Nick Butler's 2008 | Sputnikmusic

Nick Butler's 2008

by Nick Butler December 14th 2008 | 1 Comments

Looking back on 2008, I'm amazed that I managed to find as much great music as I did this year. This was the year I graduated from University after three months of solid, frantic work to finish all my assignments, and it was also the year when I proved myself such a failure at finding a decent job that I spent two months working 13 hours a day, 6 days a week. Over those five months, I think I listened to about four new albums. It wouldn't have surprised if I had approached this feature unable to make a top 25, let alone a top 50.
Iai's Best of 2008	Au contraire. Whatever it's a measure of, I found more albums that I'd consider important personal favourites this year than in any year since 1994 - a massive statement when you consider that '94 is my favourite year for music ever - and perhaps just as importantly, I found to my delight that so few of my most anticipated albums disappointed me. Whatever else went wrong for me in '08, almost everything musical went very, very right. A decade that has arguably struggled to define itself in any real way is ending on a very high note, with major artists in seemingly every genre take bold strides forward. Maybe it's a subconscious things - decades do tend to reveal their strongest and strangest music towards their tail ends, as people clamour to anticipate what the next one will be like. Portishead, Nico Muhly, James Blackshaw, Grouper, Blue Sky Black Death, and Erykah Badu have certainly done all that in the past few months, and made fantastic albums as a result.
Over the next few minutes of your life (which I'm afraid to say you'll never get back), I'll run down my top 50 albums of the year, my top 5 EPs, and my top 10 disappointments, surprises, and the obligatory round-up of all the horrible music that unfortunately had to happen. Above this text, you'll also have noticed an iMeem playlist of my favourite songs this year. Enjoy.

50. ESOTERIC
The Maniacal Vale
Season of Mist

Review/Last.FM

Forgive me for briefly indulging in metal's love of ever-increasingly obtuse genres, but....is this psychedelic funeral doom metal's holy grail? Certainly some people have been treating it that way. Esoteric have grown steadily ever more epic since their debut, and The Maniacal Vale is no exception to that. At over 100 minutes of relentless, crushingly heavy music, it's certainly not an easy-going listen, but if you ever catch yourself in the mood it's high on atmosphere, high on chills, and high on invention.

49. SHE
Coloris
Ponycanyon

Last.FM

It seems odd to hark back to the days when Daft Punk were big; I mean, it was only four years ago, right? Still, back then it seemed like everybody liked them, which meant that the crash back to earth on Human After All was huge, and since then, we've been waiting for someone to fill the void. Could She, a Polish-born gentleman of Japanese descent currently residing in Sweden, be that act? His diversions into chiptune suggest he won't be pinned down that easily, but the funky technicolour house of Coloris were enough to get a few heads very excited when it surfaced as a free Myspace download in April. An international major label release is expected next year - if you're missing the robots like so many are, you could do a lot worse than to pick this up.

48. THE GASLAMP KILLER
I Spit On Your Grave
Obey Records

Last.FM

Arguably, this is as 'out there' as hip-hop has gone in the past 12 months. An album that feels more like a bootleg mix CD, with just three tracks clocking in at 16, 27, and 16 minutes respectively, it's crafted entirely with samples largely drawn in from seriously obscure and surreal sources. Always unpredictable, it's so claustrophobic can feel like no two listens to this album are ever the same, yet The Gaslamp Killer always keeps things strictly fresh and funky. And what facial hair!

47. METALLICA
Death Magnetic
Warner Bros. Records

Review/Last.FM

The release of Chinese Democracy this year has distracted people from the fact that there's an even bigger hard rock band than Guns 'n Roses who also haven't released anything worthy of their name in the past 17 years - and what's more, they actually conjured something worth getting excited about this year. Death Magnetic works because it somehow manages to reference Metallica's classics while still sounding unquestionably 'new' (certainly much more so than when they consciously tried to follow current rock trends on St. Anger); proof positive that sticking to your strengths is always the best policy. Just listen to the pointless nuts-out rockfest of the last two minutes of "The Day That Never Comes" to understand how much more comfortable and confident they sound now.

