my top 20: 20 – 10
For perhaps the first time in a long time, I didn’t really obsess over compiling my year-end Top 20 this year. There are a number of reasons for this — I felt like most of my choices were pretty well-represented by the eMusic list, and I felt like every other year-end albums poll was declining in significance (both personally and globally).
Old habits die hard, though, and I ended up throwing together a Top 20 at the last minute just to satisfy myself, and to tie up my 2008 listening habits with a tidy little bow. I don’t think I need too much more preamble — below the cut is the first half of my Top 20 Albums of 2008
20. Taylor Swift, Fearless
So to cut right to the chase: I love mainstream pop music as much as I love independent music. I’ve always had kind of restless tastes, and I don’t see much need to rule out certain albums just because they were produced under the aegis of corporate rock. I get as frustrated with knee-jerk “all pop sucks!” declarations as I do with the noodle-headed trolls who plague our message boards around this time every year. Music is music, and I don’t see any reason why a person can’t like Okkervil River and Gorgoroth and Rihanna and Barrington Levy and Unrest. There is perhaps no greater irritant to the eMusic community than Taylor Swift; day in and day out her debut sits atop our charts, elbowing aside other indie albums that are perhaps a bit better and generally misrepresenting our catalog to people who happen to stumble in unawares. Here’s the thing about Taylor Swift, though: she’s a fucking great pop songwriter. The songs on Fearless go straight for the heart, capturing all the nervousness and vulnerability of adolescence, summoning effortlessly those feelings of first love and first heartbreak. That her knack for a hook and startlingly nimble prose gets consistently dismissed is a bit frustrating. To put it another way: it’s awfully easy to dismiss something as “just a pop record” when you’ve never tried to write one yourself.
19. Panic at the Disco, Pretty, Odd
I would argue that there is a whole lot on this record that eMusic regulars would love. Far from the theater-dork emo that characterized their debut, Pretty, Odd gets its marching orders from Sgt. Pepper. It’s a brash, bright psych-pop masterpiece, as intricate and nuanced as anything by the Elephant 6 collective with bigger hooks and brainier lyrics.
18. Al Green, Lay It Down
The Al Green comeback record people have been promising for the last few years finally arrives. Sweet, subtle, soulful and masterfully controlled, Lay It Down sounds like some late-game sequel to Al’s timeless Belle Album. I have played the title track for countless people, all of whom initially refuse to believe it’s not some lost B-Side from the ’70s. Green’s voice is as heavenly as ever, and the songs here burrow deep into the heart. A treasure.
17. Sam Phillips, Don’t Do Anything
I’ve been arguing that Sam Phillips has been unjustly underrated for years now. This is another haunting collection of folk songs, delivered in Phillips’ inimitable Goth drawl. It’s like Kristin Hersh, only darker. Mostly a protracted rumination on her divorce from T-Bone Burnett, Phillips dives down deep into the black water and doesn’t come up for air once.
16. The Foreign Exchange, Leave it All Behind
I kept waiting for this record to catch on at eMusic, and it never happened. D’Angelo-style neo-soul boasting surprisingly fluid and flexible vocals by Little Brother’s Phonte. This is pure midnight love, the kind of record you put on when you have a long night of, ahem, business ahead of you. It works just fine in the daytime, too. It’s not so much a collection of songs as it is one protracted groove.
15. Rotten Sound, Cycles
Finnish death metal done right. This is my white-knuckle terror pick of ’08, 70-second songs that hammer and hammer and hammer and then stop short. A few years ago, there was a Weekly World News story about a bunch of scientists in Alaska who were trying to record the sound of the earth’s core when they drilled too deep and, according to the esteemed Weekly World News, ended up recording Hell. This record is what I’d imagine that tape sounds like.
