to here. I'll take what I can get.
- Nick
47. R.E.M. – Accelerate
Though championed as R.E.M.'s comeback album, Accelerate doesn’t even approach the top half of their best albums. Hell, it isn’t their best post-Berry album (that title goes to very underrated Up). It just happens to be much, much better than Around the Sun, the worst album (by an incredibly wide canyon) of their career. Though a huge mess, and horribly produced, it does have a strain of something we might actually describe as "passion", something R.E.M. haven't shown since...well...when?
Everything good and bad about this album is located in the first single “Supernatural Superserious”. It starts off with a riff (a dumb one, by the way), showcases a verse we know we’ve all heard before, then kicks in with some killer harmonizing by Mills (welcome back to the mix!), and finally and surprisingly, ends with with a kick of the kind of prolonged jangle pop that would make "Pretty Persuasion" proud.
That's basically how the album goes. I’d probably give up the first half of this album for Reveal’s "Imitation of Life", but not the last half. "Mr. Richards" starts off a four song suite that reminds me of the glory days of Lifes Rich Pageant. Perhaps it's the new producer, but it actually feels like they were playing together in the same room.
Hell, I even like "I’m Gonna Dj", which is a stupid song that doesn't mean anything. But why deny Stipe in such a frenzied mood? He's a singer that used to change lyrics around at will and sing about chairs and nonsense. I wish he would do that more often. The winner is definitely “Horse to Water” which sounds like nothing much in the catalog. No one has been clamoring from the to make a revved up punk number with great drumming, but thanks anyway.
If they'd have asked my opinion, I'd have stripped all the distorted guitars from this album and not produced with such a dumb fucking thumb. Why does it need to be so loud? This habit of mastering albums within an inch of the red line has got to stop! I care hear little sweet arpeggios ringing on the sides of the speakers until the mammoth guitars come in.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. R.E.M. is one of my very favorite bands, and though it doesn't come close to their cannon, it's a strong album with some wonderful songs to pick off. And average R.E.M. is still worth an awful lot to me.
- Nick
46. Earth – The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull
See: Bohren and Der Club of Gore, but I listened to this album this spring. I can't believe the Earth concert was sold out when I tried to buy tickets in Berlin; I had to go to a disappointing Yeasayer concert instead. When I first heard “The Driver,” the guitar struck a chord in me that is still ringing, I think: it sounds like a darker, not-dated-sounding soundtrack to Twin Peaks. I will see them live, one of the days.
- Michael
45. Clinic – Do It!
Back in high school I LOVED Internal Wrangler and Walking With Thee; then I got to college and was disappointed by their subsequent albums, which sounded like a rehashing of those, but less interesting. This album, though, has all the bite of the former and all the mood of the latter; I rank it right up there.
- Michael
44. Dodo’s - Visiter
I don't have anything to say about this album. I've tried to write things but none of it matters. I like the drums and the acoustic guitars, but not much beyond that. I originally took that as indication that I didn't really care about the album and that I should leave it off the list, but the sucker has three songs in my iTunes top 25 most played songs. That should count for something, right? Perhaps it was just my consolation Animal Collective album this year. Whatever it is, I listened to it a lot and I think other people should, too.
- Nick
43. The Cure – 413 Dream
The Cure are in my favorite 3 bands ever. This is my favorite Cure album since Bloodflowers at least.
- Michael
42. Alphabeat - Alphabeat
This album is embarrassingly high on the list for me. But I should refuse to feel bad. With gems of pure sugary pop as satisfying from the first listen to the 40th, even an album as uneven and over-pleasing as this gets credit in my book. iTunes play counts don't lie, and 10,000 Nights of Fire, Fascination and In the Jungle are all in my top ten for the year. The first three songs are almost enough to make the rest of the album work, but it all does begin to wear.
But there were innumberable times when I put on the beginning of this album after a bad day, and it made me indescribably happy, dancing around like a white man never should. And if music that does this isn't good, I don't know what is.
Technically this was released last year, but they came out with a 2008 version that's not as good. So get the original.
- Blake
41. Tilly and the Wall - O
I had what can only be described as a crush on their first album, the absolutely adorable Wild Like Children. We're talking a Junior High crush, so innocent and pure, yet so important as to feel like the weight of the whole world hung upon every interaction. Though the tap dancing is cute, what I loved was the sweet acoustic pleas. I wrapped meanings into things that I'm sure weren't there, and longed to actually meet these people so I could fawn over them.
So it’s kind of surprising that I’m loving the new raucous Tilly, that specializes in guitar riffs and minor key chants. Honestly, there are parts of the album that sound like the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. "Pot Kettle Black" is an obvious choice, but so is "Chandelier Lake" and "Too Excited".
To their credit it still sounds like them, and though they've pushed that tap dancer a little further back in the mix, she's still there.
Perhaps it's a more profound enjoyment. I no longer want to hold their hand, but I probably listened to this album more, but that doesn't always mean everything. I'll always return to their first album for the pinch of first love, but this one will do for the morning after.
