Haiku- 27

What is it to live?
Wake up and smell the roses
Life in the moment

Haiku- 26

What's wrong with losing?
Lessons are learned with losses,
But it's nice to win.

My favorite music from 2008

2008 was a strange year for music. Bunches of new bands with new sounds filled my iPod. Without further adieu, here's my top 20 albums of 2008 along with my favorite track from each. It's arranged so that it's [album title]/ [artist]/ "[favorite track]." Debut albums will have an asterisk next to them.

1. Oracular Spectacular/ MGMT/ “Time to Pretend”*

2. You & Me/ The Walkmen/ “In the New Year”

3. Vampire Weekend/ Vampire Weekend/ “M79”*

4. Volume One/ She & Him/ “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”*

5. Fleet Foxes/ Fleet Foxes/ "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song"*

6. The Stand-ins/ Okkervil River/ “Lost Coastlines"

7. Arm’s Way/ Islands/ “J'aime Vous Voire Quitter”

8. Modern Guilt/ Beck/ “Gamma Rays”

9. Real Emotional Trash/ Stephen Malkmus and Jicks/ “Hopscotch Willie”

10. Consolers of the Lonely/ The Raconteurs/ “The Switch and the Spur”

11. Youth Novels/ Lykke Li/ “Let It Fall”*

12. Hold on now, Youngster…/ Los Campesinos/ “Drop it Doe Eyes”*

13. Dear Science/ TV on the Radio/ “Golden Age”

14. Evil Urges/ My Morning Jacket/ “Evil Urges”

15. Furr/ Blitzen Trapper/ “Furr”*

16. For Emma, Forever Ago/ Bon Iver/ “For Emma”*

17. At Mount Zoomer/ Wolf Parade/ “Fine Young Cannibals”

18. Acid Tongue/ Jenny Lewis/ "Acid Tongue"

19. The Rhumb Line/ Ra Ra Riot/ “Dying is Fine”*

20. Narrow Stairs/ Death Cab For Cutie/ “I Will Possess Your Heart”

Honorable mentions: Limbo, Panto/ Wild Beasts/ "Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants"*; Ode to Sunshine/ The Delta Spirit/ "Trashcan"*; Da Carter III/ Lil Wayne/ "Mr.Carter (Featuring Jay-Z)"; LP3/ Ratatat/ "Mi Viejo"; Stay Positive/ The Hold Steady/ "One for the Cutters"

A quick look at the list...

-Of my favorite 20 albums of the year, 9 of them are debut albums. If we include the count into the honorable mentions, there's two more debuts there. That's a lot of new music that I liked.

-My favorite album was the MGMT album, but my gut feeling says that that album will probably sour on me like over time, just like milk. As far as timeless albums go, I think Vampire Weekend, Islands and Okkervil River's albums will fare best. These are the kinds of albums I can come back to in 10 years and still sound fresh to me.

-Some of these albums would probably have ranked higher if I had more of a chance to listen to it- particularly I'm thinking of the Blitzen Trapper album as well as the Jenny Lewis album.

-I think I'm the only person who liked You & Me as much as I did. There really isn't a big single off the album, but it's a solid full album. A friend of my put it well- The Walkmen sound like a cleaner Lou Reed. What really did it for me for this album is the live preformance of it. I saw The Walkmen live and they preformed it with an energy I haven't seen since.

-One album I really didn't like that others did was Santogold's self-titled (you guessed it) debut. It just sounded like another pop album and Santogold's voice wasn't doing it for me.

This is what I have for now- I'll start posting songs of the week after the New Year.

Back to blogging,

Greg

First post in ages

2008 took a lot out of me.

I'll be back posting regularly starting with the new year. It's one of my many resolutions that I'll try desperately to keep. I promise.

-Greg