If you ask me, 2008 was a stellar year for music. Some time in my mid-20s, it seemed like music stopped affecting me as much as it once had. I continued to spend astronomical amounts of money on music, but for years I’d buy a record, listen to it a few times, and never really return to it. This year, for whatever reason, I started to really enjoy just listening to music again. It had been years since I had the experience of listening to an album and immediately starting it over from the beginning and listening again, and at least half of this list has gotten that treatment on numerous occasions. I don’t know if I had some kind of awakening or if music has gotten better. Or is there a connection to the fact that I spent all of 2008 on LSD? Who really can tell?

But anyway, here are the things I loved this year. I assigned them an order based on how much time I spent listening to them. If you have anything to add, please do so in the comments!

1. Los Campesinos, Hold on Now, Youngster: This record is so good I have allowed it to co-exist on my Top 10 of All Time list. Pretty much everything else on that list has been there for at least 10 years. Therefore, this is the best record I’ve heard in the last 10 years.

I can’t explain why I like this album so much. The first few times I listened to it, I thought, “all these songs sound the same.” The more I listened, the more complex it became … the interplay between the vocalists, the instrumentation, the flow of the songs, and especially the hooks … although it may sound like a sloppy mess at first, it soon becomes clear that this is artfully-controlled chaos. With clever, surreal lyrics to boot. A sample:

You said “send me stationary to make me horny”
So I always write you letters in multicolors
Decorating envelopes for foreplay
Damn extended metaphors, I get carried away
On the back of a natural disaster,
Fixed with parcel tape and with kids sticking plasters
Nothing says ‘I miss you’ quite like
Poetry carved in your door with a Stanley knife

This is what it sounds like to be young. And I’m the 33 year old guy who’s listening to this at top volume and pumping my fist as I drive around LA with the windows rolled down, pretending I’m going to pick my friends up and take them to a keg party in the woods where the air smells like burning leaves and no one is worrying about the future. (Listen to tracks right here. Recommended: “My Year in Lists” and “Death to Los Campesinos!”)

2. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend: There are those who will immediately discount my entire list based on this choice. Vampire Weekend is crazy polarizing. They’re rich kids doing afro-pop. They wear sweaters on stage and sing about partying on Cape Cod. They got tons of hype before the album come out, and the backlash was almost immediate. I don’t care what the haters say; this record is one catchy pop hit after the next. It’s the best Police album Squeeze ever released. I’m not going to link to any Vampire Weekend songs, because you probably either love them or hate them already. Or, if you don’t know: now you know.

3. Born Ruffians, Red, Yellow, and Blue: What a great freaking year for the herky-jerky! If there is one thing that always gets me, besides a pop hook, it’s a herky-jerky rhythm. See also: Talking Heads ‘77, Television’s Marquee Moon, and the Feelies’ Crazy Rhythms. What exactly is herky-jerky? I can’t really define it, but t’s like Justice Potter Stewarts’ famous definition of pornography: I know it when I masturbate to it.

I saw Born Ruffians open for the Hidden Cameras last year at the Echo in Echo Park (side note: if you ever get the chance to see the Hidden Cameras live, do so even if you have never heard of them. They do not disappoint). I immediately bought and became obsessed with their EP. This year, their full-length came out and put all other Talking Heads imitators to shame by not really sounding like the Talking Heads at all. If you pick this up, spend a few extra bucks and get the Born Ruffians EP, because you must own this song, which epitomizes the herky-jerky and is also one of the most perfect songs ever.

4. The Knux, Remind Me in 3 Days: This is where the numerical system starts to break down. Although I probably listened to the number 5 record more often this year, I just got this album about 2 months ago, so I’m still in the honeymoon phase with it. The Knux are a duo from New Orleans who migrated to L.A. to spearhead what some are calling the hipster-rap movement, which is hip-hop made by guys who wear skinny jeans. Whatever it’s called, this is the most immediately-striking hip-hop debut I’ve heard since De La Soul’s Three Feet High and Rising. Which was a long time ago and crazy good. So this is a high compliment. In this song, the Knux answer the question “what if the Clash were a hip-hop band?” in a far more satisfying manner than Big Audio Dynamite ever did.

5. Phantom Planet, Raise the Dead: Poor Phantom Planet. First, they were the band that the kid from Rushmore was in. Then, they were the band that recorded the theme song from The O.C. And all the while, they’ve been trucking along, churning out one great pop album after the next and getting pretty universally ignored for it. Raise the Dead is a theme-album about cults filled with devastating hooks and fist-pumping anthems. Please explain what there could possibly be to not like in that description. You can listen to the whole damn album right here.

6. Santogold, Santogold: 2008 is the year that artists finally figured out how to incorporate indie-rock, hip-hop, pop, and electronic music into one mix without sounding like the Judgment Night soundtrack. Trust me, no one had done it before 2008. And after 2008, anyone who tries will forever be compared to Santogold. Nice job, Santo!

Why is the Internet so awesome? You can listen to her entire album online, too! Your first stop should be the song “Lights Out,” which is the best Blondie song Prince ever wrote.

