I realize that we're nearly to the third quarter of 2009 already, but I hope that you will forgive me the ridiculousness of posting my favorite albums from 2008 and just go with the entire process.

Jameson is on to something with these quick, youtube heavy posts, so in that vein I present you with my 'best of' 2008, as well as a solemn promise that I will do more posting in the very near future.

And in descending order we go:

10 - This is Ivy League - S/T

Over the last several years I have learned a great deal about my changing musical tastes... among the most important of these lessons that I am a sucker for straightforward rock. Perhaps it's a soft spot for no-nonsense music, but to be honest, I think that it's quite possible that the most difficult album to record in these days of diversified and beatles/radiohead-inspired creativity is a simple pop-rock album that is actually good.

This is Ivy League is phenomenal simply because they play instruments and channel the 1960s in a way that makes you smile and want to sip a beer from the end of a row house porch in Liverpool on a hot summer day.




9 - Friendly Fires - S/T

I have to admit that Friendly Fires was a complete unknown to me until June of 2009, so I suppose it's a lucky stroke that I didn't write my best of '08 until now.

Though I am usually somewhat aversed to dance based music, Friendly Fires have just the right amount of rock, dance, and too-cool-for-schoolness to make me get up and shake my surgically repaired knee.

If you don't like the video below I pity you:



8 - Fleet Foxes - S/T

Although I still don't think that they are quite as good as My Morning Jacket were in MMJ's vintage days of corn silo(gh?) recorded alt-country, it's impossible to deny the harmonies and overall loveliness of such a talented band.

On the MMJ front, by the way, Jim James is releasing a solo EP under the name of Yim Yames (that's right) that consists only of covers of George Harrison to include The Ballad of Sir Franky Crisp and Behind that Locked Door among other classics. Can't wait for it, though I wish that The Art of Dying were included somewhere.



7 - Vampire Weekend - S/T

It's Paul Simon's Graceland sung by preppy boys with polo shirts from America's best universities.

Seriously... it is... listen to Graceland.

Hell of an album, though.



6 - The Week that Was - S/T

What is it with self titled albums this year?

You all know I love me some Field Music and the brothers that are the core of the band, Peter and David Brewis, have gone solo and they've both managed to create albums that are not only unique, but ridiculously so.

This is Peter's album, which is phenomenal, but not as good as David's, but which includes a better video, as you will see below (got it!?). Look out for the David Brewis cameo in the video, complete with rapid-type action!

Check them out... I'm tired of asking




5 - Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

Alright... it's a bit of a homer pick, but go read my previous review (drunken though it was) and you will see that it's worth checking out.

Seriously... Oasis is still really damned good.



4 - School of Language - S/T

Here's the other half of Field Music. David's album is better, but his video is not.

Centered around multiple versions of the same song, the School of Language album is, quite honestly, ridiculously fantastic. He takes the Field Music aesthetic of disjointed beats and sounds and marries them once again to devilishly catchy melodies.



3 - The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead

Just the right combination of shoegaze and pop-rock to tickle my fancy.

Think Ride mixed with Spoon and what you get is an amazing album with among the most catchy melodies of the year.



2 - Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

This is not a pick based on my, or my wife's, own personal love for the band or on previous albums.

The Seldom Seen Kid is, to be perfectly honest, a masterpiece. Every note is specifically chosen and placed in its appropriate place with incredible care.

It's an album that doesn't sink in right away, but which takes time.

Have a listen to the opening song, "Starlings", which, I know, seems awkward at first but which is among the most controlled uses of sound and vocal ability I have ever been exposed to.

It's essentially a song that maps out the highs and lows of the feeling of falling in love in both sound and lyrics. Guy Garvey's voice is the best on Earth and, let's be honest, you have to have recorded a pretty fucking good album to win the Mercury Music Prize and have the BBC Concert Orchestra devote an entire night to playing your album.

Additionally, the below video features the greatest lyric ever written:

"You are the only thing in any room you're ever in"



1 - Maupa - Run Run Sleep

How do you beat an album that I would consider nearly perfect?

Know me!

Well, it helps, but Maupa are my album of the year not because I happen to correspond with them, but because they have crafted a gem.

It's an album that will continually catch you by surprise and which runs the gamut. It's one fucking hell of an album.

There's a reason that NME gave them a review including the phrase "one step away from genius", though I'd argue that NME is missing something and that the album is, truly, genius.