- Nick
40. Mogwai – The Hawk is Howling
OK, so this is no Mr. Beast, but the new Mogwai sound is growing on me. “The Sun Smells Too Loud” is fun in a way that old Mogwai isn't, and “Batcat” rocks hard, even if I miss the long buildups. Have you seen the video for that, by the way? OMG. I fully acknowledge that I have this WAY too high on my list, and I'm not even going to try to prove its worth. At least there's no Ryan Adams on this list, though!
- Michael
39. Hold Steady - Stay Positive
For the past three years I've felt like the lone champion of the Hold Steady. Though I threw the delightful Pipettes atop my best of 2006 list, I continue to listen my number 2 album, the Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America, far more. Though I don't exactly feel guilty about it, they should have been number 1.
When this album came out I thought I could rectify that small mistake. Not only is it another strong album, it comes with zero filler, something their previous album couldn't even say. The only complaint, and it's a big one, is that they are musically identical albums. The surprise is lost.
I stopped listening a few months ago, and never felt like I was missing too much. Though they are often touted as our generation's Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the Boss never felt like he was standing still. He followed the exuberant and overblown Born to Run with the somber Darkness on the Edge of Town. The downright depressing Nebraska was followed by Born in the U.S.A. And even that album, which is criminalized for its pop songs and reliance on bad synths, is stuffed with somber gems like the sex starved "I'm On Fire" -- still one of his very best songs.
The Hold Steady aren't there, but maybe that's asking for too much. I'll trade all of my old Pearl Jam albums, and every other grunge band for that matter, for "Lord I'm Discouraged" a song that should rightly end around the four minute mark, but instead drifts off into a completely unexpected coda so affecting and genuine as to make you want to listen to it again and again.
They will always sound great cranked late at night. This album is another fine example. Here's hoping their next album goes even further.
p.s. who designs their covers? For crying out loud...
- Nick
38. Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight
Their name is horrible and their music completely predictable. Their singer has one of those thick Scottish accents that usually wears on one after awhile, and he uses it to sing faux-poetic lines like “it takes more than fucking someone you don’t know just to keep yourself warm.” Everything just seems to have this veneer of cliché and the whole song persists in a self-adorned naïveté.I love it.
Frightened Rabbit has no need to invent a new genre or add some DJ or a second drummer to make them original—they’ve no need for original. They play the music they like and they play it perfectly.
- Austin
37. Yo Majesty – Kryptonite Pussy EP
I doubt anyone else has this or liked it much, but I LOVE this EP. Back since 2006, when the “Club Action” remixes started to appear, I have secretly enjoyed the dirrrty lesbian club anthems of this Tampa Bay duo. But the Kryptonite Pussy EP takes it to another level of dirrtyness, of flow, of booty-shaking beats. It's a shame that the girls' debut album, also released this year, didn't stick to the club atmosphere of this EP and the early singles. I didn't listen to much new hip-hop this year; this is the only appearance on my year-end list. But damn, I know I will be listening to “Hey There Girl” and “Monkey” for years in the future.- Michael
36. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals
I have this album much higher than I had its predecessor though I admit that Night Ripper is the superior album. Everything about Night Ripper was a revelation: the way it mixed genres and paired absolutely crap songs (My Humps) with fantastic ones (Heartbeat). It was a more significant statement than this album. I don’t feel like articulating what exactly that statement was, but suffice it to say I came to this conclusion after I posted my entire list.Anyways, I will still probably listen to Feed the Animals more because it’s simply more fun. Whereas Night Ripper is somewhat weighed down by its uniqueness and its statement (admittedly I feel like such seriousness is foisted on it by listeners, it’s not fault of Girl Talk himself), Feed the Animals is just downright fun. I still laugh when I listen to some of these pairings, especially the one with Jesse’s Girl.
And it’s a great party album.
- Austin
35. Shearwater - Rook
During my torrential love affair with Okkervil River this year, building on my love for last year's The Stage Names, I read a lot about them. That's when I found out about Shearwater, a side-project for Will Sheff with Jonathan Meiburg that has since grown, while Sheff has lessened his role to work with Okkervil River (Meiburg also plays in Okkervil River)The influence of one band on the other is clear, but Shearwater is a lot calmer, darker, and introspective. Like the National, the band pulls off a kind of wearied sophistication that's massively appealing. There is a melancholy to everything, but none of that mood weighs down the record; instead it give it permanence. The songs ebb and flow with the high falsetto and richly expressive qualities of Meiburg's voice, which has this amazing combination of strength and fragility (think Jeff Buckley). The record is entirely human, and the songs express that. It's not a record of pop melodies or experimentation. Just an extremely high quality collection of incredibly well-written songs.
- Blake
34. Lykke Li - Youth Novels
What the hell is it with Sweden? It's like a conveyer belt of really good bands. One after the other, year after year, somebody new comes around and blows me away. My biggest Sweden crush this year was Lykke Li, who is young (22), smart, not afraid to be goofy, and a fantastic writer of pop songs.- Blake
33. The Fireman - Electric Arguments
Sometimes you'd like explicitly to tell an artists what they shouldn't do, whether you have any right to do so (probably not). But nothing is worse than watching a loved artists goof around and loose their way, yet there isn't much one can do about it. One can only hope that he/she gets to their senses, or at least puts out an album like this. The project between Paul McCartney and the producer Youth is the strangest of his albums: a complete experiment that takes loads of risks and yet still sounds like the most immediate and impressive work he's done in years.My affection towards McCartney is well known, and I actually have been impressed by his previous two studio albums. But nothing really prepared me for this. It's huge, immaculately produced, and nearly absent of the pop pandering that McCartney has a hard time leaving behind.
