What's the best album of 2008?

I've had a few albums I've absolutely adored this year, all of which have kind of snuck up on me. Always nice to be constantly surprised. Quick rundown of the stuff that I'm playing the most at the moment. Here's a quick rundown with youtubes of standout tracks, because I'm bored and unable to will myself to sleep.

Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer

I've been a massive fan of the Dresden Dolls for a while now, but I was actually somewhat concerned about her solo effort. Turns out that the album is pure love. Love how caustically witty the songs are and how she's been able to increase the scope of her sound.

Runs in the Family

Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Angles

I think I've probably overstated my love for this duo, but fuck it this is my favourite album of my year thus far. Electro Breakbeat coupled with spoken word lyrics that are alternately hilarious, touchy and furious.

Thou Shalt Always Kill

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

I know that these guys aren't too popular around here and that the album itself is kind of spotty, but there are some songs on Fleet Foxes which are just life affirming, chief amongst these is....

White Winter Hymnal

Detektivbryan - E18

My weirdy Icelandic choice this year isn't Sigur Ros, but a weird folk/electronica group whose name I'm not even going to try and pronounce. Really cheerful, uplifting and oddly glacial music, well worth a listen.

Hemvagen

Ladytron - Velocifero

I'm a massive Ladytron fan and whilst this album is kind of patchy, especially when you consider that Witching Hour was a miraculous compendium of potential singles, some of the songs are so fucking strong and danceable it's unreal. They've also really got their shit together as a live group for this album, when I saw them promoting Witching Hour they were still hiding behind keyboards, now they reconfigure their songs so that they can actually play them live.

They Gave You A Heart, They Gave You A Name

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

I prefer the older EP, especially after the butchery of Kids, but in terms of music to sit back and have some fun to this is perfect. Then again being the soundtrack to a fucking barbecue isn't the greatest honour in the world, but fuck it. Also when I saw them live despite their general wankery Kids was one of the best songs I heard performed this year.

Kids (EP Version)

Moby - Last Night

I like Moby, I have a problem. Still Moby suffering a little nostalgia/arrested development and going back to his really danceable early 90s style isn't that bad a thing.

I'm In Love


Neon Neon - Stainless Style

These guys are trying to out Human League Ladytron but of all the SUPER-80s bands that appeared this year they're the most tolerable by far and some of their songs are really fucking catchy.

I Lust U

The Presets - Apocalypso

Overly camp production, danceable electro beats and a strained Ian Curtis impression? Hell I think I'm in love.

Talk Like That

Sebastian Tellier - Sexuality

Cheesy, campy and really tongue in cheek but I'll be damned if this album isn't a whole lot of fun to listen to, especially when you've got company. It's also Tellier's most consistently engaging album yet.


Divine

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

I hate the look and attitude of these guys, but for about three months at the start of the year I really was kind of enthralled by their breezy pop stylings.

M79

In Silico. It's oddly brilliant.

TV on the Radio's Dear Science. And the sad thing is nothing else I've heard this year even comes close, though I really like Portishead's Third and Beck's Modern Guilt, and there's something to be said about R.E.M.'s Accelerate for being their least embarrassing album in a decade.

Spike reminded me I need to get the Amanda Palmer album. I listened to a lot of new music this year, probably more than in recent memory, although my tastes still run more towards the mainstream and there's still a lot of stuff from people I love I need to listen to (new Lucinda Williams, new Death Cab, need to listen to the Hold Steady from beginning to end). Here's the albums that got the most play from me in roughly chronological order of their release:

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Grand Archives - Grand Archives
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (I know it's technically an '07 release but it's label release was this year, wasn't it?)
Dodos - Visiter
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
She & Him - Volume One
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun (this is really a fantastic album. Wilson's best solo work evar.)
Honorable Wilson Mention: Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue (reissue)
Ben Folds - Way to Normal
Aimie Mirello - I Came Around

Of those, I would say that Black Kids wound up getting the most play and is probably my favorite album of the year at this point. Big disappointments included the new Randy Newman.

