10 Greatest Albums of 2008

Alright Alright. I've had enough time with each album to throw my weight around. I think it's interesting that these magazines come up with their consensus top ten, even though you know they're restrained to pick within certain genres dictated by their target audience. You can't tell me that the only magazine that should have thrown Weezy a nod was the Village Voice? I have no restriction or obligation to anyone. I'm going to give you the best albums of 2008 with the one goal in the album being greatness. You know it when you hear it. The music that makes you want to go out and dance in the streets. Or the music that perfectly captures your bleeding heart. It's the sonic sound that reaches the purest ethereal experience. Beauty transcended through sound. Basically, if you don't have these albums, you need to get these albums.

10. Santogold - Santogold

Oh how I love this woman. Santi White better known as Santogold screamed her way into the scene with the infectious jungle-club suited single, "Creator." Her best single on the album, "L.E.S. Artistes," a pure 80s pop-hit, proved she could craft a hit. A song that I think is in the top 10 songs of 2008 as well. She is a strong female stepping down stereotypes in each song using pop, raggae, hip-hop, surf-rock, and techno-inspired grooves. You just get the feeling that this artist is uncontainable and she is welcome to do anything she pleases without raised eyebrow. Her guest spot on Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 on a track called "Brooklyn (We Go Hard)" just legitimizes her presence in the music scence.

9. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

What would we do without our lovable copyright marauder, Greg Gillis? The strange man with a nose for hooks dug out another illuminating album this year. Counting 25 samples in the first track of 4:33 alone, the man doesn't sit back on his laurels. There are tons of mashup artists dreaming of capitalizing off of others' finished works, but somehow it doesn't seem like crime when Gillis mans the tables. Pure. Art. Who else could seamless transition from Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strikes" to Birdman and Lil Wayne's "Pop Bottles"? The answer is no one. And that is why Gillis gets his credit here.

8. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Ahh yes. The white boys with the African sound? With the album only lasting just over 3o minutes, it instantly became the summer soundtrack. Featuring African instrumentation such as congas, bongas, and other percussive instruments, Ezra Koenig and his fellow Columbia grads show off their degrees with this album being their disertation. Complex and interlocking melodies punctuated by strings tirelessly slice their way through the heart of this album. Around the third listen you start to get the idea that these guys aren't rock stars, but neo-Beethovens and Mozarts posing to get some more ass. I mean Ludwig had to know a guitar would have made things a bit easier on the dating side. These guys found the right sound for the right time and for that their sound identified a lot of 2008.

7. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

Now this was a release I could really drop my head down and waggle my body slowly in a haphazard manner to. Perhaps the opus soundtrack to the 80s, Anthony Gonzalez managed to not only sonically shift decades, but the lyrics are truly authentic to the very last sigh. "Kim and Jessie" classically jives around harking every 80s love story never experienced. This French group explored every inch of this album with whispers that fall and rise with the mood. It may be a period project, but the structure from song to song are superb and exquisitely done.

6. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

The only hip-hop album to grace the top ten had to be from the syrup-addicted, wheezy man himself. From "A Milli" to "Lollipop" to "Mr. Carter", the man has set a precedent for every hip-hop album to reach in the future. In a little over a year, he has turned himself into a brand. In a mixtape song he so shrewdly comments, "I have a new nickname. It's called Feat. Lil Wayne." And why shouldn't he poke fun at the reality he now finds himself in. Every time he guest raps on a song, it's automatically supposed to be hot -- it's not even his song. His guerilla marketing scheme has paid off and now it's Weezy Baby standing with his hand on the ball. In "I'm Me" he raps about how last year they had the Grammys and left him home in Miami. Now leading the way with 8 nominations, he may finally add merit to the proclamation that he is heir to the throne.

5. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Recorded in the Wisconsin backwoods, Bon Iver (pronounced Bohn eeVehr) went straight for the heart with this masterful album. Songs painted against stark backdops, but insulated warmly with Justin Vernon's knack for inducing positive pathos. This is the album for those that reminisce love. You can feel the cold pressing around the sides of each of these songs, and yet warmth radiate from the center and soul of each song. This is an album for eternal optimists. The nut can be found in "Skinny Love" that propels Vernon into reprimanding crooner. The song couldn't be more fun with intermittent yelps and hand claps towards the end, but listening to the words definitely throws in the cold again. A complex album that touches a bit of everything. A top five album for sure.

4. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

What a beautiful album. As glorious as a sunrise, so is this album. The melodies so tight, you could pluck a right pleasant tune to it. Robin Pecknold writes an incredible album set to gorgeous soundscape. From the opener, "Sun It Rises," it feels just as much barbershop quartet as it does folk. The acoustic guitar becomes a distant memory as Pecknold and Co. decide to infuse everything from the Beatles to the Beach Boys in this head-swaying collection of tunes that could be folk/pop's greatest hits. Everything from the maraca beat to crisp high hat seem to fall perfectly into place. Orchestrally, this may be the best bit of music to come in a very long time.

3. TV On The Radio - Dear Science

These boys from New York can't seem to make a bad album. This is their third critically-acclaimed album in a row and these last two could be argued as the best in 2006 and 2008 respectively. The experimental group has seemed to stay on the cusp of coolness while borrowing tactics from titans such David Bowie for vocals. You never will quite know what these guys will throw at you and that is the fun in peeling away at each song.

2. Portishead - Third

Some may have called Guns N' Roses the most awaited artist in 2008, but in my opinion, I could argue heartily for possibly the most ingenious band in history -- Portishead. Leaders of the trip-hop revolution, Gibbons resumes her spot as sultry seducer. This album was approached with an unbelievable mindset. Changing everything from their two previous works, the band works strings, synths, mechanical drums (layered over more drums) to create this unorganic album that haunts long after the album is through. In "Hunter," Gibbons asks, "If I fall, would you hold me?" This sweetly crooned lyric holds only for seconds before distorted guitars cut the serenity suddenly. This album proves to be the most difficult listen of all three, but the reward lay in the work. This is a terribly melodic album that preys on the senses given the focus. This may be the best Industrial Rock record of all time.

1. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Tadaaa! Brooklyn stand up! Your boys have created the most infectious, synth-heavy, ear-pleasing album since Favourite Worst Nightmare from the Arctic Monkeys. Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser comprise the band that is taking both music consumer and composer by storm. Ghostland Observatory feel hauntingly close this product while Brandon Flowers from The Killers said some of the songs off of Day and Age were channeled to be MGMT songs. There could be one hundred bands trying to duplicate this album and they could all fail miserably. There is a certain soul in this tandem, one that bleeds through the starchy, metallic-sounding anthems that pump through your speakers. In "Kids" Wyngarden sings, "Control yourself/Take only what you need from it/A family of trees waitin'/to be haunted." This layered over a sing-song keyboard and plodding drum beat creating psychadelic pop at its absolute finest. Not even The Killers' Hot Fuss managed to capture my need to get up and fling myself around as much as this debut. Like I said...beauty transcended through sound.



There were a couple of albums that I battled with a bit. There were a couple of albums I didn't give full attention to also, but I feel this is the list I would have settled on regardless.

Honorable Mention:

Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
Beck - Modern Guilt
Glasvegas - Glasvegas
Nas - Untitled
Kanye West - 808's And Heartbreak
Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
Delta Spirit - Ode to Sunshine
The Dears - Missiles
Deathcab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Deerhunter - Microcastle
Q-Tip - The Renaissance
The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
Cat Power - Jukebox
Dj Rupture - Uproot


This. Is. Truth.