Best albums of 2008
This year is a tie. I couldn’t make one better than the other. These two albums speak to me more than just sweet dance moves.
#1 M83-Saturdays=Youth
No other album fully captures what it was like to grow up in the 80’s and describe via audio what it was like to experiment in your first kiss, love, drug, sex, and friendship.
#1 Cut Copy-In Ghost Colours
I think when people think of this album, they automatically think dance music, but there’s so much more to this album. There’s depth beyond the stylish beats and not the predictably cheesy lyrics you would hear from a type of act such as this one.
#2 The Walkmen-You & Me
The haunting hand me down instruments are heard on every note of this album, even to the way it was recorded.
#3 Black Keys-Attack and Release
I’ve never heard two guys from Ohio rock as hard as these guys. If Robert Plant were to come back and play with any other band, he said it would be this one. You can’t really argue with that.
#4 Everything Absent or Distorted-The Great Collapse
A strong followup to their EP that spun birth, life, and death in one album.
#5 Vampire Weekend
A true testament of our culture today. One minute you were listening to a Blue-CDR and the next minute you’re watching them headline music festivals at Red Rocks. Crazy.
#6 Takka Takka-Migration
Here’s a way to show you that you can be cool, even if it’s by association. It doesn’t hurt that your album is a bit complex and misunderstood.
#7 Crystal Stilts-Alight of Light
Surf sounds from the 60’s meet late post-punk from the 70’s, make nice!
#8 Blitzen Trapper-Furr
Everybody’s favorite psych-country artists from Oregon that prove writing songs about the Rio Grande and God is not passe.
#9 We are Scientists-Brain Trust Mastery
This album is consistent to start to finish and not as impetuous as those other flash in the pan acts.
#10 Ra Ra Riot-The Rhumb Line
I think releasing some of the material on the album on previous EP’s proved to be a downer for some folks, but for the other part that stuck with the group and tested the rest of the album were rewarded handsomely.
#11 Fleet Foxes S/T
I’ve been to several Starbucks playing this album, on repeat. Nuff said.
#12 MGMT
How many different remixes of Kids do you have on your iPod?
#13 Sigur Ros-Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Try saying their record title once, I dare you. Perhaps one of their livelier outings and most inviting. I can say without hesitation that I don’t need a box of kleenex for the record, and that’s saying a lot.
#14 Wolf Parade-At Mount Zoomer
A lot of people hated this album because it wasn’t as manic as their previous album. It proved that the group had matured and not afraid to write a love song.
#15 The Magnetic Fields-Distortion
Stephen Merritt can write another 69 love songs, and still have enough material to write another 69. In between takes, he did Disortion.