Instead of hoping for a good chorus, these songs build off of little changes, continually adding ideas until the music simple soars off the speakers. "Sing the Changes" starts off in the clouds before ending up in the stratosphere. "Two Magpies", on the other hand, might as well have been a leftover from his very earliest solo recordings. It's also may favorite.
It's wrong to call this a McCartney solo album, because the presence of Youth has made it not sound like one. It stretches and groans in unexpected ways, and yet is also his most coherent work since something like 1982's Tug of War.
Mac loses his way towards the end, somewhat derailing an otherwise brilliant new album. But with him you take what you can get, hopefully he continues this collaboration and turns it into his new full-time band. As it stands, it's the second best band he's been apart of.
It's easy to listen to this album once or twice and walk away saying "meh." The production is very minimilist and uncrowded, which can be a little underwhelming, especially because the songs are well-written enough to really soar, and at times I really wished they would. But I stuck with it, and found myself increasingly charmed. It's a very, very restrained album, and mature because of it--every little beat and backup vocal is carefully placed. Lykke's voice is pretty airy and gentle, so the simplicity suits her -- but it takes time to love. She's a coy artist, which is the best kind to have a crush on.
- Nick
32. Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
Since I missed Tanglewood Numbers back in 2005 I've been absorbing a lot of Silver Jews. I've since gone back to their earlier albums (especially American Water), and I recently realized that they're closely related to Pavement, and Stephen Malkmus played with lead singer David Berman in college and was an early member of the Silver Jews until Pavement took off. This is, I think, their best album since American Water.Why do I love the Silver Jews? Berman is a gifted songwriter, a published poet who writes like it, and pens incredibly odd music. He's probably a heavy whiskey drinker, and just an all-around weirdo. The songs are unfailingly smart, hilarious, and never takes themselves seriously (see Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed from Tanglewood Numbers, or the epic San Francisco B.C. from Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea). It's just enough country for me, feeding a casual southern/southern-gothic fascination, and he knows how to tell a great story. He sings in a casual, deep voice that kinda reminds me of Johnny Cash in its deadpan delivery. But in the end, I'm most entranced by the strange beauty that emerges when I listen to the Silver Jews. I don't know why, but I can't deny it.
- Blake
31. Brian Eno and David Bryne - Everything that Happens Will Happen Today
This album sounds really good on headphones. Really good. I know with Eno involved that was bound to happen, but it's such a thrill to put on this album and have the music swirl around your head with such abandon. He is, gasp, a phenomenal producer.
It's essentially a simple album elevated to the heights of technicolor drama, which is basically the opposite of what Coldplay did with Eno this year. Sometimes it's great to be humble when you have so much power, and that's what I feel every time I kneel down before these gods of modern music.
- Nick
30. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
It has been an on again, off again type of year between Wolf Parade and I. I was initially disappointed with this album; it didn’t have the fire, the intensity of Apologies to Queen Mary. But then I friend of mine saw them in concert and told me I had to give it another listen and a loud listen at that. I fooled around with the levels a bit and she was right—the production on this album sucks, but the energy of the songs is definitely there.Then I saw Sunset Rubdown in concert and my complete adoration for them was cemented, which instead of augmenting my love of Wolf Parade served to diminish it. Instead of listening to this album I put on old Sunset Rubdown albums. And if this album popped up at random I would just switch to Sunset. It was a sad situation.
And then, inexplicably, this album became something, that for a couple weeks, was the only thing I could listen to. Perhaps it was the piano hook on “Call It a Ritual.” And as long as I was listening to that song I might as well continue with “Language City” and there were the catchy drum highlights on “Bang Your Drum” and before I knew it was listening to all ten minutes of “Kissing the Beehive” with rapt attention.
- Austin
29. Bloc Party – Intimacy
There is this great section in 2666 by Roberto Bolano, where Amalfitano asks a young pharmacists what his favorite books are:
Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he liked books like The Metamorphoses, Bartleby, A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol. Leaving aside the fact that A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol were stories, not books, there was something relevatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist...and who clearly preferred minor works to major ones. What a sad paradox, though Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacistsare afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works.This album has been roundly criticized for being overambitious, for throwing too much stuff into one album (luckily much of what they thrown in is drums), and for the failure to achieve what they set out to accomplish. But, to me, it’s a beautiful failure.