We recently had to compile our top albums and music related junk for the record store I work at. The Opeth and Portishead duked it out all year long for the top spot and in the end, I finally had to give it to Opeth. Watershed was their best album since Blackwater Park.
Anyway, if anyone cares, here's the list I submitted to work:

1. Opeth - Watershed
2. Portishead - Third
3. Ancestors - Neptune By Fire
4. Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle pt. 1
5. Graveyard - Graveyard
6. Blood Ceremony - Blood Ceremony
7. Baron Grod - Baron Grod
8. Brothers And Sisters - Fortunately
9. The Sword - Gods of the Earth
10. Korpiklaani - Korven Kuningas
11. Testament - Formation of Damnation
12. Crom - Hot Sumerian Nights
13. Saviours - Into Abaddon
14. Dub Trio - Another Sound Is Dying
15. Asva - What You Don't Know Is Frontier
16. Ascend - Ample Fire Within
17. Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It
18. Jex Thoth - Jex Thoth
19. Black Widow - Live (DVD)
20. Swedish Death Metal by Daniel Ekeroth (book)
21. Get Thrashed (documentary)

Honorable Mention

1. Robin Thicke - Something Else
2. Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
3. Darkthrone - Dark Thrones & Black Flags

Reissues

1. Mellow Candle - Swaddling Songs
2. Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix - New World's Fair
3. Pogues - Look Them Straight In The Eye And Say...Pogue Mahone
4. Amebix - No Sanctuary: The Spiderleg Recordings
4. Suzy, Led Zeppelin, And Me by Martin Millar (book)
5. Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar (book)

Monkey: Journey to the West and Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy get my picks. I haven't bought a whole lot of music this year, but these are getting constant spins.

Most disappointing would probably be NIN's The Slip and Weezer's Red Album.

I was rather underwhelmed about it as well. Then these awesome Testament songs started popping up on my shuffle and I couldn't place the album they came from. Turns out I'd somehow acquired the new album without really being aware of it. So, of course, I delved back into it and now I love it. But, then again, I quit listening to them after Skolnik left so maybe I was just easier to please.

Good to see Opeth get some love. 'Watershed' is indeed their best album since 'Blackwater Park'.

It has been a crappy year for music, at least in its relation to myself; great bands I saw live have been playing shows for over five years. I am beginning to wonder if all ideas have been exhausted in rock music. Jazz and hip hop keep me going, though there hasn't been anything revolutionary released in those genres of late as well. I feel like we need a punk rock of our time, but it isn't coming. So I continue to explore the krautrock and Factory Records scenes of decades ago. Sure, there is still fine, new music being made - but I'm talking about some incendiary fucking tunes. It's like everything has already been done before. Sounds like today's culture in general.

Man, I forgot about that completely! I've waited ten years to finally put Bambu on my end of the year list and I drop the ball. It's the downside to owning bootlegs. Dennis Wilson was the heart of The Beach Boys after Brian's meltdown and his solo album(s) was head and shoulders better than anything the Beach Boys were doing at that time.

My Morning Jacket's "Evil Urges" has really grown on me. I'm even digging Highly Suspicious.

I also have to throw out Sigur Ros' "Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Edalaust." The sense of joy in this latest album is really infectious.

My third pick would be Vampire Weekend's album. It doesn't exactly bring anything new to the table, but it's just a good album from front to back. It's getting harder and harder to say that these days.

Chinese Democracy


Axl's middle-aged bullshit ramblings with Buckethead still mop the floor with the rest of the year.

That's really the best way to handle it. I find the more immersed in music you become, the easier it is to find fault in contemporary music. Just hew to your own path and music will find you. I discovered Opeth when I discovered Mellow Candle and Black Widow: both bands were killing me and it turns out that they were killing Mikael Akerfeldt as well. I was rocking out to early seventies Texas rockers Josefus when I read an interview with Witchcraft talking about them. Blood Ceremony and Jex Thoth are two bands also taking a love for Mellow Candle and Black Widow and reformatting it for a modern audience.
Remember that Punk was just a bunch of guys trying to bring back a certain sound from the fifties and early sixties and updating it for the seventies. Everything has been done and by doing it again, generation after generation, you generate something new.

Push comes to shove;

Department of Eagles - In Ear Park

Honourable mentions;

Pete and the Pirates - Little Death
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
NOMO - Ghost Rock
Why? - Alopecia
Sun Kil Moon - April: I do think i could go as far as to call "Moorestown" my favourite track of the year.Just beautiful.
Monkey - Journey to the west.
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
David Holmes - The Holy Pictures
Elbow - The Seldom seen Kid
Calexico - Carried to dust
The Bug - London Zoo
Black Keys - Attack and release
Silver Jews - Lookout mountain,Lookout Sea
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Nick Cave - Dig!Lazarus Dig!
Sebastien Tellier - Sexuality
Destroyer - Trouble in dreams

What dreary louse* said. I've complained in past years about the overall lack of goodness being cranked out, but things usually turned around by fall in those cases. 2008, though, has been particularly weak in my opinion. That said, I did like some stuff and will slap my list up here soon.


