Let's try this again... starting with: My Favorite 20 albums of 2008

Uncanny how it's almost a year to the day that I decided to stop writing on here... and here I am deciding to give this another go. Actually the decision was made a while ago; as always with this venture my ambitions outpace my ability to realize them. But, as long as I remind myself I'm far from a "professional" blogger and this is mostly about personal edification and the odd person or two who actually reads it, all is good. I'm also going to forego my "literary" aspirations and try to keep postings brief and to the point. Which is usually: I liked/didn't like this, and here's why.

So, without further hand-wringing and navel-gazing: here are my favorite 20 albums of 2008. I'll preface by saying '08 was a disappointing year in music for me. Certainly nothing like the powerhouse that was '07. Nothing in '08 hit with quite the force of a Grindstone or a Mirrored, and nothing (least of all its follow-up from Kevin Barnes) was as all-around consistent as Hissing Fauna... . Also, 20 is sort of an arbitrary number, is all I'll say, without wanting to present back-handed endorsements. Here they are:

20. Snowman - The Horse, The Rat and The Swan

Sneaks onto the bottom of the list by virtue of its two absolutely killer tracks "We are the Plague" and "The Gods of the Upper House". Who knew "industrial" could still sound this fresh and scary 20 years later?

19. Jim Noir - Jim Noir

Tuneful, immediate, and actually fairly consistent. Not to mention, almost a better Stereolab album than the one that actually bore their name. Another case where good melodic skills and occasional quirky choices win out over the obvious retro-ness of it all.

18. Dodos - Visiter

This would easily be five spaces higher on the list if the production on the album managed to capture the manic energy of their live show. Watching/listening to two guys create this much sound, absolutely laden with internal dynamics, is something I highly recommend.

17. Deerhoof - Offend Maggie

Back in my good graces, as I pretty much predicted they would be. Not as overall mindblowing as The Runners Four or (as if...) Apple'O, but the handful of best songs on here - "Snoopy Waves," "Chandelier Searchlight," "Fresh Born" - easily stand among their best. Having a two-guitarist lineup again makes all the difference.

16. Stereolab - Chemical Chords

At first I was offended. Stereolab have been making the same damn album for fifteen years now. And the production is so slick! It sounds like something you could buy from a vending machine, shiny and prepackaged, a big bundle of empty calories. (Not to mention - how does it take six people to create this stuff?) But damned if, by the end of the year, a good number of these songs weren't sort of permanently lodged in my consciousness, popping up and waving with big cheesy smirks from time to time. So... fine. I concede. The melodies are great, the songs at least swing if they almost never cut. In short, another Stereolab album.

15. Radiohead - In Rainbows

I know, I know... "this came out digitally in 2007." And changed the world with it's breathtaking break from the record industry, yadda yadda. I'm probably the only person on the planet who actually waited to purchase it until it came out on physical CD. Said release date being 1/1/08 in the U.S., so bite me - this was an '08 release for me.

Overall I agree with cokemachineglow's opening salvo: "all bets are as hedged as they are final." But hey, Radiohead have earned the right not to have their feet held to the fire with every new release. They don't always have to be the most important band on the planet! They said that they "just wanted to release an album", and they succeeded. And it's still sitting on this list, so apparently I liked it. Ed Selway's beats just keep getting better - he's the one guy in this band who never seems like he's treading water. And for all the blather about how this was Radiohead's "love" album, Thom Yorke still mostly (and appropriately, given that voice) sounds like he's predicting the end of the world (though I will grant the standout track for me - "Weird Fishes" - succeeds by virtue of its tenderness, rare territory for these guys).

14. Presets - Apocalypso

Should I be embarrassed by this? Search in vain for the appearance on this list of that other electro pop album that came out in 2008 that everybody else was falling over themselves about. Y'know, the Australians? They get their due on my forthcoming favorite song list, don't worry. The fact is - Apocalypso is a more consistent all-around album. And it also takes way bigger risks that mostly pay off, no small feat considering how ultimately they're still sort of a watered-down Nitzer Ebb. So this gets my official "guilty pleasure of 08" vote.

13. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

I'm not remotely embarrassed by how low this falls on the list. My friend Russ calls it wallpaper music, and while I'll give them more credit than that, this sure don't feel like Album of the Year to me. But it's pleasant enough - those four-part male harmonies have been known to bring me to a tear or two - and on the best songs it even manages to be punchy. So, D+ for originality and an A- for effort rounds out to - number 13.

