ncdrawl
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top 10 of 2008??
ncdrawl
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far too many people are stuck in a time warp..searching out "classic records" , in the process ignoring the wealth of good music out there today...sad, really.

judicata
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I don't know that I can rank all of them, but I'll try.

(1) Margot and the Nuclear So & So's - Animal!
(2) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
(3) Radiohead - In Rainbows (this either came out December 2007 or January 2008, depending on how you look at it).

Can't rank the rest:
- Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
- Ben Folds - Way to Normal
- Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
- MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
- Jack Johnson - Sleep Through the Static
- Wild Sweet Orange - We Have Cause to be Uneasy
And ... wait for it... - Coldplay - Viva la Vida

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Man, this is hard. The days all blur, making what was 2008 difficult to pull off the top of my head.

I really like James McMurtry's new disc.

Bob Mould's newest was this year, but is it great or do I just have a weak spot for Bob Mould discs?

Lots of the picks in the posts above are great, but I'm trying to avoid repetition.

Was Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! this year?

Hey! The Hold Steady "Stay Positive" was this year!

Dylan's "Bootlegs Vol. 8"...would that count?

I haven't yet heard Byrne and Eno's disc, nor Grace Jones new release (I love Grace Jones.)

Still working on my list, I guess!

judicata
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Lazarus!!! Was this year. Good one.

Another thing, I would have added Metallica' Death Magnetic, if it was wasn't dynamically compressed into the musical equivalent of 1,800 guitarists all playing Smoke on the Water.

ncdrawl
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keep em comin!

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Was "Raising Sand" this year?

That has been growing on me.

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Quote:
Was "Raising Sand" this year?

That has been growing on me.

Robert and Allison are supposed to be recording a follow also with T-Bone sometime in the near future. It's been rumored to be one of the reasons that he won't be doing a Led Zeppelin reunion, bot Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are very publicly for a reunion of Zeppelin.

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think raising sand was last year.

I hate zeppelin, so I havent heard it yet.

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Quote:
think raising sand was last year.

I hate zeppelin, so I havent heard it yet.

Your stock has just dropped several points in my book. Not liking Zeppelin is one thing (though I can't understand it), hating LZ is quite another.

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Quote:

Quote:
think raising sand was last year.

I hate zeppelin, so I havent heard it yet.

Your stock has just dropped several points in my book. Not liking Zeppelin is one thing (though I can't understand it), hating LZ is quite another.

Ill get by , somehow.

Never was into them. They ripped off all the old blues guys, big time... Unoriginal cock rock, in my opinion. Cartoony, overrated.... and damn overplayed. not to mention that we have them to blame for winger, guns and roses, ratt, dio, britney fox, whitesnake, .....

id rather listen to rap nonstop than zeppelin, and I hate rap.

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While I DETEST the bands that they inspired I love Led Zeppelin. The "charge" that they "ripped off" original blues man is old news and to a certain extent true but at the same time greatly exaggerated. In the blues tradition it is common to take a song that one loves, change it up a little and call it your own. However, if you are rich and white then you get sued. As a note Led Zeppelin always settled amicably with those individuals and never tried to bury them in legal paperwork. Should they have given them credit from the get go, ya probably but most weren't listening for the lyrical content they were listening to the music. The music was always original.

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to each his own,bud.. ive hated zeppelin since day 1, much preferring black flag, minor threat, fugazi, voivod, television, wire.


Quote:
While I DETEST the bands that they inspired I love Led Zeppelin. The "charge" that they "ripped off" original blues man is old news and to a certain extent true but at the same time greatly exaggerated. In the blues tradition it is common to take a song that one loves, change it up a little and call it your own. However, if you are rich and white then you get sued. As a note Led Zeppelin always settled amicably with those individuals and never tried to bury them in legal paperwork. Should they have given them credit from the get go, ya probably but most weren't listening for the lyrical content they were listening to the music. The music was always original.

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I went on a blind date once and I got there before the lady I was going to meet.

It was a local brew, and they had it on tap, so I ordered an Anchor Steam.

Before it arrived, the girl did, and we introduced ourselves and I asked if I could order her anything.

She said, "Anything but Anchor Steam. I hate it, it's rancid and skunky and anyone who likes Anchor Steam has something wrong with them...etc..."

At that point the only thing I knew about her was her name and the data from this emphatic and apparently potentially lengthy initial proclamation.

