08 BEST, WORST, COULDABEENS, AND HOLDOVERS

I could do a lot of pontificating and justifying and the this is why and that is because, but I’m not…leave a comment or send an email and I may or may not address your concerns…

For the purists, I used the US street date for my basis. I happy to quibble. Please start music player located at bottom of post, now... I totally chintzed out and didn't build individual players for each section but I did include some stuff I didn't like (see how fair I am). And there were only a couple of tracks that weren't available. I guess I could've uploaded them myself but I'm still trying to figure out the reach of this thing etc. or if it's a big wank.

Anyway, listen and discuss...

BEST ALBUMS:
TV on The Radio, Dear Science
Radiohead, In Rainbows (actual US street date 01.01.08)
The Helio Sequence, Keep Your Eyes Ahead
Say Hi, The Wishes and the Glitch
Cut Copy, In Ghost Colors

HONORABLE MENTIONS: The Walkmen, You & Me/Black Keys, Attack and Release/Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea/Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple/MGMT, Oracular Spectacular

BIGGEST PLEASANT SURPRISES:

Grace Jones, Hurricane

Duffy, Rock Ferry

Nine Inch Nails, The Slip

The Hold Steady, Stay Positive

The Teenagers, Reality Check

BIGGEST WHAT HAPPEN-EDS?:
Ladytron, Velocifero
N.E.R.D., Seeing Sounds
CSS, Donkey
Brazilian Girls, New York City
Destroyer, Trouble in Dreams

these were albums i liked by 'big' acts that seemed to have no ups

MOST ANTICIPATED 2009:

Doves, TBD

Andrew Bird, Noble Beast

Neko Case, Middle Cyclone

Kings Of Convenience, TBD

Kid Sister, Dream Date

BEST CLUB/DANCE TRACKS:

Fagget Fairys, Uzela (prod. Yo Akim, T.O.M.)
Kid Sister, Control
The Black Ghosts, Any Way You Choose to Give It
Hercules & Love Affair, Blind (Hercules Club Mix)
Duran Duran, Night Runner (team9 Remix)
07 Holdovers
Armand VanHelden, I Want Your Soul
Spektrum, Kinda New (Dirty South Remix)

HONORABLE ALBUM HOLD OVERS 07:

Yeasayer, All Hour Cymbals
Film School, Hideout
MIA, Kala
Saturday Looks Good To Me, Fill Up The Room
Coconut Records, Nighttiming

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:
Metallica, Death Magnetic
Sasha, Invol2ver
The Verve, Forth
Portishead, 3rd
Emiliana Torrini, Me and Armini





WORST ALBUMS:
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Cardinology
Bloc Party, Intimacy
Dandy Warhols, Earth to the DandyWarhols
The Stills, Oceans Will Rise
Monkey, Journey to the West

my stuff

BEST OF ROUND-UP

i decided not to do it. because i got frustrated and lost a draft and couldn't re-find what i wanted blah, blah, blah. here's a few...

http://www.astralwerks.com/top10_08.html
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/148001-the-50-best-albums-of-2008
http://stereogum.com/archives/cat_yearend_list.html
http://www.gbh.tv/yearendreviews.html
http://www.spin.com/articles/40-best-albums-2008

my best of on monday, the 29.

MYSPLICE III - From team9 and Stereogum

As a hold over please visit STEREOGUM for 2008's MYSPLICE from team9. As you may surmise it's 2008 in mash-ups. It's fun you'll like it. team9's first orginal full lengthe is also available from their/his site. also check some of the other remixes, which are dope One of my faves is this one: Britney/Daft Punk/Dead or Alive/Justice.

Please believe that I am trying to get back into the swing of it, but the holidays and my laziness and blah blah blah, I'll try to do a year end round up with 'MY' top 10 or so of 2008 as well as hits and misses from round the tubes.

HARD DRIVE IS BBROKED

there is a LOL cat in my puters eatzing my datas. machine currently confiscated by 'geniuses'.

hope to be back early next week!

GRACE JONES, Hurricane - I don't like it...or maybe I do...