46. RYOJI IKEDA
Test Pattern
raster-noton

Last.FM

If you've ever heard a Ryoji Ikeda album, you should know what to expect by now. Composed, as ever, using nothing but the bare fundamentals of sound (sine tones, basically), Test Pattern sees Ikeda move into territory that's a little more melodic, for lack of a better word, than usual. You might even call it 'accessible'. That doesn't stop him putting "#0001" at the start, though - it's just about the most genuinely messed-up thing he's ever put his name to. After that it resembles +/- in the way that it quickly finds a groove and exploits it for maximum effect, so if you like that - and if you have any interest in the avant-garde, you should - you'll enjoy this.

45. RAPHAEL SAADIQ
The Way I See It
Columbia Records

Review/Last.FM

Saadiq's old band , Tony Toni Tone, are sometimes credited with inventing and/or popularising neo-soul. Odd then, that in 2008 he's making an album as defiantly old-fashioned as The Way I See It. Everything points to this album being a tribute to the soul music of the '60s, from the production, to the instrumentation, to the lyrical preoccupations. The two obvious criticisms are, of course, that he's out of step with the times and he's bringing nothing new to the table, but the slick performances and the solid songwriting navigates both fears. As a bonus, check the guests: Joss Stone puts in the performance of her career, and Jay-Z completely embarrasses himself. Which is nice.

44. JOHANN JOHANNSSON
Fordlandia
4AD Records

Last.FM

An inconsistent record, in truth, but one that earns its place here by virtue of the three epics that bookend it. The opener, "Fordlandia", and the two songs that close the record, "Melodia" and "How We Left Fordlandia", are as epic and touching as anything offered up by any of the artists operating in the same field as Johannsson. As one of the growing field of composers who straddle the border between modern classical and post-rock, he's rightfully carving a serious reputation with pieces like this.

43. DAITRO/SED NON SATIATA
Split
Adagio 830

Review/Last.FM

Were it a stand-alone EP, Sed Non Satiata's side of this split would be rivalling Northern Portrait for the title of the year's best. It's their best work yet, moving them into more rockist territory but packing the same punch as the songs on Le ciel de notre enfance. Daitro let the side down a little - it's not their strongest output by any means - but this still well worth getting to hear two of Europe's finest emo bands at work.

42. THE DODOS
Visiter
Frenchkiss Records

Review/Last.FM

The artwork says it all. Taken from a kid's drawing (replete with awful spelling), their music is wide-eyed and childlike in the way it takes excitement from all sorts of unusual sources and reworks them in a simplistic, psychedelic format. Comparisons to Animal Collective and Architecture in Helsinki are obvious and not entirely misleading, although their impressive drumming sets them apart. It's undoubtedly too cute for a lot of tastes, but if you don't mind your music being precocious and valuing fun over credibility, then Visiter is one of the year's most enjoyable indie offerings.

	41. AMOS LEE Last Days At The Lodge Blue Note Review/Last.FM
He'll probably never top his stunning debut, but this represents something of a return to form for the curiously overlooked singer-songwriter. Balancing a new darker edge (see "Listen") with the poise and grace that has defined all his best moments, it softly displays new sonic possibilities for his music without abandoning the tricks that made his music so alluring in the first place.

40. PANIC AT THE DISCO
Pretty. Odd.
Fueled By Ramen Records

Review/Last.FM

When it comes to the sugar-coated pop-rock that came to be put together under the emo misnomer, you'd have to think long and hard to come up with a genre hated more by its primary practictioners. Each of the big three turned to a different source to escape the tag, and where My Chemical Romance turned to the rock grandeur of Queen and T.Rex, and Fall Out Boy turned to Jay-Z, Panic at the Disco went right for the highest of all pop sources: The Beatles. Pretty. Odd. is so obviously inspired by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that you want to applaud them for being shameless; that's until you realise how adept they are at the new style, and just how well the newly-found melodic sophistication suits them. Impressive and unexpected.

