Maybe it's personal bias, but I don't see the big deal about Dear Science,. On an average of all the year end top album lists, that one is consistently the highest-ranking. I don't know about you, but I've always felt TV On The Radio were the mainstream indie band that MTV and other like-minded music "authorities" cast as the best of the genre. Just bad imitations of those greater, harder to find treasures that will never see the light of day. But considering this elitist opinion is just that, elitist, it's no surprise that something esoteric holds more interest for me. The art of sifting through album after album in search of the "ultimate music," is half of the fun: making it your bitch (or vice versa) is the rest. That's not to say popular bands, which by indie standards hardly means anything, don't come out with good stuff. And it doesn't mean that Dear Science, isn't a good album either. It just means it's not top ten good.

10. Saturdays=Youth – M83

Talk about an album steeped in nostalgia: for the first few months after this came out, I avoided it like the plague. More than anything, it just seemed like a John Hughes musical. Maybe it was the album cover (which I now think is brilliant, btw), or maybe it was the over-the-top endorsement from Pitchfork Media. Whatever the case, Saturdays=Youth (which is also a brilliant album title)has grown on me immensely, culminating with my current preoccupation with Kim and Jessie: song of the year material. Anthony Gonzalez perfectly captures the teenage nostalgia: as said by himself, the song was inspired by a “teenage drug experience.” The rest of the album is equally mired in contemporary sounds and old memories, once again changing my view on electronic music.

9. Lust, Lust, Lust – The Raveonettes

Containing one of the top singles of the year, Lust Lust Lust fills one of those niches in genre-defined music: the one between noise rock and rockabilly that basically did not previously exist. Very straightforward, and very effective, the Raveonettes build complex layers of noise, vocals, urgent guitar riffs, and the steady drum work accompanying them. Songs like Aly, Walk with Me also smack a litle of the darker ambience permeates a lot of Massive Attack songs.

8. In Rainbows – Radiohead

I’ve been waiting for Nude to be released on an album by Radiohead for the past 9 years, and the studio version does not disappoint. Nor does the album, released on the group’s 3-4 year-an-album schedule. As an avid fan of their live shows, it was disappointing to judge this album without having seen it performed, but the songwriting and innovation here doesn’t need that first hand account to be truly great (yes it does). Highlights of the album include Videotape (as worthy an end as Life In A Glass House or Street Spirit), All I need, and Reckoner, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest Radiohead songs ever.

7. @#%&*! Smilers – Aimee Mann

Whenever I listen to Aimee Mann, I think of the 1999 P.T. Anderson film Magnolia she scored, and how f*cking good both of them were. Things haven’t changed over the years in terms of Mann's music (or I guess P.T. Anderon's movies either): @#%&*! Smilers weaves the same light-hearted folk Mann has created the past ten years, beautifully realized with her stunning vocals and amazing piano/guitar work. A simple collection of songs that touch on many different emotional issues, but in the lighthearted glow of her voice, leaving you feeling good about the whole experience.

6. At Mount Zoomer – Wolf Parade

Another album forgotten about - having come out at the beginning of the year - but once remembered, not likely to be taken out of rotation soon. Dan Boeckner is quickly becoming one of my favorite musicians, with his collaborations with Spencer Krug, his work in the Handsome Furs, and his involvement with Wolf Parade. An amazing follow-up to Apologies to the Queen Mary, this is also another album that steadily grew on me over the year, pausing to focus on individual songs like Call it a Ritual, and Fine Young Cannibals, finally to land on Kissing the Beehive.

5. Cove – A Weather

I completely forgot about this album when I first thought about top albums for 2008: my life is so different now than back when this album came out, it seems as though it came out in 2007. Cove is certainly named appropriately: when listening, you feel cocooned in dreamy, surreal melodies and the comfortable boundaries within them. By far the most blissful album of the year.

4. Rook - Shearwater

The best part about Johnathan Meiburg’s band is it’s close roots with Will Sheff's, and vice versa: both are great indie folk bands, and both came out with career-defining albums this year. What better way to ask for a sequel to Palo Santo than in the form of Rook? With possibly the best title track of the year, and songs like The Snow Leopard and Home Life, it’s hard not to be grateful (and hopeful for the future.

3. Third - Portishead

As with everyone else in the world, I was waiting for this album for YEARS. And also, like everyone else, the announcment of its release was met with an incredulous, "wtf?" Third doesn’t wait to deliver the goods: starting with track one, Silence, you immediately remember all the great things that Portishead was, and is: heavy, groundbreaking, haunting, kind of music you can’t listen to and not move some body part.

2. April - Sun Kil Moon

When I think of April, I hear the nostalgic broodings of a man who has lost, but is ready to move forward with his life. The simple arrangements on Mark Kozelek's latest album tell hazy stories of the past and present, and hopeful ones for the future. Like the metaphor built in the albums opening track, Lost Verses, the album is shrouded in fog, only to break in Tonight The Sky, the album's crescendo. While I infer a lot of personal significance, it really seems to resonate on the deepest level, with melodies as beautiful as the story they tell. In my opinion, Mark Kozelek's greatest achievement.

1. The Stand-Ins - Okkervil River

I’ll admit, I’m a little biased when it comes to Okkervil River, but what can I say? The first time I heard The Stand-Ins, I was reminded of all the beautiful reasons I love them, and the range of emotion their five albums and change cover. Music that generates true emotive response is rare in my opinion, but Will Sheff consistently delivers. The album’s single, Lost Coastlines, kinda makes you want to go sailing…and never come back. Ever. It quickly became one of my favorites by the band, and the rest of the album grew on me the way fine tastes are always acquired (at least for me): slow at first, then full-on love affair. Plus, the song title Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979, beyond completing the “lost at sea” motif, is an achievement in itself.

CURRENLY LISTENING

|  Home  |  Portfolio  |  About Me  |  Music  |  Contact  |

2008 GRANT ANDERSON