- Austin
28. Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst
I actually enjoyed the pop inflected tracks that Oberst inserted into last years Cassadega, even if the album as a whole felt a little cold and calculated. Well, the blood, and the acoustic guitars, are back in this one, but not the aggression. Instead of the righteous yelling of I'm Wide Awake It's Morning, we get some cool cruising music with Oberst talking about how easy the living would be on a house boat. That line from "Sausalito" had me wanting to take a long trip down the center of this country until I ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. Hell, during this Chicago winter that still sounds good to me.Taking a nice year long vacation dipping ones toes into the ocean and not worrying about much else would be a great trip. But that's all this album really meant to me. It just sounds wonderful when it's on, and so I listened to it a lot. Far more than Cassadega, and well enough to appear far up in the top 10. I'm just not sure how much longer I'll want to take a joy ride with this guy, or whether we'll get tired of each other once the problems appear.
- Nick
27. Antony & the Johnsons – Another World EP
I didn't listen to much sad music this year; overall 2008 has been one of the happiest years in recent memory. But this album still moved me to tears on occasion, even with no negative emotions to dwell on. Lord knows what this would have meant to me some other more angst-ridden year. Antony is becoming one of the more important songwriters of the decade, I feel.- Michael
26. DJ /Rupture – Uproot
I really liked /Rupture's last album, Special Gunpowder, but this one takes him to the status of auteur.- Michael
25. Lil Wayne - The Carter III
Jennifer Olmsted, reacting to a “This American Life” piece that asserted Americans as a whole are getting smarter and more intellectual, wrote the following:“Intelligence is the new chic. Chic, and easy to attain. Learn to pronounce Foucault, drop a well-placed Freaks and Geeks reference, read a few Great Books, subscribe to HBO and the Economist, mix in a little ironic Lil Wayne appreciation, and suddenly, you've got class, intelligence, and culture. And everyone perusing your Facebook knows it. Appearance, not reality.
Ironic Lil’ Wayne appreciation? This quote, though I didn’t much creedance to the post as a whole, caused a minor crisis. Was my appreciation of Lil’ Wayne only ironic? A Latin teacher in the suburbs of Boston listening all the time to Weezy rap about hustling rock, ironic? Who really knows what this word means?
Following Michael’s recommendation last year I got the mixtape version of this album and I haven’t looked back since. I would like to write a paper on the lyrics of Lil’s Wayne, but a study of the lyrics alone would only address half of the genius of this artist: the impact comes in the delivery, the evident pain in boastful raps, the slight chuckle after a line about death, the humor that is both sincere and (gasp) ironic.
I could go on gushing about this album and about Wayne’s body of work in general, but I’ll stop because I don’t have much time.
- Austin
24. .Brian Wilson – Lucky Old Sun
I don't expect to win everyone over to this album. I will just say that in the context of SMiLE, this is one of the most happy/sad albums of the year, as only Brian Wilson can be. How can you not be creeped out when Wilson sings about watching a girl when she's sleeping? And how can you be singularly happy when he sings about “that good kind of love”? Once again, I take a pseudo-mystical approach to Brian Wilson's music, and once again, I am rewarded for it.- Michael
23. Bob Dylan – Tell Tale Signs
Every June for the past five years I pack my things into cardboard boxes, tape them up, and load them up into a moving truck. I unload them, unpack, and stack them around a new apartment. I wait 11 months and 29 days and then I repeat the same process over again. Indianapolis, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Columbus, and now Chicago. Every single year I listen to Bob Dylan a little bit more. Perhaps I’m maturing. I've progressed from a Bob Dylan appreciator to something we might call a Bob Dylan Fan (fanatic is still too far out). But I've never had that flash of recognition when I realized the gloriousness of Dylan. It just keeps building.
Leave it to Dylan to release and odds and sods collection that sounds fresh enough to be a brand new album. This is especially impressive considering most of this material comes from the highly stylized Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind which both featured hazy, reverb laden production jobs. Nearly all of the production has been stripped away, leaving songs like "Series of Dreams", a leftover from Oh Mercy that appeared on his first Bootleg Album, feeling nearly naked. It used to swirl around your head like a Joshua Tree leftover, but now it feels more like a rush of ideas than a rush of production effects.
“Most of the Time” on Oh Mercy was all fog and that incessant beat, which made it great for movie soundtracks, but tended to mar the actual words. Left naked and bare its as sweet and deprecating as anything on Blood on the Tracks.
I’ve spent hours trying to decode “Mississippi”, a seemingly flighty little number tossed off on Love and Theft. But from the sessions of Time Out of Mind, it sounds muddy and inspired, like the river it flows down.
Perhaps most startling is “Ring them Bells” which appeared in a fine version on Oh Mercy as a spiritual lament, all cool and calm. This live version from 1993 couldn’t be more different. It's joyous and heartfelt. Throughout the song a group of men can be heard screaming “yeah!” “all right!”, like a hallelujah from a spiritual. And Dylan takes all those screams and ratchets up his intensity until he's nearly screaming.
It reminded me of this interview he gave in 1997:
Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. Songs like "Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain" or "I Saw the Light"—that's my religion. I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.
That’s the kind of shit the Dylan stirs up on a daily basis in my life. It’s the kind of sentiments that never get old and never stop improving no matter where I'm living at the moment.
