Top 20 Favorite Albums of 2008 (w/ videos!)
Every year I like to make a list of my top albums. These are albums that I enjoyed the most this year, not a list of the best albums of the year. Obviously, I am not a music critic, and I have not heard every album that was released in 2008. It’s gotten to the point that I think about this list all year round. Whenever I fall in love with a record, I wonder if and where it will place on my list. So here’s a bunch of my favorites. It’s not an exact science, and a lot of these rankings are interchangeable (especially in the 11-20 spots). I embedded a video and a link for each one in case you would like to discover more on the bands I’ve listed. Be careful though, it might slow down your computer with all the videos in there. I know it does mine quite a bit. This was a very long and laborious post to write, which I actually started about three weeks ago, so don’t give me no gruff! And so, with no further ado, here’s my list.
Sigur Ros
20
“Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust”
OK, I admit it. I didn’t listen to this one nearly as much as I should have, but I really did like it. Of course, I can’t understand Icelandic, but like the rest of their albums, it’s pretty dang awesome. This was just more of the same… awesomeness. I promise to let this one “absorb” into my brain in 2009. But seriously, that video above for “Inn Í Mér Syngur Vitleysingur”? Phenomenal. I’d love to see them live.
Future Islands
19
Wave Like Home
The above video isn’t actually on this record, but it is representative of their sound. My friend Patrick introduced me to this band out of Baltimore. I would describe them as if Joy Division had a baby with Dan Deacon and then got the secret love child of Meat Loaf and Glen Danzig to sing. The dramatic energy of the singer is one of the things I like the best about this band. They’re really quite unknown still, but their songs are great. “Old Friend” is a jaunty sea-faring tale that I love singing along to. “Heart Grows Old” is great mid-tempo rock song with spacy synths and heartbreaking lyrics. The album closes with the surprisingly pretty ballad, “Little Dreamer” which is probably my favorite song on the record. I expect them to blow up in the future.
Girl Talk
18
Feed The Animals
DJ Gregg Gillis continues to blow my mind with his illegal audio collages. Just watch the video above. It’s okay, I’ll wait… go ahead. Okay, done? That’s basically what he’s all about. This one seems to have been a bit quicker paced than his last couple records, but it was still great fun. I particularly loved to hear Nirvana’s “Lithium” mashed up with Deee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart”. Genius! Again, my only complaint is that a lot of the rap and hip-hop he samples has such foul lyrics, I die inside a little when I listen to it. So I find myself skipping or fast forwarding certain tracks. This is another record I listened to a ton at the gym whether on the treadmill or while doing planks (it makes the time fly by!).
Ratatat
17
LP3
Ratatat continues to explore different styles of instrumental madness. This time, they’re a lot more progressive while keeping their signature backwards guitar sounds. I find this album more interesting to listen to than last year’s “Classics”, but not as good as a whole. I don’t know why. I still love it. Josh Homme once criticized them for being “half a band” – great music, but missing vocals. I think I agree to some level, but the music is still great all the same. Plus their videos are freaky and good, distorting pop culture (Paul Simon, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, ABBA).
Of Montreal
16
Skeletal Lamping
In 2007 I fell in love with Of Montreal’s “Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?” and was really looking forward to their follow-up. Well, “Skeletal Lamping” is a bit… different. Similar, but different. Furthering the adventures of Georgie Fruit (as started in Fauna), it chronicles all sorts of salacious thoughts. It gets so… questionable, I often feel guilty listening to it. Aside from shady subject matter, it’s a really long, difficult listen. It has a lot of amazing parts, but they fly by so quickly, it’s like channel surfing while someone else is holding the remote. It’s that erraticness that scared me away from them in the first place. Nevertheless, there is a lot of good to be said about it – the craftsmanship, the tasty pop bits and so on. And there’s a lot to be said about accessibility and not losing your audience. Tricky balance.
I’m From Barcelona
15
Who Killed Harry Houdini?
The sophomore album from Sweden’s 30+ member-band of happy hipsters. I was a HUGE fan of their first record, and in a lot of ways, I think this is a better record. So why so low on the list? I don’t know. I guess it just didn’t impact me as much as the other albums on the list. This one sees our heroes get a little more serious and show their “sad” side on some tracks. Musically, it’s a lot more complex than the simple pop of yesterday, and I think it was a nice growth for them. Again, another one of my band-crushes that made it onto YGG this year.
Gnarls Barkley
14
The Odd Couple
I feel like I need to defend this record. It took a lot of flack for not being as much of a sensation as their first record. While I thought their first record was great, I find this one more consistently fun and infinitely more listenable. Sure there’s no obvious smash hit single like “Crazy”, but is a much better ALBUM than St. Elsewhere. Lots of different styles and a lot of fun going on. “Blind Mary” is my favorite, but I also gotta give it up to “Run” and “Going On”. I think people will rediscover this record later and appreciate it for how great it is. At least I hope they do.
