My Top 10 of 2008

By dayvidday on Mon, Dec 29, 2008 8:32 pm

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Every loopy music scribe this side of the sun makes a year-end list to ensure their consistent, low-paying listening didn't go to a complete waste. Here's mine, with some off-the-cuff comments to sound all snarky-like and videos to boot. These are in no particular order, fwiw:

Ladyhawke | S/T

This officially came out in December in the US, and so a lot of US dumbfucks left it off their year-end list. To their error. I mean, seriously, there is not a bad song on here (okay, I sometimes skip over "Crazy World") and Phillipa Brown's sexuality would take Lady GaGa to court and put her in jail. To wit, on "Magic": "You're over the Atlantic, baby / It's one journey for you but it's worth it / One night here with me and it's magic." I don't give a shit if she draws from Stevie Knicks, Toni Basil, Cyndi Lauper or Pope Benedict, this is music that will sound as good 10 years from now as it does today. Which is pretty much a pre-requisite for any list I've ever made.

Cut Copy | In Ghost Colors

Long a critical favorite, this was the year Cut Copy transformed into a startlingly great arena rock band. I'm talking U2-sized, huge crowd-forming, sea-of-people type thing. The dominance of their sound was only clear after witnessing their performance at the Paradise Rock Club back in May. With the crowd permanently in hand, the Australian trio took us all right to the brink until the Dise's Midnight, lights-on policy brought everyone to a screeching halt. When they return to take on the new mega-club on Landsdowne Street at the end of February, I highly recommend buying tickets as soon as possible.

Santogold | S/T

No one artisitic debut packed more punch than this one. With punk, party-rap and funk gods in her corner, Santi White came out swinging. As a whip-smart lyricist and ego-driven authority, I suppose she can take it from here. From the lead single "Shove It": "I pay for what's called / Eccentricity in my wish to evolve / I hear them all say / That I got heart / But not that everything that it takes / Taint my mind but not my soul / Tell you I got fire / I won't sell it for no payroll / Let 'em hold me down." Wicked.

Cat Power | Jukebox

As a rule, I very much try to keep repeaters off my year-end lists. Why give an artist shine again when, in the the end, you're going to like what you ranked before better than what you liked this year. And there’s plenty enough good stuff to go around. If that makes sense. But Chan Marshall is one of America's greatest songwriters, and when she turns that intensity onto her own favorites, it's like throwing a blowtorch in a furnace. I wouldn't have been so convinced if I didn't seen Ms. Marshall put on a performance for the ages at the Orpheum in February. In front of a clearly shocked crowd, the once cryinging-shy Marshall pranced, danced and grooved to a set which contained nearly this entire record. I don't think my mouth closed once. It reminded me of seeing Michael Jackson and that's no lie.

Friendly Fires | S/T

Granted, there's a lot of scenester electro-rock type danceable doofiness on this list, but in a year when headlines might as well be a series of death knells, I kept going back to these beats and harmonies for psychological support. The Fires, another three-piece that formed over carefully-poured pints, were the only ones who took what I was thinking in my head and wrote a bunch of songs about it: "Photobooth, "Strobe" and so forth. The Field-sampling "Paris" took the cake: "One day we're gonna live in Paris / I promise / I'm on it." The smartly-directed video only helps.

Lykke Li | Youth Novels

Throughout the naughties, I think I've had a Swedish act in my top 10 list every year. Whether is the The Field, with techno sliced thinner than North End proscuitto, or the heart-pounding synthetic pop of The Knife, something about my Scandanavian friends takes pop music to another level. I first thought it was the soultronic whimsy of this production, then I thought it was the cutie fashion-forward art of it all. When the whole album arrived here at the Dig, it was pretty obvious the songwriting anchored the whole teetering mess. Blog faves like "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Little bit" took the headlines, but "Time Flies" and "My Love" are just gorgeous songs. Co-writer Yttling not-withstanding, without Ms. Li there would be nothing to this lovely debut.

M83 | Saturdays=Youth

Shit. There is a lot of electronic-type music on this list. Oh well. This is the third album here that impressed even more with the live show. On a much-too-hot June evening, Anthony Gonzalez turned the Middle East Downstairs into a sauna of over-arching frenzy. Clearly rooted in the dark dance-pop style of the '80s, M83 adds layers of progressive snyth wackiness and crescendo mania to make a towering pop confection. An expert producer, Gonzalez also adds an 11-minute coda to this, which had already won single-of-the-year accolades with the massive "Graveyard Girl" and "Kim & Jessie." That is how you make an album.

Tape | Luminarium

To me, no top 10 list is complete without one ambient record--the type of album you put on after you're sick and tired of listening to everything else. And while the box set from Gas is, like, the greatest thing I've ever bought at Newbury Comics, Hapna label-founders Tape turned in what most people call their best album to date with Luminarium. The name pretty much says it all, but let me take a crack at describing the loping guitar and crackling-flower sound within: You're at the beach, but at a pool near the beach. You can hear the ocean, but your feet are in the shallow end. You key in on the birds, the single-prop plane and the soft burbling of the pools cool jets and, for about 90 seconds, your hangover is gone.

http://www.hapna.com/moth_wings.mp3

Shed | Shedding the Past

Hey, I love all types of music, but if I didn't include Shed's landmark techno album, I'd be a big dumdum doofus. In a time when full-length techno albums are as rare as steak tartar, Shed (aka producer Rene Pawlowitz) turned in a fully-formed, 11-song structure of sound that at once took the house sound into a new realm of pulsing, soothing heartbeat music. My friend Andre named this new genre and I'm all about it: Minimal House. Like most electronic music, there's a blog somewhere that has the latest and greatest coming from this musical mind, and it would be in your best interest to at least give it a shot.

Matthew Dear | Body Language Vol. 7

Quite obviously, there were many kinds of DJ sets, mix CDs and MediaFire-enabled 8-hour workouts to choose from. But for me, the fact that Matthew Dear, the golden boy of American techno, a wanna-be rockstar and the limitless producer called Audion went to the techno elite for his mix showed that all ears turned to the techno being made by some of my favorite producers. Dear includes DJ Koze and Sascha Dive twice, both of whom make luscious, understated tunes. He also translates the name of the mix series into sound, incorporating "body" and "language" to great effect. Ultimately, this is one of the few long mixes I did not delete off my over-taxed hard drive, and, really, this whole list is what I didn't delete.

I'm the first to admit there was a shitton of great tunes in 2008--in a time of turmoil, art always gets the upper hand. Albums from MGMT, Crystal Castles, No Age and a lengthy list of punk and hardcore should be included in any comprehensive list. But these are my favorites of the year. If you don't believe me, check my Last.fm account.

Good luck in 2009. We'll all need it.