My 47 favorite songs of 2008

Compiled this a while ago and only now finding the time to post it. Typical musesthrown - always a couple months late!

You're probably scratching your head at the number 47. Well, basically these are the songs from last year I feel like advocating. No matter what arbitrary multiple of 5 or 10 I chose, somebody worthwhile was getting left off. So I decided just to choose all the songs that I felt at least relatively strongly about, and that would be my list.

As always, this embarrasingly reflects the particularity of my listening/purchasing habits - I'm still trapped in an album/CD-centric mode. I bought 51 CDs which were released last year; 33 of them are reflected here. So of course many of them have more than one entry on the list. (Only The Bug should really have 3 songs on here, but I decided to limit myself). But, y'know... if I hear a song I like on www.pitchforkmedia.com or www.cokemachineglow.com I almost always buy the album. Many of these are just those songs.

In the interest of time, I'm only going to offer quick notes on some of these. Drumroll, please....

47. Autechre - bnc Castl

Those crafty Autechre guys have managed to catch on tape, for the very first time, the bizarre music all your electronic appliances make when you're not home. Who knew the microwave was such a kidder? And that fax machine - whoa!

46. Women - Black Rice
45. Wye Oak - Warning
44. Crystal Antlers - Vexation
43. Marnie Stern - Vault
42. My Morning Jacket - Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Part 1

Almost the only song on the otherwise wretched Evil Urges that I can stand to listen to. Given the precedent of Z's "It Beats for You," it appears we can rely on MMJ to provide exactly one near-perfect woozy/vulnerable/slightly spooky ballad per album.

41. TV on the Radio - Dancing Choose
40. Deerhoof - Chandelier Searchlight

In a review of Offend Maggie that I read, this song was referred to as "rockabilly." And sure enough, it's got that stand-up bass thing going on. When the chorus kicks in and she starts singing "Love, love, love, love, LUH - UH - UH - OVE!", my heart stops every single time.

39. Of Montreal - For Our Elegant Caste

Any song that starts out "We can do it softcore if you want, but you should know that I go both ways" would be memorable. When it's by Of Montreal, that phrase is going to be stuck in your head for the rest of your life.

38. Max Tundra - Orphaned

"Follow the bouncing ball," Max says. And it's so captivating and so creative, I happily do so for almost four minutes. Then he starts singing and the magic disappears a little. But only a little.

37. Kingdom Shore - Stray Bullets Singing...

I can't do much better than cokemachineglow, who describe this song as a conversation between the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, played by violins. Utterly subversive, utterly creepy, and bonus points for evoking all my favorite images from The Evil Dead, Pt. 2.

36. Gang Gang Dance - Vacuum
35. Fleet Foxes - Ragged Wood
34. Plants and Animals - Bye Bye Bye

My suspicion lasts about ten seconds, and then they drop that Queen-referencing chorus on my ass and it's all over.

33. Chad VanGaalen - TMNT Mask
32. Of Montreal - Triphallus to Punctuate!

Skeletal Lamping was overall an unfocused, self-indulgent mess. What makes it truly tragic is that Kevin Barnes' obvious talent and creativity don't need any tinkering, as this song aptly demonstrates.

31. Presets - If I Know You

An electro pop ballad makes my "best of" list? Which blog is this anyway?!? Yeah, well - listen to the vocal on that chorus and tell me I'm wrong. Musically, it's the least adventurous track on the mostly-edgy Apocolypso, but damn if it hasn't been stuck in my head ever since I saw the video on Pitchfork.

30. The Week that Was - The Airport Line

Neither of the Field Music brothers' individual offerings in 2008 really grabbed me as full albums, but they both boasted at least one killer song. I don't even hold it against this one that the killer drum track is SOOOOO lifted straight out of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill," cuz this one is just as elegant and sweeping.

29. Dodos - Jodi
28. Cut Copy - Far Away
27. El Guincho - Cuando Maravilla Fui

The punchiest beat on an album that's full of nothing but.

26. School of Language - Disappointment '99
25. Snowman - The Gods of the Upper House

Kingdom Shore versus Snowman for the best aural evocation of a horror movie in 2008? Advantage to these Australians. Not because they're better/more talented musicians, but because the vocal on this song makes my skin creep like nothing has since "Panzrama" (see my favorite songs list of 2006).

