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Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Best Songs of 2008

I'll be writing commentary on these at a later date. I just wanted to get these posted. 

Picking songs is a whole different beast all together. Albums are easy b/c it's so easy to eliminate albums with great songs that have missteps here and there. I gave myself an hour to sort my iTunes by release date and pick out the songs that I enjoyed the most this year. So, needless to say this would probably change day to day...even hour to hour. But, you can drive yourself crazy trying to do this, so I thought it was best to try to be quick and painless.

One important thing to note is that I did not include more than one song from any artist in order to maximize the artist coverage. It's always fun to find new music, and if 3 of my top 10 were by Bon Iver (which would have been the case), it would make this a bit less interesting you the reader (i.e. Hayes---literally....the reader, as in the singular reader of this blog). So, in keeping with the Bon Iver example, while Re:Stacks was in my top 10, it fell under 'Lump Sum' (barely)---so it had to go. 

Again, I'll be writing commentary and maybe my first ever 2008 superlatives soon--but I wanted to get this out before I become influenced by the blogosphere...

  1. The Re-Arranger Mates of State
  2. Lump Sum Bon Iver
  3. Strange Times The Black Keys
  4. An Eluardian Instance of Montreal
  5. San Francisco B.C. Silver Jews
  6. Lost Verses Sun Kil Moon
  7. Steel on Steel J. Tillman
  8. Crossed Out Name Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
  9. Some Are Lakes Land of Talk
  10. Time To Pretend MGMT
  11. Crying TV on the Radio
  12. Inní mér syngur vitleysingur Sigur Ros
  13. Curs In The Weeds Horse Feathers
  14. The Wind The Tallest Man On Earth
  15. The Old Days Dr. Dog
  16. Touch Me And I'm Going To Scream Part II My Morning Jacket
  17. Are You Lightning? Nada Surf
  18. Graveyard Girl M83
  19. The Rat Patrol And DJs Centro-Matic
  20. Sleepyhead Passion Pit
  21. On A Saturday Jacob Golden
  22. Lights Out Santogold
  23. Love Me Tenderly The Felice Brothers
  24. Four Provinces The Walkmen
  25. Why Do You Let Me Stay Here She & Him
  26. It Could've Been Worse Matthew Ryan vs. The Silver State
  27. The '59 Sound The Gaslight Anthem
  28. Kenya Dig It? Sea Lion
  29. You Haven't Told Me Anything Keane
  30. Waiting… City and Colour
  31. Waiting For A War The Morning Benders
  32. Emma Jane South San Gabriel
  33. Whirring Arms
  34. The Edge of a Cliff The Streets
  35. Glide Jerry Douglas
  36. No One Said It Would Be Easy Cloud Cult
  37. Changing Your Mind Bob Schneider
  38. Ships Tyler Ramsey
  39. Use Somebody Kings of Leon
  40. Dying Is Fine Ra Ra Riot
  41. New Partner Mark Kozelek
  42. Heaven With You Tonight Quinn Walker
  43. Rabid Bits of Time Chad Van Gaalen
  44. Head Rolls Off Frightened Rabbit
  45. Language City Wolf Parade
  46. Saro Sam Amidon
  47. Life Being What It Is Kaki King
  48. Get It Over With Andrew Lipke
  49. Hit The Heartbreaks The Black Kids
  50. She Smiles While She Sleeps Arliss Parker

*If you could include portions of songs, I'd have the last minute of '42' and last 3 minutes of 'Yes' by Coldplay in here---Brian Eno's work on that album should not be overlooked. He made a bunch of crappy songs palatable, and at times pretty great, no easy task.


Formatting

I can't get this to format, forgive my weak bloggmanship. 

I'll be setting up a Google Sites to host this and add commentart etc. I'll post that later on...

Best Albums of 2008

Here are my picks for best album. Obviously I don't claim to have heard a fraction of the stuff that came out in '08. These are just the albums that I personally listened to a lot and felt were the most complete based on listenability (i.e. I can put it on and let it rip without having to skip around). Look at it this way---if I were to buy 10 albums on vinyl this year (presuming that they did not come w/ digital copies as well), they would be:

  1. Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago
  2. Mates of State Re-Arrange Us
  3. of Montreal Skeletal Lamping
  4. Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes
  5. MGMT Oractular Spectacular
  6. Silver Jews Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
  7. Dr. Dog Fate
  8. My Morning Jacket Evil Urges
  9. Sun Kil Moon April
  10. Sigur Ros Med sud i eyrum
Honorable Mention

Throw Me the Statue Moonbeams
City and Coulour Bring Me Your Love
Horse Feathers House With No Home
Ryan Adams & Cardinals Cardinology
Coldplay Viva La Vida...
The Tallest Man on Earth Shallow Grave
TV on the Radio Dear Science

I'll be writing commentary on these at a later date. I just wanted to get these posted before I start being influenced by other year end 'best of' lists. Songs coming soon...