Of course, the waitress appeared about 10 seconds later and actually said, "Here's you Anchor Steam, hon."

Thus ended the date, saving me a few bucks and the loss of two priceless hours of life I would have spent having my soul depleted.

Anyway, the newest Richard Thompson CD (Sweet Warrior) was good this year, too, unless you despise Fairport Convention and resent how they ripped off traditional British song structure.

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i quite like richard thompson. especially the soundtrack to grizzly man, which he did with jim o rourke.


Quote:
I went on a blind date once and I got there before the lady I was going to meet.

It was a local brew, and they had it on tap, so I ordered an Anchor Steam.

Before it arrived, the girl did, and we introduced ourselves and I asked if I could order her anything.

She said, "Anything but Anchor Steam. I hate it, it's rancid and skunky and anyone who likes Anchor Steam has something wrong with them...etc..."

At that point the only thing I knew about her was her name and the data from this emphatic and apparently potentially lengthy initial proclamation.

Of course, the waitress appeared about 10 seconds later and actually said, "Here's you Anchor Steam, hon."

Thus ended the date, saving me a few bucks and the loss of two priceless hours of life I would have spent having my soul depleted.

Anyway, the newest Richard Thompson CD (Sweet Warrior) was good this year, too, unless you despise Fairport Convention and resent how they ripped off traditional British song structure.

rvance
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Quote:
I went on a blind date once and I got there before the lady I was going to meet.

It was a local brew, and they had it on tap, so I ordered an Anchor Steam.

Before it arrived, the girl did, and we introduced ourselves and I asked if I could order her anything.

She said, "Anything but Anchor Steam. I hate it, it's rancid and skunky and anyone who likes Anchor Steam has something wrong with them...etc..."

At that point the only thing I knew about her was her name and the data from this emphatic and apparently potentially lengthy initial proclamation.

Of course, the waitress appeared about 10 seconds later and actually said, "Here's you Anchor Steam, hon."

Thus ended the date, saving me a few bucks and the loss of two priceless hours of life I would have spent having my soul depleted.

Anyway, the newest Richard Thompson CD (Sweet Warrior) was good this year, too, unless you despise Fairport Convention and resent how they ripped off traditional British song structure.

Great story. How was the Richard Thompson concert? Different thread? Almost saw him at Humboldt State last week, but I had to be in Medford, Oregon early the next morning.

Anchor Steam is good stuff. Used to get the 4-packs back in '69. The Renaissance Faire had it, the Porter and Whitbread's on tap back then. Could drink a ton in the hot, hot sun of Agoura Hills, CA. Then smoke some Columbian on the way home to cooler Long Beach. Different times...

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My favorite album of the year, meaning the one I just can't stop listening to, is Raphael Saadiq's "The Way I See It." So damn smooth, soulful, groovy.

The rest are in no particular order of preference.

TV on the Radio's "Dear Science"
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks "Real Emotional Trash"
Shugo Tokumaru's "Exit"
Deerhunter "Microcastle/Weird Era Cont'd"
Erykah Badu "New Amerykah pt 1: 4th World War"
The Magnetic Fields "Distortion"
The Knux "Remind Me in 3 days"
Portishead "3rd"
Cut/Copy "In Ghost Colours"

and of course, everyone's favorite, The Fleet Foxes, just to be redundant.

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Quote:

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks "Real Emotional Trash"
.

i gave that one a chance... but it was way too noodly for me. reminded me of Phish *gag* , but a lot of my friends love it, so good for them. Malkmus is tha man..

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Quote:

Quote:

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks "Real Emotional Trash"
.

i gave that one a chance... but it was way too noodly for me. reminded me of Phish *gag* , but a lot of my friends love it, so good for them. Malkmus is tha man..


I personally liked the extended guitar solos, since rock these days seems to be too cool for killer licks. Plus Malkmus is too ironic for those guitar solos to plunge the music into the Phish country... Marnie Stern's new album was also good in this regard, back to guitar, baby...

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Vampire Weekend-"Vampire Weekend" A breath of fresh air

Belle & Sebastian-"The BBC Sessions" Those Scottish bastards snuck this one out on me.