24. Portishead - Nylon Smile
23. Radiohead - Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

Radiohead write a ballad, and it manages to be both beautiful and characteristically gloomy/creepy.

22. Plants and Animals - Good Friend
21. Autechre - fwzE

The exact moment when a sentence could contain the words "Autechre" and "fun" and the basic stability of the universe isn't threatened.

20. Leila - Little Acorns

Sometimes a song just needs a single gimmick, and if it's a good one the artist can repeat it for three or four minutes and it never feels stale. The three-handclap beat on this one still makes me giggle, but we also get a fantastic, ever-changing bass line, great interplay between the horns and keyboards, and truly bizarre little-kid wordless scatting.

19. Fleet Foxes - Quiet Houses

Russ says "sonic wallpaper" and I'm not even sure I disagree. But I love the muscular bass on this one and damn if those vocal harmonies don't slay me.

18. Flying Lotus - Camel

The epitome of "cinematic": in that it evokes a progression of images (but I won't ruin yours by sharing mine); in that when that wall of keyboards kicks in I suddenly feel exactly like I'm sitting in a vast, dark space completely transfixed by what's happening in front of me.

17. Stereolab - Nous Vous Demandons Pardons

Late-career Stereolab are disgustingly slick and shiny, like aural teflon. So it's all the more impressive when they can still manage to be punchy.

16. TV on the Radio - Golden Age
15. Snowman - We are the Plague

Cool drum interplay, standard dub bassline, faux-spooky vocals on the verses. Fine so far, but then the singer opens up his throat on the second verse and suddenly the entire thing feels intense, edgy, frightening. They are the virus, they are the plague - and you're infected, bitch.

14. Flying Lotus - GNG BNG

Let's assume the missing vowels are both a's. In which case this song is perfectly named, cuz that's exactly what it feels like - getting nailed hard by three different studly beats in rapid succession, in half the time that it used to take the Chemical Brothers to pull off this sort of thing.

13. Thank You - Embryo Imbroglio

Song title of the year. The sound of tribal warfare, all shouted wordless aggression and scorched-earth jagged guitar and martial drumming. Only the Bug managed to sound more dangerous than this.

12. Jim Noir - Don't You Worry

Easily the most immediately catchy song I heard in 2008, a triumph of ambiance and smart pop songwriting - so who needs originality?

11. The Bug - Jah War

Utterly, completely terrifying. When the Apocalypse occurs, God will choose Flowdan to be its narrator. And this is the Bug's shining moment as a producer, the skitter-skatter call-and-response drums and bass giving you not even a second to get your footing while the echoing "Jah"s buffet you from all sides.

10. Crystal Antlers - Until the Sun Dies (Part 2)

The missing Part 1 must be the "Until" segment of the story, because this sure as hell sounds like the solar death itself in all its glory. "Prog" in its ambitions (but not - thankfully - it's length), unrelenting in its intensity (even during the quiet part), and perfectly balanced at the point where beauty and chaos overlap.

09. Sigur Rós - Gobbledigook

Sigur Rós channeling Animal Collective could have been a) a pretentious, muddy, unlistenable mess; or, b) sublimely beautiful and woozy. Smart lads chose option b. And accompanied it with a video that makes woodland nudity seem playful and innocent.

08. Chad VanGaalen - Poisonous Heads

First of all: that bass line. It's squelchy and menacing and makes this relatively minimalist song sound thick with dread. The sing-songy verses just don't prepare one for the frantic rush into the chorus, and Chad sings these lines "The only thing left was our poisonous heads, and the curse that's been EATING OUR MI - YI - YI - YI - YI - YI - INDS!" with an intensity that obviates any concern about what any of it, y'know, means.