I'm very confused by this record and I'll tell you why, I don't like it, but I keep listening to it. It is a fascinating album. Much like grace herself, who I think is a consistently fascinating character. So maybe I do like the record. I mean, it is growing on me. It's definitely not a Yoko Ono dance record. It's really pretty mellow. It does have some pretty interesting producers that might make you think that it is, but it's not. It's pretty mellow. But has a lot of tension. It's got some ok ragga, dubby stuff, that I don't like, or maybe I do. Where is Rob Brezny when you need him...

http://www.thehurricaneiscoming.com/index_main.html

EAGLES OF DEATH METAL, Heart On - Bad Pun, Good Album

This may be their best record so far. I like them. I think they're fun. Good old fashioned rock and goddamn roll fun. I love the tongue in cheek lyrics. I love the fuzzy guitars. I always have fun at their shows. I don't think they sound like Electric Six or Queens of the Stone Age. They are more mature and less 'disco' than the six and i don't think the Queens are fun, although they do rock. The songs on Heart On are about living and loving LA and its foibles and it's stupid ass palm trees and not taking it all too seriously and having a couple of beers on Friday with your bros and having a ding-dang good time. Did you hear me? Fun. Good time.

http://www.eaglesofdeathmetal.com/

THE STILLS, Oceans Will Rise - The Worst of the OC's Greatest Hits

I did not like this record. I think it sounds like the a knock-off all the worst bands that you would imagine. Well, maybe not that bad but like some really bad chef took Coldplay and made a stew with Nada Surf and Dashboard Confessional and served it at some lame kids house when his parents were out of town and he wanted to make out with some dumb girl with fake tits and too much make-up. Over and over again for 12 tracks. Over and over again for 12 tracks.

http://www.arts-crafts.ca/thestills/index.php

NINE INCH NIALS, The Slip - Believe It Or Not, I like it

Honestly, I haven't listened to a NIN album since Pretty Hate Machine. But over the last year or so I've really gotten to approve of Reznor's politics. I decided to give this record a shot. And I've been surprised at how much I like and how much I choose to listen to it. True, some of my best liked tracks are on the softer side of the album such as Discipline, Echoplex and Head Down. There is an extended interlude (Lights in the Sky, Corona Radiata), towards the end that I don't really 'get' but it's not a deal breaker.

http://www.nin.com/

BLITZEN TRAPPER, Furr - Moonshine and Fireflies

As is kind their habit this record is all over the map. However, there seems to be a little more cohesion in the sound. It still sounds like a little bit of Deliverance and a little bit of Smokey and the Bandit with just a tich of Anyway Which Way But Loose. For me it evokes little ideas of banjo pickin' on the porch, car chases and orangutans. These chaps are great musicians but the album doesn't quite come together as whole but i certainly don't mind when it comes up in a shuffle. Also, I have to say that I wouldn't want them to change anything because I'm nervous that the songs might lose some of it's charm. Follow me?

http://blitzentrapper.net/

EMILIANA TORRINI, Me and Armini - I Really Wanted To Like This Record

But it's really only just ok. There's a lot of reggae and dub influence and sadly I don't really care for reggae or dub. I liked Fisheman's Woman soooo much that I really expected this album to knock my socks off. It kind of sounds like adult contemporary attempt at main stream dreck. Which is really, really sad. I mean, there was even some pretty amazing stuff on Love In The Time Of Science and she wrote some good little ditties for Kylie Minogue and former cohorts Gus Gus went totally disco. I mean, I wanted this album to push her up and out but I guess I didn't want my mom to buy it...

http://www.emilianatorrini.com/

JANELLE MONAE, Metropolis: The Chase Suite - I Don't Get It

So this sweet young thing was just on the cover of Paste Magazine as an 'artist to watch', so I thought I'd give it a shot buuuut, in a year of Estelle, Santo Gold, MIA, Erykah Badu, and dare I say Duffy, this poor little record has no nuts. Although I may agree with some of the lyricism the arrangements, music and production are just kind of blah. I'll also use this as a tangent opportunity to gripe about the proliferation of the EP. I mean really, can you give me a break? Can you just hold on another month or two and just make a really good album. I know that all the new glorious marketers think it's a really awesome way to keep your attention but, trust me, we get that it's just a ploy to separate us from our money. That doesn't really have anything to do with this record other than it's a junk 'special edition' 'EP'. whatever that means. I'm not judging the quality of the record on this criteria, it's just a crap tangent.

