Hey kids, my friends at No Ripcord have just posted part 1 of their best alblums of 2008, and it is looking to be a fairly interesting list if I do say so myself.
For all the haters that say I can't write short, you may notice that this includes blurbs (that's right, blurbs) that I composed concerning this year's releases from Ratatat and Hercules and Love Affair.
On the long-winded side, apparently I did say that Ratatat are "pioneers of one of the many bright futures in the multiverse that is post-millennial hip-hop." Ahem. It makes complete sense to me, tell me I'm wrong.
If you want to know what I voted on for this beast of a list, take a look at my favorite music of 2008. There I touched on how much I miss working for a record store or radio station. Despite all of the great music I found this year and the joy writing about it brought me, this list reminded me of some things I missed that I'm really curious about:
Harps and Angels by Randy Newman
I feel guilty for only knowing the guy from his family-friendly Pixar themes and ruthless parody on "Family Guy". Apparently, he's one of
America's greatest songwriters.
808s and Heartbreak by Kanye West
Somehow, I haven't gotten tired of "Love Lockdown". I'm excited about the bold conceit of a whole album of autotune and drum machines and sadness. Sounds almost like one of my favorite batshit Zenith records, "Oppulent Erratique".
Car Alarm by The Sea and Cake
Always a pleasure to hear from these snazzy Chicago all-stars playing the muzak of an elevator to lonely
heaven, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens. These guys won me over by doing one of my favorite Bowie covers ever, which is no small achievement.
Oracular Spectacular by MGMT.
Rilly loved Time To Pretend. Need to hear what the album's all about. Disabling embedding is weak.
The Age Of Understatement by Last Shadow Puppets
Just because David Coleman dropped a
Scott Walker comparison.
Snowflake Midnight by Mercury Rev
Just general guilt for ignoring Flaming Lips' brothers in arms.
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today by David Byrne and Brian Eno
Yeah, I've heard it and put it on my own list, but I don't remember if I pointed out that its free right now and you can listen to the whole thing below.
Object 47 by Wire
Wire is one of those oft-written-about bands I never bothered to investigate seriously until this year. Turns out they're awesome. I wonder what they're up to this year...
The Hawk Is Howling by Mogwai
Despite falling out of my genre preferences, and falling outside of most hard genre or sub-genre labels (even "post-rock"), I've never really been disappointed by listening to Mogwai.
In Ghost Colours by Cut Copy
They made one of my favorite Fabric mixes, and everything I've heard by them is tops in the dance v. rock donnybrook.
Quaristice by Autechre
Like a lot of music that is very abstract, theoretical, and electronic, but not blindly chasing an asinine designation like "idm" even though they were one of the pioneering acts that led to the creation of that asinine designation, Autechre is actually quite funky, mysterious and sublime. Thanks, Warp.
Offend Maggie by Deerhoof.
One of the only "indie" acts I always like even when I find them impossible to "listen" to, because they are adventurous and inventive and more often than not come up with good shit.
And on and on like halycon. There is just too much good music in the world that we don't listen to enough of it. Has anybody heard this stuff that wants to weigh in? Want to work out a CD swap?
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