So I put together a little top 10 list of my favorite albums of 2008.  It wasn’t easy.  I tried to write a little bit about each album, to make it interesting.  I don’t claim to be a music writer, just an appreciator, so please forgive crummy descriptions and poor choices of adjectives.  I tried to pick albums that I’ll still want to listen to in 2009, not necessarily the ones I listened to the most in 2008.  There are youtube videos for each album that should give you a little glimpse of what they’re all about.  I hope you readers will comment and let me know what your favorite albums from 2008 were!

-Brad

10. Little Joy - Little Joy
Little joy is an ironic name because this album was a bundle of joy for me over the last couple months of 2008.  I think what draws me to this album is how incredibly easy it is to like at just about any time, no matter what I’m doing.  Ideally I am cooking.  This is the simplest of jangly pop music, breezy and easy.  At only 30 minutes, i can listen to it on repeat, and often do, and not get tired of it.  Just when things start to sound a little too much like the the strokes, Binki Shapiro steps to the microphone to break your heart and make you fall in love all at once.

9. Liam Finn - I’ll Be Lightning
This is a modern pop album, and its so damn tasty.  One of those disks I can listen to over and over again and not get tired of.  In fact we listened to it a good deal during the hectic summer season at Picas and it had a way of always keeping me happy.  Its hard for me to identify a song on here that I don’t like.  Its not so much that this is a mind blowing disk as it is solid and will get continued play for me into 2009.

8. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Listen to this album and commune with nature.   This folk / americana with indie sensibilities is like a cool breeze blowing off Jenny lake in June.

7. Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Flight
My favorite rock album of 2008.  Just dam good Scottish rock music.

6. Air France - No Way Down
Smooth electronic perfection.  I’ve been waiting for an album like this since I fell in love with the Avalanches - Since I left you.  Lush yet dense with samples and re-verb drenched vocals.  At only 27 minutes, this is easy to fall in love with.  It got me bouncing through the spring and summer, and when i was ready retire it as the days grew colder and shorter and the leaves striped off the tress, a whole new side of this album revealed itself.  As the sample on “Collapsing At Your Doorstep” repeats: “Sort of like a dream.  No, better.”

5.  M83 - Saturdays = Youth
At first I had a real hard time getting into this album, mostly because it sounds like it was made in 1986.  Once you get past how un-apologetically 80’s it is other words come to mind, like cathartic, beautiful, and awesome (wish i new better adjectives).  I’ll never forget sitting in the Center For The Arts Theater for the snowboard film That’s It, That’s All, and hearing the track “We own the sky”, played so loud i thought my ears would bleed.

4.   Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
This is the best dam indie / electronic album in a while.   When not dancing on couches to Girl Talk, I was dancing on them to this album in 2008.  There are moments in this album that are the most delicious kind of cheese, and there are hooks that are so undeniable I challenge you not to loose your mind and and pump your fist in the air like an idiot .  This was a staple at the party in 08.

3. Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue
Take your favorite Montreal based indie rock band (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene), add two parts classic rock and one part jam band and you’ve got Plants and Animals.

2. Girl talk - Feed the Animals
This album had something to do with just about every party i attended since its release.  Whether it was the psych up as i dressed after showering, the pregame with close friends, or the catalyst that took a mediocre party and made it into an all out rager, this album was there for me during most of the best nights of 2008.  While many people on the interweb were intent on debating whether or not this is real music, or a real album, or what art is and sampling music means in 2008, I was left listening and enjoying, shaking my ass and tracking down a bottle of tequila.  This album appeals to my short attention span, but where girl talk’s previous release Night Ripper switched so quickly and almost spastically from sample to sample, Feed the Animals allows each sample a chance to breath, compliment those around it, and then be consumed alive by the next.  What is so amazing about this album is how well everything matches up, so modern crunk rap flows perfectly over that classic rock riff you can only stand for about 30 seconds, and that’s all you get of it.  By the time you identify the sample enough to almost get the artist to the tip of your tongue, the next sample is in and your mind erases.  The only way to remedy the dizzying effect this creates is to let go, stop attempting to identify the samples and just let the music move you.  If you do this you will inevitably find yourself dancing on a couch like an idiot while your friends try to sink their headlamps in flash mode.  Hint: due to licensing issues you can’t buy this in stores but you can pay what you think its worth and download it here.

Warning: the following contains curses

1 Bon Iver - For Emma, For Ever Ago

Is it improper to put an album from last years top ten list on this years?  Maybe, but its only fare seeing as this was easily my most played and favorite album of 2008.  Plus, after being self released in 2007, it wasn’t until this was picked up and re-released by Jagjaguar records in 2008 that this album started to really gather a good deal of attention.  Every great album should have a great story behind it.  For Emma, For Ever Ago certainly does and it goes a little something like this:  After the breakup of his band and his relationship with his girlfriend, Justin Vernon moved from Raleigh to his fathers hunting cabin in Wisconsin.  The idea was to spend 3 months alone in the woods and recuperate from the years events.  Vernon didn’t intend to record any music but wound up recording the songs that would later make the album For Emma, For Ever Ago.  The result is an album that could have only been recorded out of the shear catharsis of isolation that only a hunting cabin in northern Wisconsin could provide.  To put it simply: this is one of the most beautiful and emotional albums I’ve ever heard.

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