	39. THE INFOMATICS Kill Or Create Q-Niss Records Review/Last.FM
It's got flutes, it's got a song that's sort of about mestruation, it comes from Ireland, and yet it's a damn good rap album. Go figure.

38. FRANK TURNER
Love, Ire, & Song
Xtra Mile Recordings

Review/Last.FM

If there was a crucial flaw to Frank Turner's first solo album, it was that he was still allowing himself to be defined by his time in Million Dead; his new sound was more reactionary than natural. No such problems here, as Turner embraces genuine folk touches and the return of distorted guitars, and carves a niche to call his own. Love, Ire, and Song is an album that invites the reviewer to quote reams of lyrics to the reader, just so they can share the joy of hearing the kind of lines he writes. Like his clearest forefather Billy Bragg, he's just as adept at writing about politics as love, and there are classic lines on both topics here, as well as on wasted youth, teenage dreams, and growing up with the knowledge that punk failed a generation. I mean, have you read the lyrics to the title track? Britain needs a voice like Turner's.

37. THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS
The Age Of The Understatement
Domino Recording Company

Last.FM

When Miles Kane and Alex Turner told the media they were about to make an album together, there can't have been many people who imagined that it was Scott Walker and Van Dyke Parks, rather than Franz Ferdinand and The Strokes, who would provide the sonic cues. Widescreen, mature, and musically accomplished, it's only linked to the world of the Arctic Monkeys by the lyrical flair and the ever-present Sheffield accent. As a stab at a style that could hardly be more different, it's a resounding success - it's certainly better than Favourite Worst Nightmare and anything by The Rascals. If there's no sequel, there will be some very disappointed people out there.

36. GHOSTLIMB
Bearing & Distance
Level Plane Records

Review/Last.FM

The bands at the more extreme, frayed ends of punk's legacy generally succeed by either taking themselves entirely too seriously, or by sending up and mocking the entire genre. Ghostlimb do both. Bearing & Distance is a ridiculous album in all the right ways - it's difficult to imagine that anybody who sounds this pissed off could be faking it, but at the same time, you simply can't take anything this sonically extreme that seriously. If it was intended to be cathartic, then the target audience must have been an incredibly narrow group of incredibly angry people; for the rest of us, it's just the most enjoyable, hilarious, thrilling punk album of the year.

35. BLOC PARTY
Intimacy
Wichita

Review/Last.FM

Recovering admirably from the mis-step of the boring A Weekend in the City, Intimacy sees Bloc party further embrace the melancholy and introspection of the previous album's second half, but liven it up with sonic experiments that represent a leap forward from everything they'd previously done. "Zephyrus" is their rosetta stone, a brutally honest and beautiful love song that almost pummels the listener into emotional submission. Elsewhere they proved they still know how to rock with the best of them - "Ares" sticks a demented Van Halen-goes-post-punk riff over a Chemical Brothers breakbeat and proves you don't need to slavishly stick to convention to make good crossover dance-rock. If only more than two or three bands in the UK right now could claim that.

34. PROTEST THE HERO
Fortress
Vagrant Records

Review/Last.FM

It became very cool, very quickly, to dump on Protest The Hero from a great height. A young, precocious band with absolutely no heed for whatever the zeitgeist might be, they're absolutely ridiculous and proud of it. Blame it on their North American origin, I guess; when SikTh did much the same thing only a few years ago, it was assumed that their British origin meant everything was tongue in cheek. But they weren't joking, and neither are Protest, which is what makes it so fun. Nobody hears something this endearingly spastic and imagines that they'll still be listening to it in ten years, and that girls will want to hang out with them - they listen to it because sometimes, everybody needs an amphetamine rush. Give me dumb and fun false metal over beard-stroking true metal any day.

33. MESHUGGAH
obZen
Nuclear Blast

Review/Last.FM

It was Tomas Haake's return to the drum stool that got people excited, the changes and improvements in Meshuggah's soundworld are more complex than that. They've matured, they've taken stock of their strengths, and acknowledged their weaknesses, making obZen their best album to these ears; it's not just a culmination of all their previous albums (as advertised by the band members themselves), but it's also their first album that doesn't pummell you into submission or contain any true duds.