As they would say in Accrington (or so I'd like to believe)

"'Ave a listen, mate"

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Well, we are almost at the half-way point of 2009, and somehow avant-garde (indie) rock band, the Dirty Projectors, are responsible for two of the best pop singles of the year. Prior to 2009, the band, while gaining some critical accolades, was certainly an acquired taste with their obtuse, art-rock arrangements and David Longstreth's bleating croon singing style. However, somewhere in the time since the band's 2007 release, Rise Above (an experimental re-telling of Black Flag's, Damaged) it appears that Longstreth and company have picked up a pop streak. We are all better off for it.

Exhibit A: "Knotty Pine" - Springy guitars hop along to a stomping beat. Fluttering piano fills out the chorus. Oh yeah, David Byrne is on the track.




Exhibit B: "Stillness Is The Move" - More intricate guitar burst over a heavy beat. Chorus could be played (over and over) on mainstream radio. Track is both singable and danceable.




First, Animal Collective. Then, Grizzly Bear. Now, the Dirty Projectors. Mark 2009 as the year that all the experimental indie rock bands went pop. No complaints here.

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In a message posted on their website this past Friday (6.5.09), the Everybodyfields announced they were calling it quits. The two core members of the band, Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews, both plan to take a shot at solo careers. A spectacular alt-country band, the Everybodyfields, have reportedly finished recording a fourth album, that appears to be shelved for the time being. While it was a very depressing album, Nothing is Okay (the band's third), was one of the best albums to come out of 2oo7 (looking back...what a fantastic year that was for new music: Boxer, Marry Me, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, In Rainbows, Person Pitch, The Stage Names, Friend and Foe, Let's Stay Friends, Sound of Silver, The Shepherd's Dog, Plague Park, The Reminder, Nothing is Okay, Spirt If, Cassadaga, The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse, Cease to Begin, Neon Bible, Strawberry Jam). Anyhow, the Everybodyfields will be missed. Check out this live version of Nothing is Okay track, "Lonely Anywhere".

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You can keep tomorrow. After tonight, we're not gonna need it....



Oh yeah! Oh yeah!

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Instead of trying to do this all at the end of the year, I figure it would be easier to just make smaller posts with clips as the music is actually coming out.

That being said, the new Phoenix album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is out this week (physically), but I have been enjoying the digital release for the last couple of weeks (it has been out on itunes since May 12). Phoenix is a french band that hails from the same part of France (Versailles) that produced the likes of Air and Daft Punk. While there are shades of electronic-dance in what Phoenix does, I would say the similarities to Air and Daft Punk do not go much further than geographic coincidence (although I will say that the French always do a great job of looking cool).

At the core of it all, Phoenix is really just clean-cut pop-rock group (think Vampire Weekend if they did not care as much). On Wolfgang, the band's fourth full-length, Phoenix continues to churn out danceable, effervescent (occasionally synth - in a good way) rock numbers. Vocalist, Thomas Mars, has an effortless swagger in his delivery that leads me to believe he owns several leather jackets and only wears them over tight v-neck t-shirts. With some of the catchiest/most fun songs to come out so far this year, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix may be 2009's first big summer album (and its only May). Check out the infectious, "1901" below.

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Clearly, I have neglected the blog in 2008. I (personally) had only two posts in 2008, and one of them was about Hunter S. Thompson. If anyone was reading this thing before, they certainly cannot be anymore. I won't apologize or make promises I cannot keep for 2009, but I can at least offer up my top albums of 2008 (in case someone is dying for some relatively new music). I have not done my usual thing of painstakingly writing each individual review, so I apologize for the lack of written content. Instead I have offered up a few sentences about each album, and then embedded a youtube clip of a track from the album. Maybe by having the clip right there (and having less self-indulgent writing), it will be more likely that someone will check out something new. Let me know what you think.

10. Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
Side project of Grizzly Bear's Daniel Rossen. Sounds like a more structured (and certainly more personal) rendition of the haunting psych-folk that has gained Grizzly Bear so much praise over the past few years. Always feel like this could be the soundtrack to an indie film made today about midwestern suburbia in 1987.

Track: "No One Does It Like You"



9. Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
First Silver Jews album in three years. Wry flea market poetry on top of Nashville inspired honky tonk. Not the best Silver Jews album, but there is no such thing as a bad Jews album.

Track: "Suffering Jukebox"



8. Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak
Broken-down version of the traditionally over the top Kanye West, translates into the most consistent release of West's undeniably impressive career. Thematically, Kanye is as depressed as he has ever been (or probably will be) on 808s, and the result is the humanization of one of pop music's loudest mouths. The minimal, electronic pallete and tales of misfortune result in one of the most surprising releases of 2008.

