Best of 2008

On December 18th, I created an entry called “A totally meaningless list” where I listed what I thought were the Top 10 albums of the year. With a little more time and thought put into the list, I’ve decided to update it and expand upon it, because a list is great and all, but what’s the point if there’s no explanation to it?

First off is a list of 11 albums that could have been on the list, but I didn’t buy them for one reason or another, presented in alphabetical order by artist instead of numerical preference – because, really, I can’t rate something I haven’t listened to yet. You may wonder why I didn’t include albums like Black Ice, Chinese Democracy, or Death Magnetic, some of the biggest and best-selling albums of the year. The reason is simple: I have no interest in those albums.

Albums that could have been on here but aren’t (because I didn’t buy them):
The Black Crowes, Warpaint
Cold War Kids, Loyalty to Loyalty
Ben Folds, Way to Normal
Al Green, Lay It Down
Stephen Malkmus, Real Emotional Trash
Marillion, Happiness Is The Road
Mogwai, The Hawk Is Howling
Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul
The Pretenders, Break Up The Concrete
Sigur Rós, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
TV on the Radio, Dear Science

Now, we get into the reviews. Keep in mind that these are capsules, not in-depth reviews. Where applicable, I have included a link to the in-depth review, and will update this post as I finish the reviews. (As of today, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today and Attack and Release are works in progress.) Note that these include new, studio album releases only; live and compilation albums and reissues were not counted.

Also: while I don’t particularly condone downloading, the “Essential listening” subnote has been replaced by “Defining song” for this list, and subsequent lists, as the One Song I Feel Sums Up The Album Best. Usually, it’s my personal favorite, the one song that should be listened to if someone unfamiliar to the album or artist wanted to get into said album or artist. Of course, I recommend at the very least that the reader goes onto iTunes and purchases the song, or previews it first, instead of running to a filesharing program or site and illegally downloading the album; then again, I’m not the Internet police, nor am I your father, so do whatever you want.

Honorable mentions:

That Lucky Old Sun, Brian Wilson
Boy, does Brian Wilson love California. This album is his first since the artistically rewarding SMiLE in 2004, and That Lucky Old Sun suffers from a case of a far too specific subject matter. There are some good to great songs on here, but there’s a whole lot of uninteresting and sometimes embarrassing filler, especially the narratives. Wilson doesn’t sing, per se, but speak-sings, and listening to 19 songs (even though it clocks in at 38 minutes) like this can become a little tiring after a while. If he had gotten someone with the ability to sing to do the album, it could have been better, but even that couldn’t save the occasionally cringe-inducing lyrics. However, the album is worth picking up if you’re a Brian Wilson or Beach Boys fan, especially for the touching conclusion of ‘Southern California’, where Wilson pays homage to his brothers; elsewhere, if you’re able to disconnect yourself from the alarming state of Wilson’s vocals, the music has an enjoyable summertime quality to it, and what says summertime better than Brian Wilson?
Defining song: Southern California

The Cosmos Rocks, Queen + Paul Rodgers
The debut album from rock’s most confounding partnership – half of Queen plus the frontman of Free and Bad Company – is actually a decent little album, but it’s not great; as a Queen fan, this is disappointing, because these guys are capable of so much more, but there’s a heavy presence of Rodgers’ style here, and little of the familiar Queen sound. Still, these guys are excellent musicians, and there’s a whole lot of enthusiasm all over the record. Songs like ‘Cosmos Rockin” and ‘Call Me’ are so dumb that they’re infectious, while ‘Surf’s Up … School’s Out’ is a humorous, tongue-in-cheek nod to Queen’s bombast. The album never really takes off, though, and some of the best tracks – namely, ‘Time To Shine’, ‘Small’, and ‘Some Things That Glitter’ – are buried among some lesser material that makes Queen’s nadir look almost appealing. It could have been much more embarrassing, but it could have been a whole lot better, too.
Defining song: Surf’s Up … School’s Out!

