The 12 CDs of Christmas:
Best of 2008 Year in Music Review
January 1, 2009

Introduction

Last year, following my list of The 12 CDs of Christmas 2007, I was challenged by the former Jess Shaw, now Jess Raha, regarding the validity of titling my yearly article The 12 CDs of Christmas. CDs, Jess surmised, were a bastion of a former era now almost completely supplanted by mp3s. My brittle self-conscious ego shattered, I considered the obvious: was I merely a dinosaur hanging onto a term that no longer held merit in our latest technological age? Then my mind fought back: easy for Jess to say! She recently embraced her new married life with a new last name and move to New York City. Not so easy for me, a dude in love with ‘80s music, checkerboard patterns, and googie architecture (look it up!). Certainly a la carte music purchasing is all the rage, but for better and worse, I still need the concept of “the album” to get me through the night.

Ignore for a moment all the aggravating negatives of the compact disc and consider the thing the CD still has going for it. Above all else, the CD remains the most modern piece of media we can hold in our hands, raise up to our friends and proclaim, “this is an album you’ve got to hear!” You can’t do that with mp3s, you can’t do that with Facebook, and you can’t do that with Youtube. And that, my semantic obsessed friends, makes all the difference.

So without further ado, I present The 12 CDs of Christmas 2008, my list of this year’s albums you’ve got to hear. Enjoy!

The Top 12 CDs of 2008

#12 Nada Surf – Lucky

Who could have predicted that of all the ‘90s alt-rock acts that came and went Nada Surf would be one of the few still chugging along in 2008? And who might have guessed that their latest album would continue their miraculous progression from one-hit wonders to one of the best and most complete pop bands on the planet?

Thank the stars Nada Surf traded in the snarky, irony drenched silliness of the 1990s for heartfelt, romantic pop music tempered with tried and true indie rock sensibility. And praise the heavens someone out there is still making beautiful pop rock music that doesn’t cater to the masses but rather lives on its own terms in the real world.

Lucky is the culmination of a lived in band understanding what they are, what they do, and carving out a niche they were always made to inhabit. Lucky, indeed.

Best Songs: Whose Authority, The Fox, Ice on the Wing, See These Bones

#11 Albert Hammond, Jr. – Como Te Llama

Strokes lead guitarist, Albert Hammond, Jr. has proven once again that he is much more than just the main ax grinder in one of the millennium’s most influential bands. With his second solo album, Como Te Llama, Hammond continues the whimsical, toe-tapping, bittersweet fun of his excellent debut while adding a few unexpected tricks to the equation.

Interesting guitar solos, clever instrumental arrangements (the violins on Feed Me Jack are particularly noteworthy), and enough musical muscle and chug to keep the indie kids grooving, Como Te Llama is littered with excellent singles. A few also-rans slow down the album slightly, but with high points that easily break the clouds Como Te Llama is a great listen and a massive singles engine.

Best Songs: Feed Me Jack, In My Room, Miss Myrtle, G-Up, Bargain Of A Century

#10 Counting Crows – Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

Counting Crows are one of the best pure pop bands of the past 20 years. With a lead singer whose lyrics are always introspectively insightful and emotionally poignant and a backing band that always knows the perfect hook to accompany them, it is no wonder Counting Crows still have “it.” The “it” I am referring is the ability to entertain, get a chorus stuck in our heads, and remind what it is to be alive.

Whether your magic hour happens on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings, Counting Crows have again captured that feeling. Another excellent release from a band that never misses, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is good stuff, indeed.

Best Songs: You Can’t Count On Me, Come Around, Los Angeles, 1492, On Almost Any Sunday Morning

#09 Joseph Arthur and the Lonely Astronauts – Temporary People

The always prolific and often brilliant Joseph Arthur takes a break from his eccentric musical one-man show for his latest release, Temporary People.

Trying his hand at lived in, barroom alternative country rock, and featuring a full band to fill out his sound, Temporary People is Joseph Arthur’s stab at being a genuine front man rather than a solo svengali with a bunch of session men. The experiment works well yielding a coherent agenda and a handful of outstanding singles. Turn You On, in particular is heartbreaking and one of the best songs of the year.

Turning his hand to classic folk and rock, Arthur achieves a Neil Youngish sound on Sunrise Dolls while the Bob Dylanish Dead Savior finds Arthur channeling that particular troubadour. By lowering and raising his voice with uniquely odd vocal flourishes, Arthur and his band turn those familiar classic sounds into modern excellence. With a heaping dose of cerebrally memorable lyrics present as always, Joseph Arthur proves once more his astounding versatility and amazing ability to be both modern and classic at the same time.

Temporary People may not be Joseph Arthur’s most ambitious album but it is another solid achievement and glorious contribution to the 2008 music scene.