14. <3 Svanvhit!, Parti a Island
If someone, somehow could get <3 Svanvhit! (pronounced 'Mee-na ah Three Svan-Queet', and meaning "less than three white swans") to SXSW, they would be next year's can't miss indie-rock sweethearts. To see this band live is to fall in love with them — they are wound up, rambunctious Icelandic teenagers, and their live set is absolute energy. I have seen them transform whole rooms in Reykjavik, and watched waves of joy crash over crossed-arm cynics. They are a force of nature, one of the best bands I've seen live in the last 5 years. It is agonizing — agonizing! — that they are never going to get the attention they deserve. Their debut, Parti a Island, for now only available as a CD-R with a hand-crafted cardboard sleeve, goes far to capture that exuberance. Cockeyed pop that recalls Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, <3 Svanhvit! are the remedy that po-faced indie rock so desperately needs. Someone, please, sign this band.
13. Okkervil River, The Stand-Ins
I said my piece about this record in my eMusic review, so I probably don’t need to go on much further. I came around on this band recently, thanks to some impassioned electioneering by Maris, and am sad I waited so long to discover them. Will Sheff is a cunning lyricist, and his prose is scalpel-sharp. For me, The Stand-Ins handily bests its predecessor, but I think I am alone in that camp.
12. Breathe Owl Breathe, Ghost Glacier
I love these songs — pure, childlike, stirring and deeply, deeply moving. Anyone who does not get goosebumps from “Playing Dead” should check for a pulse
11. Black Mountain, In the Future
I know a lot of people cooled on this record, but to me this is blacklight rock at its best, humid as pot clouds and laid-back as a high school burnout. Since I was a dork in high school, I am living vicariously through this record. Real burnouts would probably hear this and laugh. And then knock my books out of my hand and punch me in the stomach.
10. Gaslight Anthem, The 59 Sound
The debate rages in the user reviews about whether or not we are all on dope for picking this as our number one. My response to those accusations goes like this: “Miles Davis & the Cool.”
I try to be unbiased about “mainstream pop” because it’s not, say, Rihanna’s fault that radio stations player her; she’s just a cog in the machine. I don’t listen to Taylor Swift myself, but I don’t really have a problem with her, either. I like what I like and lots of it at eMusic, but I try not to judge the tastes of others, even if their tastes are simply a joy of being pandered to.
That doesn’t make “We Didn’t Start the Fire” a song I can stand, though. I try to be gentle when griping about that song.
Back on topic….
I think Stage Names is better, but I do think Stand-Ins is a surprisingly strong record. It doesn’t sound like castoffs from the first (and I know it’s not); it’s really its own thing, and it’s good. Love Lost Coastlines and Blue Orchid.
Breathe Owl Breathe was my favorite eMusic Selects; it’s both haunting and playful, a real treat I didn’t expect.
Lots to like about your list, Joe. You folks sure are pushing people to check out that Gaslight album. I may have to take the plunge.
Hey, don’t knock a good pandering!
Seriously, tho: I understand what you’re saying — I was trying hard to make my case without sounding like an asshole. I respect all tastes, but even I draw lines. I have a much, much harder time stomaching “New Rock!” like Nickelback and Hinder and Daughtry than I do Britney Spears.
As for “We Didn’t Start the Fire”: Billy Joel is Long Island’s favorite son and I can tell you that anyone who grew up on LI had to do a research paper explaining every single one of that song’s cultural references for Social Studies class. So I share your hatred.
Is there some 17D rule that every best of list must be strung out over days? Aargh, just lay it all on us in one go for once!
I believe farawayhills on the message board once wrote a very eloquent defence of Taylor’s indiness and right to be respected.
I love We Didn’t Start the Fire but Leningrad from the same album is one of my classic drunken singalong songs.
Hahaha — I didn’t mean to string this one out, but the day got away from me! Top 10 will hit tomorrow.
This seems so… indulgent!
Can we expect this from all of you (no Radiohead for Yancey; he’s “not listened to it”)?
It’s pretty indulgent, for sure, but I’m pretty sure other editors lists will follow!
WJPurdy,
I’m definitely going to post my list tomorrow — I’m thinking one album a day, for 25 days, to build up suspense for my No.1 one of the year, which will hit mid-January or so…..IT WILL SHAKE THE WORLD
Bold praise for Panic at the Disco! That just made my night. I love that album with a fierce passion, but I don’t even try to defend it to my indie-only friends.
I think I may actually prefer The Stand-Ins to The Stage Names. I feel like I want to revisit more of the songs on The Stand-Ins. Although, the first album drags in the middle and ends with a punch (favorite Beach Boys reference ever), but the second album stays strong all the way through and then has a weak ending track, so I understand how the emotional impact of the first may be greater.
