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?
Emmy The Great
Emmy The Great was the backup singer for the Debut from Lightspeed Champion, so what was I waiting for? Well, it seems almost possible to find a good collection of her demos. What I have found is pretty impressive though. She has a beautiful voice, and though the instrumental sections are not very interesting, they accompany her voice well.
Perhaps the best example of her work is My Party Is Better Than Yours. Reminiscent of the dark innocence of youth, the simple language is genius. Her dark recollection and spite works extremely well and is complete contrast to her high vocals and charming guitar ostinatos.
Where Is My Mind is one of my favourite songs of all time and is extremely well done. She uses a much faster tempo, which gives the song her very interesting, folksy style. It seems odd using folk for a grunge track, but it works very well. Instead of guitar notes, she uses plucking violins. Instead of female backup vocalist, she uses a male. It’s just a really well put together and interesting take on a fantastic song.
It seems I just keep saying, “it all works really well”. This isn’t a bad thing, it just shows me that her songs are brilliant, because there are no real flaws in her music. Her music just works really well.
Lightspeed Champion – Rarities
I’m afraid I have gone and written another post about Lightspeed Champion, I am sorry. Anyway here are my favourite rarities from the God of music himself:
Hooker Song – Catchy harmony and catchy lyrics, but still in his style of aggressive but cute songs; “Kill me baby, won’t you kill me?” Similar to “Patricia the Stripper”, the story is based around Dev’s awkwardness after hiring a hooker.
Happy Birthday – Showing off his guitar skills, this is how I introduced my anti-Lightspeed Champion friend to worship him. With sweeping crescendos from the violins, this track could have easily been on the album. Lyrics are once again, a critical attack on himself. But how else do you want it? Thanks to The Cold Cut blog for this one.
Flesh Failures – My favourite rarity, this was simply an extra track from the bonus CD of his debut. It’s a song from the musical Hair, and it really suits Dev’s style. Its just a repeating small chord pattern and Dev singing alone. Half way through, he is joined by some beautiful backup singers, which really boosts his vocals.
Another Song About Being Alone – One of the best Christmas songs I have heard (I’m not really into the “classics”), we just have to hope he records this properly. Oddly, it was released on his youtube account, just before Christmas.
Frequency 2008 – Day 1
Blood Red Shoes played the first set with great enthusiasm and managed to get some of the crowd going, something very difficult for the first band. It was interesting to see that the drummer did his own sound check, which was quite amusing. They ended with a brilliant I Wish I Was Someone Better. Then came on The Wombats, obviously one of the highlights, because suddenly the wave breaker was full. As they played their opener, Kill The Director, the crowd went crazy. Everyone stopped for a sing-along for “Little Miss Pipedream”; and the crowd sung considerably well, the festival was taking place in Austria. Madness ensued as The Wombats played their last song Let’s Dance To Joy Division.
We Are Scientists failed to impress me, even The Great Escape didn’t sound that great. The crowd had died down when We Are Scientists played, so I might not have been the only one. However, there was a great moment, for me anyway, when Dev Hynes came on and played After Hours with them. 
After, I dashed to go see Lightspeed Champion, it didn’t matter, he was delayed because Black Kids were canceled. When he did go on, Lightspeed Champion started off with a shaky Tell Me What It’s Worth and throughout the show their were sound issues, none of the backup singer’s mics seemed to work. Dev then played some new songs, and was joined my Keith Murray from We Are Scientists. Dev did a beautiful solo version of Everyone I Know Is Listening To Crunk with most of the crowd joining in. The ending song, his famous Star Wars/Midnight Surprise 20 minute epic track, was brilliant and it was really great to seem him from the front. Sadly, there was a very small crowd, but they were a dedicated one, with definitely the biggest amount of singing coming from the crowd than any other artist. I briefly managed to shake his hand before being bombarded with people trying to get his autograph. I then caught the end of Jose Gonzales, which didn’t manage to get me any more exited for him as an artist. From a distance I saw some Flogging Molly, which has definitely got me interested in them.
The Teenagers saw a packed crowd in the UK weekender tent. The singer had a good stage presence and was witty, but unfortunately the sound quality was far too loud and sounded really awful, making me migrate outside until Homecoming, easily their best song. The singer tried to pull off getting some of the crowd to sing some of the parts, and took five girls onto the stage. Starting the song off rather badly, everyone sung in for the chorus, but it was obvious that the girls didn’t know the words and the song was pretty much ruined. I wasn’t expecting lots from The Teenagers, but all together they were very disappointing. 
Lastly I saw Travis and then R.E.M from far away. Travis looked to be doing well and it sounded good, but R.E.M sounded rather dull. However, my friend swear that is was brilliant. The day started off well but seemed to get less interesting with the bigger bands, but it was still a fantastic start to the Frequency Festival.
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!
Lightspeed Champion
Ex-Test Iscles member, Dev Hynes, has created one of my favourite albums in the last year. It is a beautiful album consisting of Dev’s dreams and experiences. The first single(“Galaxy Of The Lost”), and the first “proper” track on the album, is brilliant. Like most of the album, the lyrics of the song are sung sweetly and at first glance look normal, but one closer exception there are some shocking lines. “As we kiss and I’m sick in your mouth” is one such line bringing quite horrific imagery. Another such line is “I feel the nigger eyes staring, makes me want to rip off my skin, sketchy motherfucker…”. Though this all sounds harsh and almost like black metal lyrics, it is all wrapped around gentle guitars, other stings and sometimes whole orchestras. Dev uses pianos, violins, guitars, flutes, female vocals and many other instruments in the album. His voice is also really good, its not exceptional, but has got a lot of personality to it.
Midnight Surpise, one of my favourite tracks on the album, is a really good 10 minute track with lots of repetition. And even though there is repeition, instruments keep getting added and the tempo keeps getting faster, this track really gets you hooked. This is one of the only tracks with some electric guitar in it. It fits well, only playing for about a minute, but with lots of distortion. The basic verse at the beginning is so catchy that this was the first track I was drawn to on the album. The lyrics of “Devil Tricks For A Bitch” are about the immature problems of a teenager, musically, however, this piece is very mature, with a whole orchestra joining in towards the end of the piece.
Nearly all the songs on this CD are beautiful, with great lyrics and beautiful music. I just would like to say that the only trach I didn’t enjoy was “Salty Water”. This is only a preference for me because, according to NME, this was their favourite track on the album. I think was this is a definite must buy. Dev Hynes has now become one of my favourite musicians of the last 10 years, up there with Carl Barat and Alex Turner. My pics are “Galaxy of the Lost” and “Dry Lips”. Other really good tracks are “Midnight Surprise”, “Devil Tricks For A Bitch”, “Everyone I Know Is Listening To Crunk” and “Let The Bitches Die”.