Death Cab For Cutie
13
Narrow Stairs
Like Mates of State’s “Re-Arrange Us” or Kanye’s “Graduation” this was a conversion record for me. I felt very strongly in my dislike for Death Cab until I heard this record. Something suddenly clicked and I got it. You seriously gotta hand it to a band that’ll release an 8.5 minute long song as their first single (especially when the lyrics don’t come in until the 4:34 mark). Better yet – it’s a great song! This record’s full of great songs. I heard somewhere that they recorded this record live in the studio, which gives it a free-flowing mood. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. Oh, and singer Ben Gibbard just announced his engagement to Zooey Deschanel, so basically, he’s the man we can all respect / envy.
Vampire Weekend
12
Vampire Weekend
This is another album we’ve started to listen to a lot more lately. Marylynn recently discovered it and therefore, the kids are really digging it too. 
The thing I like about Vampire Weekend is how mellow and sparse their music is while staying so engaging and catchy. Refreshing poppy afro beats coming from spoiled Ivy Leaguers. It shouldn’t work but it totally does. It’s like Fresca for the ears. They’ve recently gotten a lot of backlash from a lot of “cool” people because they had such crazy hype early this year. But I don’t care. It’s a great record. One can say they’re ripping off Paul Simon or even The Police, but you know, those guys stole their sounds from other people too. Can’t wait for their next one.
Esoteric Vs. Gary Newman
11
Pterodactyl Tubeway
Esoteric Is a rapper out of Boston who put this album together where every song samples a Gary Newman tune. Sounds like it could get tiresome, but it’s one of the most fun albums to listen to. He uses lots of samples from old TV shows and movies (Land of the Lost, Superman II, Spiderman cartoons, etc) and he raps about really funny subjects. Put that on top of Gary Newman’s awesome music, and we have a winner!! My favorite tracks are “North Shore Mall” (GENIUS lyrics) and “General Zod” . Seriously, I was listening to this record again the other night night for the bazillionth time, and I was still laughing out loud in my car.
More on Esoteric
She & Him
10
Volume One
Probably Marylynn’s favorite record of the year, and definitely one of the kids (Cricket knows all the lyrics to “Sweet Darlin’”), She & Him is a collaboration of actress / singer Zooey Deschanel and singer / songwriter M. Ward. If you saw Elf and were impressed by that girl’s amazing voice in the shower scene, you should check this out. Even though there are a few covers in here, there’s a familiarity throughout this whole record, probably due to Zooey’s classic voice. There’s a lot of old-style country western songs and even some mellow jazzy numbers. Oh yeah, and I caught them at V-Fest, and I might add Zooey was adorable. While the rude, drunken crowd waited impatiently for Lil Wayne to come on next, she gracefully thanked the crowd and took her time through even the most mellow songs of the set. Total class.
Chad VanGaalen
9
Soft Airplane
Musician / Artist / Animator Chad VanGaalen produced this super great record this year. I first heard of him in 2006 when he supplied two animated shorts for the Yo Gabba Gabba pilots. I really dug his trippy style, but never really appreciated his music. I was surprised at how much I took to this record. Very many diverse styles going on from folky acoustic music that could have been written by Neil Young (”Willow Tree”) to the entire other side of the spectrum with Dan Deacon-ish electronic rock (”TMNT Mask”). Plus huge points to any record that I can sing sweetly along with using lyrics like “I’ll find you and I’ll kill you”…
Crystal Castles
8
Crystal Castles
I first heard Crystal Castles doing a remix of a Klaxons song and was pleased by their use of 8-bit video game sounds. Having grown up on Nintendo, and I can truly appreciate 8-bit music and noises. Unlike most bands that have heretofore used 8-Bit elements, Crystal Castles also take it very seriously. Their music is primarily indie electro (similar Justice perhaps), but they hit a lot harder and more abstract. A few of the songs on this record sound like a mess, but for the most part, it’s really listenable hard-hitting stuff. I listened to this record a LOT at the gym. “Untrust Us” will always remind me of running on the treadmill. Fantastic record.
Hot Chip
7
Made In The Dark
I really got into Hot Chip early on in ‘08 and was delighted to see they were coming out with a new record. Their first single “Ready for the Floor” was released a couple months before the whole album, and it became a hit around our house. Cricket loved to jump on our bed shouting “do it do it do it do it do it now, say it say it say it say it say it now”, and Buster was stoked to see the Joker in the video. When I got to the rest of the record, I admit it took a while to sink it. It’s a little more complicated than I had expected, but once I got into it, it really played off. Like the sounds of the studio part of “Shake a Fist” or the afro beat on “One Pure Thought”. And “Wrestlers” still cracks me up. Don’t let their heavy electronics scare you off. They’re a lot more complex than that, and far more listenable than most “electronica”. I can’t wait for their new one in ‘09.