THE WALKMEN, You & Me - Mad Men soundtrack for the South

I will admit that I have not been following this band for very long. But I really like this album. It's kind of like Afghan Whigs and Felt had a love child and had it smoking and pouring perfect manhattans by the time it was 5. This album also reminds me a titch of Black Heart Procession. Regardless, the album is permeated by a deep languid 60's like production. Ya know, a little cartwheel across the dark street kind of feeling. A little like Commitments wrapped up in a blanket. OK, enough similes, I think you get it. A great album.

BLACK KIDS, Partie Traumatic - Uh, what the fuck is this?

Wow. So much hype and so much suck. I'm not even sure where to begin. This record is pop for teenage hipsters. This record is everything I hate about the 'new' 80's sound. Every track follows the same shouty whiny method. There are plenty of bands who do this much, much better, that I enjoy. And to be fair if a track came on the shuffle during a party or at a bar I wouldn't be dieing inside. But track after track is like water torture. At track 3, I was pulling my hair out. At track 5 I was punching myself in the face. By 9 I was praying for my brain to melt of my ear. But I'm a crabby old coot and this album is for tweeners.

SASHA, Invol2ver - Nap Time

I basically don't have anything good to say about this record. It's a big bore. It's totally innocuous. It's every mid-tempo record you ever heard in every cocktail bar. He even managed to suck all the life out of the tear jerker, Arcadia by Apparat. The anthemic Destroy Everything You Touch from Ladytron is reduced to a bass blob of lite beer. I mean really. But at least I didn't have to turn it off, it is listenable if totally unmemorable. It's really sad. I still have such fond memories of the mixes that he did for Global Underground (still on GU) namely San Francisco and Ibiza. Northern Exposure 2, unstoppable. I'll even give him Xpander. Airdrawndagger, snooze-fest. Involver, restaurant background. Involv2er? I don't even think there is an album here.

TV ON THE RADIO, Dear Science - Take a bow Mr. Edison

This has been my favorite commute album for the last week. I dig it. It's got some interesting production that will delight your ears. The lyrics are a little silly but the arrangements are complicated. But the TV's lyrics have always been kind of silly. They'll probably get a lot of flack from hipster twats about the accessibility of this record. It is accessible and it is good. It's not like Strawberry Jam did any harm to the Animal Collective. This record does not sound like Strawberry Jam. A happy marriage of Afghan Whigs and My Morning Jacket, Maybe a little bit. My recommendation. Plug in the headphones get on the train and enjoy.

COLD WAR KIDS, Loyalty to Loyalty. Nice Nice Nice

What a happy and pleasant surprise. This was the perfect cap for 90 degrees in LA, a sweaty evening, cocktails and chain smoking in my tighties on the back porch. It's got some interestingly influenced guitars and drums. Like some Luscious Jackson riffs and African beats. I know that Vampire Weekend has made a lot of these beats of late. But this is far from preppy pop. In fact it's over before I am expecting or am ready for, so I play it again.

BLOC PARTY - Intimacy. It doesn't matter which coast, still crap.

This album is anything but intimate. The first track sounds like a rocked up version of the Chemical Brothers, Block Rockin' Beats, moderately acceptable. The second track sounds like Holla Back Girl goes gothic and spouts from Silver Lake to Williamsburg. Both former hipster havens for this former hipster band. I give up on track 5. The inane teenage lyrics drive me absolutely batty. And then I have to accept that I have simply outgrown this band. Like I outgrew Smashing Pumpkins. Which probably means that this album will huge for Bloc Party. Intimacy suffers from the same tragic over production. That's all i can say. And welcome to ipodfucker. Few holds barred, destroying the recording industry one album at a time. Have a nice day.