1. Thanks for showing a little love to Taylor. Here’s what blows me away about her: Sony (yes, THAT Sony) hired her as a staff songwriter (yes, SONGWRITER) at age 14 (yes, FOURTEEN.)
And how’s this for indie: she walked away from a development deal with RCA because they wouldn’t let her record her own songs!
Sony? No thanks. RCA? No thanks. I’d rather make the record I want, the way I want, and release it on an indie label. Those suckas had to grovel, back the money truck up to her door, and STILL let her do it her own way. That friends, is independent. And now she’s independently wealthy.
So yeah, she has since benefited from the machine, but she showed up before it did. The machine works for HER now.
The first record nonetheless feels not quite baked to me, but the second is the real deal. She’s a more mature writer and her voice is more pleasant to listen to now that she’s turned…uhm, 19.
(Bonus points for being taller than most male performers. Look up to THIS, fools.)
Agreed Joe: if anybody could write good pop songs, they’d all be good. Based on the empirical evidence, writing a good pop song may be the most difficult task in the musical universe.
2) Dude, you get a top 20 and we were stuck with TEN? What’s up with that? Next year, we get 20 too. Get a web database jockey to build the form right and — so I’m offering this Christmas wish — you’ll never touch Excel again. Running tallies would get updated every time somebody hits the Send button.
I know you’re trying to create stickiness by making people come back to the site a dozen or two times to watch the editors list unfurl and then the member list. So how’s THIS for sticky: get a Flex whiz to build the database for you, and have the results update in REAL TIME in Flash. Have the top 5 results on the front page, then a link “Click here for real time results of the top 100 vote.”
Dude, we’d be hitting the reload button to see updated election results like lab monkeys trying to earn their next dose of crack.
Imagine how that changes the discussion.
Yancey: Joe, early returns favored Gaslight Anthem, but we’re watching it slip lower FAST.
Joe: That’s right, Yancey. Even though editor polling put it in the top spot, it’s clear that members feel that it barely deserves to be in the top 50.
Amishi: That’s because they listened to it, then listened to a bunch of other records that were much, much better. In just a few minutes, we’ll be interviewing some voters to see how it wound up on the member list AT ALL. You won’t want to miss it, so stick around. We’ll be right back after this break.
And then, while watching the results update in real time, we’d see THOUSANDS of choices pass before our eyes instead of merely 100. Click, click, click. Sample, sample sample. Save, save, save, Download all, download all, download all OUT THE WAZOO.
Mmmm. I’m a monkey. Yummy yummy crack. Indulge.
Tim is such a tease.
I would kill to see the real-time results. (okay, “kill” is a little strong…I really gotta stop listening to GWAR)
Tim – thanks for that comment, and totally agree with everything you’ve said about Taylor. She is that weird exception — she (mostly) does write her own songs and she is almost freakishly talented. And I think the second record runs rings around the first one, too.
I like the second suggestion — it would be like watching election returns on CNN! Every year we try to improve this poll a little bit, so maybe that’s an idea we try to work in for 2009.
Understanding Sam Phillips –
Listen to her album The Turning (her fourth album, 1987) released when she was still Leslie Phillips and I think you’ll see that Sam Phillips is a true predecessor of the female singer/songwriters of the 1990s — anticipating Tori Amos, Alanis Morrisette, Sarah McLachlan, etc. Boneheaded record company execs tried to sell her back in the 1980s as the next Cyndi Lauper when, really, she was an original.
So, yes, she’s been underrated for years now. More than 20.
Jim
Man, I played The Turning endlessly when that record first came out. Even the pop songs like “Libera Me” had bite.
I have not heard the newest Sam Phillips. I liked The Turning, The Indescribable Wow and Cruel Inventions. Martinis & Bikinis was OK. After that, she lost me except for the great 0:48 Compulsive Gambler on Omnipop. I could listen to that over and over – and have.
This site has a recording that claims to go along with your story of the deep hole drilled into hell:
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/08/strange-sounds-earth-bloop-hum-mistpouffers/