Best Albums of 2008
These “best of the year” lists, should be done after the year has past. Unfortunately, Hype Machine has forced me to do it early and so I am stuck with a list, which is not finished and only contains nine albums. Do not worry, I will post the final one next year when I have finished making my mind up. Leave a comment if you disagree, or if I missed one out, so I can see if I want to include it in the final version. Enjoy!
Flight of the Conchords has been a bit of an addiction since I discovered their TV series. I basically downloaded anything I could find from their rather huge collection of music. Of course, I decided to buy their debut. It’s just a shame how it’s not very different from their TV show material. They are at their best when they perform live and since the album is mainly ripped straight from the TV show, I didn’t put it any higher on the list. Still, their material is both funny and musically interesting. Using styles ranging from David Bowie to Shaggie, Flight of the Conchords’ album is well worth listening to.
The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)
Peaceful, The World Lies Me Down, is an interesting take on folk music. It has both witty and clever lyrics, produced by a very unlikely kind of vocalist. It has the beautiful voice of Laura Marling and it has some really nice instrumental work, the violins are particularly memorable. Though, I did not enjoy the slow sections of the album, finding them slightly dull, it is the faster paced tracks, like 2 Atoms In A Molecule and Rocks And Daggers that make Noah and the Whale’s first album truly great.
MGMT don’t prove the formula ”quality of quantity”. With ten tracks on the album, only three proved to be amazingly epic (Time to Pretend, Electric Feel, Kids). The rest is just not very interesting. You can argue it’s all experimental, which is fine, but don’t put it on the album then. It’s a shame, because if they had kept up the standard of those three, MGMT’s debut would be the best album of the year.
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Tokyo Police Club produced a pretty amazing EP last year, and their debut was a bit more gritty, but did not disappoint. Their sound is very Strokes-esque, but with a less harsh (Candian) vocalist and distorted synthesisers, which produces a faster sound, something which might be heard on a dancefloor somewhere.
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The Blood Red Shoes’ album is short, but ferocious, simple, but still fascinating. With just a guitarist and a drummer, it seems like their music might be dull, but this is where you start listening to their impressive debut. Hard and fast drumming, relentless guitar strumming and the interesting interwoven vocals from Laura and Steven create a great rock record.
Dark and strange, Alex Turner’s side project, The Last Shadow Puppets, did not really spark my interest initially. But after a couple of months, I can really appreciate it. Age Of The Understatement sounds like an album made of Bond theme songs, but with a lot more depth It manages to keep all the grandness even with the slow, acoustic songs. I can’t wait to see what Alex Turner will do next.
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A flawed, but great album from Foals. It’s a real shame they missed out on Astronauts and All and Hummer, for Heavy Water and Big Big Love (fig. 2). The rest is perfect. In the last three months they have creeped into my Last.fm’s 8th most listened to artists. Battling guitars, addictive bass lines and unbelievable drum patterns make an album which everyone should try. Red Socks Pugie is definitely one of my favourite tracks ever. They also managed to prove themselves as the best band I have seen live.
Lightspeed Champion’s first album is stunning to listen to. With it’s incredibly beautiful melodies, violent and open lyrics, Dev Hynes has created an album where every song is a masterfully created sensation. Would have got my album of the year, if not for Salty Water. I don’t need to describe it anyway, because you should already be rushing to get this from the shops or be downloading it right now.
Just an incredibly well-rounded album. There are no flaws, it’s just a barrage of incredible songs. And with a completely different sound, to anything right now, they have a winning formula. From the opening bangs of Mansford Roof, to the simple melody of Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, to the final clash of Walcott, Vampire Weekend’s debut, is a thrill to listen to. You’ve got it anyway, haven’t you?
Foals – Rarities 2
Still addicted to Foals, and I managed to find a fantastic website with tons of great mp3s. Thanks Mr. Anonymous Web Site Maker!
I have to say that I was not quite into the vocalist from the original band, but both Try This On Your Piano and Look At My Furrows Of Worry are still quite good. If you like The Edmund Fitzgerald, you’ll like these. There is lots of super fast guitar melodies, which come together spectacularly, insanely fast drum sections and screaming like something off a Fall Of Troy record.
For the more lighter Foals stuff, we have Olympic Airways (an early demo) and Red Socks Pugie (live). Both tracks are slightly different from the album versions, but both are arguably better. Olympic Airways, is nearly completely different, except for the bass riff (even that has been made faster) and the lyrics. Red Socks Pugie is just a tweaked version from the studio track. All those small changes add to their best song, and somehow make it even more incredible.
Foals, Friendly Fires and Cut Off Your Hands
MGMT or Foals? Quite an easy choice for me, and having asked my friends who went to MGMT, a well chosen one. We missed most of Cut Off Your Hands, to my friend’s dismay, who had only been there for them. From the two songs we heard outside (Still Fond to Expectations) and then You and I from inside, they did a good job. Sweating everywhere, they went off to a quiet crowd, which is unfortunate for such a great band.