07. Portishead - Machine Gun

Your first two decade-old albums are considered classics. Your reunion is hastily announced and greeted with equal measures of excitment and suspicion. Most bands in Portishead's position would have played it ultra-safe. Bless their souls, they didn't return with a tired old revamp of "Sour Times"... instead they dropped one of the most alien, hostile, challenging slices of sound ever. And it fucking slays. Beth Gibbons as a lounge chanteuse never made any sense to me; this is exactly the sort of aural environment her voice was meant to inhabit: on the edge of a precipice, staring into the void, terrified and vulnerable but eerily resigned. Admit it: you hated this the first time you heard it, but only because it hadn't yet rewired your head.

06. Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules Theme

A proud entry in the "more is SO much more" category, "Hercules Theme" is stuffed past bursting. The horns! The strings! The hi-hats! The coo'ing vocals! All so delirious and inviting that you know this dance floor will always have room for more more more sweaty bodies. Oh yeah - also the gayest shit I've heard in a really long time that actually felt like a fresh appropriation of the past instead of just another tired retread.

05. Deerhoof - Snoopy Waves

Deerhoof hire a new second guitarist, and the world is a magical place all over again. I suspect this will sound ridiculous, but the call-and-response interplay between the guitars during the 20 seconds between 0:23 and 0:43 just makes me happy. Oh, and it's a love song addressed to California, and I'm so on-board with that sentiment.

04. Cut Copy - Out There on the Ice

The best New Order song of the last 20 years. I have no clue what "You don't know what to do / There's a game now, who'll be there for you" means, but damn if I didn't sing it all year long. And the tail end of the coda between the second and third choruses, where the bass is burbling and the wall of synths is rising and falling, is so 1989 it really DOES break my heart. Sneaky bastards know it too, imploring immediately after "Don't let it tear us apart, even if it breaks your heart!" I thought the Presets put out a better all-around album, but this song was my guilty glorious pop pleasure of 2008.

03. Future of the Left - Plague of Onces

Fifteen years later, someone finally comes up with a credible response to Liz Phair's "Fuck and Run." This being Andy Falkous, it's brutal, honest, hilarious. Sure, he recognizes all these onces are a plague, but nevertheless: "Why put the body where the body don't want to go?" In other words, he's had your shit and it's tired. And just to make his position unassailable, he backs it up with one of the most lacerating (and honestly jaw-dropping) guitar riffs I've heard in a while. Somehow the bass and drums - despite sounding like they're from two entirely different songs - manage to weave the whole into a water- and outrage-proof fabric. And then they get all stoopid on the chorus just because they can. (See also: "Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues"; some scholars have suggested this is in fact just Part Two of that song.)

02. The Bug - Fuckaz

It's not even the best song on London Zoo (that would be #11, above), but nothing punched me in the gut harder in 2008 than Spaceape's astounding rant on this song. The most awesome thing about it is that 'ape is pissed off at everybody. For every two "fuck-tha-man"-type sentiments expressed on here, there's also a doozy like "Fear those people whose worthless ambivalence leads to nothing but frustration and self-obsessed anger." Sure, the system sucks, but so do you if all you do is sit around and bitch about it. It's brilliant as social commentary, and it's doubly brilliant as a means of getting your ass UP and MOVING. After spitting through two verses of outrage and bile, Spaceape pauses to catch his breath, the music suddenly shifts (and takes my already-fragile equilibrium with it)... but rather than pretend to have anything resembling a solution, all he can do is repeat "How did we get here, and where do we go now?" over and over like the question is his only defense against complete despair. And I don't have any answers either, because I'm just trying to pick my heart up off the floor. Utterly fucking brilliant.

01. Thank You - Empty Legs

2008's take on "Atlas?" Granted they share electronically distorted vocals and crazy beats and rhythmic intensity (apparently this is a recipe for my digitally-bestowed love and approval). But despite sharing similar means to my favorite song of 2007, "Empty Legs" has entirely different goals. This song does not want to be your friend. It isn't inviting you to join its party; it's whistling your ass out of the house to witness a scene of chaos, a cycle of destruction and rebirth. Its interest in you dancing to it is only inasmuch as you dancing would be another form of your submission to it. And good luck dancing anyway, because this is the most bat-shit crazy drumming EVER.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm frankly at a loss to describe this song in any concrete terms. It's sitting here at #1 because it's not like anything I've ever heard before - and that's the real recipe for my love and approval.