C-Murder (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} slingy) wrote,@ 2009-01-12 10:45:00 |
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Chris’s Top 10 Albums of 2008
Unlike most (OK, every) music publication, I like to reserve my judgment for a year's best music until that year actually ends. Because you never know when you're going to, like, fall in love with an album on New Year's Eve. Not that that's happened yet, but it could. Anyway, here's my opinions of the best stuff from last year, and no, I didn't get much of a chance to listen to Lil' Wayne:
10. Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
Not only a lightning-fast follow-up to my #1 album of last year, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, but also something of a companion piece, in which the sexual deviant Kevin Barnes created halfway through his 2007 opus continues his misadventures in a breakneck collage of lecherous parties, awkward propositions and bitter feelings. The pastiche format makes Skeletal Lamping seem more like a mixtape than a proper LP, and some of it feels like a retread of Barnes’ previous album, but it’s still a fascinating collection of material, delivered by the kind of narrator you’re not likely to see elsewhere in the world of music.
MP3: Of Montreal - "An Eluardian Instance"
9. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
Several years after the success of Apologies to the Queen Mary and the interminable amount of side projects from both frontmen that followed, fans’ fears of a Wolf Parade dissolution were finally put to rest in 2008. Their follow-up album isn’t as immediate as their first, but it isn’t supposed to be; the intricacy of songs like “California Dreamer” and “They Grey Estates” shows off the talents of an older, more thoughtful band. And album-closer/rave-up/near-title-track “Kissing the Beehive” is the first WP song co-written by both Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner; its success will hopefully lead to an even more refined sound on album #3.
MP3: Wolf Parade - "California Dreamer"
8. The Dodos - Visiter
Relaxed, intricate, frenetic, pretty, ramshackle, sprawling; a lot of adjectives can be used to describe Visiter, and many of them are contradictory. It’s a testament to the scope of the Dodos’ skill and ambition: not only can “Walking”, “Jodi” and “Undeclared” all exist on the same album, you can’t imagine them apart. Oh yeah, and the band is only two guys. Most other bands seem to be slumming it in comparison.
MP3: The Dodos - "Red and Purple"
7. The Mae Shi – Hlllyh
Namechecking gods and angels, forecasting Armageddon and ruminating on the afterlife, it’s easy to see Hlllyh as the younger, weirder brother of The Thermals’ 2006 album (and my #1 album of that year) The Body, the Blood, the Machine. But that’s not to disparage The Mae Shi’s career-defining album as a knock-off; only these guys could have created such a fascinating spaz-rock collage that bends into itself at the middle, creating a microcosmic Eurotrash remix of everything before and after. The Alpha and the Omega, indeed.
MP3: The Mae Shi - "Run to Your Grave"
6. Fleet Foxes – s/t
This album found its way to the top of almost every year-end list on the internet, and although I’m not exactly the target audience – as a City Boy, I’m not as taken by the pastoral overtones as many – it’s impossible to deny Fleet Foxes’ musicianship. It’s there in spades, from the layered-but-not-overstuffed harmonies to Robin Pecknold’s ethereal vocals. Folk music (whether Freak- or otherwise) had a huge year in 2008, and Fleet Foxes were right at the crest of it.
MP3: Fleet Foxes - "Blue Ridge Mountains"
5. These New Puritans – Beat Pyramid
Nothing about Beat Pyramid is exactly easy. Just trying to figure out the tracklist on the back of the CD can be a trying affair – and even then, the name of the first track is the second half of a sentence that begins with the name of the last track. The album itself is a labyrinth of cyclical themes, angular guitars and lyrics owing more than a little to Mark E. Smith, and new factes continue to emerge after dozens of listens. It’s the kind of album that would seem a product of careful elder craftsmen, but is surprisingly just the opening salvo from a gang of brash newcomers. If their next album comes packaged with a cryptography handbook, I wouldn’t be surprised.
MP3: These New Puritans - "Elvis"
4. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours
Australia’s big success story in 2008 was, oddly enough, not the Nicole Kidman film Australia. Though Cut Copy snuck into hipster consciousness via the unpolished indie-rock vibe of “So Haunted”, the further successes of “Lights and Music” and “Hearts on Fire” showed that we all kind of missed the unpretentious fun of Euro-house after all. Who knew?
