Best Music of 2008: #15-11

The countdown continues (Facebookers: see the original post to view the videos without having to leave the page)....

#15. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
The third major release for TVotR is a fine album as I've already stated, but it doesn't live up to the stunning sound of Return to Cookie Mountain (2006). Science seems to lack an "I Was a Lover" or a "Staring at the Sun," (although "DLZ" is a five-star song); furthermore, the album is dragged down by "Red Dress" and "Dancing Choose." Science feels like it was meant for more mainstream success, and I hope TVotR achieves it, but if you have to get one of their albums, try Cookie Mountain. Enjoy this totally weird video, "Golden Age":

"Golden Age" - TV On The Radio


#14. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
The first single released from Stairs was "I Will Possess Your Heart," a near-nine-minute track that was terribly repetitive for the first four minutes. Once you get past those four minutes, it's a fine song, but I think that track turned a lot of people off to the album before it was even released. Stairs, while not as good as Transatlanticism or Plans, is still a decent record. In my opinion, there is only one five-star song on the album: "Grapevine Fires," a tale of loss and love. While I enjoy DCfC, most of their songs are about love/relationships (although "Bixby Canyon Bridge" is an obvious--and welcome--deviation). On the other hand, when I got this album , I was dealing with those issues, so the album resonated with me more than if I had somehow stumbled upon an advance copy in '07. I enjoyed "Your New Twin Sized Bed" and "The Ice Is Getting Thinner," but here is the aforementioned "Grapevine Fires" (a live, in-studio version):



#13. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Talk about hype! This album got so much pre-release buzz, I was fearful they would be another Arctic Monkeys (all hype, no talent). And, after my initial listen, I thought my fears had been confirmed, but I kept the album on repeat (alternating with Dear Science) while I painted my bedroom and by the time I finished, I really liked the album (should I blame the paint fumes?). I was also annoyed that everybody thought it was so clever that somebody sang about grammar in a song... "Like, oh my God, four young lads from an Ivy League school that wrote a song called 'Oxford Comma'!" I felt like VW was trying too hard to be clever. These guys aren't the LeBron James of hype--where they live up to and then exceed the hype--but they certainly have come close to justifying the hype. Plus, it wasn't their fault a couple of music blogs went nuts over their stuff. There isn't a quality music video available for my favorite song, "Walcott," and although I don't care for the song, the video for "Oxford Comma" has a cool, Wes Anderson vibe to it; the video for "A-Punk" demonstrates VW's fun nature and dancability (which is not, in any way, related to drinkability):

"A-Punk" - Vampire Weekend


#12. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
As I've previously mentioned, I'm more than willing to indulge in a little neo-'80s electronica. MGMT not only embodies that genre, they nearly perfected it in 2008. I have already listed several albums described as "fun" (#20, #19, #13) and that word also fits for Oracular. MGMT are also East Coast college kids, but [thankfully?] they didn't get the press that Vampire Weekend did. While I'm not in love with the whole album (I usually skip "The Youth" and "4th Dimension"), Oracular is home to three songs that are, well, spectacular. "Electric Feel" definitely has some sort of Prince thing going on, but it's terribly fun. "Kids" is another terrific song from the album. However, the absolute stand-out track is "Time to Pretend." The song is a ridiculous parody of the American dream: making music, making money, going to Paris, shooting heroine, marrying a model, then divorcing said model after having kids, but then finding another model to marry. For me, that's much more clever than "Oxford Comma." Dropping acid right before this video might increase your viewing pleasure:

"Time To Pretend" - MGMT


#11. The Black Keys - Attack & Release
These Ohio natives know how to rock. I saw them at The Vogue in December of '06 (the timing of their '08 didn't mesh with my schedule) and they melted my face off. You might think that two dudes--one on drums and the other on guitar--would produce a pretty sparse sound, but it totally works. Plus, on Attack, TBK employed super producer Danger Mouse (who we'll run into later in the countdown... twice). It took me a while to warm up to the album--it's a different sound, no doubt due to Danger Mouse--but I eventually started digging it. While I prefer the raucous tunes of Rubber Factory (2004) and Thickfreakness (2003), Attack was a welcome change from the sometimes stale sound of Magic Potion (2006). Need some evidence of their rock 'n' roll greatness? Check out "I Got Mine" from their show at the Crystal Ballroom (and yes, I am totally envious of that sweet beard):


#10-6 coming soon...