Best Songs: Turn You On, Sunrise Dolls, Faith, Dead Savior

#08 The Walkmen – You and Me

Listening to The Walkmen’s fifth album it is obvious these guys are good. But because their music is so otherworldly unique it is often difficult deciding just how good they really are.

Time has taught us that The Walkmen’s first two albums, Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Has Gone and Bows + Arrows, respectively are brilliant. Their latest, You and Me has several obviously excellent moments (I Lost You and In the New Year in particular are breathtaking lovelorn laments) but because it is another difficult album to figure out there hasn’t yet passed enough time to fully expose its many nuances and give a proper analysis. Therefore, the question remains: Will time tell us that You and Me is the Walkmen’s third certified classic or will You and Me become a very good Walkmen album that just misses the stratosphere? For now I assume the latter while keeping an open mind that these NYC indie rock mad scientists might just have more mysteries in store for us now and in the future.

Best Songs: I Lost You, In the New Year, Canadian Girl, The Blue Route, On the Water

#07 The Black Crowes – Warpaint

It’s a glorious thing watching a band come into its own over a nearly two decade career. With 2008’s Warpaint, rock n’ roll stalwarts The Black Crowes finally seem comfortable in their own skin. The result: their best album in 14 years.

Never chasing trends or catering to the masses, The Black Crowes have forged a path few could ever hope to achieve in their career: good old fashioned classic rockers. Steeped in the classic rock tradition of soul, blues, and gospel Warpaint is a modern classic. With rockers, ballads, and down home countrified rock n’ roll served up alongside a heeping dose of lived in melancholy and joy, Warpaint is the most soulful album of 2008.

Best Songs: Whoa Mule, Locust Street, Oh Josephine, Wounded Bird, Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution, Wee Who See the Deep

#06 Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy

Just the fact that Chinese Democracy was released at all after 18 years of Axl Rose versus The World is worthy of major attention. That the album is a great listen and features some of the best and most interesting guitar work of the past two decades means it is also worthy of being called one of the best albums of 2008.

Featuring grandiose pop, melodramatic epics, hard driven rock n’ roll extravagance, and the one and only Axl Rose still whalin’ like a banshee after all these years, Chinese Democracy is unlike any music you’ll hear in 2008. One man’s musical vision never sounded so good.

Best Songs: Better, Street of Dreams, Catcher in the Rye, This I Love, Madagascar

#05 James – Hey Ma

Though many consider the band James little more than ‘90s one hit wonders, that is anything but the truth. Indeed, Laid was an awesome single. However, it was but one piece of an amazing album that still hasn’t received its proper due. Quite simply, Laid is one of the best records of the 1990s.

Going back further, who out there remembers the band’s sneaky little hit before Laid, a little single titled Sit Down? Whether played acoustic, mixed for the clubs, or sequenced as a standard pop song Sit Down is a terrific single and as flexible as any song I’ve ever heard.

But that’s the past. This is the present.

James’ latest release, Hey Ma continues the band’s unusual history and is yet another terrifically unheralded effort. Where Green Day’s American Idiot captured the rage, confusion, and hope of America post-September 11th, Hey Ma revisits those catastrophes and their aftermath as the symbol of unity they should have become. Lead singer Tim Booth takes the world onto his shoulders as he whispers and shouts at the top of his lungs about poverty, disaster, struggle, and redemption. It’s heartbreaking stuff, extraordinarily earnest, and perfectly needed in this age of self-absorbed excess and waste.

Contemplative and inevitably uplifting to the max, Hey Ma is a glorious surprise, a musically varied masterpiece, and one of 2008’s best albums.

Best Songs: Of Monsters and Heroes and Men, Bubble, Waterfall, Hey Ma

#04 The Airborne Toxic Event – The Airborne Toxic Event

A terrible band name, a terrific debut album. That is the story of Los Angeles, California’s The Airborne Toxic Event.

With songs that span influences as diverse as Sponge, Lou Reed, and Franz Ferdinand there is a little something for everyone on this self-titled album. The group also manages to pull off that rare trick of introducing a set of songs that are fully formed and rock from the first song to the last.

The Airborne Toxic Event might not be a terribly original recording but it does what it does very, very well improving with every listen. Fun, thoughtful, and supremely entertaining this album is dyn-o-mite!

Best Songs: Sometime Around Midnight, Does This Mean You’re Moving On?, Happiness is Overrated, Wishing Well

#03 MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

A little bit of this, a little bit of that, MGMT’s sophomore album is a lot bit awesome. Front loaded with two of the best singles of the year, Time to Pretend and Kids, the indie rock masterpiece traverses an array of classic sounds that span everyone from David Bowie and Mott the Hoople to The Replacements, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jamiroquai, and Prince. An eclectic album, for sure and also one of the year’s most ambitious and best.