Portishead
6
Third
Like all the other Portishead fans out there, I had been waiting ten years for this to come out, and for a long time, I didn’t think it ever would. I can safely say it was worth the wait. While quite a departure from their first two albums (no scratching! no spy vibe!), it still sounds very much like Portishead. They’re even darker and more nerve-racking than before and still full of surprises. No one expected the simple ukulele folk song “Deep Water” in the middle of an album otherwise full of crushing drum machine beats. Or my favorite moment of the whole record – on “The Rip” when the pretty acoustic guitar morphs a distorted electric piano without missing a beat. It’s those such moments that totally melt me. Hey Portishead guys, let’s not wait another ten years okay?!?
Mates of State
5
Re-Arrange Us
Ever since I worked with my dear friend Ethan back in 2001, I used The Mates of State as an example of indie rock bands I just couldn’t stand. Then, upon hearing they were going to be on Yo Gabba Gabba, I thought I’d give them another try. My tastes have evloved over the years and so I checked them out. “Re-Arrange Us” just blew me away. The production is fantastic and the audacious harmonies really work.
The songs are so sweet, sad, happy and occasionally even pretty rocking. Which is quite a compliment, considering there’s only two members of the band (drums and keyboards). Even better, they’re a married couple who take their little kids on the road with them. Mates of State stole my heart this year. I can handle their older stuff now, but still don’t love it near as much as this album.
Santogold Santogold & Diplo
4
Santogold
Top Ranking
Brooklyn’s own Santi White (aka Santogold) played at one of our company’s parties earlier this year and I missed it. It was just months before she released her debut album. I soon became a huge fan and she blew up on the radio and car commercials everywhere. I’m still kicking myself for missing her. She’s often compared to her friend, MIA, which I can understand at first glance, but there’s so much there. She’s got a lot of different influences going on. From new wave (Missing Persons, Blondie) to hip hop, rock as well as grime and reggae. It’s such a colorful and listenable record. Later in the year, Santi and producer Diplo released a mix tape, “Top Ranking” blending killer remixes of songs of the album with beefed-up tracks of her influences such as Devo, Desmond Dekker, Sir Mix-A-Lot, The B-52’s, The Clash and a bunch more. I couldn’t decided which album I liked better, so I call it a tie.
MGMT
3
Oracular Spectacular
This record was TECHNICALLY released in 2007 digitally, but was re-released in ‘08. Either way, I didn’t get into them until early this year, so I’m counting it. I was I’m happy for these guys and all the success they had this year, and like any hugely successful indie band, there’s always the backlash. But screw it. These guys are fantastic. Carrying the torch of trippy psychedelia passed on from bands like Beck and The Flaming Lips, they weave a great sense of humor with spacy guitar hooks and extremely catchy melodies. I liked “Time To Pretend” a lot when I first heard it. Then I became a true believer when I heard “Kids”. The whole record is diverse enough and yet consistently freaky all the way through. I can’t wait to see what they do next!
Bon Iver
2
For Emma, Forever Ago
This year, I realized I had grown an obsession for what I call “bearded indie folk”. I started to really appreciate warm, acoustic sounds and that were organic in nature (sorry Crystal Castles). Leading (almost) the pack is this incredible record from Bon Iver. Initially I dug the first three tracks but had written the rest off as borderline comatose. Then I picked it back up later and listened to it enough to really let myself absorb it. Now, it’s just WOW. I still get shivers listening to it. Bon Iver is a project by Justin Vernon, who wrote this album during a period of self-isolation on a Wisconsin farm for a winter after a painful breakup. You can really feel it come through. Really quite sad and beautiful all the way through.
Fleet Foxes
1
Fleet Foxes
This should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me. I listened to this album constantly this year (as well as the accompanying Sun Giant EP) so much that they shot to #2 on my most listened to bands list on Last.fm. I’ve talked about them before on this blog when I got to go see them play back in October. But it’s not that I’m biased – they’re topping a lot other of year-end lists, and they totally deserve it. Rich four part harmonies layered over acoustic guitars, banjos, and church organs sound like they were recorded in a forest – or by the warm fireside of a cabin in said forest. I have trouble describing how much (and why) I love this band. Just check ‘em out. Even the kids love ‘em.