Best Music of 2008: #16-20

I realize I'm a little late to the year-end-list party (not to be confused with My Year In Lists), but I had to wait this long to acquire some of the albums I suspected would be on this list. Furthermore, if I don't do it now, it will be 2009 before I get my mitts on all the good albums from the past year. The bands which produced good albums in 2008 which I have yet to completely acquire (I have singles from most of them), and thus, will not appear on this list, are as follows (in no order): Anathallo, Chad VanGaalen, Frightened Rabbit, King Khan & The Shrines, Santogold, Whitely, Wild Sweet Orange, Los Campesinos!, Gentleman Jesse, Mason Proper, My Brightest Diamond, Pale Young Gentlemen, The Acorn, The Walkmen, Slow Runner, and the Welcome Wagon. It's possible--though unlikely--that all of those albums would've made their way into this year-end list if I had their works. That caveat outtathaway, let's get to work (if you're reading this on Facebook, it might be best to head over to the original post so you can listen to the tracks or watch videos without leaving the webpage).


#20. The Kooks - Konk
This is probably my guilty pleasure of the year. It's total schlock pop. This made the top twenty simply because I listened to this album a lot this year. I picked it up back in May and it stayed in my car's six-disc changer all summer. It's great driving music because it's totally catchy and cheesy and it's great sing-along stuff for the road. These guys are Arctic Monkeys, except not sixteen years old, and [far] less annoying. This isn't my favorite song of theirs, but it's only one of two available on YouTube:




#19. Starf**ker - Starf**ker
These electrono-pop-rockers from Portland are probably my most obscure band of the year. I stumbled upon them and their name immediately caught my attention--obviously--so I checked them out and fell in like (not love). The major drawback of this eponymous record is it's short run time (barely over 30 minutes). On the other hand, if these guys roll into town (Indy) any time soon, I'll definitely have to check them out because it looks like they put on a pretty fun show. The audio quality [on imeem] for my favorite song, "Pop Song," is a little poor, so feel free to check out "Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second" or "German Love"; here's "Holly":

Holly - Starf***er



#18. Mates of State - Re-Arrange Us
Dubbed "indie rock's favorite married couple" by my favorite music magazine, the Mates put out a quality album. I would describe them as New Pornographers lite/diet/jr. There aren't too many songs on Re-Arrange that knock you over, it's simply a solid album. Also, I'm glad to see that they've gotten paid recently... good for them! Indie rockers make so little, I love it when they can bring home the bacon and spread their tunes. Check out "Free," my favorite song off the album (with "Blue and Gold Print" and the title track running a close second).

You Are Free - Mates of State



#17. Ra Ra Riot - The Rhumb Line
I bought this album from Amazon's MP3 store for $1.99 the week it was released and it's been well worth the cash. The blend of guitar(s) and cello/violin is a sweet sound; whether it's been Silverchair (Diorama/Young Modern) or Andrew Bird, I'm always a fan of the mixture of those instruments. Ra Ra is sort of an ecstatic version of Arcade Fire, minus the organs... and the depression. Here's a video for "Ghost Under Rocks" (and the video for "Dying is Fine" is also pretty cool):




#16. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
The White Stripes have been pretty hit-and-miss with me--I usually love half the album and hate the other half, and the first Raconteurs album didn't impress me. This album, however, is a different story. It's fairly solid throughout, and there's only one or two songs I skip, which is pretty good for 14 tracks. Consolers is plain old rock 'n' roll... and I'm not complaining. Here's a live, in-studio version of my favorite song, "Carolina Drama," a folk diddy with a violent end:


#15-11 coming soon....

The Spirit

More like The Suck. I was curious about this movie after I saw the preview this summer, but I grew evermore skeptical when the reviews were published. Furthermore, the trailer that's been playing on TV during the holidays featured quotes from a website called MoviePictureFilm.com. What? That sounds like a website created by Borat. However, I had a free ticket and we showed up 5 minutes before showtime looking for a movie to watch, so we took a chance... not a great way to start off 2009.

While I enjoyed the insanely-violent Sin City, I was never sold on 300, so the "Frank Miller" tag didn't entice me. What confused me about The Spirit is that sometimes it was purposefully campy and at other times it seemed as if its campiness resulted from an accident or poor acting. If you're going to deliberately cheese-up your film, you have to do it consistently, so that way the audience doesn't blame it on poor writing/acting (off the top of my head, I think Firefly/Serenity did a good job with its intentional campiness).