7. Blitzen Trapper, Furr and Wild Mountain Nation: Okay, Wild Mountain Nation was actually released in 2006. But it didn’t start rocking my stereo until this year, and Furr is even better, so screw you for being a purist. Blitzen Trapper is music to listen to at dusk on a mountain while you are a hawk. A lot of people obsessed over the Fleet Foxes record this year, which I agree, is a lovely album. But for my money, Blitzen Trapper did it first, and did it best. Don’t let their name fool you: they are not German. Don’t let the album cover fool you: they do not sound like Def Leppard. If you are a fan of the Band or the Byrds or Gram Parsons or Uncle Tupelo and feel like no one does soulful, white people music anymore, go here and listen to the song “Furr”, guaranteed to make you feel i-ree.

8. My Little Airport, (some unintelligible string of Japanese characters): I don’t know anything about this band. Sarah’s old boss sent her this record, and it’s been in constant rotation since she passed it along to me. Most of the song titles are in Japanese. I think they’re a Japanese band that sings French pop songs. I have no idea if you can even buy their album in the States, so basically I’m encouraging you to either illegally download it or totally ignore this recommendation. Here are some videos. Good luck with that.

9. R.E.M., Accelerate: People are dicks. This album is balls-out great, but when it was released, everyone whined about how it wasn’t as good as good R.E.M. Everyone is wrong. This is their best album since Automatic for the People, and the single “Supernatural Superserious” belongs on every R.E.M. greatest hits compilation forever.

10. Johnny Flynn, A Larum: I bought this one on the strength of this video. Flynn writes moving English folk songs in the vein of a slightly less militant Billy Bragg. The song in the video, “Brown Trout Blues,” is the perfect song to cry to when you’ve just had your heart broken. Hopefully I will never have my heart broken again, but if I do, it’s good to know that Johnny’s in my corner.

Note: I had this whole thing where I was going to do a bunch of “best of” lists at the end of 2006. I know, it’s an extremely novel idea which I am in the process of patenting. I never finished this project, however, and I have had this damned post sitting on my server, waiting to be posted since December. I am tired of it being there, so I am now putting it up for your enjoyment. Here we go:

Before last week, I was prepared to write off 2006 as a terrible year for films. Then, out of the blue, I was blindsided by a movie that may rank among the best films I’ve ever seen. A few days after that, I saw a film by one of my favorite directors that restored my faith in the artistry of film. Although I was not excited by a lot of movies this year, the films that made it to the top were extremely impressive. The undisputed best films I saw this year are, as follows:

10. The White Diamond - This movie holds the dubious 10th place position only because it was actually released in 2004. If I had seen it when it came out, it might have taken the top position for the year. It’s a really extraordinary documentary by Werner Herzog, the guy who directed Grizzly Man and a bunch of other films that I haven’t seen but I pretend I know something about because film buffs are supposed to know about them, i.e. Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo.

The White Diamond is a documentary about an expedition taken to Guyana by Dr. Graham Dorrington, in which Dr. Dorrington uses a hot-air balloon to explore the canopy of a rain forest. Dr. Dorrington is as fascinating a character as Timothy Treadwell from Grizzly Man, only slightly less totally insane. Herzog begins the film by discussing the history of zeppelins, making the claim that the Hindenburg disaster killed the idea of gas-powered airships despite their legitimate advantages over airplanes. It’s an interesting thought … why are airplanes the only option for air travel when there’s another technology that works just as well, if not better? This point is pretty much abandoned after the first 10 minutes, but it’s an idea that really stuck with me.

What I really love about the three Herzog documentaries I’ve seen (My Best Fiend is the third–a fascinating film in its own right) is the way he includes himself and the filming of the documentary into the movie. As a director, he seems open to follow whatever interesting story might come along during the course of filming. He never lets the viewer forget that he is watching a filmed version of events, yet he doesn’t necessarily seem to be inventing anything. He creates a very strange, intriguing, and often hilarious sense of reality. I’ve heard complaints from people who’ve watched Grizzly Man that it “seems fake.” It definitely does, but I would argue that that’s exactly what Herzog was trying to achieve. The White Diamond has the same strange feeling of unreality, but it’s completely fascinating from start to finish.

Note: This is as far as I got in my original post. Do you see why I didn’t want to continue? That’s a lot of pressure, describing every movie I saw this year in that kind of detail. I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast this morning. (more…)

Of course, you are all wondering what I was into this year. And like a kindhearted grandpa with a bowl full of Pepto Bismol-flavored candies, I am here to give you what your greedy little goblin hearts desire.

Let’s start with music, shall we? And a caveat: the following list is partly bullshit. It’s bullshit, because I am a gentleman of not inconsiderable age (31) who realizes he is teetering on the age of irrelevance. There are plenty of bands that won acclaim in the year-end lists that I have not heard. I no longer have the inclination to seek out every band with a little buzz behind them and listen to their records obsessively until I am able to spew back large chunks of their lyrics and write meaningful paragraphs detailing their unique and powerful abilities to add something new to the long, repetitive history of three-chord pop songs. Many of these records, I haven’t even listened to more than three or four times apiece. Some of them were not even released this year.

Instead of calling these the 12 best albums of the year, let’s say they are the 12 albums that I either liked the most or fully intend to like the most, given the possibility that I will someday have the time to sit down and really enjoy them the way that God has intended. If you are willing to accept all of these conditions and are still interested in my opinion, then please, read on.

(more…)