Note: it should be said that this is not a list of the very best in music put out this year, but the best music I listened to in 2008.
No, Guns N Roses will not be on here, neither will the new Oasis album. To be honest, this year’s music has been less than great.
The only immediate thing that I can say comes on my iTunes that continues to entertain me throughout the year is Nick Cave’s Dig Lazarus Dig! Which if there was a modern poet on the level of Allen Ginsberg, Nick Cave would be that guy. Infused with a little bit of Tom Waits, and an ability to write probably the best Western I’ve seen (The Proposition) since Sergio Leone, this is probably the smartest album of the year. Tracks to listen to: “We Call Upon the Author,” and “Albert Goes West.”
The other album, graciously supplied by Alex Carnevale at This Recording would be Belle & Sebastian’s The BBC Sessions. Forgive me, if I sound a little too much like an urban hipster, but I have never listened to a single thing from this group before this album. Just call me someone who is a sucker for John Peel produced tracks. This is a good, not mind-blowing, album that you plug into your stereo with a scotch and a book. Definitely a nice alternative if you want to get away from Christmas music at this time. “Like Dylan at the Movies,” is what I like.
For the second year in a row, My Morning Jacket makes this list. I’m usually massively against the idea of repeats because of its monotony and I don’t like writing over and over why I like a band. I want to pick something completely different and eclectic each year, and that is simply the reason why I did so with this group. Their latest album, Evil Urges, is so different than anything the band has done before that I couldn’t exclude it. My first reaction to the title track was: “This sounds absolutely NOTHING like anything that came before. It was like lead singer Jim James went into the shop to get his oil changed and came out with a new set of vocal cords. His voice can now go from a scraggily almost Mighty Mighty Bosstones quality to his usual crooning sound.
They’re playing at Madison Square Garden on New Years this year, and I thought about getting tickets, but changed my mind as soon as I thought about it. I detest the Garden’s theatres, so massive and minus any kind of character. I’ll hold out until they play a place like, say, Webster Hall.
The last album is TV On The Radio’s Dear Science. Talking about this band the other night at the every year Christmas Eve Eve party at my friend’s apartment above the Lake Placid Christmas Store, we talked about how old this band is. Fraction recommended this album, and every time he recommends something I almost always dig the shit out of it, (UNKLE’S War Stories, is another example of this fact). Every single track on this album is a testament to the diversity throughout the band. The “Shout Me Out,” track just makes me jump and dance around like Snoopy. More than likely the album of the year, if not for the fact it resides in splendid musical diversity track by track.