32. THE GUTTER TWINS
Saturnalia
Sub Pop Records

Review/Last.FM

It's not the first time Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli have hooked up, and it surely won't be the last. What sets the Gutter Twins apart from all the other times, though, is the increasing influence Lanegan has in the partnership. Where previous songs - The Twilight Singers' cover of "Strange Fruit", for instance - oozed sex and peppered it with Lanegan's coal-black heart, Saturnalia does the opposite, with bleak, cold songs given a veil of sexual prowess by Dulli's involvement. It might not have quite lived up to the expectations of some of the more rampant fanboys of the people involved (i.e. - me), but in the swaggering "Idle Hands", they gave us arguably the rock song of the year.

31. LUNATIC SOUL
Lunatic Soul
K Scope

Last.FM

This Mariusz Duda fellow is becoming a regular fixture on these lists. Having impressed in 2003, 2005, and 2007 with Riverside's first three albums, he's returned a year early with a solo project under the name Lunatic Soul. More reserved and calm than his day job, it's an impressive prog effort that calls to mind Porcupine Tree's more atmospheric moments, adding exotic, worldly touches along the way. Four hits out of four, then, and there's clearly a lot more to come from this gentleman; it'll be interesting to see how the other members of Riverside go about making an album to follow this and Rapid Eye Movement.

30. HAVE A NICE LIFE
Deathconsciousness
Enemies List Home Recordings

Review/Last.FM

As a double album that contains enough variation to justify its length, Deathconsciousness is a rarity - even more so for a debut album. When they get it right, they're magical - "Bloodhail"'s blend of Joy Division production, Brand New-style melodies and vocal interchanges, and a bassline big enough to shake a cathedral made for one of the most invigorating songs of the year. In truth, not everything they attempt comes off (they occasionally lapse into territory that's just a little too boring, most noticably on "A Quick One...."), but the sheer fact that they attempt it is impressive enough.

29. METAFORM
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants
Just Records

Review/Last.FM

In 2006 and 2007, instrumental hip-hop seemed to be dominated by albums like Jay Dee's Donuts and Oh No's Dr. No's Oxperiment; rapid-fire collections of sketches, rather than fully-formed songs. With albums like Late Night Cinema, I Spit On Your Grave, and Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, the pendulum has swung back the other way, and I for one am delighted. This is precisely what I want to hear from this genre - ideas that develop and grow organically throughout compositions that have room to breathe. The range of Metaform's influences mean that the given breathing space is essential, and Metaform is to be commended for the way he has succeeded in a genre in which it is notoriously hard to get your voice heard.

28. SUN KIL MOON
April
Caldo Verde Records

Review/Last.FM

At a bloated 74 minutes, and with five of the eleven tracks clocking in at over seven and a half minutes, April, like Ghosts of the Great Highway, would probably be in the top ten of the year if it were half the length. Mark Kozelek's understanding of how to gently tug the heartstrings remains almost unparalleled by his peers, and with songs like the stunning "Lost Verses" he can't help but make you wonder why he's not a lot more famous than he is. After 15 years of almost unbroken acclaim, surely he deserves that much at least?

27. THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM
The '59 Sound
Side One Dummy Records

Review/Last.FM

It's all too easy to write off the kind of earnest, blue-collar rock'n'roll that's offered up by bands like The Gaslight Anthem and The Hold Steady as being out of touch, stuffy, and uncool. And surely, had this album been released in just about any other year since Springsteen's last great stand in 1984, that's likely how the music press would have treated The '59 Sound. In 2008, though, they were heroes who stood among a legion of 'ironic', 'cool', 'smart' indie-rock bands and proved an important point - songs as well-crafted and passionate as "Great Expectations", "Miles Davis & The Cool", and "The '59 Sound", performed by a band as hungry as these guys are, will always win out in the end.