*He should be charged with a felony for that sig of his, though.

My favorite? Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts I-IV

But then again it's only competition is Metallica's Death Magnetic, Guns N' Roses's Chinese Democracy and Nine Inch Nails's The Slip

I don't listen to music that much, can't you tell?

Okkervil River's The Stand-Ins would be my pick.

Cant pick a favourite but the best stuff I heard released this year was:

Elsiane - Hybrid (technically released last year in Canada)
E.S. Posthumus - Cartographer
Chitose Hajime - Cassini
Fat Jon - Repaint Tomorrow
Samon Kawamura - Unfold
Cyne - Pretty Dark Things, and Starship Utopia
Juno Reactor - gods and monsters
Ott - Skylon
Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Boris - Smile (both the Japanese edition and US edition which are different)
Asian Kung-Fu Generation - World World World
Sia - Some People Have Real Problems

Two albums that came out late last year that became instant classics for me:

Nomak - Calm (Now one of my favourite hip hop albums ever, right behind Nujabes's Metaphorical Music and Deltron 3030)

Little Dragon - Little Dragon (amazing little soulful gem of an album)

Heard a shit load of great music this year, I lose track of how many and when they came out unfortunately. Have yet to hear Portishead, Sun Kil Moon, REM and Mars Volta's recent stuff.

Also, I dont know how people can say 'this year was shit for music' in any year. You're obviously not looking hard enough, its a big world out there.

I just realized most of my favorite albums of 2008 actually came out in 2007. I need to listen to more new music.

I haven't gotten to peruse nearly as much new music as I would've liked this year, but Attack and Release by The Black Keys has my vote. From the organ-fueled opening track All You Ever Wanted to the so-bluesy-it-gives-the-Blues-the-blues Things Ain't Like They Used to Be, this two man wonder duo shows once again that you can still blend big kickass guitar riffs with soul and thought and still be the least pretentious motherfuckers in the room. And yeah, it sports their biggest production values yet (they *gasp!* recorded it in a studio and used multitrack!), but the spirit is what counts with these guys, and they get it across in every note and every syllable.

Also, Strange Times has the best guitar opening of the year. Just sayin'.

I've never heard of Amanda Palmer before this thread, but a quick Youtube session has convinced me. Brilliant.

I still need to spend some more time with Amanda Palmer's album and the new My Morning Jacket which has really grown on me.

My list to date:

The Roots - Rising Down
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Portishead - Third
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
TV on the Radio - Dear Science
The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

Just for those that like this type of threads to find out about music they haven't heard in the year, some neglected 2008 albums. I tried not to mention albums already mentioned in this thread, may have slipped one or two though.

Crystal Antlers - EP
Santogold - Santogold
El Ten Eleven - These Promises Are Being Videotaped
Araya - The Bridge of Hesitation
Lost In The Trees - All Alone In An Empty House
of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
Luomo - Convivial
Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
Black Devil Disco Club - Eight Oh Eight
Ratatat - LP3
Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
Lykke Li - Youth Novels

honorable mentions
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream
Little Joy - Little Joy
Murder by Death - Red Tooth and Claw
Wisp - Katabatic
Autechre - Quaristice
Various Artists - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (yes, I know, whatever)
Health - Disco
DJ Rupture - Uproot
Beck - Modern Guilt

Stuff I Liked and May Be Judged By, But I Think Deserves A Youtube Check
Kanye West - 808s and the Heartbreak
Margot and the Nuclear So and So's - Animal! / Not Animal!
Joshua Radin - Simple Times
Natalie Walker - With You
Mr. Scruff - Ninja Tune
Jem - Down to Earth
Joshua Radin - Simple Times
Dido - Safe Trip Home
Thermostatic - Humanizer
The Raveonettes - Sometimes They Drop By

That said, album of the year will probably be awarded to TV on the Radio and I like quite a bit of the things mentioned here, Fleet Foxes' and Calexico's in particular. And one can never have too much Nick Cave.

WHAT?

Nice list man!

EDIT: On my side:

Elbow-The Seldom Seen Kid
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts
Hercules And Love Affair - Hercules And Love Affair
Wolf Parade - At Mont Zoomer
Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Juno Reactor- Gods and Monsters
The Republic Tigers- Keep Color
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Shearwater- Rook

And my best, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds- Dig Lazarus Dig!

And my worst: Chinese Democacy. Ugh.

Thirding the love for Fleet Foxes.

