It’s that time of year again. Time for absolutely everyone with two ears and a pen to chime in with their personal and hotly contested list of the best new albums of the year. I did this for 2006 and then again for 2007 – so here’s 2008!
Yes, I’ve purchased and listened to each and every one of the 900 albums released this year (except for the new Queen Album, Cosmos Rocks – either resurrect Freddie or change the name of the damn band!). The following is how I’ve ranked them. No excuses. No explanations. Just my favorite albums from the past 12 months:
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10. Santogold – Santogold |
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9. TV on the Radio – Dear Science, |
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8. British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music? |
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7. Estelle – Shine |
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6. The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement |
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5. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes |
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4. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend |
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3. Kings of Leon – Only by the Night |
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2. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid |
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1. Adele – 19 |
Honorable mention:
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
Original Broadway Cast – In The Heights
Coldplay – Viva la Vida
Glasvegas – Glasvegas
Portishead – Third
The Bug – London Zoo
Do you have any favorites from this year that I may have missed?
At least last year I knew a couple of their names!
Yeah, good observation. There are a lot of new groups here. Or are there…?
TV on the Radio, Coldplay, and Portishead have all been around for a while and have even been featured on this very site 🙂 Kings of Leon have been around for years, as well, but I only “discovered” them this year. The Last Shadow Puppets is actually a side project headed by the lead singers of the Arctic Monkeys and the Rascals.
But many of these albums are debuts by new artists, many of whom have very interesting stories (see Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, Adele, and particularly Bon Iver).
Wow – for the first time ever I know TONS of these! I hear Bon Iver on the radio today, and have recently been introduced (about 3 times) and really liked (each time) Kings of Leon. Vampire Weekend is on my ipod constantly, TV on the Radio has come up frequently, and Fleet Foxes, though not a consistent favorite, has been on my Kate Nash Pandora station with astonishing regularity.
I’ve been on a Spoon and Wilco kick of late, tempered with a ton of KT Tunstall, Sara Bareille, and Kate Nash. Jem and Feist are showing up as well. Spring Awakening, Reefer Madness, and Thirteen have been the musical soundtracks of the year. But of course, none of these are new this year, I don’t believe?