Top 10 Albums of 2008

So with the Grammy’s being announced today, and (like every year) most of the picks were way too mainstream for my taste to be considered the best the music world has to offer. I’ll listen to pretty much anything, and I do think that Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III was pretty amazing, but there was a lot of really great music out there this year, that was sadly overlooked.

That being said, I thought I would get a jump on things and post my Top 10 Albums of 2008 now…with 3 weeks left in the year. Let me know what you think!

10. The Airborne Toxic Event – The Airborne Toxic Event: Hardly a balanced album (each track sounds like a different band), there is something strangely attractive about a band like The Airborne Toxic Event. Listening to the album from start to finish, you get the feeling of a band not sure of which direction they want to go, and so they try everything – and get pretty good results. The obvious radio gimme “Somewhere Around Midnight” being the exception, you get a unique feel and vibe with each track, especially on the slow building “Wishing Well” and the raw feeling “Gasoline”. Not a perfect album, and yet I couldn’t stop listening to it…that’s gotta count for something, right?

9. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist – Soundtrack: It’s rare to find a movie soundtrack that matches the movie almost scene for scene (Garden State was the last one I can remember), but the indie rock on this album really nails it. Many of the artists are not completely “underground”, but more of a representation of what the indie world has to offer – a snapshot in time, similar to how the events of the movie played out. There’s hardly a bad track here, but stand outs such as We Are Scientists “After Hours” and Chris Bell’s great opener “Speed of Sound” make the album ebb and flow better than many soundtracks. If you know a lot of the bands, its a great mix CD. If you don’t, its a great way to find some artists that will undoubtedly be making waves in the next few years.

8. Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue: I’m hardly a country music fan, but Jenny Lewis pulls off just enough twang to appeal to even the anti-redneck in me. Anyone who has followed her from Rilo Kiley over to Rabbit Fur Coat and now to Acid Tongue has undoubtedly noticed her improvement with not only song writing but musical variety as well. Where as much of her previous work seemed to be more about working out demons, Acid Tongue is more about forming narrative. The characters on the album veer into territory better handled by Tom Waits or even Bruce Springsteen, but because Lewis brings a unique female perspective to their tales, it helps bring out something more than singer-songwriter fans might be used to, especially on solid tracks like the epic “The Next Messiah” and “Fernando”. If nothing else, the album is worthy of this list for the maturation she has made in transitioning into the solo world.

7. Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust: Hardly a band that would be at home on pop radio (in the US at least), these Iclandic lads keep getting better and better. While they have always been somewhat of a niche group, on Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust they really have started to expand their sound, and it is epic. Sure, the words are in a made up language, but you can still feel the emotion of each and every syllable, and the arrangements and wide use of different instruments has brought them towards an alt-orchestral feel, if thats even possible. “Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur” and “Festival” stand out in a crowd, with the haunting beauty Sigur Ros is known for, with a little bit more of a pop feel thrown in. By far their most mainstream album to date, and a good entry for newer listeners.

6. She & Him – Volume 1: I was very skeptical about the idea of a fairly unknown indie songwriter (M. Ward) and a B-level actress (Zooey Deschenal) pulling off an album together, but I was pleasantly surprised by Volume 1. You can’t help but listen to songs like “Sentimental Heart” and not find yourself singing it for days later, and the album is full of little earworms like this: “I Was Made For You”, “Sweet Darlin’” and “Change Is Hard” all get to you in that broken-heart way that only a good song can. Deschenal’s voice isn’t the strongest, but she makes it work more times than not. Truly one of the biggest surprises I had all year.

5. The Cool Kids – The Bake Sale EP: Now this is true hip-hop. Mikey Rocks and crew skip over all of that over synthesized, studio perfected nonsense that is all over the airwaves today and just rhyme, having a great time doing it. Using very simple, but catchy beats, they cover everything from being a dork to getting people to show up at your party to the normal I’m-the-best swagger you see on hip-hop albums in a way that sounds fresh, even nearly 30 years after hip-hop hit the mainstream. The Bake Sale EP is one step towards what I feel will be a “golden age” resurgence of hip-hop in 2009 and the years to come, where things become more about the MC than how many guests we can cram on a track. Check out “Bassment Party” and “88″ to see what I mean. For many hardcore hip-hop fans, I imagine this was their album of the year.

4. Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark: Alt-country is hardly a genre many people think about, but I’m sure that as word spreads about the tremendous strength of albums like Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, you’ll hear it more and more. Spanning nearly 80 minutes (rare these days of the 40 minute album), each of the 19 tracks offers something unique. From devastated fathers (”Two Daughters And A Beautiful Wife”) to sleazy old men (”Lisa’s Birthday”) to mechanical bulls (”The Opening Act”), the Truckers wave tales of Southern life in a way that is entertaining and yet incredibly personal – as a Southerner, I know people like the ones in these songs. Perhaps the best track on the album is the deceptively simple “The Purgatory Line”, sung by the rarely heard Shonna Tucker, if only for the way the melancholy chords match with her soft-spoken drawl and the way she longs for answers “but their ain’t no one around”. Great stuff.

3. Girl Talk – Feed The Animals: While not the actual BEST album of the year, this was probably my favorite. Part mash-up, part remix, all totally unique, Feed The Animals is like listening to Where’s Waldo?, except you are trying to name the sample. And unlike other mash-up albums out there, this isn’t one about being ironic or funny: the vocals actually go really really well with the instrumentals – who would have thought that putting Paula Cole over Moby and then mixing to Wu-Tang, followed by Outkast to the Jackson 5 (over the opening kick of Rhianna’s “Umbrella”), all in the span of a minute and a half – would end up being so great? Everyone I’ve played this album for has had the same reaction as me: they can’t get enough of it and continue to listen over and over again to pick up on more samples.  That’s the sign of a great album.

2. Portishead – Third: A triumphant return for a group that left a pretty big hole in music when they parted before, Third picks up right where Portishead should be: in the forefront of music ingenuity. True, trip-hop didn’t exactly take over the world, but its hard to wonder why when listening to Third. A slightly more mature sound than Dummy or their self-titled album, Portishead has created another masterpiece with this album. What has always been striking to me about Portishead is they are one of the few groups that can get more across by what is left out than what is put in. Songs like “Hunter” and “We Carry On” couldn’t be more different, with the steady building beat of “We Carry On” and the loud melting effect spaced throughout “Hunter”, and yet they both seem perfectly at home on the album. It helps that Beth Gibbons has learned her range and abilities and, while not breaking any new ground (other than the strangely catchy “Deep Water”, which seems more like goofing around than anything else) vocally is still able to haunt us like before. Third should be listened to in different settings and at different times of the day in order to gauge the sheer span of the album and the layers just waiting to be peeled off.

1. TV On The Radio – Dear Science: It’s hard to come up with labels for Dear Science. Is it experimental-rock? Is it alternative? Is it funk or techno? It’s all of this, and more. Despite the ever expanding reach of music into new countries, and new influences being brought about, there is simply no other band out there doing what TV On The Radio does. Their previous work, Return To Cookie Mountain, was a masterpiece (if a little unbalanced) but surely a sign of a band that is going to be big. And with Dear Science, it’s as if they took the best parts of Return To Cookie Mountain and made them better tenfold. While the vocals of Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone are hardly fit for mainstream music, they somehow work throughtout Dear Science in a way that you wouldn’t expect. From the talk-singing on “Dancing Choose” to the falsetto choruses on “Halfway Home” and “Shout Me Out” to the soulful moan (over one of the catchiest chords all year) on “Stork And Owl”, the creativity just oozes out of the speakers, and in spite of itself Dear Science FEELS like a pop record at its core. And like the layered sounds of Third as I mentioned before, Dear Science goes even deeper and darker than you could imagine. An accessible album on every level, if the instrumental and beats don’t draw you in, the vocals will. And once you are in, you’ll be going deep down the rabbit hole, picking up nuances you didn’t even notice along the way. Music to get lost in is the only way I can really describe Dear Science – it simply begs to be listened to, and I imagine will be listened to for many, many years to come.

Honorable mention: The Hold Steady – Stay Positive, Glasvegas – Glasvegas, Black Kids – Partie Traumatic, Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires, Honeyhoney – First Rodeo