- Nick
22. Air France (EP)
Air + Avalanches? I must admit, when I first started listening to Air France on the blogs, very early thanks to my friend Dan, I wasn't overwhelmed. As I listened more and more, though, it became a soundtrack to my life, coming into my head as I walked to school, or took the Ubahn, whatever. No, it's no Studio, but this EP keeps me wanting as much Balearic music as I can handle.
- Michael
21. Sigur Ros –Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
I was sure Sigur Ros had magical powers after listening to Ágætis byrjun. How could you not believe? I used to listen to this album before bed during my freshman year in college, and it coaxed things out of my dreams that I never thought possible. I’d never heard anything like it, and the music reorganized my brain to believe in sounds that it would never have tolerated before.
I actually loved their next album ( ) even more, overdosing in the deepness of it all. It sounded like an important band taking a head first dive into the unknown, and I was there to swim along. It also, honestly, sounded really good when drunk. I still don't understand this phenomenon, but believe me, it's scary.
Perhaps I was destined to think of Takk... as something like a retreat even though it had actual melodies and short songs. By that time I had Animal Collective to stretch my imagination, and I was growing tired of the languid rhythms, and how it always felt like I was listening to them at 2 o'clock in the morning.
Enter Sigur Ros Vol. 2, and hey! They make a mighty freak folk band. Who knew they had it in them? Not as defining as the original, but special in its own magical way.
I really thought this was going to be a top ten album, but I never quite delved in far enough. Perhaps I never let them sink in subconsciously, listened to them at night, or while drunk. They can be an isolating band, and with a wife and a dog, there aren't many times when I'm just hanging out with my headphones. But I'm still keeping them around, to see what kind of majesty they can lead me to.
- Nick
20. Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line
I kept my appreciation for this band under wraps this year. The album hasn’t been around for long, but the second I listened to it I just felt a weird sort of affection. This is a band that I root for, I want them to be popular, I want them to make it. And in certain circles, I guess they already have.
They were garnering a lot of buzz last year around the same time as Vampire Weekend, but their drummer died and delayed the release. And while I feel sorry for their loss I must say the experience has benefited their music. No group’s debut album should sound this mature. This album has the intensity that most debut albums of good groups have, but it’s welded with a musical, and dare I say, lyrical sophistication that groups don’t find until several albums later (some, sadly, never do).
Plus I’m a complete sucker for the inclusion of a string section with garage band type music. Maybe this means I’m secretly fifteen years old, but I don’t care. Also I like that they have two female and these vixens blend their voices perfectly with the lead singer.
In short, I’m a big, big fan.
- Austin
19. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
In years past I’ve maybe placed albums that I, in fact, listened to on a more regular basis, behind albums that I thought were musically better—at least musically better from an objective stand point (the arrangements more refined, the musically, overall, more inventive, and, yes, better critically accepted). But with this album it’s unavoidable. There is not a single album that even comes close to how many times I’ve listened to this album, we’re talking all day writing binges soundtrack-ed only by Iver’s haunting voice.
My friend Tom, when I sent him this album, said, “If I could make music I would make this.” I don’t feel that way. I would more make music like Apes and Andriods, if I could be any music I would be this music. I want to sing like Shef, but if I could some how exist as a voice I would be Iver’s voice.
I know this sounds dramatic, but I am unable to be objective about this album, I’m unable to list and quantify its musical attributes, to discern what works and what doesn’t because I just connect to it on a personal level. Maybe it’s just been my particular, overall mood this year and perhaps in a year I won’t feel the same way. But I’m not writing this list next year, I’m writing it now. And right now, though I tried to avoid it, there is no other album that should be at the top.
- Austin
18. Little Joy – Little Joy
Jesus, like I needed another reminder of how bad the Strokes have become. This is what they should sound like right now. It could be that the singer sounds like Julian Casablancas, or the simple mono guitar parts that ring throughout, but it’s probably because of Fab lent his immaculate drumming to the recordings. I’m not sure why his simplistic beat is so easy to spot, but this couldn’t be anyone else.
- Nick
17. Jamie Lidell – Jim
I often get weird looks when people ask me what type of music I like. I don’t like to define a type, because I’m that cool, rather I list artists. When I say Sunset Rubdown, or Okkervil River or Hercules and Love Affair, people, not acquainted with any of this type of music, generally assume they won’t like the same type of music as me.Then I put on Jamie.
How can you not like this music? It’s throwback, for sure, but its updated throwback. It simply makes you want to move. And, especially on Jim, the production is impeccable. Listen to “Green Light” on a good pair of headphones and I challenge you not to be intrigued. Also, you can’t listen to the coda of “Hurricane” and not think of some funkified verision of the Beatles.
Ultimately I just appreciate the Lidell does exactly what he wants. I saw him in concert and he went on a ten minute electronic freestyle trip. The people I had convinced to go with me with the likes of “Another Day” and “All I Wanna Do” didn’t like it, but I thought it was fantastic.
I guess perhaps, for me, he can do no wrong.
