The bad news: I haven’t personally had the chance to listen to every album released this year. The good news: neither has anyone else. So here’s my take on the best music out in 2008, as I heard it.
First off, other music worth mentioning: Flight Of The Conchords’ hilarious self-titled album (can’t wait for the second season in ’09), Kanye West’s brave pop album 808s And Heartbreak, the way overdue but worth-the-wait Pacific Ocean Blue as my favorite re-release of the year and Doomtree’s self-titled debut for keeping things really real.
10. The Bedlam In Goliath – The Mars Volta – Difficult and labrynthine as ever, The Mars Volta continues to make great albums that are quite unlikely to follow anybody’s rules. This beast of an album is epic and menacing, inspired by an evil Ouija board (no, really). Careful with it: scary massive stuff.
9. Death Magnetic – Metallica – Death Magnetic may not even be the best metal album released this year (but lucky for Metallica, at least Mastodon didn’t release anything this year). But it might represent one of the great comebacks in recent music history. Almost every Metallica fan was convinced they didn’t have any more riffs in them the magnitude of those in Death Magnetic’s Suicide & Redemption, but not only did they bring the thunder, they did it for nine crushing vocal-less minutes. Maybe the next album should be all instrumental.
8. What Does It All Mean?: 1983-2006 Retrospective – Steinski – It was almost impossible that we’d ever see this release. Steinski’s collages are everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink affairs, packing as many cultural references into 5 minutes of hip-hop as he could. The first track alone on this set samples classic funk and disco breaks, Little Richard, The Supremes, tap-dancing instructional records and Humphrey Bogart films. As a result, it has been difficult for labels to legally release these tracks, but the Illegal Art label has pulled off a miracle. That deserves recognition. And the music is a kaleidoscopic journey bursting with head-spinning innovation. It’s like hearing the future of mash-ups broadcast from the past.
7. One Day As A Lion – One Day As A Lion – This EP is the first official release from Rage Against The Machine’s Zack de la Rocha since 2000. Knowing that, the in-your-face agitprop is no surprise. What IS surprising is the lack of guitar textures. De la Rocha plays a dirty distorted organ on every track, and even sings once in a while. This is a head-nodding street fight of an EP. The lyrics are daggers and spiders. A full album would almost be too intense.
6. Young @ Heart Soundtrack – Senior citizens singing modern pop songs. That’s all it is. But anyone who’s seen the movie understands the magic. The singers are uniformly brave and willing to give ANYTHING a shot (from the wispy weirdness of Sonic Youth’s Schizophrenia to the syncopated soul of Allen Toussaint’s Yes We Can Can). The performances are wonderfully imperfect. And their biggest accomplishment is reclaiming some potential sapfests like Nothing Compares 2 U and Coldplay’s Fix You and associating them again with real-life concerns like death, loss and making every moment worth living.
5. Stay Positive – The Hold Steady– Any year in which The Hold Steady releases another album is a good one for rock music. And it’s another album loaded with new classics like “Constructive Summer,” “Lord, I’m Discouraged,” “Slapped Actress,” and the title track. This is the music you wish were playing on every bar’s jukebox, along with The Drive-By Truckers (who toured with The Hold Steady this fall). Powerful singalong stuff.
4. Third – Portishead – And out of nowhere, they were back. A different sort of comeback as strange and unexpected as Portishead’s music. Third is an album with jagged edges and deep sorrow. Some of the jazzier and torchier aspects of their prior albums are replaced with angry electronic drum machines. But it’s pulled back from the brink by the whimsically lovely “Deep Water” and the most beautiful song they’ve yet written, “The Rip.”
3. Tell Tale Signs – Bob Dylan – This isn’t technically new music, but I don’t care. It is a new release of older music from The Traveling Salesman himself and the party line is that “his throwaways are more powerful than most band’s entire recorded output.” Well, it’s true. “Red River Shore” is worth the price of admission alone, and “Huck’s Tune” is a future classic. Is this old man the same who once sang Blowin’ In The Wind almost five decades ago? Maybe, maybe not.
2. Dear Science – TV On The Radio – The ever-improving Brooklyn band’s third full-length is their masterpiece…so far. Bands like TV On The Radio throw all their influences into a pot and make a gumbo. But Dear Science succeeds where those other albums fall short: by keeping an emotional connection with the listener through it all. They’ve out-Becked Beck. Every song flips you on your head, but nothing seems willy-nilly, it all seems relevant. Every track on this one is worth hearing; any album that follows the dancefloor Princedom of “Golden Age” with the beautifully honest ballad “Family Tree” (my song of the year) is something special. This was my pick for album of the year (along with everyone else) until I discovered…
1. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes – This being the best album of the year is a revolution slipping in the back door. There is nothing pop or rock or hip-hop or R&B about this. In fact, this album could be from 1969. But song for song, it is the greatest and most sublime collection of songs this year in one place. I’ve listened to this album more than perhaps all the others on this list combined (and not gotten the slightest bit tired of it), and still have trouble putting its charm into words.
Innocence and peace and wonder and dust motes in sunlight. Sadness like losing a dog with the happiness of knowing that it will always be somewhere close. Realizing there are good things in the future and bad things you can live with. The influences in the music flow by gently: the psychedelic harmonies of Smile-era Beach Boys, the deep rootsy Americana of The Band, the open-heart melodies of The Shins, soul like Motown, timeless, inspiring, fresh, the Best Album Of 2008.
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