Assuming you haven’t already skipped past this boring text just to scoff at how patently ridiculous my selection is for #1 album of the year, please spend a little extra time with these fine folks:
Day One – Scotter
Day Two – E. Kula
Day Three – Amy
Day Four – Dan
I heard a lot of really great music in 2008, and putting this little list together was no easy chore. I spent a lot of sleepless nights listening and re-listening to these albums, concocting a weird calculus of irrational rules to arrive at the final tally. But the fact is, the difference between my #4 and #44 album of the year is pretty insignificant. I realize there were a lot of albums released this year that are technically better than the ones below, but in crunch time, these records never failed to deliver the goods.
TODD’S TOP 10 OF 2008
10. Times New Viking – Rip It Off
This album still hurts my ears. Even at the lowest sliver of volume on my iPod, the unhinged heat of juvenile cacophony is enough to make my teeth quiver and face blanche. But if cochlear deterioration is the price I have to pay for EQ-bleedin’ ecstasy, so be it. 2008 saw an unexpected resurgence in hip, lo-fi bands that used stylishly poor recording as a crutch for bad songwriting, but with Times New Roman there was an immediacy and urgency to the recordings, a rush to expression, that gave the tape hiss its charm. Rip It Off isn’t meant to be a trendy record, it’s just good rock and roll: simple, effective, memorable. No one else matched effortless pop hooks with joyous chaos quite as well as Times New Viking.
9. Karl Blau – Nature’s Got Away
There’s a deep tranquility at the heart of this record that keeps dragging me back for repeat visits late at night. Blau’s voice cracks and stumbles, but he delivers his verses and mothball-mouthed metaphors with the care of a parent, cautious of sending his words out into the world but amazed by what they can reveal all the same. Although the music stumbles with the studio imperfections of a claustrophobic bedroom environment, the ragged guitars and eerie organs share a sense of purpose that seem to indicate that harmony isn’t just found in music, but in nature as well.
8. TV On The Radio – Dear Science,
By any objective standard of measure, TV On The Radio’s new album would consistently rank at number 1. But this isn’t such a list, so it’s number 8.
7. Spiritualized – Songs in A&E
Rock & roll redemption from a fallen spaceman. I may have overreacted in my praise given in my original review, but just like Jason Pierce coming back from near-death to finish this record, the songs here are remarkably resilient.
6. No Age – Nouns
Nouns is a raw, noisy, dense punk rock bulldozer. But underneath the squalls of distortion is a highly nuanced album, crafted with daredevil riffs, shocking melodicism, and a merciful willingness to plant green spaces in the wake of No Age’s destruction. It’s kind of like being roundhouse-kicked in the face by Chuck Norris: it’ll knock you flat on your ass, but at least you’ll appreciate the artfulness of the kick as you’re flying through the air.
5. Evangelicals – The Evening Descends
Their songs definitely delve into the macabre, but it’s more out of a curious fascination than depressive fixation. You get the sense that singer Josh Jones’ cast of zombies and walking skeletons really just want to find happiness and acceptance, just as his shattered and skewered songs are really just trying to be upbeat pop songs, but are constantly thwarted by their own innate freakishness.
4. Beach House – Devotion
The first great album of the year, and still the most magical. I’m debating whether I should say that Devotion fit me like a glove or like a snug sleepingbag in a starlit field, but when it’s playing it makes its presence felt, and analogies about its intimacy or spaciousness don’t seem to matter. I get shudders just thinking about it.
3. The Walkmen – You & Me
For a band most known for their thundering drones and gourd percussions and Hamilton Leithauser’s vocal cord abuse, it’s the restrained, bare-bones moments on You & Me that really linger with me. The gentle, mournful horns on “Red Moon”; the jittery shuffle of “Canadian Girl”; the cracked optimism of “In the New Year.” These songs just continue to sound better the colder it becomes outside. The Walkmen are a band that could easily have chosen to re-write “The Rat” over and over again, but instead they found the confidence to work on these wry, vulnerable tomes that speak much more to their ability.
2. Bradford Cox – Everything he touched
Atlas Sound – “River Card” (buy)
Deerhunter – “Nothing Ever Happened” (buy)
Deerhunter, Atlas Sound, you name it — if Bradford Cox’s long, spindly fingers touched it, it was as good as gold. Most musicians are lucky to write one halfway decent song in their lifetime, but this year Cox dipped into a seemingly limitless well of creative inspiration that made kindred bedfolk of droning krauthouse burners and Afro-electro ambient and Cold War-era pop and soul. If we were just talking about his albums proper, from the flawlessly executed effervescence of his solo debut to the frighteningly good Microcastle, Cox would deserve to be on any blogger’s Top 10 list twice this year. But when you start to take into consideration all the overtime he put in this year — the more than sufficient “bonus” album Weird Era Cont.; Atlas Sound’s mesmerizing Another Bedroom EP; hell, even knock-offs like the “Holiday” virtual 7″ displayed a keen sense of narrative dynamics and subtle storytelling — it’s clear that we’re dealing with a rare sort of talent that has a surplus of passion and vision, as well as an enviable work ethic.
Deerhunter – Microcastle from Adam Bruneau on Vimeo.
1. Of Montreal –Skeletal Lamping
I nearly shelved this album when I first listened to it. It was too weird, too pretentious, and too deliberately difficult to give much consideration. But over time I realized that as much of a mindfuck this album is, and as great the temptations are to overthink the songs’ complex structures and psychoanalyze Kevin Barne’s fruity narrative selves, Skeletal Lamping really isn’t meant to be a thinking man’s album. Human emotions don’t unfold in a linear fashion, and neither does this album. It explodes in arcs of joy and fear, of lust and anger, and for all its fey conceits, this is a strikingly honest and accessible album. You just need to open yourself up a little to let it in. It’s a ball. Really, it is. I can’t think of any other record this year that I grappled with more, that brings me such unhinged happiness and stupidly-grinning pleasure as Skeletal Lamping. Plus, they put on one hell of a live show.
Honorable Mention
Department of Eagles – In Ear Park (review)
Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III (earlier praise)
The Magnetic Fields – Distortion (review)
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – We Brave Bee Stings and All (review)
Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak (what he said)
4 Comments
A pretty darn good list, except I’ll go to my grave insisting Of Montreal are a fraud. I’d replace them with Crystal Stilts (name notwithstanding), and wish you all a Merry Crimble.
PS Brighten the Corners earns special merit for reissue of the year.
A fraud? I tell you what, if Kevin Barnes was pretending to be a wealthy Nigerian prince I would gladly hand over my bank account information if this is what I’d get in return. But, to be fair, I don’t think he’d walk away with much in that deal.
I’ll have you know that I just downloaded the evangelicals album, because both you and scott ranked it pretty high on the list, and I like what I hear, but also because I find that album art completely irresistible.
I agree that everything Bradford touched turned to magic this year. Today I was thinking (while listening to “Saved by Old Times”) “You know fuck all the love songs in indie rock or songs that simply don’t make sense in prog/neo-shoegaze these days. I mean no, not fuck them, but gee, I just really enjoy listening to music about lonely childhood and germs.” Seriously.