- Austin
16. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colors
I love this album. I don't have anything to say about it.- Michael
15. Lindstrom – Where You Go I Go Too
This is the best workout album ever. The perfect beat, something long enough to get a rhythm going, with just enough movements to keep me interested. And my god, those 80s synths. I love them. And I did work out to this album, until grad school got the better of me, and it never got old. I also listened to it at home, walking to school, while writing papers, everything. I just wish that I drove more so I could listen to it there. I was worked up about this album quite a while before it came out, and lo and behold it's right up there with all my favorite Lindstrom stuff, INCLUDING stuff with Prins Thomas. That's saying something.- Michael
14. The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Graves
I'll never forget a conversation I had with Nick back in college over a $1.99 Amber Bock at the Duck. We were discussing music, possibly because Pitchfork had put out their best of 2000-2005 list and I hadn't heard of more than half of the bands. At one point, Nick said something casually derisive about the entire singer-songwriter genre as a whole. Namely, that he hated them. That singer-songwriters were the height of mediocrity in music, clogging up all the space with their hackneyed Bob-Dylan-aping schtick, lacking a shred of originality.Having grown up around church youth groups where the earnest-man-with-a-guitar is respected and adored, I remember being incredibly surprised, and I feebly defended the genre. But a short while later, I realized Nick was absolutely right. 99% of singer-songwriters are crap, emotionally adolescent, and uninventive musicians. It was a sad but true realization.
So my sincere love for The Tallest Man on Earth could be dismissed as nostalgia. Perhaps it's for early Bob Dylan, with whom the similarity is uncanny--not just the way the music sounds but his vocal style, aptitude for poetic lyrics, and overall energy. Or maybe it's because he's Swedish and I'm just a sucker for that country, as this list seems to attest. But I have not stopped listening to this album since I got my hands on it in May. The songs are rich, vivid, sad and deeply beautiful.
How can someone sound like early Dylan in 2008 and not be a derivative hack? I don't know. But the only answer I can offer is that maybe there's something transcendent possible when a man sings and plays a guitar.
- Blake
13. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
I’m not sure I’m allowed to put this album on my list. I’ve been listening to it since at least October 2007 when one of my ex-girlfriend’s friends lent me an advanced copy. He went to college with the duo and after he found out I was a big fan of The Knife he handed me MGMT. I listened to it and definitely liked it, but I guess I didn’t really take it seriously. I had a lot of “real” albums in rotation at this point and MGMT fell by the wayside. I didn’t think anyone besides me and Teddy (the friend) actually even knew this band existed.But then strange things started happening. MGMT popped up on Rollings Stones’ “Hot List.” Not one but two students made me mix CD’s that included “Kids.” I told Teddy, via the ex-girlfriend, about the “Hot List” thing and apparently he was even surprised.
So I started listening more intently. Originally I’d never gotten beyond “Time to Pretend”—which I loved but viewed as the only really good song on the list. But I found that I loved every single song. “Electric Feel” is absolutely addictive and I even like “Pieces of What.”
The moral of the story is, the next time someone hands you an advanced copy listen to it.
- Austin
12. Bonnie "Prince" Billy – Lie Down in the Light
I often have River Cottage induced dreams of retiring to the country to raise pigs and tend to gardens, and now have the singer I’d like to have on my imaginary front porch. Bonnie "Prince" Billy didn't mean much to me before this but I've been completely taken aback by this album. I still can’t listen to I See a Darkness. I know it’s the supposedly his best album and I’ve tried to go back to it, but nothing sounds as comfortable as this album. This is an album of infinite pleasures, starting with "Easy Does It" a simple song that's quietly my favorite song of the year. There's something so refreshing about the complete lack of irony when he sings, "There's my brothers and my girlfriend, my mom, and my dad, and meeee....and that's all there needs to be." It's all backed by instrumentation that's the furthest thing from flashy, but is also perfectly suited and steady as can be.
But that's only the start. "For Every Field There is a Mole", with its biblical refrain gets me teary eyed and by the time we've hit "What's Missing Is" I'm home. I feel the weight of the Ohio River flowing by the hills of my small hometown in Southern Indiana. I can hear the heaviness of the air. It's all there in this album, and that's way I returned to it so often this year.
- Nick
11. Apes & Androids – Blood Moon
So Michael was embarrassed to have this album in his top ten, and as I push it into my top five I attempt a sense of embarrassment, perhaps just a small blush of shame, but it’s not there.
I unabashedly love every track on this album.
They combine every dirty pleasure, musical and otherwise, I have and make it sound great. I’m a sucker for those guitar solos from eighties movies. I’m a sucker for dreamy synthesizer combined with over-processed drums. I love reverb, eighties-The Cure-to-the-max guitars. Basically they take every musical element that I wish I didn’t like and make it okay. Perhaps this is dangerous.
I know this album is not for everyone, but I don’t care. I love how this album just never lets up. It reminds of those more innocent, caffeine riddled nights, when my friend Trevor (he, like me, was also a “rock musician” imprisoned in the countryside of Kentucky) and I would spend the entire night messing around with the eight-track recorder his parents bought him for Christmas. We made music like this but it sounded like shit.
Perhaps I like this album because it feels, somehow, like vindication.
