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Top 5 albums 2008

AndyNorthernSaints

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Ponty

Ponty

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The Wildhearts - The Works (so what if it's a 'collection', 45 excellent songs for the price of an album is a steal)

The Wildhearts - Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before. Vol 1

Buckcherry - Black Butterfly

Guns 'N Roses - Chinese Democracy

The Offspring - Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace

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jeff leopard

jeff leopard

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Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now Youngster

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

The Dodos - Visiter

Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

 

Brilliant album, kinda like the fleet foxes but with bigger balls, more spunk and a tendency to go all distorted and shouty.

 

Mega Breakfast by The Chap is my fave of the year fo' sho'.

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Rory

Rory

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I think I'm ready to compile my top 5 as I don't think their will be any stellar albums in the next month or so.

 

1. British Sea Power -- Do You Like Rock Music?

2. Vampire Weekend -- Vampire Weekend

3. Wolf Parade -- At Mount Zoomer

4. The Walkmen -- Me & You

5. The Dodos -- Visiter

 

-------------------------------------------

 

6. Clinic -- Do It!

7. Fleet Foxes -- Fleet Foxes

8. Q-Tip -- The Renaissance

9. Bon Iver -- For Emma, Forever Ago

10. Glasvegas -- Glasvegas

 

Notable mentions (in no order):

 

dEUS -- Vantage Point

Hercules and Love Affair -- Hercules and Love Affair

TV on the Radio -- Dear Science

Lupe Fiasco -- The Cool

No Age -- Nouns

Esau Mwamyway and Radio**** are the Very Best

Kanye West -- 808s and Heartbreaks

Wire -- Object 47

Okkervil River -- The Stand Ins

Oxford Collapse -- Bits

Eagles of Death Metal -- Heart On

The Gutter Twins -- Saturnalia

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Rory

Rory

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I think I've compiled quite a comprehensive yet definitive list of albums that have really blown me away this year. 2008 has been an outstanding year for music, on par with 2005 (which has to be one of my favourite years for music on record).

 

British Sea Power's Do You Like Rock Music, released on January 14, hasn't left my CD player, MP3 player playlist or my head since I first heard it. Not only that, I have managed to see them twice this year; the first at Glastonbury, the second here in Southampton. Their Southampton gig has to be one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Anyway, the album is just class from start to finish. The album's real opener, Lights Out for Darker Skies, is a genuine tour-de-force of sheer power that sets the pace for the rest of the album perfectly. The stand-out track is definitely Waving Flags - a piece of majestic, atmospheric rock. It's like hand-gliding over the mountains of Spain. Incredible.

 

Arguably the act of 2008, Vampire Weekend have gone from strength to strength since the release of their debut album in January. Mansard Roof, a keen favourite for 120 Minutes viewers since mid-2007, is a pure piece of Beach Boys throw-back pop while A-Punk, Oxford Comma and The Kids Don't Stand A Chance will be the songs we all look back on to remember 2008. Sheer class.

 

After producing my favourite album of 2005 (Apologies to the Queen Mary), it was always going to be hard for Canadian indie kings Wolf Parade to surpass my expectations. Sophomore efforts are usually dire affairs (Unless you're Radiohead or the Beastie Boys) but Wolf Parade tried hard to better their debut and, you know what?, they nearly succeeded. California Dreamer is the album's stand out track for sure while songs like Language City, Fine Young Cannibals and Bang Your Drum clearly show how talented frontman Spencer Krug is and I eagerly anticipate what they can produce in the future.

 

The Walkmen are one of my favourite bands. Bows + Arrows is one of the finest albums produced in the 21st century, in my opinion, and they are back on form with You & Me. Frontman Hamilton Leithauser has the best voice in music at the moment. You can feel his passion, and the rest of the band's for that matter, throughout the record. It is a record that will grab you by the lapels and not let go. I urge you to listen to it. On the Water, In the New Year and Canadian Girl are my picks for stand out tracks.

 

Visiter by The Dodos completes my top 5 albums for 2008 list and could have slotted in at number three if Wolf Parade and The Walkmen hadn't produced stunning albums. Not to everyone's taste, the energetic two-piece have created a unique sound that puts them apart from many other acts around at the moment. Their charm is frantic, penetrating drum beats (see Fools) and distorted guitar action mixed in with raw, grating vocals. This band is as raw as you'll get right now and they can only go on to greater things.