Track: "Street Lights"



7. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes/Sun Giant EP
The Sun Giant EP proceeded their s/t full-length debut, but everyone seems to group them together (probably because they are both so good). Soaring vocals over Appalaichan folk (rock). The music trods along, sounding from another time and place. The harmonies would make Brian Wilson jealous. Seems like every review of this I read mentions "pastoral rock", but I am not sure what that is. Album is epic.

Track: "Your Protector"



6. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
A band known for its unorthodox mix of junk rock and electronic (think if Radiohead formed in Brooklyn in 2001 - and was just overall grittier), Dear Science finds TV on the Radio exploring their pop/dance tendencies. The result is David Sitek and company cutting through the density of TV on the Radio records past, and the most straightforward TVOTR release to date.

Track: "Crying"



5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
This album came out in January of 2008 and seemed to pass with me seamlessly through each season. Its African pop tendencies were a breath of fresh air as the winter thawed right into spring. Its east coast affluence made me feel like less of outcast as I was off to the College of William & Mary a few times this past summer. Once fall rolled around I was wearing boat shoes, had a purple gingham checked shirt on and was scoffing at people getting bent out of shape regarding comma usage.

Track: "A-Punk"



4. The Dutchess and the Duke - She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke
Sounds like the great rock artists/bands of the late 60's doing their best folk rock stuff. Think the Rolling Stones doing Beggar's Banquet. Sometimes I hear Dylan. Sometimes I hear Cohen. On "Mary", I hear both of them. If you like the darker stuff that came out of the late 60's (which you should) you will like this (you will).

Track: "Out of Time" - (Live Version)



3. The Gaslight Anthem - The 59' Sound

See my full review one post down or at this link (http://tuesdaysonthephone.blogspot.com/2009/04/gaslight-anthem-59-sound.html).

Track: "The 59' Sound"



2. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
If you are reading this, it probably means you talk to me somewhat regularly. That being said, I have probably already raved to you about the Hold Steady. Best live band in America makes another album of fist pumping, throat clearing, rock and roll music. Of course, you can (and will want to) sing along to the whole thing. Just let me know when, and I can bring the beers.

Track: "Constructive Summer"



1. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

I am not kidding when I say I have listened to this album over 100 times (I have the itunes "play count" to prove it). That should be enough of an endorsement. If this album doesn't move you, then you are dead. Check out my full review three posts down or direct at this link(http://tuesdaysonthephone.blogspot.com/2008/06/bon-iver-for-emma-forever-ago.html).

Track: "Skinny Love"

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If forced to categorize their sound, most would classify the Gaslight Anthem as a punk rock band. This is probably a fair assessment. After all, they did share a bill this past fall with Rise Against and Alkaline Trio. Make no mistake though, The Gaslight Anthem span beyond the stereotypical teenage-centric crowds of pop-punk's reach. With a foundation that is based more in the working-class grit of east coast rock and roll, than in the saccharine sheen of the MTV pop-punk circuit, The Gaslight Anthem sound like a punk rock band playing classic rock songs. The end result plays to my most elementary desires.

With the Gaslight Anthem hailing from New Jersey, it would be ridiculous not to mention the influence that Bruce Springsteen has on The '59 Sound. Lead singer Brian Fallon reportedly cut his teeth only a few blocks from E Street, and this is apparent from his first growl on album opener, "Great Expectations", to his last wail on closer, "The Backseat". The comparisons don't stop at the vocal stylings though. Lyrically, Fallon makes no mistake of his allegiances to the Boss, romanticizing about some of Mr. Springsteen's favorite topics: garages, girls, and growing up. In fact, the similarities move to direct Born in the U.S.A. references on tracks like "High Lonesome" (which pulls lyrics directly from "I'm on Fire") and "Meet Me by the River's Edge" (which name-checks both "No Surrender" and "Bobby Jean" within its first ten seconds). The flagrancy of the borrowing somehow makes it less of a sin though, and ultimately contributes to The '59 Sound's cohesion.

The real heroes here though are the hooks, and there are a lot of them. For better or worse, every chorus on The '59 Sound will get stuck in your head. They are melodramatic ("Everybody leaves, so why wouldn't you?"), they are covered in schmaltz ("Did they play your favorite song, one last time?"), they are over the top ("We're gonna wash these sins away, or else we won't come back again"), which is basically three ways of saying that they are fucking great to sing along to ("Maybe I should call me an ambulance").

Plain and simple, The '59 Sound is an album full of unforgettable melodies and hooks, which are laced with nostalgia. With their hybrid version of punk and classic rock, the Gaslight Anthem manages to create a standout summer album in a year (2008) full of them. Musically, it may not be complex. Thematically, it may not be groundbreaking. The '59 Sound will make you sing and dance though. That is what we came to do, right?

Jameson

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