MP3: Cut Copy - "Lights and Music"
3. Los Campesinos! – Hold on Now, Youngster…
A hyperspeed sugar rush for the blog generation, the “second-most punk band in Britain” live hyperbole and breathe irony. Their music finds an impossible midpoint between twee-pop, punk and hipster art-rock which, on paper, should not work, but in practice becomes one of the most unique and confident debut albums in years.
MP3: Los Campesinos! - "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks"
2. TV On the Radio – Dear Science
Dear Science could have easily been called Zeitgeist (if the title wasn’t already used for a certain band’s infamously disappointing comeback album last year) – in a year of political and economic ups and downs, hope and fear from within and without, TVOTR seemed uncannily attuned to all of it. Was there a better soundtrack for the end-of-the-world despair and anger felt by 2008’s newly disenfranchised than “DLZ”? Or a more appropriate theme for Obama’s November sweep than “Golden Age”? But Dear Science also succeeds as the band’s most comprehensively solid LP yet, a diverse collection of songs whose greatness doesn’t end with the singles. It’s a defining statement from a band able to see the world - and, finally, themselves - with an astounding clarity.
MP3: TV On the Radio - "DLZ"
1. Hot Chip – Made in the Dark
And here, what’s left of my critic’s cred goes out the window. Made in the Dark is admittedly an uneven LP, and any album with several tracks I usually skip shouldn’t really be considered for the top spot on my list. But Hot Chip’s new album sails past many other arguably better-structured albums based on the simple fact that, more than any other music produced this year, I can’t imagine 2008 without it. Without dancefloor necessities like “One Pure Thought” and “Ready for the Floor”, this year just wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun for me or my friends. Songs like “Don’t Dance” and “Wrestlers” turned lazy nights into dance parties, elevated traffic jams to wild sing-alongs. If you could quantify the amount of happiness produced per minute, Made in the Dark would probably cover the rest of the albums on this list combined. And in the end, shouldn’t that be what matters most?
MP3: Hot Chip - "Hold On"
Honorable Mentions
My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges / Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago / NOMO – Ghost Rock / White Denim – Exposion / Friendly Fires – s/t
Unlike most (OK, every) music publication, I like to reserve my judgment for a year's best music until that year actually ends. Because you never know when you're going to, like, fall in love with an album on New Year's Eve. Not that that's happened yet, but it could. Anyway, here's my opinions of the best stuff from last year, and no, I didn't get much of a chance to listen to Lil' Wayne:
10. Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
Not only a lightning-fast follow-up to my #1 album of last year, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, but also something of a companion piece, in which the sexual deviant Kevin Barnes created halfway through his 2007 opus continues his misadventures in a breakneck collage of lecherous parties, awkward propositions and bitter feelings. The pastiche format makes Skeletal Lamping seem more like a mixtape than a proper LP, and some of it feels like a retread of Barnes’ previous album, but it’s still a fascinating collection of material, delivered by the kind of narrator you’re not likely to see elsewhere in the world of music.
MP3: Of Montreal - "An Eluardian Instance"
9. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
Several years after the success of Apologies to the Queen Mary and the interminable amount of side projects from both frontmen that followed, fans’ fears of a Wolf Parade dissolution were finally put to rest in 2008. Their follow-up album isn’t as immediate as their first, but it isn’t supposed to be; the intricacy of songs like “California Dreamer” and “They Grey Estates” shows off the talents of an older, more thoughtful band. And album-closer/rave-up/near-title-track “Kissing the Beehive” is the first WP song co-written by both Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner; its success will hopefully lead to an even more refined sound on album #3.
MP3: Wolf Parade - "California Dreamer"
8. The Dodos - Visiter
Relaxed, intricate, frenetic, pretty, ramshackle, sprawling; a lot of adjectives can be used to describe Visiter, and many of them are contradictory. It’s a testament to the scope of the Dodos’ skill and ambition: not only can “Walking”, “Jodi” and “Undeclared” all exist on the same album, you can’t imagine them apart. Oh yeah, and the band is only two guys. Most other bands seem to be slumming it in comparison.
