The Year That Was 2008

This is my favorite time of the year - "best-of" season. This is my opportunity to; catch up on bands I heard about, but never checked out, to listen to, for the first time, bands that flew under my radar all year and of course to to talk trash on the current state of things. Closing out 2008- I thought that it was just my own intellectual musical taste that led me to to purchase so few albums this year, but there seems to be a sentiment shared with a lot of music critics - 2008 was pretty pitiful. And here's why:

- Everyone needs to get over Antares auto-tune. Seriously. If I wanted to hear a monotone robot muttering over a tired beat - I would pick up a speak and spell and throw on an ultimate breaks record. Pitch correction software wasn't meant to make bad singers good - it was meant to fix good singer's momentary screw-ups in the booth. If you are a bad singer, then be a bad singer. It's endearing. Tim Kinsella makes a living at it and he's gets all the street cred in my book. And you know who started all this? Cher. You are riding Cher's coat tails, buddy. Think about that Kanye.
- No one cares that you were on American Idol. Actually no one cares if you won either. Stop making horrible records.
- If you blew up because you posted something on the web that was new and unpolished and dirty and cool and interesting and people dug it - Don't mess with the formula in the studio. Black Kids I am looking at you.
- It's okay to make music with 80's synths, technology and instruments. But just because you have access to the equipment doesn't mean you should base your whole premise on an inside-joke. It's not cool. It's gone from bad to good and back again.
- The Vivians Girls sum up my take on dance-punk brillantly here:

Vivian Girls: Just Write a Good Song.

- Hip-hop needs to officially emancipate itself from this thing that people are calling "Rap" now. Now that MTV stopped showing videos altogether maybe we can pull back the production of all this gimmicky, tween-friendly, dance-craze abominations. You aren't Rufus Thomas. We don't need anymore dances. Thank god Q-Tip and People Under The Stairs released good, quality hip-hop albums this year.
- The Avalanches still haven't released their second album. Guys. Please take off the "putting the finishing touches on album 2!!!!!!!!!" headline from your myspace page. I get excited every time I see it and then I realize that's been up since before I realized myspace was just a place for untalented people to post their untalented music (Not you guys though - you rule over ipod. Please...release something.)


SO...I wanted to put together a list of my favorite albums of the year, but I couldn't even do that. Although the album output was pretty poor, a lot of good songs were released this year. Some were cornerstones of great albums and others will been stand-alone islands on my ipod. As a result I put together a 2008 mix for all of you. These aren't necessarily what I think are the best songs of 2008 - just a mix of what I listened to and enjoyed the most. There are a lot of releases missing here that I would have liked to include, but they didn't fit with the mix (Q-Tip, Portishead, People Under The Stairs, Animal Collective, etc.) This is one long mix, no gaps. If you like what you hear and want the full song, please support the artist and buy their album (at least these guys released quality product.)

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http://www.divshare.com/download/5989169-018

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Track List (In order of appearance not appreciation):

1. El Guincho - Palmitos Park

2. Ducktails - Beach Point Pleasant

3. Panda Bear - Boneless (Remix of the Notwist song)

4. Air France - Collapsing At Your Door

5. Grouper - Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping *my 2008 pick of the year*

6. Vivian Girls - I Can't Stay (Live - Pink Couch Sessions)

7. Little Joy - The Next Time Around

8. Department of Eagles - No One Does It Like You

9. El Perro Del Mar - How Did We Forget?

10. Richard Swift - Would You?

11. Kim & Jessie - M83

12. Flying Lotus - Parisian Goldfish

13. High Places - Vision's The First

14. Ratatat - Brulee

15. Nomo - Ghost Rock

16. Quiet Village - Circus Of Horror

17. Carpet Madness - Get Back Quinozzi!

18. Dance Dance Dance - Lykke Li