Honorable mentions:
• Walter Meego – Voyager
• M83 – “Saturdays = Youth”
• Lightspeed Champion – “Falling Off The Lavender Bridge”
• Kanye West – “808’s and Heartbreak”
• Dr. Dog – “Fate”
Johnny-come-latelys (albums that would have been in my list but they were released in 2007):
• Les Savy Fav – “Let’s Stay Friends”
• Iron & Wine – “The Shepherd’s Dog”
(Seriously, both of these would have been in my top five)
My Top Albums of 2007.
My Top Albums of 2006.
And for more studies on my listening habits, join my throngs of stalkers at my Last.fm profile. 
Now I can get back to posting stuff like Christmas and Thanksgiving photos! Until next year….
January 6th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Awesome! I love when you do these
I admittedly bought fewer albums this year than any year previous. It feels like I’m getting out of music, but really I’m not, I just haven’t bought albums. I listened to tons of stuff on radio and now I just need to ‘dedicate myself’ I guess. We’ll see. In the meantime I’ll sponge off your obsession a little more!
20. Sigur Ros
“Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust”
I have a Sigur Ros album a friend gave me, and while I really enjoyed it, and maybe it was because it was all in Icelandic, every song sounded the same and no more memorable than the previous. I like it whenever I hear it, but its hard to judge the album as the sum whole of its parts when the sums seem to equal the parts…(x+y+z+t+m+w)=Sigur Ros???
But the song you tubed to was just like past songs, very nice, but I’m sure I won’t remember it more than any other Sigur Ros song.
19. Future Islands
Wave Like Home
Not a band I know. I like the sound, not necessarily the song you linked to, but since its not on the album who knows! I’d have to give this one a listen, and I will. The singer was interesting, I like when singers are physically into the song.
18. Girl Talk
.
Feed The Animals
I’ve heard this before, and the whole concept is interesting though I think I would have picked different songs to collage than the what 100 or so he uses. It’s still fun, and probably perfect for a party I’m not ready to have
17. Ratatat
LP3
This I liked a whole lot, and I think I prefer the instrumental when its this creative, lyrics would just distract from the hard work on the audio. It reminds me a lot of why I like Anamanaguchi so much, some music is better without lyrics. I recently watched Mamma Mia! and hated it, but I don’t hate ABBA and I like the ‘melody-style’ without being the cheesey goodness that FACE-bands (such as ABBA) are. Anyways, definitely good find!
16. Of Montreal
Skeletal Lamping
You know I’m a fan of this music style, but I also never really got too into Of Montreal, it seems almost like an ironic band, liking the music for its camp and insulting its audience. Who knows. Either way, its catchy but I don’t think I’d be a long-term fan. Especially when I can enjoy other bands more. I’m trying to be economical! After all…the economy…
15. I’m From Barcelona
Who Killed Harry Houdini?
I liked the song, but it reminds me of a New Pornographers single from Twin Cinema, one that I loved at first and after more and more listens grew annoyed at. I think that’s what would happen with this song. I typically prefer the albums I don’t LOVE at first, but grow to love on further listens…still its just one song, I wanna give the whole album a try, and hey SWEDEN!
14. Gnarls Barkley
The Odd Couple
Note: the youtube video was removed due to copyright, so get that fixed, FIX IT!
I haven’t heard other songs from GB other than Crazy, which I liked, but I love the voice, so now that you reminded me of it, I should see if I can’t listen to the whole album (both) and see what comes from it.
13. Death Cab For Cutie
.
Narrow Stairs
Between him and Zooey, it won’t last, don’t worry
I didn’t think much of Death Cab for being the stereo typical emo point to band, but I listened to Plans and their side Postal Service Project and realized that the lyrics were very clever and the music was extremely catchy and I should stop being so emo about this emo band. It’s good stuff through and through for me, so yeah I don’t have this album but I plan on checking it out further.
12. Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend
I heard so much about this band and really wanted to try out some albums. I only heard singles and liked them, loved to sing along to them in the car. I saw them live online somewhere though and they were terrible, and clumsy on stage, and it soured me, but eh, unless I’m going to show I can at least enjoy the album as recorded. Some bands just can’t do a live show well, doesn’t mean they can’t play.
11. Esoteric Vs. Gary Newman
Pterodactyl Tubeway
This is the first find on your list I’m super psyched about, not that the others aren’t good, but this is like a sit up and “wow”. It was hilarious, and I know like 13 people I can show this too who will immediately agree! Thanks!
10. She & Him
Volume One
Nice! I didn’t know she made a record! That’s awesome, I gotta get this one. And that first song sounds much better than Scarlet Johaansen’s messy record. See folks, actresses CAN sing sometimes! Hmmm…I wonder if her older sister can sing too…a BONES MUSICAL! I demand it!
Well that’s 10 of ‘em! Let me finish the rest tonight. Though I do gotta say, I think you made the right choice for 10 and 11, those were the best of the bunch so far.