Black Keys-"Attack & Release" http://audioexplorer.blogspot.com/2008/12/black-keys-attack-release.html

Supergrass-"Diamond Hoo Ha" I literally couldn't wait for it to be released in the United States so I ordered from amazon.ca

David Gilmour-"Live In Gdansk" The five disk version available exclusively from Best Buy. The performance of "Echos" is truely EPIC. The sound is just beautiful on the whole set. This package has immediately become one of the most prized possessions in my library.

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Quote:

and of course, everyone's favorite, The Fleet Foxes, just to be redundant.

That's because that album is incredible! The Sun Gian EP it came with is exceptional as well. While I have other favorite bands, etc., the more I listen to Fleet Foxes, the more I think it is the best rock album to come out this year.

On an unrelated note, one song, "Drops in the River" reminds me of "Good-bye Blue Sky" by Pink Floyd. It is really just one riff/melody that reminds me of it.

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While hating LZ may bring your stock down for some...

"to each his own,bud.. ive hated zeppelin since day 1, much preferring black flag, minor threat, fugazi, voivod, television, wire."

...yours definitely went way up just now for me with that list. It just shows that despite debating on and on about gay marriage, music can be the ultimate bridge above all other differences.

I just bought the new all encompassing Clash book for a friend of mine, and that thing is a great archive of one of the seminal bands of the original punk movement. Almost all the text is either original interviews or newly written by the surviving members. Great read. They've reissued their whole catalog on 180 gram vinyl in the past couple of years and although it can't fix cheap production, it does bring out a lot more than the old copies I had.

BTW--- I have a LZ hating friend (I'm sort of neutral on them) and he really liked Raising Sand, so you might want to check it out. Allison Kraus is, as always, great.

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Yeah- a list is tough since I buy so much, and then there's always a ton of used, plus all my old ones I listen to, but here's what comes to mind.

No order at all BTW

1. Beck: Modern Guilt
2. Fleet Foxes
3. Coldplay: Viva la Vida
4. Radiohead: In Rainbows
5. Cocteau Twins: Head Over Heels (re-issue)
6. Elvis Costello: Momofuku
7. Aimee Mann: @#%&*! Smilers!
8. Joe Jackson: Rain
9. Stereolab: Chemical Chords
10. The Beatles: Yellow Submarine (reissue on vinyl), which my young son begs to hear almost every day, and is starting to learn about how to play records with. His birthday is next June and a first TT is definitely in the offering.

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Quote:

"to each his own,bud.. ive hated zeppelin since day 1, much preferring black flag, minor threat, fugazi, voivod, television, wire."

...yours definitely went way up just now for me with that list. It just shows that despite debating on and on about gay marriage, music can be the ultimate bridge above all other differences.

Thanks a lot , man. My dad was into zeppelin, all that stuff, but I always found it corny, much preferring (at a young age, my grandaddy's hank williams and ernest tubb records, till my teens when I discovered the aforementioned bands. I was also really heavy into the cure and the smiths at one time, though ive sorta lost that taste..

you mentioned music books.

well, i have to reccomend these

RECORDING THE BEATLES (the most comprehensive book of its type, ever)

and Hickory Wind

as well as the Streissguth JC Biography (I am probably the biggest Cash fan in the history of mankind, and have read every single book about him, probably.. the streissguth gets to the heart of the matter.

I just bought the new all encompassing Clash book for a friend of mine, and that thing is a great archive of one of the seminal bands of the original punk movement. Almost all the text is either original interviews or newly written by the surviving members. Great read. They've reissued their whole catalog on 180 gram vinyl in the past couple of years and although it can't fix cheap production, it does bring out a lot more than the old copies I had.


Quote:
BTW--- I have a LZ hating friend (I'm sort of neutral on them) and he really liked Raising Sand, so you might want to check it out. Allison Kraus is, as always, great.

Yeah, shes got an amazing, ethereal voice. Love her. ill check it out. thanks!

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ncdrawl-

Since you mentioned The Cure have you heard their new one? I usually buy their albums on the first day that they are released but haven't picked that one up for a variety of reasons.

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ncdrawl-

Since you mentioned The Cure have you heard their new one? I usually buy their albums on the first day that they are released but haven't picked that one up for a variety of reasons.

the last one I heard from them was wild mood swings. at around the same time, I was beginning to revisit the music of my youth to the point where I did not listen to anything but Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Jerry Jeff Walker, The Louvin Brothers, Johnny Paycheck, etc... so I sorta left that whole genre behind, but man, I was obsessed with the cure for the longest time..even had the hair for while

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When I lived in L.A. I went on a date to a Cure concert at the Rose Bowl.