 

Song of the year: Waving Flags (British Sea Power)

Runner-up: It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry (Glasvegas)

 

Disappointment of the year: This Is Not The World (The Futureheads)

Runner-up: Vantage Point (dEUS)

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Kadeem Hardison

Kadeem Hardison

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From Vice magazine:

 

Number 35: Bonkers novelty rap collective. Shows staff have sense of humour.

Number 34: Reserved for Britpop 'survivors' who’ve made 'their best album in years'.

Number 33: Wacky side-project of big-name band singer, which is a wacky electro-pop concept album about magic animals.

Number 32: Something from Iceland.

Number 31: The name that keeps turning up on every electro/house compilation CD released that year. eg. Simian Mobile Disco in 07.

Number 30: Real authentic alt.country dude who made the album in a cave in the Appalachians/once dated Joanna Newsom.

Number 29: Return of once-derided old-timer who used to symboise naffness, but has subverted expectations by making an album of honest, brooding ballads with a hip young producer.

Number 28: This space is reserved for Bruce Springsteen if he makes an album in the year of the list. If not, The Gaslight Anthem or Hold Steady should sub-in.

Number 27: Nick Cave.

Number 26: Disappointing third album from previously much-touted act, so bad editorial embarrassment means its been crowbarred in here as a Pravda-style exercise in shrinking them slowly rather than dropping them like a hot brick as would be most appropriate.

Number 25: The band that everyone was tipping as the year's biggest act in January.

Number 24: You've never even heard of this one. You never will. Even as your read the blurb, you find your mind simultaneously erasing the entry.

Number 23: Glitchy & worthy & difficult record you've listened to once. Squarepusher, basically.

Number 21: British Sea Power.

Number 20: Token world muso.

Number 19: The band who've got a reputation for being 'influential', and have a geographically specific 'scene' organised around them that they put on semi-mythical 'parties' for at a semi-mythical 'venue'. eg: No Age & The Smell, Chairlift & Concert Hall Of Williamsburg.

Number 18: Band who wrote album of songs inspired by the tragic accidental/drug death of their bass player last year. Somewhere, the blurb says 'courageous'.

Number 17: Laura Marling.

Number 16: Cheesy pop band masquerading as 'wonky-pop'/'nu-pop'/'underground pop', which only barely disguises the fact that they're Roxette with alt. dress sense.

Number 16: Put in a 'stunning' performance on Jools Holland.

Number 15: DJ who made “the year's party-starting mash-up compilation” that you've never actually heard at a party that wasn't put on by media-insiders. And never made any of those partygoers do more than pout extra aggressively.

Number 14: Elbow.

Number 13: Hyper-obscure album everyone was bamboozled into voting for cos Pitchfork gave it a 9.9, despite sounding like every other folk album ever.

Number 12: Rapper facing child sex charges.

Number 11: Dizzee/Bizzle (pop grime slot shared on a rotational basis)

Number 10: Album described as a 'groundbreaking fusion of dance and rock'.

Number 9: Tape of Bob Dylan coughing up some phlegm in June 1972, found in someone's attic, dusted off, reissued, and hagiographised in the Sunday papers as a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

Numbers 8 – 2: Records that were OK: no one was mad about them, but no one disliked them much either, so they swum through the middle course, whereas intense records that some people were truly passionate about but others really hated all ultimately failed to make the cut.

Number 1: Coldplay (Q), Arctic Monkeys (NME), Sven Vath (Mixmag), Neil Young (U****), Neil Young (Mojo), Neil Young (Classic Rock), Neil Young (Home & Garden), people humming transcendentally over distorted tape loops of concrete being laid (The Wire).

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Rory

Rory

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Top 5 songs of 2008:

 

1. British Sea Power -- Waving Flags

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=w2n-7K0Ef6Y

 

2. Glasvegas -- It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DkOoTnTKv1M&feature=related

 

3. Tim Vanhamel -- Like a Fire (the woman in this video is seriously fit)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVowW5FAAE

 

4. Wolf Parade -- California Dreamer

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=us6e9JqmuRw

 

5. No Age -- Teen Creeps

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5ReEL_jyj64&feature=related

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Sundance Beast

Sundance Beast

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I think I've compiled quite a comprehensive yet definitive list of albums that have really blown me away this year. 2008 has been an outstanding year for music, on par with 2005 (which has to be one of my favourite years for music on record).