Dan LeSac was the discovery of the earlier part of the year for me. Its not a perfect album, but when it gets it right, its about the most exciting thing that came out this year.

I can't let the thread go further without mentioning The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow (not their best, but still a highlight of the year for me), Missiles by The Dears (which would be on here for Saviour alone - again not their best, but still pretty damn great) and Kings of Leon's Only by the Night. Sure I'll catch some flak for that last one, but its my favourite of their albums and its just a joy to listen to.

Best things I listened to this year, though may have come out last year:

-Caribou: Andorra. Electronic nerd turned psych-sunshine pop. Imagine The Zombies produced by DJ Shadow. Heavenly over the top vocals, and great massive drumbreaks. Came out in 2007, discovered it early 2008, and still playing on a weekly base.
-Black Mountain: In The Future. I simply do not get why this isn't more known. If you like your folk psych, your metal Sabbath, your rock a bit prog and your choruses killer- look no further. Also best liveband at the moment, bar none.
-TV On The Radio: Dear Science. Most innovative sound of 2007. I don't dig all songs, but what's there that works is awesome. It's what Prince should be doing at the moment.
-Flying Lotus: Los Angeles. Electronic jazz for the future. I've heard people say they think it's boring, pointless, indulgent. I think they're wrong.
-Fleet Foxes. I get why this gets mixed reactions around here, but then I saw them live. Like it or not, this is musical excellence you don't see that often on a stage anymore. Vocal harmony done this right nurtures your soul.
-Santogold. I don't get MIA at all, but Santogold is perfect modern pop bliss. 'Lights Out' was a radio single highlight this year. Pretty good live act, too.
-The Bug: London Zoo. In this place, I actually should put any of the dubstep mixes I've been playing, but this will do the introduction nicely. As with most of these 'next big thing' genres, there's a lot of filler in dubstep, but find yourself a quality mix (I recommend Mary-Ann Hobbs, The Bug, Tek9 or Burial for starters) and you'll get why people consider this the most exciting sound since drum'n'bass.

After listening to it non-stop for the past few weeks, I'd have to say it's Deerhunter: Microcastle. But Dear Science is nipping at its heels.

I'm going to do a list later, but man...what an overall disappointing year for music compared to last year. Some great albums, certainly, but nothing fighting to make it on the list like last year.

Your list just prompted a Youtube splurge. I've just this moment put in orders for Cloud Cult, Juno Reactor and Republic Tigers.

This is why I love threads like this, great way to open your ears to music you might have missed.

Seriously, took them long enough didnt it? A lot of fans were turned off by this 2 CD album however, they were expecting more bombastic cinematic greatness like their debut, but instead were confronted with more subdued audial landscapes to get lost in. I'll take any E.S. Posthumus I can get though, I know they'll barrage our ears with more over the top blood-pumping music in the future.

This thread has cemented the fact that this is the year I fall woefully behind on music.

That said, i can at least vouch for the Amanda Palmer and Portishead albums.

It worries me that I haven't heard of 90% of the bands mentioned.

I only bought 4 new albums that were released this year, so here they are:

NIN - The Slip
NIN - Ghosts I-IV
The Mars Volta - The Bedlam In Goliath
Opeth - Watershed

It's hard to pick a winner since I've listened to them all a lot. In particular, I was ecstatic to get two NIN albums in one year. While I appreciated ghosts and listen to it often, The Slip has really held up.

I previously hated the Mars Volta, but after listening to a lot of prog-metal, I really got into this album. The back story regarding the ouija board heightened the crazy feel to the album.

And Watershed is not my favourite Opeth album (Blackwater Park/Ghost Reveries) but I still got a lot out of this release.

In retrospect, I've really listened to more no more than 10 albums consistantly this year. Arch Enemy, Opeth and Mastodon have been the main artists. Perhaps my new years resolution can be to find a new band to love.

That is true, on a technical level, but it also had social implications that were revolutionary to music and culture in general, paving the way for truly groundbreaking music like Public Image Ltd.'s early stuff. Today it seems that most good music is foremost a social tool, and suffers from that. Iggy Pop put it best:

"The most successful stuff is sold to you as indispensable social information. The message in the music is, 'We are terribly, terribly slick and suave, and if you listen to us, you can probably get a leg up in society, too."

I guess it's ironic that new, vital, uh, 'arts communities' seem to spring up when nobody involved is too concerned with what other people think. What he said there has always been true, but I can't help but think it's more true now, what with MySpace and the like. They are democratic and include everyone as peers with each other. It's good for peace, but doesn't yield anything new. There is a serious generational disconnect, but I think we're too busy comparing shoes. It's like they try not to stand for anything these days.