- Austin
10. No Age - Nouns
I came and left this album through a period of many months this year, obsessing then putting it away. I couldn't help but compare it to last year's Weirdo Rippers. I love Weirdo Rippers with a fierceness I can't explain. I may have listened to it more than any other 2007 album during 2008. Its power over me continues to grow. The songs, anchored in punk, stretch out into these giant, moody guitarscapes that evoke plane hangars and the warm, woozy desolation of Los Angeles. But at the same time I was trying to absorb Nouns, their proper full-album (Weirdo Rippers was a collection of EPs and other material). But Weirdo Rippers wasn't done with me; I hadn't escaped its thicket of messy sound.
Nouns isn't more cohesive--it's barely held together by an overhanging fuzz. But there are little moments of melodious brilliance (Things I Did When I was Dead) that I keep returning to. The power of melody is never more important than in noise rock--it's the beauty among obliteration that makes it all worth listening to.
It may be that I'm way in over my head with Nouns at the moment, and making irrational decisions about its placement on this list. But more than any other album it has captured my time, intellect, and imagination. The music is inventive and brilliant for a drummer and a guitarist -- bands twice their size are routinely less impressive, with a fraction of the ideas. Their mastery of noise is unmitigated.
It's been said that the sign of a good writer is when a whole book is thrown away on every page. The same applied to Nouns. The sheer number and quality of ideas in this album is staggering.
- Blake
9. Coldplay – Viva La Vida
I jumped off the Coldplay wagon right around the time “Clocks” became the biggest hit of their career. It didn’t sound like they wanted to be the biggest band in the world, just the least offensive. Though they had never been my favorite band, I flocked to what can only be described as their struggle to be something more. It didn't always produce the best music, but hearing them struggling through their influences made for some engaging listens. Of course, they followed the uneven A Rush of Blood to the Head with the completely tailored X&Y, which took insubstantiality to whole new realms of blandness. I went from a timid fan who liked "In My Place" to becoming completely repulsed.
Which is what makes this album so frightening. Viva La Vida is scatter shot, poorly sequenced, and maddening, but it’s also an album worth picking over, finding the right bits, and returning to over and over again. Which I did. Look at my iTunes play count and it's absolutely riddled with Coldplay. So much so, that I felt horribly guitly and intentionally stopped listen even though I wanted more.
But how can you deny the military march of "Violet Hill", the sweet summer serande of "Strawberry Swing", or "Chinese Sleep Chant" which finds coldplay doing My Bloody Valentine, albeit in a good natured way? Hell, I even like "Lost".
This feels awful to say, but this is a Coldplay album that's actually really good. Easily their best album, and one of the best sounding albums of the year. Brian Eno surely gets some credit from broadening the palate of these wispy British lads. I'm not sure if it was his choice or theirs to chop up songs, tack them onto other songs, or get rid of choruses in most songs, but the sense of adventurousness is addicting. Though it doesn't always work - why do two tracks in a row feature two seperate songs stuck together? -the fact that Coldplay are challening their listeners is a huge step forward.
To my ears, it just sounds like they are trying again. Parachutes had lots of problems, but it sounded like a few guys trying to make something grand out of nothing. Viva sounds like a few guys trying for something mythic. It doesn’t quite reach those heights, but if the most popular area rock band of our age is taking these kind of risks, isn't that a good thing?
- Nick
8. M83 - Saturdays=Youth
It's not really fair that this album is higher on my list than the previous M83 albums, which I like more. It's probably that I enjoy M83 more now than I even did when those albums came out, and this album gets the benefit. There was a time this spring that Saturdays=Youth was my favorite album of the year, but I haven't listened to it enough this fall to make a call on it, so I'll leave it here (it could be anywhere in the top 6-8). Anyway, yes it's more of a pop album than previous stuff, yes it's cinematic/nostalgic but in a good way, yes it is wonderful on headphones. I will return to this one for years to come.
- Michael
7. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
I'm starting to feel like I'm spending too much of my time defending my choices rather than exclaiming why I actually love the albums on this list. But, it's going to be hard to not to that again here. This is the kind of album that's so easy and catchy that it's hard to listen to anything else in the first week of exposure. In fact, this was the first album I heard in 2008 that I really loved. As time went on, this love became guiltier and guiltier as the sheen wore off and I realized that I felt like an alumni frat brother during Monon Bell weekend, and I put them away for awhile. But the songs stood the test of many listens, and every time a song would pop up on random, I'd drop turn off shuffle and listen through the whole album. I've always admired bands that are able to appeal quickly while maintaining staying power.It's also an album about New York, and I'm a sucker for those. The whole Columbia Ivy-Leage preppy schtick, while undeniable, is handled with appropriate measures of sincerity and irony. My biggest complaint is that the song about Blake's new face is the weakest on the album.
- Blake
6. Deerhunter – Microcastle
Like all of my favorite music, the idea that this has a beginning or an end is unimportant. This could play in loops - it often has - and I'd never tire of it, never fail to hear something new.I certainly got in with "Agoraphobia", with the dream-like lyrics floating over my head. But that's really just the beginning. "Never Stops" continues that incessant beat, and features the beginning of that gorgeous wave of distortion that seems to pop around this album. And then the rest of it is a blur. One incredible blur of an album I've been trying to digest again and again to see if I can figure out what is going on. Yet, it always remains out of reach. So I try again. I think I'm going to be doing this for a long, long time. This album and me are far from over.
