As I am officially not a music critic anymore but a wannabe (has-been? Wanna-not-be?), I don’t feel the compulsion to share my top 10 albums of the year with you, in carefully decided order.
As a person with a massive ego, however, I would like to give you my top five in no order, plus a mess of honorable mention… ready, here goes:
My Top 5 Albums of 2008:
- For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver: Like a lot of top 10 critical favorites this year, the album by Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, has been passed from publication to publication, blog to blog, as writers search for words like soulful, impassioned, etc. In this case, it’s well-deserved.
Saturdays=Youth, M83: A beautiful throwback album, not so much the music but the feeling. A joyous collection – and I can’t get Kim & Jessie out of my head right now.
The Stand-Ins, Okkervil River: Can Will Sheff make a misstep right now? Not musically anyway. I can’t speak for any other facet of his life.
The Way I See It, Raphael Saadiq: Brilliant on so many levels, mostly as a celebration of what makes good soul music great.
Dear Science, TV On The Radio: People call My Morning Jacket America’s Radiohead. Wrong. MMJ is America’s U2 (Unforgettable Fire-style). TVOTR is America’s Radiohead – they make the most experimental stuff sound amazing.
Honorable Mention:
- Attack & Release, Black Keys
- In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy
- Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, Drive-By Truckers
- Feed The Animals, Girl Talk
- Stay Positive, The Hold Steady
- Asking For Flowers, Kathleen Edwards
- Only By The Night, Kings Of Leon
- Hold on Now, Youngster, Los Campesinos!
- Oracular Spectacular, MGMT
- Evil Urges, My Morning Jacket
- Consolers of the Lonely, The Raconteurs
- Parallel Play, Sloan
- Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
- You and Me, The Walkmen
- The Week That Was, The Week That Was
- Alopecia, Why?
New Frontiers 