The John McCain one? That was sarcastic.

The Stand Ins and Mates of State's Re-Arrange Us were two of my favorites this year.

I've also recently started listening to Jenny Scheinman, who didn't release anything this year, but who is perhaps my favorite personal discovery of 2008. See particularly The Rabbi's Lover.

edit - My very local music expert just informed me that Scheinman did, in fact, release two albums this year. So, yeah. But I'm still going to urge The Rabbi's Lover on everyone here.

I'd forgotten how great the Fleet Foxes was. Thanks, thread.

Also, this is going to open me up to all kinds of flaming, but Okkervil River is a band that I like more on an intellectual level than I think as a band I like to listen to on a regular basis. I only got into them this year, though, through The Stage Names, so I don't know.

Rath, go listen to Black Sheep Boy and get back to us. It's quite possibly one of my favorite albums of all time. "Black" is an absolutely brilliant piece of pop music.

I'll think of others I may mention later, but there's one album I feel deserves to be singled out for special attention: AA Bondy's American Hearts.

Technically released in 2007, its rerelease this year on the Fat Possum means I get to hype it all over again this year with Possum's added cachet. Bondy, former frontman of the criminally underrated hard rock outfit Verbena, literally sold all his electronic instruments but kept an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. Chewers who mentioned Bon Iver should take a look at these links, if only because Bondy opened for him (them?). Not to reduce either of them--they're not stylistically similar, but they mine the same spare sorrow, the same raw emotion. Just like Bon Iver, Bondy's the real deal.

Dozens of listens later, and I still get a chill up my spine listening to this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WxX3pnu40

The plaintiveness in this one just kills me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYD1cXTS3S4

You might as well give this a listen to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-26hG...eature=related

I really like a lot of the albums being mentioned and specifically In Ear Park and The Stand-ins. However, I am kind of disappointed no one in this thread, or any year end lists i've seen, for that matter, has listed either of the White Denim albums issued this year. Exposion is my favorite of the two. They both share songs. Workout Holiday is a UK release. I know that I listened to this band more than any other this year. I also really liked that Dan Friel album, Ghost Town. It is like a really melodic Metal Machine Music if that makes any sense.

I am working on a top ten list right now. So, I'll probably have a more full reading of the year at the end of the month.

I agree with a lot of these

I am a little surprised there has been no mention of The Raconteurs - Consolers of the lonely


really solid album

That's pretty great, and so is the companion they released to it - Black Sheep Boy Appendix.

Anyway, can never pick a favorite. I'll have to comb through all of the stuff I listened through this year. That new Crooked Fingers disc really, really grew on me. I love the duet with Nico Case (Your Control). It's like I'm stalking it. I listen to it on repeat.

Zooey, I really like that Mates of State of cd, but it didn't top their last (in my sad opinion). Still, it's great. I love Gardner's voice.

The hype was on the money for the Bon Iver disc. So good.

I listen to "No Key, No Plan" at least once a week.

I gorged myself with "Another Radio Song" off of that one.

Testament - The Formation of Damnation
Opeth - Watershed
Death Angel - Killing Season
Those Poor Bastards - Satan Is Watching (they do a nice cover of Cash's "I Walk the Line". Also "The Bright Side" is one I like quite a bit. "Crooked Man" ain't far behind either.)
o'death - Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin

So, basically shit no one on this forum really listens to.

Likewise. I just wish the rest of the album had the energy of "No Key, No Plan", "Black", "Pop Lie" and "Unless It's Kicks" and songs like that. I've never been nearly as big a fan of their slower, more ballady kind of stuff (Savannah Smiles, In A Radio Song, Blue Tulip, stuff like that). But they definitely bring more to the musical table than their amazing lyrics.

Other great discovery this year: the incredible weirdness of Lil' Wayne. Tha Carter III is one of the oddest rap albums I've ever heard. I'm not a fan of most mainstream hip-hop, but he brings an undeniable energy and personality to everything.

Off the top of my head, right now my two favorites are probably Cynic - Traced in Air and Wetnurse's Invisible City.

I adore the piss out of Opeth's Watershed as well.

There are way more metal heads here than I expected.

In terms of mainstream hip-hop rap, I am kind of digging Paper Trails by TI but I'm not entirely sure if I'm enjoying it ironically or not. Always a quandry.

Au contraire--I listen to O'Death. Give me my merit badge.

This part made me giggle.
This part made me cry.

Howlin' Rain - Magnificent Fiend.