Secondly, the addition of everybody's favorite angryblackman, Samuel L. Jackson, just made the film worse (that clip is his best role). He actually had some funny lines in The Spirit, but most of his dialogue was so ridiculous I laughed. What ever happened to the hold-on-to-your-butts version of SLJ.

One thing The Spirit did have going for it was sex appeal. I don't mean to be crude, but there certainly was a collection of "talent" on the screen: Paz Vega (AKA the other Penelope Cruz), Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, and several other lesser known actresses. However, The Spirit's failure proves that action + hot women =/ success. A good story and clever writing always trump eye candy (although I can think of a few exceptions, namely District B13 and Ong Bak).

Grade: D+
Blurb: Don't watch this movie, even if you have a free ticket... but you should definitely rent it if they make an accompanying RiffTrax.

M83: Saturdays = Youth

2008 is the year M83 broke through. I've been following them since 2004, and I had Before the Dawn Heals Us as one of my top ten albums from 2005--even though it only made one notable top ten list that year--but this year their album Saturdays = Youth appeared in seven best-of-the-year lists, even coming in as 2008's #1 album according to one critic. (There's an outside chance you've heard M83's song in the second half of this trailer for my favorite Russian movie, which is a cool trailer, but not nearly as cool as this trailer for Benjamin Button. Anyway...)

The key difference between Before the Dawn and Saturdays is its '80s synth emphasis. Given the album's title, it's absolutely intentional. Anthony Gonzalez, the Frenchman who makes M83 a one man band, is a child of the 1980s and he revisits his youth, sonically speaking. Furthermore, one of the album's best songs, "Kim & Jessie" is about teenagers (watch the song's fairly-'80s-and-slightly-bicurious music video if you want), and several other songs feature a teenage protagonist. "Graveyard Girl" (below) and "We Own The Sky" (video below) are great tracks, but songs like "Couleurs" and "Up!" detract from Saturdays.

There seem to be several neo-'80s electronica outfits that produced albums this year (MGMT, Gang Gang Dance, Cyrstal Castles, Cut Copy, etc.), all of which were well received. For whatever reason, these records seem to be appearing in, well, record numbers. I'm not bemoaning this fact, I'm merely intrigued (and wondered if anybody else has noticed).

Grade: B-
Blurb: Saturdays is no Before the Dawn, but thankfully it's much better than M83's 2007 effort, Digital Shadows. Thankfully. No, seriously, I hated Digital Shadows. If you need to buy one neo-'80s electronica album from 2008, you might be better served with MGMT's Oracular Spectacular, but Saturdays gets the silver medal. Check out M83's "Graveyard Girl" or watch this fan-made video for "We Own the Sky":

graveyardgirl_128k.wma - M83

TV On The Radio: Dear Science

When TV On The Radio came out with Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes my senior year of college, I [illegally] downloaded one or two songs, but my computer crashed shortly thereafter and I lost those tunes (I didn't have a backup hard drive). I quit following TVotR, and dismissed Return to Cookie Mountain after I saw a video promo for it on MTV (there aren't too many channels I hate more than MangeyTweenVomit). However, I gave Cookie Mountain a second chance--legally downloaded it--and came away enthralled. I can see why Cookie Mountain ended up on so many best-of-2006 lists.

Dear Science came out in late September and I previewed it on Amazon, but I was unimpressed and decided my money would be better spent elsewhere. But when Brandon burned me a copy, I gave it a fair shake. The first listen, I was still unimpressed, but I continued to play the album as I painted my apartment. The more I listened, the more I liked it.

Part of the reason I didn't go gaga over Science was the fact that it seemed a bit more mainstream than Cookie Mountain. Much in the way that Kings of Leon's Only by the Night seems more produced--likely with mass consumption in mind--than Because of the Times (in my top 5 albums of 2007), TVotR's Science seems more slick than Cookie Mountain. "Dancing Choose" and "Red Dress" seem like tacked-on quirkiness as if to say, "Hey, we're still weird!" (Those are actually my two least-favorite songs on the album.) However, "Crying," "Stork & Owl," and "DLZ" are fabulous tracks.

Grade: B+
Blurb: The problem with Science is that there are fewer standout tracks than on Cookie Mountain. I don't think it should be as high as it is on the year-end list for 2008. On the other hand, it's still a fun album, and there's not much like it out there. Check out the tracks "DLZ" and "Golden Age" below.

DLZ - TV On The Radio