Best Songs: Time to Pretend, Kids, Electric Feel, The Youth

#02 Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles

All Your Base Are Belong to Us may have set the bar for video game inspired music but Crystal Castles takes that bar and launches it into the stratosphere. One listen to the lo-fi pandemonium of Alice Practice or the droning genius of Crimewave with their ‘80s centric bloops, bleeps, and buzzes and you’ll be hooked. Hooked, that is, if old school video games ever meant anything to you. If that’s not your bag than Crystal Castles will seem absurdly stupid rather than absurdly electrifying. But that’s OK. Whatever the case, the sonic assault will grab you one way or another, never letting go until the high score is smashed to smithereens.

The oddest album of 2008 and one of the most ambitious, Crystal Castles is amazing.

Best Songs: Alice Practice, Air War, Courtship Dating, Reckless, Crimewave

#01 Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

Forget what you think you might have heard about Vampire Weekend. Instead, get their debut album, listen to it at full blast, and let the awesome tunes wash over your entire aura. This is the best album of 2008.

Witty, ethereal, funny, and charming, this is music that will make your heart flutter and put a smile on your face. With hints of Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, Paul Simon, world beat, playful pop, and all sorts of faceless modern flourishes, you’ve heard something like this before, but never this, and that makes all the difference.

No label can fully or accurately encompass Vampire Weekend. And no album this year is better.

Best Songs: Walcott, Oxford Comma, The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance, Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, Boston, One

Here are my other awards for the musical scene in 2008:

Single of the Year:
The Killers – I Can’t Stay

The best song on The Killers’ latest album is a beautiful mess. Fusing Caribbean rhythms, saxophone flourishes, and The Killers own new wave obsessions it is exactly the type of song you can and will listen to on repeat a dozen times and still want more.

Best Lyric: “I never made the time.”

Runner Up:

MGMT – Kids & Time to Pretend

If not for the accidental greatness of The Killers’ I Can’t Stay, MGMT would have had the best single of the year. A toss up between their Kids and Time to Pretend, either song is a complete winner. Take your pick.

Best Lyric: “We like to watch you laughing, picking insects off plants, no time to think of consequences.”

Dance Song of the Year:
Hercules and Love Affair – Blind

Perhaps the best disco song in 30 years, Hercules and Love Affair’s Blind is an unexpectedly bizarre dance gem. Featuring the most peculiar vocalist of the new millennium, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons fame, the tune is both a Saturday Night Fever relic and a new take on Bee Gees mania. Best of all, the track is guaranteed to get both ‘70s leftovers and modern day hipsters on the dance floor at the same time. Groovy, indeed.

Video of the Year:
The Sounds – Hurt You (Geico Cavemen Motorcycle Commercial)

It wasn’t a regular old MTV style video that most moved us this year. Instead, it was the 30-second TV spot featuring the Geico Cavemen in motorcycle suits set to the 2006 The Sounds song, Hurt You. And it was brilliant.

Soundtrack of the Year:
The Dark Knight

The constant drone and pulsating swells that highlighted the action in The Dark Knight reminds us once again why pop songs can never hold a candle to an exceptional cinematic score.

Shrewdest Move of 2008:
Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana

Another 16-year old young lady has the world in the palm of her hand: the singing, dancing, and acting Miley Cyrus. Now the question becomes will she morph into Hillary Duff, Britney Spears, or someone we haven’t yet seen? Only time will tell…

“Hey Ya” Award for Song You Heard EVERYWHERE in 2008:
Coldplay – Viva La Vida

I finally figured out what Coldplay is all about: channeling Justin Timberlake for the sissy rock crowd. Throw in a dash of U2 pretension, Gwyneth Paltrow cheering from the sidelines, and silly Michael Jackson faux military garb and you’ve got a band that gives white people a bad name. Bleh!

“Take the Power Back” Movement of the Year:
Bittorrent

“Free” music and videos have returned with a vengeance. Now if Madonna tells us free downloads are the reason the economy has collapsed I can finally die happy. Love that lunatic idiocy!

Worst Album Title of the Year:
Aimee Mann – @#%&*! Smilers

Aimee Mann has always been a bit of pompous jerk. Her music has oozed pomposity and also been some of the most overrated of the past decade. And now she has the worst album title of the year. Good for you, Aimee. Good for you.

Worst Band Name of the Year:
Fuck Buttons

I often refer to my fictional band as “Pollution of the Right Hand.” And others frequently remind me that is most likely the worst band name ever conceived. In 2008, the UK’s Fuck Buttons finally took me down. Way to go, lads!

Worst Soundtrack of the Year:
Mama Mia!