MP3: The Dodos - "Red and Purple"
7. The Mae Shi – Hlllyh
Namechecking gods and angels, forecasting Armageddon and ruminating on the afterlife, it’s easy to see Hlllyh as the younger, weirder brother of The Thermals’ 2006 album (and my #1 album of that year) The Body, the Blood, the Machine. But that’s not to disparage The Mae Shi’s career-defining album as a knock-off; only these guys could have created such a fascinating spaz-rock collage that bends into itself at the middle, creating a microcosmic Eurotrash remix of everything before and after. The Alpha and the Omega, indeed.
MP3: The Mae Shi - "Run to Your Grave"
6. Fleet Foxes – s/t
This album found its way to the top of almost every year-end list on the internet, and although I’m not exactly the target audience – as a City Boy, I’m not as taken by the pastoral overtones as many – it’s impossible to deny Fleet Foxes’ musicianship. It’s there in spades, from the layered-but-not-overstuffed harmonies to Robin Pecknold’s ethereal vocals. Folk music (whether Freak- or otherwise) had a huge year in 2008, and Fleet Foxes were right at the crest of it.
MP3: Fleet Foxes - "Blue Ridge Mountains"
5. These New Puritans – Beat Pyramid
Nothing about Beat Pyramid is exactly easy. Just trying to figure out the tracklist on the back of the CD can be a trying affair – and even then, the name of the first track is the second half of a sentence that begins with the name of the last track. The album itself is a labyrinth of cyclical themes, angular guitars and lyrics owing more than a little to Mark E. Smith, and new factes continue to emerge after dozens of listens. It’s the kind of album that would seem a product of careful elder craftsmen, but is surprisingly just the opening salvo from a gang of brash newcomers. If their next album comes packaged with a cryptography handbook, I wouldn’t be surprised.
MP3: These New Puritans - "Elvis"
4. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours
Australia’s big success story in 2008 was, oddly enough, not the Nicole Kidman film Australia. Though Cut Copy snuck into hipster consciousness via the unpolished indie-rock vibe of “So Haunted”, the further successes of “Lights and Music” and “Hearts on Fire” showed that we all kind of missed the unpretentious fun of Euro-house after all. Who knew?
MP3: Cut Copy - "Lights and Music"
3. Los Campesinos! – Hold on Now, Youngster…
A hyperspeed sugar rush for the blog generation, the “second-most punk band in Britain” live hyperbole and breathe irony. Their music finds an impossible midpoint between twee-pop, punk and hipster art-rock which, on paper, should not work, but in practice becomes one of the most unique and confident debut albums in years.
MP3: Los Campesinos! - "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks"
2. TV On the Radio – Dear Science
Dear Science could have easily been called Zeitgeist (if the title wasn’t already used for a certain band’s infamously disappointing comeback album last year) – in a year of political and economic ups and downs, hope and fear from within and without, TVOTR seemed uncannily attuned to all of it. Was there a better soundtrack for the end-of-the-world despair and anger felt by 2008’s newly disenfranchised than “DLZ”? Or a more appropriate theme for Obama’s November sweep than “Golden Age”? But Dear Science also succeeds as the band’s most comprehensively solid LP yet, a diverse collection of songs whose greatness doesn’t end with the singles. It’s a defining statement from a band able to see the world - and, finally, themselves - with an astounding clarity.
MP3: TV On the Radio - "DLZ"
1. Hot Chip – Made in the Dark
And here, what’s left of my critic’s cred goes out the window. Made in the Dark is admittedly an uneven LP, and any album with several tracks I usually skip shouldn’t really be considered for the top spot on my list. But Hot Chip’s new album sails past many other arguably better-structured albums based on the simple fact that, more than any other music produced this year, I can’t imagine 2008 without it. Without dancefloor necessities like “One Pure Thought” and “Ready for the Floor”, this year just wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun for me or my friends. Songs like “Don’t Dance” and “Wrestlers” turned lazy nights into dance parties, elevated traffic jams to wild sing-alongs. If you could quantify the amount of happiness produced per minute, Made in the Dark would probably cover the rest of the albums on this list combined. And in the end, shouldn’t that be what matters most?
MP3: Hot Chip - "Hold On"
Honorable Mentions
My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges / Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago / NOMO – Ghost Rock / White Denim – Exposion / Friendly Fires – s/t