12. Marnie Stern - This is It... and That is That

I will once again not pretend that I can listen to Marnie every day. But damn she makes the world a more interesting place! And although it never reaches the same heights as that opening triad on her debut, as an overall album it's way more consistent. In fact, this is the only '08 album from which I didn't dismiss a single song; if it had boasted a standout like "Grapefruit" it would be higher up on the list. It probably took me just as many initial listens to even adapt my head to the strange and frightening world of Marnie, but it's a trip that yielded rewards.

11. El Guincho - Alegranza!

I think his live shows are probably even more fun than the album, or maybe it's just that I need to dance to it more so the repetition doesn't start to verge on monotony. Regardless, this is a no-shame party album, bristling with energy and feeling truly like "world" music in the sense that he's pulling from so many traditions and sounds. And he's a master of the little touches, like the "whoo!"s that pepper "Costa Paraiso" and syncopate "Fata Morgana." The other guy who asked us "Why so serious?" in 2008, but really meant it.

10. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

The 2008 recipients of Matthew's "Animal Collective Award", given in honor of finally releasing something I actually enjoyed. I mean, is it just me or did these guys loosen up like twenty-fold on this album? They're still all stern and political and shit, but at least they sound like they're having fun on "Dancing Choose" and "Red Dress." At least the music has some kick and some dynamics instead of just being a big buzzy droning wall. And yeah, "Golden Age" sure was the harbinger of the Obama era that we needed... the song and the era, that is.

9. Future of the Left - Curses

Yep, another late '07 release. But I searched high and low for this album in '07 and swear to [deity of choice] I couldn't find it in stores until February of 08. ("Some deal with the U.S. distributor," said the helpful info desk people at Amoeba when I inquired. And sure enough, a couple months later they were swimming with copies...) This is basically McLusky with keyboards, a McLusky that wants to laugh at you and your idiocy rather than kick you in the teeth for it. They can still bring the fierceness (hello "Plague of Onces"!), but the sense of humor is more palpable this time around. I don't think anybody else could pull off the Beastie Boys stoopidity of "Small Bones, Small Bodies" so successfully, and mad props for the gleeful chorus of "Wrigley Scott" : "They only ate sausage! SAUSAGE ON A STICK!" That still makes me wet my pants, and (as usual) I have no clue what the hell they really mean by it.

8. Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue

Here's what the Foxes were aspiring to, I think, but Plants and Animals are better by virtue of being so surprising. "Faerie Dance" is like four different songs mashed into an epic whole. The Queen-referencing "Bye Bye Bye" sure as hell feels worthy of a raised lighter. "Good Friend" develops a swinging groove and then keeps embellishing on it. And "Mercy" - with its cheerleader chants and Motown horn section - should have been a mess, but is instead a refreshing late-album palate cleanser. Catching them play most of the album live last week - looser, more spontaneous, more playful - only cemented home for me how they earned this spot on my list. Probably the most slept-on great rock album of '08 - you owe it to yourself to give it a go.

7. Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane

Who is Chad VanGaalen? Is he the strummy ho-hum folkie on the first couple songs on this album? The eerie lo-fi electronic wizard on the stunning central triad of "Phantom Anthills," "Poisonous Heads," and "TMNT Mask"? The doom-n-gloom storyteller of "Molten Light"? (The video for which still gives me the creeps - so yeah, don't leave out the "freaky visual artist" persona). Oh yeah, and he even rocks out a bit on "Bare Feet on Wet Griptape." I mean, these can't all be the same person, can they? But geez, that voice sure does provide a missing link... I don't even care what any of the stuff coming out of his mouth means, I sure do like listening to him share it with us. So here we have an album that manages to be both the most diverse release of '08, and also one of the most consistent. Bravo!

6. Autechre - Quaristice

Autechre shake up almost all of their by-now-tired tropes... the interminable song lengths, the endless droning loops... and release what I consider to be their best album. This thing is absolutely exploding with ideas, none of which (for once) get run into the ground. It's still got the jagged edges, the bits of beauty stuck in whirlpools of just-off beats, but for all its braininess it also sounds like the guys are allowing themselves to have some fun. Sure, it drags in a few places, but there are also amazing stretches of one jaw-dropping "how the hell did they come up with THAT?" moment after another. Important note: it's best experienced as a full album, so be sure and give it the 60 minutes it deserves.

5. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

The juxtaposition is no accident, since this was the other album in '08 that felt like one long succession of electronic "fuck YEAH!s" Advantage to FlyLo, though, for making it all seem so oddly organic, and also for being a bit more consistent. (And the same kudo here for knowing exactly when to let one set of ideas go and move on to the next). Even more than Alegranza!, this album makes me feel traveller's deja vu - the sense that what I'm experiencing is somehow familiar even though it's built from nominally "exotic" sources. That frisson gives these songs an amazing resonance for me. Failing all that - the video for "Parisian Goldfish?" Just fucking WRONG!

4. Crystal Antlers - EP

Every new band last year had to be Crystal something-or-another. These guys were so clearly the star facet in the crop, yet strangely and noticeably absent from every other year-end list I saw. Seriously, did anybody else bring the NOISE this fiercely and this beautifully in 2008? Every one of these stellar six songs sounds like it's ready to implode under its own weight: shrieking vocals, walls of organ battling it out with "psychedlic" guitar chaos, rock-solid basslines - all held together by an innate melodicism that ensured these gems were stuck in your head even when they were doing their damnedest to blow it apart. "Parting Song for the Torn Sky"? No shit. Their forthcoming full-length debut (despite not-so-encouraging initial press from my pals over at CMG) is easily my most-anticipated album of '09.

3. Thank You - Terrible Two

The most immediately exciting album of 2008 for me. And much like the previous year's #3, if they'd managed to sustain the pace of the incredible half of the album through, um, the other half, this would have been #1. "Empty Legs" and "Embryo Imbroglio" sound like the evil uncles of both Battles and Animal Collective. The DNA's the same, but the differences are as striking as the similarities. The drumming on this album is insane. That it could be the work of one person, without any electronic augmentation, doesn't seem possible to me. And what Thank You bring to the table that neither of those other bands I mentioned do is unrelenting fierceness. The guitar work is so jagged I keep waiting for my ears to bleed; vocals are either warped out of all comprehension or raw tribalistic shouts; grooves are achieved only to morph into new grooves. This is not music for the faint of heart.

But yeah - there are three other songs, two of which trade in a lot of that fierceness for an eerie, icy detachment that's interesting but not engaging. "Pregnant Friends" splits the difference between those two modes, with the first half being a bizarre campfire chant which abruptly turns into utter screaming chaos. (No surprise which half is the one that works for me!) Still, the album works as a coherent whole, and the mindblowing strength of the first two songs gets it this far... I can't wait to hear what they dish out next.

2. Portishead - Third

Fatal admission time: I was never that huge of a Portishead fan. Sure I own both their first albums, neither of which I consider a classic, but I always felt like they blew nearly their entire load on jaw-dropping first single "Sour Times." Eleven years later, I feared the worst when I heard they were releasing a new one.

But then that gut punch of "Machine Gun"... holy shit. They'd traded in the loungey classicism for something cold, alienating, visceral, utterly compelling. Suddenly the music had found a perfect compliment for Beth Gibbons' otherworldly voice. Previously miscast as a torch song chanteuse, she's finally come into her own as a harbinger. Over a decade off made these folks hungry; nothing about Third feels phoned in. The mood is consistent throughout: dread, despair, loss. But unlike the previous albums which both felt a bit samey, no two songs on Third are quite alike. And each bristles with surprising juxtapositions, small details that constantly pop out and keep the listener on his or her toes. Within this context even wispy and fey "The Rip" feels untrustworthy; the album's one moment of disabling vulnerability never pretends to have any goal but - yes - ripping your heart out too. (Honestly, that song never should have worked as well as it did!) Ultimately, Third is an exhausting listen, but in the best possible way. If only all comebacks could be this triumphant.

1. The Bug - London Zoo

I'm not going to lie - much as I love London Zoo it still doesn't have that "Album of the Year" feel to it. Yet it makes it to the top of the heap because nobody else brought as many a-fucking-mazing songs to the table. "Jah War," "Skeng," "Warning" - terrifying. "Fuckaz" - riot-inducing. "Insane" - club track of the year and nobody noticed. (Instead he promoted the hell out of the to-my-ears-inferior "Poison Dart.") On the surface these songs are deceptively simple, but close listen reveals they're brimming with details and are hardly mindless loops. And he matches the beats and moods to his vocalists perfectly. If it's grim and apocalyptic, there's Flowdan intoning doom with his low bass. Spaceape spitting bile in every direction? Drop something minimal underneath that won't distract too much. (Request to the Bug: More Spaceape next time!) For all that the overall palette here is narrow, it's explored throroughly and skillfully - an exercise in singularity that never becomes monotonous. In the end, nothing else in 2008 owned me quite like London Zoo: made me tremble, made my heart race, made me want to jump around.