 

British Sea Power's Do You Like Rock Music, released on January 14, hasn't left my CD player, MP3 player playlist or my head since I first heard it. Not only that, I have managed to see them twice this year; the first at Glastonbury, the second here in Southampton. Their Southampton gig has to be one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Anyway, the album is just class from start to finish. The album's real opener, Lights Out for Darker Skies, is a genuine tour-de-force of sheer power that sets the pace for the rest of the album perfectly. The stand-out track is definitely Waving Flags - a piece of majestic, atmospheric rock. It's like hand-gliding over the mountains of Spain. Incredible.

 

Arguably the act of 2008, Vampire Weekend have gone from strength to strength since the release of their debut album in January. Mansard Roof, a keen favourite for 120 Minutes viewers since mid-2007, is a pure piece of Beach Boys throw-back pop while A-Punk, Oxford Comma and The Kids Don't Stand A Chance will be the songs we all look back on to remember 2008. Sheer class.

 

After producing my favourite album of 2005 (Apologies to the Queen Mary), it was always going to be hard for Canadian indie kings Wolf Parade to surpass my expectations. Sophomore efforts are usually dire affairs (Unless you're Radiohead or the Beastie Boys) but Wolf Parade tried hard to better their debut and, you know what?, they nearly succeeded. California Dreamer is the album's stand out track for sure while songs like Language City, Fine Young Cannibals and Bang Your Drum clearly show how talented frontman Spencer Krug is and I eagerly anticipate what they can produce in the future.

 

The Walkmen are one of my favourite bands. Bows + Arrows is one of the finest albums produced in the 21st century, in my opinion, and they are back on form with You & Me. Frontman Hamilton Leithauser has the best voice in music at the moment. You can feel his passion, and the rest of the band's for that matter, throughout the record. It is a record that will grab you by the lapels and not let go. I urge you to listen to it. On the Water, In the New Year and Canadian Girl are my picks for stand out tracks.

 

Visiter by The Dodos completes my top 5 albums for 2008 list and could have slotted in at number three if Wolf Parade and The Walkmen hadn't produced stunning albums. Not to everyone's taste, the energetic two-piece have created a unique sound that puts them apart from many other acts around at the moment. Their charm is frantic, penetrating drum beats (see Fools) and distorted guitar action mixed in with raw, grating vocals. This band is as raw as you'll get right now and they can only go on to greater things.

 

Song of the year: Waving Flags (British Sea Power)

Runner-up: It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry (Glasvegas)

 

Disappointment of the year: This Is Not The World (The Futureheads)

Runner-up: Vantage Point (dEUS)

 

'It's like hand-gliding over the mountains of Spain. Incredible.'

 

Pseuds corner to end all pseuds. I suggest you may practice a lot of hand gliding and if the mountains of Spain rock your world then so be it. Incredible it most certainly is.

 

Most of the recommendations are a load of AOR/MOR tosh, even the Kings of Leon have sold their soul to the airwaves of America.

 

Record of the year Girls Aloud, no pretence and does exactly what it says on the tin. Failing that Mike Skinner's new album is back on form after suffering second albumitis and Sean Kingston's album doesn't have bad a track on it without the need to resorting to he usual idiotic sexual boasting and violence although that album may have been released last year but who seriously cares eh?

 

Failing that Richard Hawley and Ray Lamontagne are the current unsung heros of serious song writing regardless when they last released an album. Time to widen your horizons without sounding like your a pseudo dj on Heart FM.

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Rory

Rory

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'It's like hand-gliding over the mountains of Spain. Incredible.'

 

Pseuds corner to end all pseuds. I suggest you may practice a lot of hand gliding and if the mountains of Spain rock your world then so be it. Incredible it most certainly is.

 

Most of the recommendations are a load of AOR/MOR tosh, even the Kings of Leon have sold their soul to the airwaves of America.

 

Record of the year Girls Aloud, no pretence and does exactly what it says on the tin. Failing that Mike Skinner's new album is back on form after suffering second albumitis and Sean Kingston's album doesn't have bad a track on it without the need to resorting to he usual idiotic sexual boasting and violence although that album may have been released last year but who seriously cares eh?

 

Failing that Richard Hawley and Ray Lamontagne are the current unsung heros of serious song writing regardless when they last released an album. Time to widen your horizons without sounding like your a pseudo dj on Heart FM.