26. SIGUR ROS
Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
EMI Records

Review/Last.FM

Every post-rock review written since the release of The Earth is Not a Cold, Dead Place reads exactly the same way - post-rock is a dying genre, but this is the album to save it. Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust at least broke from that tradition - its one attempt to break into new territory, the single "Gobbledigook", is inarguably the worst thing the band have ever put their name to. Luckily, the rest of the album reverted to type, and was possibly their most consistently impressive offering. After all, why tamper with a winning formula?

25. NICO MUHLY
Mothertongue
Bedroom Community

Last.FM

Minimalism was intended to achieve many things, and it managed most of them, but inarguably the most important result of Cage, Reich, and Riley et al's experiments was to destroy the boundaries that existed between the 'classical' and 'popular' ends of the musical spectrum. Mothertongue feels like a celebration of that fact; it's an album that starts off in purely minimal territory, before evolving and shifting as the album progresses and ending in folky pop territory, as supported by Sam Amidon. Muhly has worked in the past with a range of people as diverse as Antony Hegarty, Phillip Glass, John Corigliano, and Bjork, and it all shows here - his phenomenal talent and range is constantly at the forefront. Undoubtedly one of the year's most fascinating, rewarding listens.

24. DUFFY
Rockferry
A&M Records

Review/Last.FM

Of all the artists waiting to fill the void left by Amy Winehouse's personal problems, Duffy has easily proved herself the best; in fact, her album surpasses Back to Black for quality. Just about every song on Rockferry could concievably have been a single, from the widescreen melancholy of "Warwick Avenue" and "Rockferry", to the dark and defiant "Stepping Stone", to the epic "Distant Dreamer". Crucially, the album pays homage to the sounds of the '60s without pandering to them, often nodding toward several artists within one track ("Mercy" blends Ben E King, The Doors, Christina Aguilera, and The Supremes), which allows it to blend a contemporary edge with a timeless quality. Duffy herself doesn't have the personality to survive without consistently great songs, so it'll be interesting to see how her next album does, but in 2008 she emerged from a crowded scene victorious.

23. JAMES BLACKSHAW
Litany of Echoes
Tompkins Square

Last.FM

Like Nico Muhly, James Blackshaw is another believer in redefining minimalism and its relationship to popular music. Not for him the kind of grand metamorphosis favoured on Mothertongue, though - his music stays largely in a classical domain, offering up piano and guitar figures that drone on and on, subtly changing up melodies and chords that seem to last forever in a hazy, half-remembered dream state. His style is comparable to many - acoustic virtuoso Peppino D'Agostino immediately came to mind for me, and there are touches of Terry Riley, Erik Satie, and John Fahey - but he's quickly becoming a towering, unique figure, with Litany of Echoes the primary exhibit of his instrumental talent, artistic vision, and penchant for beauty.

22. ATMOSPHERE
When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
Rhymesayers Entertainment

Review/Last.FM

While past Atmosphere albums were hardly all fun and games (remember "Nothing But Sunshine"?), When Life Gives You Lemons really ramps up the melancholy from 2005's ironically-titled You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having, introducing singing, live instrumentation, and a more meditative rapping style from Slug. The album's tales of drug addiction, lost love, and general malaise are spun so intricately at times that you'll need a few listens to really get the meaning, but the mood is downbeat and captivating enough to suck you in from the first listen. The shift in Slug's performance in particular makes it difficult to compare this to anything Atmosphere have done before, but if you're going to make me, I'd say this is their best album yet.

21. ELBOW
The Seldom Seen Kid
Fiction Records

Last.FM

The slinky, sexy, Tom Waits-esque "Grounds For Divorce" might have suggested a completely new sound for Elbow; instead, a clear development can be seen from Asleep in the Back all the way through to this. They'll still be compared to you-know-who, of course, but don't let the average music journalist's stunted lexicon put you off - Elbow have undoubtedly carved out a niche that is all their own, and if they continue to write songs as otherworldly and beautiful as "Starlings", "Weather To Fly", "The Bones of You", and "An Audience With The Pope", long may they occupy it.

Tension mounting? Excited yet? List needs more Opeth? For the top 20, as well as plenty of other goodies (including the year's best EPs and worst albums), check out Part 2.

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