MGMT. Courtesy gangsounds.com
For more of the Top 10 Tracks of 2008, click here.
10. T.I. ft. Rihanna. “Live Your Life.” Admittedly I’m not crazy about T.I.’s verses, but if you didn’t sing along with Rihanna’s angelic chorus at some point this year, you missed out.
9. Yael Naim. “New Soul.” Sure, it makes for a catchy Mac ad. But Naim’s girl-in-the-Big-City/Garden-of-Eden story of a new soul entering this strange world and her slightly choked confession of “making every possible mistake” (specifically the one following the bridge) are as real as it gets.
8. Vampire Weekend. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.” Any song from this groundbreaking album could be on here; however, “Cape Cod’s” minimalist lyrics paint an iconic picture of sweaters, linens and Louis Vuitton that makes this album worthy of its hype.
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Courtesy prettymuchamazing.com
Chris Barth of Pretty Much Amazing does a… well, pretty much amazing job of summarizing the Year-End List phenomenon in music blogs. Specifically, he muses about how something he loves about music can turn out so wrong, making some astute observations along the way:
How can Paste Magazine’s top two albums – the best two records produced in the last year – not even merit mention in Blender’s top thirty-three? (Sidenote: the explanation for this is that Paste is crazy)
He even includes a list he calls “The Thinking Man’s Commandments for Making Best-Of Music Lists” where he states how Year-End Music lists should work. Here is number three:
Your list isn’t comprehensive, I promise. There will always be someone asking “where is ____?” Cut to the chase and admit that you didn’t listen to the whole Bon Iver album because you were too busy spinning “Skinny Love”. That you couldn’t get to the Brian Eno/David Byrne collaboration because it was your girlfriend’s birthday and you were slaving over a romantic mixtape. That you don’t like Beck, so you have no idea how his new album is. All Year-End lists should be titled “My/Our/Readers’ Year-End Favorites” or something of that nature.
After reading this post, I thought it was a good time, since we are halfway through our series, to see how our own lists stack up thus far to the rules he proposed (including the ones in the picture at the top).
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The Walkmen. Courtesy Songs K
Here is the fifth installment in our nine-part series about the best tracks of 2008. For the first four, click here.
10. Black Kids. “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You.” The ultimate dance song. The bass line is unparalleled by any other upbeat song of late that I can think of.
9. Beach House. “Gila.” Victoria Legrand’s voice is hypnotic. Devotion is a great album, but “Gila” takes the cake when it comes to subtle, beautiful music.
8. Okkervil River. “Lost Coastlines.” When the bass line kicks in, all I can think about is Diana Ross’ “Can’t Hurry Love,” and that’s enough for me, but Will Sheff’s voice over acoustic guitar and banjo is just too pure for this song to be overlooked.
7. TV on the Radio. “Crying.” “Crying” is TV on the Radio taking on a melody that wasn’t at all visible on their past albums. The catchy guitar riff is quite a toe-tapper.
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I’d been shown some of Mike Posner’s stuff via his MySpace page by friends anxiously awaiting my opinion. (Some people mistake me for an authority on music, what with me being in a band and writing for recess and being so cool and all.)
To be honest, I don’t listen to a lot of hip hop, and therefore have severely embarrassing and unrefined tastes in the genre, leading me to adore guilty pleasures like “Soulja Boy,” “Paper Planes” and “Hey Ya!” So my response was aimed at staying on the fence, not wanting to soil my reputation on a claim I couldn’t actually defend.
“Yeah, it’s OK I guess.”
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