We were surrounded by 80,000 people dressed all in black with henna'd black hair and pale make up who were milling about thinking there was nobody else like them.

I do admit an extreme fondness for "Close to Me" and "In Between Days!"

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Yes, 4:13 Dream is good. To simplify/overgeneralize, it's on par with their last few albums, IMO. Good, but not scaling quite the same heights as their very best. I am a Cure fan and think their collected works stands up to the best of anyone's. And don't worry about the hair/makeup thing in their audience. Irrelevant. Let go, sing with the crowd, feel the Cure love.

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Robert Smith is a very clever song writer

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Quote:
Robert Smith is a very clever song writer

that I will give you, he is amazing. as I get older, I just prefer more organic sounds with acoustic instruments, simpler stuff... id love to hear a cure unplugged show...

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At one time they did do an unplugged, which was really good. It's just never been commercially released. Also the first run of their 2001 "Greatest Hits" included a second disc titled "Acoustic Hits" where they performed all 18 of the songs acoustically. In some stores you can still find them hanging around. Sometimes there is a sticker on the outside sometime you have to recognize them by the different spine that are used for the double CD in a single case size. Happy Hunting.

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x2 on that. Those unplugged versions (on the DVD version of that 2001 Greatest Hits release ) were wonderful surprise treats to me. Really brought home the strength of the songs as songs.
Both the cd and the dvd are available at barnes&noble.com

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I'm tossing in Jackson Browne's "Time the Conqueror."

Best JB album in 28 years!

I know that may not actually be saying alot, but it's pretty good. Even the politcal songs have his old bite back.

Two thumbs up!

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im thinking that the cold war kids stuff is pretty cool, and of montreal has one that is really catchy, but damned if Easton Stagger Phillips aint frigging amazing.

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Of Montreal has some great stuff. Sometimes I have trouble getting over how weird they are, though.

And I sometimes resent them for misleading me into listing them among the best indie rock bands from Canada. I guess they didn't think "Of Athens, Georgia" was as catchy.

I still have nearly all of their records.

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Okay, I finally compiled my Top 10 of 2008:

10. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals: Cardinology
9. Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna
8. Frida Hyvonen: Silence Is Wild
7. Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
6. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
5. Leila: Blood, Looms, & Blooms
4. Mogwai: The Hawk Is Howling
3. TV On The Radio: Dear Science
2. Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog: Party Intellectuals
1. Lights: Lights

I also posted a longer list of favorite recordings on the Elements blog.

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Top 10...

I don't think I get quite up to 10 but I can throw in a few:

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (man, I can't believe that no one has mentioned them yet )

Shearwater - Rook

Shelby Lynne - Just A Little Lovin'

The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

North Mississippi Allstars - Hernado

My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinology

Was (Not Was) - Boo!

Michael Franti & Spearhead - All Rebel Rockers

Wow, I made it all the way to 9!!

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"Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (man, I can't believe that no one has mentioned them yet )"

Actually three other posters mentioned them including myself, but that's OK- they deserve some special emphasis.

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Quote:
"Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (man, I can't believe that no one has mentioned them yet )"

Actually three other posters mentioned them including myself, but that's OK- they deserve some special emphasis.

Didn't you notice the little "grin" icon at the end of my sentence?

But more to the point, personally I prefer Shearwater to Fleet Foxes and Jim James, the lead singer from My Morning Jacket, to the lead singer from Fleet Foxes who, at times, sounds a lot like Jim James. Sometimes when I hear Fleet Foxes that I'm listening to My Morning Jacket: Lite.

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I got that Shearwater album recently, and I really like it. Not as much as Fleet Foxes, though (although I can see how the growing number of people gushing about them can be a turn-off).

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"Didn't you notice the little "grin" icon at the end of my sentence?"

Heh- I thought that was just extra enthusiasm on your part- did not get the wry humor.

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I was too busy discovering old stuff on vinyl (i'm a youngster who recently discovered the magic of vinyl) to have a top 10 for 2008 but my top 3 are:

The Hold Steady: Stay Positive

The Black Keys: Attack and Release

Mogwai: The Hawk is Howling

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