- Nick
5. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
I was lucky (?) to see Fleet Foxes pretty early, after the blogosphere started to buzz with them, but before the album came out and they started taking over the indie-rock world. I saw them play in Berlin, in the same club I had seen an awesome Handsome Fures show with, like, 20 other people. Unfortunately (?) there were lots more people, but the after a disappointing Beach House show, something happened: the crowd became reeaaally quiet, and took on an atmosphere of friendliness I haven't ever experienced (except maybe with devendra banhart). I was in the front row, like maybe 4 feet from the band, and they handed out water bottles and interacted with the crowd on more than a banter level. Afterward I had a beer with a couple of the guys, and they were really nice, asking me to look them up when they came to Austin. I saw the show right at a point when I was getting sick of rock shows in general, and it reminded me that there is stuff in indie rock to get excited about. I know this was a hot band to like, but that just makes me happy for both Fleet Foxes and their fans.- Michael
4. TV on the Radio – Dear Science,
I was not a believer of Return to Cookie Mountain, which had lots of effects and ZERO tunes. Was there a melody on that whole album? But make an album of carefully crafted pop so adventurous as to transcend classification and then I’ll fall over and praise you. First track "Halfway Home" starts like sixties garage before mixing soul vocals, off kilter drums, and keyboard atmospherics. It’s not until the last 30 seconds lays on the regular rocking. It’s worth the wait."Crying" sounds like the offspring of LCD Soundsystem and U2’s Achtung Baby. Hand claps sound like snare drums. I have a hard time figuring out whether a guitar is being played or a keyboard blare. "Golden Age" is all bass at first until they throw it atop some massive keyboards, a catchy chorus, and what sounds like an orchestra.
But no matter how weird things get, how many effects or intruments they pile on, everything is built upon the solid frame of a killer song. Surely not as difficult as thier last album, but when it is so easy to sing along why fight the urge?
- Nick
3. The Walkmen - You & Me
Maybe more than any other album this year, I loved giving in to The Walkmen. It is a perfectly paced album, unfolding carefully and slowly. It helps, of course, that their music is moody and atmospheric, that they evoke the kind of beleagured middle-of-winter mood that's strangely comforting and easy to slip into. But from the moment I heard the first gentle cymbal crash of Donde Esta la Playa and the rumbling, muddled bass, I had little choice but to submit.
What's most surprising to me is that I never emerge from The Walkmen feeling depressed, even though I should. There's something about Hamilton Leithauser vocals that's human and courageous. To write this I'm going back over the tracks individually and what strikes me is how quiet they are, which I hadn't really realized before. There's nothing like the ferocity of The Rat. But the music lacks none of its intensity, commanding my attention just as pointedly as that song but with more careful instrumentation. With every listen the contours of this album shape and become clearer, new moments emerge, most unexpectedly uplifting. How The Walkmen bury this kind of beauty is lost on me. But this is a remarkable album.
- Blake
2. Hercules & Love Affair – Hercules & Love Affair
Everyone knows that I love pop and I love dance: the most obvious intersection of these two is disco. Was there any question that this would be in my top 5? Not at all. I thought this would be my #1 since a couple weeks after it came back. And yes I heard this in lots of Berlin clubs, and yes it was amazing. I've heard lots of good remixes of songs from this album, but none touch the originals. “Blind” will probably be in my top songs of the decade.
- Michael
1. Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
Austin, I hope you're happy. I've been trying for the past four years to dismiss Okkervil River as an average guitar band. I had vindication with Black Sheep Boy, an album I still don't care for. But last years The Stage Names slowly wore me down. And now with The Stand Ins standing as one of my most played albums of the year, I have nothing left to fight against. I've given in. Okkervil River are an astonishing band.
This has been called a brother to The Stage Acts, but it’s easily the superior album. Every song on this collection is solid and distinctive. Little bits of classic songs have been tossed in for effect, but it never feels like stealing. It just sounds like a band on stage playing to the crowd to see if they are cool enough to get the jokes. It’s for the faithful, the ones that stuck around through the encore to see what else the band could do. I’ve played it a dozens of times, and each time I find a new sound, a new instrument, a new melody buried deep within.
- Nick
Like Michael, I was initially unimpressed (more or less disappointed) with the Stage Names. And also like him I gained a better appreciation of it this year, but this appreciation stems from how enthralled I am with this album. The band is just so tight. The bass line never simply follows the guitar, nor do the keyboards merely echo and reinforce the overall chord progression. It all goes together so well.
I will say that, lyrically, nothing will top Black Sheep Boy, some of those songs still make me want to cry, but this album has some tough moments too. Due to certain experiences this year, I loved “Calling and Not Calling My Ex” as well as well as “Pop Lie.” I’ve already said this, but if I could sing like anyone I would sing like Will Shef, and I think, sometimes in my head I do sound like him. But this is just adoration.
Okkervil River is, and if they’re recent output is any indication will remain, one of my favorite bands. There is not an album that I can’t simply listen to, and this one is no exception.
- Austin
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