And now…

Top 10 Albums of 2008

10. Flight Of The Conchords, Flight Of The Conchords
A comedy album, on a year-end Top 10 list? Well, stranger things have happened, but it IS a musical album, with clever lyrics and excellent arrangements … but it just happens to be funny, too. Flight of the Conchords is, of course, formerly New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a capella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo who got a TV deal with HBO back in 2007, featuring Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement; their songs are parodies, and even the titles – which include ‘Hip-Hopopotamus vs. The Rhymenoceros’, ‘The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)’, ‘Mutha’uckas’, ‘Robots’, and my personal favorite, ‘Business Time’ – illicit laughter and curiosity. If you’ve seen the show, you’ve basically heard the entire album, yet this doesn’t serve entirely as a soundtrack. In fact, it’s a bit confusing, because the songs are good, but on the show, the joke is that this band isn’t any good (except in their own minds). So is it a soundtrack album, a serious album, a comedy album, or some kind of weird amalgam? All I know is, it’s entertaining, and that’s good enough for me.
Defining song: Business Time

9. The Black Keys, Attack and Release
The Black Keys – specifically multi-instrumentalists Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney – teamed up with producer / DJ Danger Mouse for their fifth album, and it’s served as my introduction to them. What’s interesting is that Attack and Release was originally written with the intent of working with Ike Turner, though he died before they could begin recording it, so the songs suddenly became their own. The duo reinforces their classic rock take on latter day music, mixing a thundering drum performance with a lazy vocal inflection, while adding a swampy mix of banjos and jangling guitars where appropriate. I’ve seen them described as Delta minimalists, and it’s surprising how apt and attractive such a label is. Opener ‘All You Ever Wanted’ is sweet and beautiful, while the blues stomp of ‘I Got Mine’ – rife with a crunching guitar riff and tinkling cymbals – contrasts superbly. Danger Mouse gets a lovely sound here, but if you were to tell me last year that I’d be considering an album by an Akron duo produced by a hip hop DJ to be among the best of 2008, I’d've looked at you like you had three heads. All it’s made me want to do is go back in time and kick myself for not being more adventurous with my musical explorations – so thank you, Black Keys, for showing me the error of my ways.
Defining song: Things Ain’t Like They Used To Be

8. Martha Wainwright, I Know You’re Married But I Have Feelings Too
Following up on her excellent eponymous debut album, released in 2005, Martha Wainwright’s sophomore effort is a little slicker, a little more refined, but not as gutsy. Her acerbic wit and occasionally crude sense of humor still shines through, with a well-placed squeal or moan speaking volumes and adding a sexual flavor to the songs, though there’s something about the production – which places it squarely in the pop-rock vein – that’s a little alarming at first. Still, it would be foolish to have tried to reproduce the singer-songwriter sound of its predecessor, so I Know You’re Married But I Have Feelings Too (at the very least, my favorite album title of the year) succeeds in advancing Wainwright’s sound while compromising very little of her songwriting skills. There’s a handful of guest stars, too, including her brother Rufus, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, and Who else but Pete Townshend, contributing some scorching guitar lines to ‘You Cheated Me’, easily the album’s best song (and not only because of Townshend’s presence). There’s nothing as confrontational on here as ‘Bloody Motherfucking Asshole’, but it’s the nuances that make the deepest impressions, and that’s the best kind of way to discover and appreciate an album; otherwise, it’d just be inoffensive, easy-listening pap.
Defining song: You Cheated Me

7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Nick Cave is one demented fucker, but his music is so good and his lyrics so clever that it’s easy to accept his twistedness as a muse. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is the first Bad Seeds album since 2004′s excellent Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus, and combination of that album with the Grinderman project from 2007: it’s raw, it’s sophisticated, and it’s uncompromising. Cave can twist his words in such a way that it can make your ears prickle, while sounding like he’s halfway through telling a very dark joke. The Christian apologist in him makes several references to religion, and even demands in ‘We Call Upon The Author’ that whoever wrote the Bible should have a talking to. ‘Night Of The Lotus Eaters’ is downright creepy, with an instrumental backing sounding like something Tom Waits would have written to accompany a scratchy horror picture. The star of the show, though, is not Cave, but Warren Ellis, who adds his own instrumental touches on a handful of unorthodox instruments that serves to alienate and alarm. He’ll do just fine as a Bad Seed.
Defining song: We Call Upon The Author

6. The Fireman, Electric Arguments
The Fireman is producer / bassist Youth and some guy named Paul McCartney (I know, I had to look him up too … apparently he worked with a band called The Beatles), and this is their third album together, but their first to feature vocals. With 13 songs recorded over 13 days (one song per day), the album is about as far away from a Paul McCartney solo album as it could get, with very little attempt to write a conventional song or write a conventional set of lyrics. It’s electronica rock, and with McCartney one of the most musically progressive ex-members of the Beatles – even more so than John Lennon – something like this would be expected, but who knew he could make electronica listenable and even enjoyable? The first 2/3rds of the album is excellent, with the guttural, bluesy ‘Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight’ and delightful skiffle romp of ‘Light From Your Lighthouse’ being the best tracks, though the album loses steam towards the end when it gets a little TOO experimental; the warning sign is the pan flute. While Chaos And Creation In The Backyard was McCartney’s finest latter-day album, Electric Arguments is the kind of music that McCartney would be putting out if he didn’t feel like he had to maintain an image – and that’s a damn shame.
Defining song: Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight

5. David Byrne and Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
Nearly 30 years after last working together, David Byrne and Brian Eno – two of the weirdest guys to become rock stars – have teamed up again on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, a sonically devastating album in all the right ways. Byrne claims that the songs were inspired by gospel music, and with the overpowering jubilation and optimism exhibited on this record, it’s hard to argue with him. There’s a rough hewn sound to the songs, while Eno makes full use of his experimental palette, offering up weird and wonderful sounds that Byrne gleefully plays off of. Opener ‘Home’ is a comforting way to begin the album, though it’s the electronic hymnal of the almost title track that’s most effective, with Byrne sounding like an angelic choirboy against a bed of church organs. Though Byrne is practically a toddler in terms of some of the other musicians in this list, his voice sounds as good as it did back when he was a Talking Head, especially at their peak – which was, incidentally, between 1978 and 1980, when Eno last collaborated with Byrne. Coincidence? Well, probably.
Defining song: Everything That Happens

4. Jenny Lewis, Acid Tongue
Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis released her second solo album this year, and it’s a far cry from her debut (Rabbit Fur Coat), with more of a mainstream appeal to them as opposed to the deep-rooted country & western feel of its predecessor. Her songs are fiery and passionate – sometimes a little too fiery and a little too passionate – but they’re a little more conventional than what she had released with her other band, currently on hold indefinitely. As I noted in my original review, there are some good songs, there are some great songs, and there are some not so great songs, but as a whole, it’s a rewarding listen.
Defining song: Carpetbaggers

3. She & Him, Volume 1
Actress Zooey Deschanel and indie singer/songwriter M. Ward, the respective She & Him, collaborated on what is essentially a Deschanel solo project. Unlike many actors-turned-musicians, though, Volume 1 is a surprisingly refreshing debut, with little in the way of vanity and a lot in the way of substance. Deschanel wrote nine of the 13 tracks on her own (a tenth original composition, ‘Sweet Darlin”, was a cowrite with Jason Schwartzman), and shows that she’s a talented songwriter who is less concerned with offering traditional songs, harking back to the days when AM radio ruled. The originals are delightful pastiches of the 1960s with a modern twist, while the covers are serviceable but not exceptional; Volume 2 is reportedly in the works, and it’ll be a hard act to follow, for sure.
Defining song: Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

2. Ray Davies, Working Man’s Café
Sounding more like an easy-going pop rock album compared to the darker material of its predecessor, Other People’s Lives, Ray Davies’ Working Man’s Café has a lighter touch and a deeper sense of humor to it. Opener ‘Vietnam Cowboys’ is a biting prod at globalization, while ‘Peace In Our Time’ is a more sentimental plea for pacifism. Davies’ backing band is spot-on, tight, and uncluttered, allowing Davies’ finely-aged vocal cords to bring a great amount of emotion and tenderness that other musicians of his age (62 at the time of the recording) only wish they could possess. It’s not as instantly satisfying as Other People’s Lives, but coming from the man who once sang “I’m a 20th century man / But I don’t wanna be here”, it’s good to have Ray Davies around still.
Defining song: Imaginary Man

1. Elvis Costello, Momofuku
Even though it might be hard to believe, there’s always a theme to Elvis Costello’s albums, and for his newest album, Momofuku, that theme is simple: no fuss, no muss. Joined by the Imposters and a host of musical friends that periodically bump the roster up to a neuftet, there’s a lightness and airiness to the songs, though it occasionally gets gloriously murky, especially on the psychedelic acid trip of ‘Turpentine’. The arrangements are simple, the production unfussy, and the mood joyous; overdubs are minimal, errors are kept in, and Costello sounds rejuvenated, even thrilled to be recording in such a shambolic manner. The title is a nod to Momofuku Ando, creator of the instant noodle. The reason? All you need to do is add water, and Costello felt that this suited the mood of the songs perfectly. It’s hard to disagree.
Defining song: Turpentine