 

 

Everything is Borrowed is actually The Streets' fourth release, not third, and I am assuming you're not to keen on The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living (his third). If that's the case, you're spot on. The album is shocking compared to his first two.

 

I hope you're not referring to my recommendations as 'MOR tosh' because they are far from that. I doubt you've even heard most of them if you're praising Girls Aloud's latest unit shifter.

 

Yep, Sean Kingston's album was released in 2007, so therefore doesn't count. I care.

 

Kings of Leon have always been sh*te.

 

Richard Hawley and Ray Lamontange ARE MOR tosh and if you seriously think they're the 'unsung heroes of serious songwriting' then you need to widen your horizons a little.

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jeff leopard

jeff leopard

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Posted
Friendly Fires

TV on the Radio

Santogold

 

unsure on rest, its not been a great year.

 

It hasn't been a great year. I cant think of anything released this year that’s really gripped me and blown my mind. Some albums have been very good (the chap), some interesting (the dodos/tv on the radio), some sounded great for a week and then withered away (hot chip), some were quite nice in a 'my mum would like this' kind of way (fleet foxes/vampire weekend).

 

But nothing has come close to touching me up (upstairs and downstairs/front and back) in 2008 then these old records -

 

Clark - Body Riddle (2006)

Keith Fullerton Whitman - Multiples (2005)

Holy **** - LP (2007)

Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin'... (1963)

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Ludwig

Ludwig

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I'm amazed you have put Vampire weekends record in your list Rory. Oxford comma is a brilliant tune but the only standout song on the album IMO. It's bland at best and a huge disappointment. King of Leon's on the other hand, hasn't a bad track on it.

 

shut up

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Sundance Beast

Sundance Beast

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Everything is Borrowed is actually The Streets' fourth release, not third, and I am assuming you're not to keen on The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living (his third). If that's the case, you're spot on. The album is shocking compared to his first two.

 

I hope you're not referring to my recommendations as 'MOR tosh' because they are far from that. I doubt you've even heard most of them if you're praising Girls Aloud's latest unit shifter.

 

Yep, Sean Kingston's album was released in 2007, so therefore doesn't count. I care.

 

Kings of Leon have always been sh*te.

 

Richard Hawley and Ray Lamontange ARE MOR tosh and if you seriously think they're the 'unsung heroes of serious songwriting' then you need to widen your horizons a little.

 

Rory I stand corrected. I guess the reasons for my eclectic tastes are that I'm a simple soul as I hear a song and I like it so I go out and buy it and don't care too much what the pseudos and their piercings in HMV think of me.

 

It appears you buy music on the basis of how 'unusual' it is and ergo how cool you perceive it makes you. Did the Streets third album fail becasue the engineer was wearing yellow socks when he usually works better wearing red? I'm sure you can lighten us on some obscure reasoning.

 

I bet people seek you out at a party don't they? Oh, btw, I have heard of your pretentious little bands as they usually get given a review in that cutting edge of the music industry the Sunday Times culture magazine, usually just after a much bigger review of the latest Mario Bros game. It can be a cruel dark world Rory but have a listen to the greatest concept album of all time it will help you understand all about pretentious fakes. It may be a bit embarrassing for you but widen your horizons and download ity in secret when no one is looking you might enjoy the tunes if not the lyrics - Supertramp - Breakfast in America.

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Deppo

Deppo

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Rory I stand corrected. I guess the reasons for my eclectic tastes are that I'm a simple soul as I hear a song and I like it so I go out and buy it and don't care too much what the pseudos and their piercings in HMV think of me.

 

It appears you buy music on the basis of how 'unusual' it is and ergo how cool you perceive it makes you. Did the Streets third album fail becasue the engineer was wearing yellow socks when he usually works better wearing red? I'm sure you can lighten us on some obscure reasoning.

 

I bet people seek you out at a party don't they? Oh, btw, I have heard of your pretentious little bands as they usually get given a review in that cutting edge of the music industry the Sunday Times culture magazine, usually just after a much bigger review of the latest Mario Bros game. It can be a cruel dark world Rory but have a listen to the greatest concept album of all time it will help you understand all about pretentious fakes. It may be a bit embarrassing for you but widen your horizons and download ity in secret when no one is looking you might enjoy the tunes if not the lyrics - Supertramp - Breakfast in America.

 

I think you'd better go back to trying to wind people up on the main bored, Beanfeast.

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