Three words: Pierce Brosnan singing.

Greatest Disappointment of 2008:
Weezer – Weezer

God damnit. Why can’t Weezer give us an album that pops, rocks, grooves, and keeps us feeling loose and limber with clever lyrics, tuneful riffs, and memorable hooks like they did in 1996? Instead, they give us a mish-mash of tunes obsessed with pop culture silliness and chock full of either typical or just plain boring arrangements. Not very sporting of them, I must sadly admit, and very disappointing indeed.

Rivers Cuomo’s little band that could isn’t done just yet. But let’s hope their “return to form” will come sooner rather than later. Are you listening, Matt Sharp? Are you ready to bury the hatchet? Are you ready to make Weezer great once more?

Me Versus… Award 2008:
Hip-Hop Music

I know I’m splitting hairs and probably creating my own set of genre distinctions but my frustration is at its boiling point. I love rap music. I hate hip-hop.

Here’s to the death of dirty south, thug, crunk, and fake R&B pretension. Get over your obsession with money, guns, and yourself and bring rap music out of the gutter. Getting to the top of charts isn’t the same as making music that matters. Let’s hope hip-hop abandons style over substance sooner rather than later.

Best Elliott Smith Impression, Now and Forever:
Earlimart – Hymn and Her

Is Elliott Smith really dead or is he pulling a Biggie Smalls/Tupac on us? With all of Smith’s posthumous releases and his vocal doppleganger appearing all over Earlimart’s latest release you just might think that were the case.

Real Hype of the Year:
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend’s debut album is awesome. And like The Strokes in 2001, being great comes with a major backlash. Where The Strokes were pegged as ugly male model poseurs with rich as hell parentage, Vampire Weekend is ridiculed for co-opting African sounds they know nothing about and having Scott Baio’s brother as a member. Who cares? When the best a critic can do is write about the band rather than about the music then you know said blowhard needs to shut the fuck up. Vampire Weekend is the real deal and all you haters should excuse yourself from the conversation.

Fake Hype of the Year:
Katy Perry – One of the Boys

No doubt there are catchy choruses all over Katy Perry’s debut album (catchy like a rash!) but with every listen I keep returning to the dichotomy between One of the Boys and Madonna’s Like a Virgin. It’s not that the songs on One of the Boys sound anything like Madonna’s 1984 classic (they don’t!), it’s that they determinedly want to walk that same line of provocation and controversy. However, where Madonna was able to pull off her flamboyant act with a real, lived in vibe and clever lyrics, Perry flounders as just another music biz construct propped up by superstar producers and a hot little thing persona. The next Madonna, she ain’t. And it’s a shame because she has much better pipes than Madge and probably wouldn’t become a giant egomaniac hypocrite like the material girl. Still, this album has weak pop music supported by even weaker lyrics that feel as disingenuous as pop music can get. That makes it the biggest fake hype of the year.

Awkward Lyric of the Year:
Beyonce – Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)

“If you like it then you should have put a ring on it.”

Talk about your backward feminism, this incredulous line off the first single from Beyonce Knowel’s latest album, I Am… Sasha Fierce (itself a ludicrous title) is horrendous. Perhaps the words are merely metaphor to empower women to walk away from men who can’t commit, but couldn’t the same intimation have been said another, classier way? Apparently not if you’re Beyonce. And especially not since this little slice of absurd even has a dance that accompanies it (think all the ladies in the house holding up their hand and wiggling it). Wow. One small step for women, one giant leap for womankind… backwards.

Most Hilarious Man of All-Time Award:
Given Yearly to the One and Only, Scott Stapp

I love to laugh at former Creed lead singer Scott Stapp. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate the guy. Actually, I very much enjoy him and his earnest, shirtless crooning and pandering to who, I don’t know. But knowing he will be around for at least another decade always brings a smile to my face.

This year’s Stapp revelation doesn’t involve shirtless mug shots, carrying his child around on-stage singing With Arms Wide Open, or even an absurd performance on the top of a building with fireworks and a paid audience. This year’s great Stapp moment is my revelation that he and Kid Rock recorded a sex tape with a bus full of groupies sometime in 2005/2006. Sure, I’m late getting to the party with this one but Stapp’s new shaven head just wasn’t enough to write about in 2008. Whatever the case, I love this guy for all his ridiculous antics.

Keep up the good work, Scott. Rock n’ Roll needs more dudes like you.

2009 Crystal Ball Predictions

After this year’s release of Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy anything seems possible. That being said, here’s to all those veteran acts doing what they do not for the money but because they have a vision they need to share with the world. I’m talking about Axl Rose, James, The Black Crowes, Counting Crows, and anyone else who fits that bill. That is what music is all about.

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