Having never really go into them, the Friendly Fires did come on and put on an impressive show. I enjoyed nearly all their songs, highlights were In The Hospitol and their amazing jam at the end with their famous single Paris. It was stunning to watch as the bass player put down his bass and started playing the amazing cow bell section for the whole song. Friendly Fires proved that they are a great band , not perhaps enough to buy their album, but they put on a fanastic live set, with furious amounts of energy, perhaps only being shadowed by the mighty Foals themselves.
Walking through the crowd, and brushing past me, they came on to huge amounts of cheers and whistling. Walter, the bassist, took a swig of beer from a nearby ticket holder. Jack started it off with an amazing amount of percussion work as the band started to increase in tempo and in volume. It soon became just lots of high pitched noises which started to become unbearable, until the release into Two Steps, Twice. Whenever he got the chance, Yannis was bobbing, weaving and dancing about with the rest of the band. Perfect musicians, they did not falter once. Moving into Olympic Airways without stop, they managed to persaude my friend, that is was not so bad that had missed Cut Off Your Hands. Today he stands a Foal convert. With racusious enthusiasm, the crowd was screaming along with Yannis; “Dis-A-Ppear!” The songs kept coming and the crowd was hungry. Hanging on Yannis’ every word, the crowd shouted requests throughout, all which seemed to be fufilled.
Half way through Jimmy (pictured above left), jumped onto the pillar, clambered two meters up and banged his guitar for distorion, right above us! Jumping down he dropped his guitar. Hummer, the crowd pleaser, started and it seemed Yannis’ mike had broken. Then it became obvious, the crowd was just singing louder than his amp could go. Red Socks Pugie came on (a song which has been negelected by me of late) and it instantly made me fall in love again. The drum beat was amazing, as were the lyrics, the rise and then the quite fall to nothingness. Yannis took a trip to the bathroom, through the crowd, and with his guitar. Even songs which I didn’t really enjoy on the album, Big Big Love (Fig. 2) and Electric Bloom, were incredable. Perhaps the best live show I have ever witnessed, actually no, Foals’ polyrymthic rock, Friendly Fires’ cowbell and Cut Off Your Hands’ power pop made it the best gig I have ever been too.
See more photos here
Watch the end of their concert from the next night (two steps, twice), in great quality, here.
Foals – Rarities
Yup, I like Foals a little bit more than last time. I managed to find some of their excellent singles which are not on the album and now I am hooked once again. I much prefer these singles, they are less poppy and there are a lot more things going on within the tracks.
Astronauts And All – Brilliant futuristic sounding song, pounding drums, beeps and bloops and there are some cool lyrics. Yannis talks once again about escapism: “Let’s trade all these types of things, for wings.” Maybe their best song. Just maybe.
Hummer – More of the same, really, but still really fantastic. Be warned this is incredibly catchy.
Mathletics – Their most famous single, pre-album, it has really complicated picking and really smart drum rhythms. I don’t really like the minor verses or the odd distortion on Yannis’ voice.
For once, I am stumped for words. They are just all really, really great. Or is that they are all the same?
Best Albums Of 2008 – So Far
Here are the my favorite (so they must obviously be the best) albums of the year so far:
5) Flight Of The Conchords by Flight Of The Conchords – With fresh ears this might be number one, but most of the songs on the album I had already heard exact same versions of, from the TV show. And it doesn’t really capture their brilliance when they are live.
4) Oracular Spectacular by MGMT – Personally, I did not believe the whole album was fantastic (unlike most), but there were some really amazing tracks. Not perfect but good.
3) Antidotes by Foals – Foals have grown on me a little more since last time I wrote about them, however I still believe that the album was not “the best thing ever”. However, it is still a very well-rounded one and is still pretty enjoyable.
2) Falling Of The Lavender Bridge by Lightspeed Champion – Simply Beautiful, it is just a really likable album with a style that seems lost now days.
1) Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend – Brilliant, if you haven’t purchased this record, go out and get it now.
I tried to take in about 20 albums for this small list, so I did try to cover a spectrum of different albums that have come out in the last 6 months or so.
Think I’m wrong? Add your comment!
Foals
Their debut album had a lot of hype. But does it convert to a fantastic debut album? Not really, though I still enjoyed the record. “Red Socks Pugie” and “Balloons” are brilliant. Apart from the aforementioned tracks, the rest of the album is rather forgetful and leaves one thinking how great they good be, and how great their next album will be, if they base their tracks on their two strongest. Foals is “Math-Rock”, a complicated form of guitar based music, with lots of irregular stopping. You could also describe them as “Dance-Punk”, which is pretty self-explanatory.
Red Socks Pugie – An odd combination of slow guitar notes with lots of ambience and fast and catchy drum patterns makes for a very cool song. It grows to incorporate the bass as well and reaches a great crescendo with a more steady normal beat and another member of the band backup singing. The track then fades out to more ambient guitars, but with the rest of the band still in their fast paced mode. This is their best track and makes the listener hope for more such great pieces from them.
Balloons – Their poppiest song, this is a great dance track with more fast and catchy dance drums beats. Here both guitars play an interesting melody, which creates a fantastic interweaving pattern which is joined in by saxophones every now and then. The lyrics deal with escapism, “we fly balloons on this fuel called love”, the singer is almost mournfully singing these lyrics which contradicts the searing and happy guitars.
Check out Foals, if you want to hear something different…
