Best Albums of 2008

I can't resist compiling an end-of-year music list, so here it goes. I've included only albums that I've accumulated over the year, so this is an even 20 here. Reiteration: This is only albums I have. I know I'm excluding plenty, but I'm a college student that makes little money and has a conscience to download in only special situations. (I'm excluding three I DO have--Girl Talk, Greg Laswell, and Weezer--because I didn't give their albums a decent chance for various reasons.) 2008 was a great year musically, and I'm excited to see what 2009 brings. Drumroll....

1. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
It’s almost unfair to include this album in an ordinary end-of-year list. Normally I would incorporate only earthly music, but this year Fleet Foxes (pictured above at MusicFest NW) is forcing me to change that rule. These guys claim they're from Seattle, but I think they’re actually angels descended from heaven. That’s the only way I can explain this. Rhetoric aside (as difficult as that is in describing this band), these five long-haired guys would have been untouchable stars in the golden rock/folk of the 1960s, but unfortunately they were born about three decades too late. Their harmonies can be compared to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young or the Beach Boys, and their melodies to countless other legendary songwriters, but nothing truly sums it up. The five voices blend together into one angelic chorus, and the instrumentation is gloriously simple yet perfect. This review may seem exaggerated, but I am thoroughly confident that several decades from now, when pop music returns to quality, Fleet Foxes willl be glorified.

2. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
Another new band in the top two. This one is incredibly new, with its four members barely graduated from Columbia University. They’ve constructed unique melodies with an even more unique style of music. There is truly no genre to describe them, influenced by both African popular music and Western classical music, in a style they’ve dubbed “Upper West Side Soweto.” They also pair together lyrics that only Ivy League guys could—throwing around such terms as oxford comma and kwassa kwassa. These guys put together a short but great album that will remembered for a long time. I just hope that the album won’t outlive the band by too much. They’ve been touring nearly non-stop, and they rose to fame almost instantaneously, which is never a good sign to me.

3. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
I don’t think the genre “literary rock” existed before these guys entered the scene a few years ago, but there’s not a better term to describe them. "Stay Positive" is easily their best effort yet, and that’s a considerable statement. There’s no reason for me to go on proving that claim, though. Just listen to the title track, where they do what they do best—refer to themselves and their past albums as well as the recurring characters that their songs follow and thanking their fans (I mean the unified scene): “It’s one thing to start it with a positive jam and it’s another to see it all through. We couldn’t have even done this if it weren’t for you.” Mostly these guys just have a good time, and that’s more than evident in their live performances. I saw them live twice this year, and the cheap beer was flowing on stage (except for the keyboardist Franz—I believe he’s my favorite band keyboardist and likely the best that I know of, Ben Folds excluded of course—who managed his own personal bottle of red wine) with a full-sized ice chest labeled The Hold Steady. Hardly anyone makes good ol’ rock and roll anymore, but the Hold Steady are more than playing their part. Here’s to many more constructive summers.

4. Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst
This is probably higher up if it were my list of my “favorite” albums of the year. Granted, I’m obsessed with Conor Oberst and there’s not a whole lot that he’s released (and he’s released hundreds if not thousands of songs at his ripe age of 28, but this is a great album. Conor is a brilliant lyricist, by far the best of our generation I think. I honestly think people may read his songs as poems in literature textbooks decades from now. His first real album under his own name (he also had one when he was 11) because his usual collaborator Mike Mogis was absent on it, this is by far his most mature release. He sticks to great songwriting, and he’s landed on what he does best—folksy alt-country. I am inexplicably excited for whatever he comes up with next, whether it be under the name Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst, or the Faint (funny enough he was an original member of this dance-rock band), if this process of maturation to virtuoso continues.

5. Coldplay – Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
To prove to everyone that I do listen to some music released on a major label. In all seriousness, this is a great album. I downloaded “Violet Hill” from Coldplay’s website back in February or something, and I listened to it several times a day for a few months. I’ve never been a huge Coldplay fan. I like them because they, Dave Matthews Band, and John Mayer are the only good rock artists that can be heard on top-40 radio, but they’ve never been all that great to me. This album is quite good though. Very produced of course (but by Brian Eno so no complaints), and sometimes dragging on, but “Violet Hill” is enough to make it all good. And “Life In Technicolor” is brilliant as well. Unfortunately the stupid “Lost?/!” songs are awful in my opinion. But overall and exquisite album coming from the mainstream. That excites me.

6. Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
In the past Sigur Ros has been my official “I need to concentrate on something” music, but this album is so great that it’s hard to concentrate on anything else while listening to it, even though the lyrics are in Icelandic. The band that likes to run around naked on their album cover actually included some songs that could be danced to, which is a deviation from the past. But rest assured, nine-minute songs with long titles made out of unfamiliar characters are still there. These guys are weird, there’s no getting past that, but they make exquisite music if you give them a chance.

7. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
I do wish that Chris Walla could do more in Death Cab (see below), but I'll suffice with this album. Another band that's doing well on the continuum of maturity. This is a great step from "Plans," and I look forward to seeing what my favorite Washingtonian emo band does next.

8. Ben Folds – Way to Normal
The modern piano man is comfortable in his stride in this album. I’m not sure it lives up to “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” but Ben Folds combines his gift of melody with his love of satire and goofiness in this album. He’s definitely having fun, which means we are too.

9. R.E.M. – Accelerate
I thought this album was good at first, but it's just old. And not old in a good way like "Orange Crush" or "Man On The Moon." It's just repetitive and kind of dull from one of the best current rock bands. I expected better from them. Kudos for the political references, but I'm hoping this band isn't past their peak, despite evidence to the contrary.

10. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – Cardinology
As soon as I heard the first fingerpicking notes of this album on the first track “Born Into A Light,” I was captivated. One of my key musical loves of 2008 has been Ryan Adams, so I was excited when I heard that he was releasing another album. It is slightly disappointing, though. Supposedly the guy has tried to clean himself up (lots of drug and alcohol problems), and he has this new philosophy of giving his supporting band credits too. The first track is excellent, and the next few are all pretty good as well. Toward the end of the album things start to drag. I’m still blindly in love with Ryan, though, so my bias rings out. But it remains that very few people make quality country music anymore.

11. She & Him – Volume One
Paste magazine named this album as the best of the year, and I still haven’t forgiven them for it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enamored with M. Ward. I would place him very high in the list of the best guitarists of my generation (ignoring the fact that he’s probably ten years older than me), and he’s a decent songwriter. And Zooey Deschanel has committed no sin either. From being a minor actress, then deciding to dapple in songwriting and singing, she has achieved a feat. Her voice is alright, but her songwriting is impressing for an actress. M. and Zooey have created an album of new standards (as well as covers of old ones—a failing part of the album) that you don’t hear much of these days. It just gets a little sleepy. I’m very excited to see what else this pair can put together though.

12. The Faint – Fasciinatiion
The Faint did it all on this album—literally. They wrote all the songs, produced them, recorded them, album artwork, the whole shebang. This band is such a minute genre and so unique, which sometimes plays for their side and sometimes not. This is a good album start to finish, with well-written songs executed well. Songwriter and frontman Todd Fink says what he wants to say without skipping over important issues like religion and political activism while also leaving room for his extreme quirkiness, as he showed up at their Portland show in August wearing a long white lab coat and lab goggles. Kudos to him because in the balmy Crystal Ballroom he only lifted the goggles from his eyes for a minute at the encore. He’s got stamina, but what do you expect from someone who’s forever growing centipedes.

13. My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
It’s hard to categorize this album and therefore hard to place it on a list. It’s close to an hour long and dabbles in genres from folk to electronica to heavy rock to country, flipping between any combination of those within a minute or two. Naturally because they go all over the place like that, My Morning Jacket hits and misses. I personally would recommend to them that they stick to the alt-country folk that they do best, letting their Southern rock roots show through. That’s an area that could be uniquely theirs in today’s music scene, but I have a feeling that what they love about music is the ability to do anything and everything, and if that’s the case, I hope they keep doing what they love.

14. Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue
Disappointment of the year. Jenny is so incredibly talented, but she screwed up here. Mainly she’s screwed her life up. I’ve seen her live three times (as part of Ben Gibbard’s solo tour, Rilo Kiley, and solo opening for Conor Oberst this fall), and she has looked much worse each time. I think this lady has herself very deep in the world of drugs, and I can tell from her show and from some of this album. I hope she cleans herself up and starts making more music like “Rabbit Fur Coat” again.

15. Chris Walla – Field Manual
I’ve wished for a while that Death Cab would let Chris Walla (guitarist, producer) play a bigger role. Granted the band started as a fancy name for a Ben Gibbard solo project, Chris has shown himself perfectly able of songwriting and singing, at the very least providing a little backup vocals, which Death Cab uses very seldomly. So needless to say I was stoked to find out he was putting out a solo album and went to the record store to buy it the day it came out last winter. It’s not perfect of course, but it’s a good start for someone who’s never had chance to stretch his wings. And the video for “Sing Again” alone makes this album jump a few slots—he’s a Portlander, and he incorporates some 15 or so Northwestern indie musicians and/or their families in the video. Several Decemberists (including Colin Meloy’s toddler), Tegan and Sara, and potentially one of Jeff Tweedy’s (Wilco) kids. Yay for the best indie rock region.

16. The Weepies – Hideaway
The Weepies are consistently a good bet for some relaxing, feel-good music. The problem is that this album isn’t a whole lot more than that. It’s good in parts, but it gets quite repetitive after about 20 minutes, and considering it stretches for 50 minutes, it’s a little tiring. Nonetheless the Weepies have fabricated some classic folksy mellow music that is refreshingly simple in the world of complicated indie music.

17. Brett Dennen – Hope for the Hopeless
Brett Dennen is certainly no musical genius, but I really like the guy. His songs are nothing great, but the lyrics are something different. Not to say that he is any Conor Oberst, but he is different in this sense: He knows how to sing about something besides the woes of love. He’s very active in his community and helps with a ton of community service, and he sings lyrics like, “They will lock you up in prison, but they won't call it slavery.There are stolen children raised and trained in armies. It's enough to make you go crazy.” He sings about important stuff and actually acts on it. That deserves a lot of praise in our culture.

18. Jack Johnson – Sleep Through the Static
Nothing spectacular here, but noteworthy. I think I like some of his older albums better simply because they age well and are classic summer music, but this is probably better musically. More interesting lyrics, but my play count says I haven’t listened to it since May and that shows that it’s quite forgettable.

19. Matt Costa – Unfamiliar Faces
I was excited to hear that this album was coming out, but I remember vividly that the first time I listened to it I only got about four songs in before I was about ready to barf. I had a lot on my mind at the time, and I remember thinking that life isn’t as cheery as this album is. I like some of Matt’s old stuff, but this doesn’t hold my attention much.

20. Oasis – Dig Out Your Soul
One of Britain’s most-loved (aka overly loved Brit-pop) bands struck gold with “What’s the Story (Morning Glory)?” Thirteen years ago they wrote a few songs that were good enough to disguise Liam Gallagher’s nasally voice, but they’ve fallen very short on this one.