Top Albums 2008

So here we are again the end of another year, one filled with fantastic musical treats.  So where to begin trying to count down the best of the year, well I'll take a stab at it.

UPDATE

As you always do when you are compiling a list like this, I forgot an album and what an lbum yo forget.  Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago.

25. Adele - 21

24. Guillemots - Red

23. Beck - Modern Guilt

22. Lykke Li - Youth Novels

21. Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

20. The Killers - Day & Age

10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!

18. Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires

17. Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

16. Last Shadow Puppets - Age of The Understatement

15. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark

14. Lightspeed Campion - Falling Off The Lavender Bridge

13. Foals - Antidotes

12. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

11. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

10 . Bloc Party - Intimacy

The title would suggest that this is a softer album from Bloc Party, but the opening track Ares puts an end to those thoughts.  The album sees Bloc Party being more in your face whilst embracing more electronic and big beat styles.  With every album they release they enter new territory of musical style so it wasn't that surprising that this album was so massively different to the last.  The one critisism I do have is that previously the tracks have built up to a massive finale of controlled chaos in this album it sounds more like it is uncontrolled threatening to erupt at any point and often does at points you weren't expecting.  This is the album made up of the styles  that they were eluding to with last year's Flux, but the more you listen to this album, the more you realise that they were right not including it on the track listing.  The kind of songs on this album sound like they have truly left the sound from Silent Alarm well and truely in the past.

9 . Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads

Finally, a proper followup to Employment.  Don't get me wrong, Yours Truely Angry Mob was good, but it was missing that fun factor that ran through Employment, with exception of course of Ruby.  Despite the fun being back, this is a much more mature album, especially as it does not have any "whoooaas", just like the last album.  The fun factor of this album is really summed up in the first single to come off it, Never Miss A Beat.  I mean any track with the lyrics "What do you want for tea?/I want crisps" must be off a seriously fun album where the band don't take themselves too seriously.  The album as a whole also comes across as more complete.  Ronson has also worked his wizardry on the album, with a majority of the tracks sounding as if they have that Ronson touch, albeit without a brass section.  In the end though the band can't escape the fact that their target audience is in the stands at a football match and even though they tried to branch with Yours Truely Angry Mob  they can't by this stage escape that fact.  It's no coincidence that they are named after a South African football team (Kaizer Chiefs).

8 . Mystery Jets - Twenty One

The main difference between this and the previous album is the production.  It has come in the form of electro genius Erol Alkan.  Immediately from the opening track you can see his influence.  It carries on the whole way through to make this offering from the Mystery Jets sound a lot more contemporary.  Not all has been lost though with songs about random things still taking centre stage ("Veiled In Grey''s pink elephants on beds).  So thankfully the new direction for the music has not resulted in the band losing any of those qualities  that made them so different and special in the first place.  The album as a whole is about growing up and is exactly what the band have done (musically anyway) in the process.  An album this good still makes me think it was really disappointing when they couldn't perform at this year's Summer Sundae because of illness.

7 . Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

Elbow caught my attention when I saw them supporting Coldplay back in July 2005 or some time around then.  I've been a fan since then (I bought Cast of Thousands after seeing them) and it seems they haven't like many bands tried to dramatically change their sound with their record this year.  Instead they've just refined and perfected it.  The main single which everyone knows is "Grounds For Divorce", however this track doesn't give an accurate account of what the rest of the album's like.  The album is richly textured and completely engrossing, far from the bone rattling riffs in Grounds For Divorce.  Guy Garvey's voice comes across much more effectively in this collection of songs dedicates to the band's friend who died in 2006.  This album has helped the band reach the mainstream and the consciousness of the general public of the public.  About damn time too, it's no wonder the won this year's Mercury Prize.

6. Coldplay - Viva a ida or Death and All His Friends

This is kind of biased putting them here, because of the album would have been here regardless of what it was actually like because how good they were live.  Thankfully Brian Eno has worked his magic yet again to help the band produce an album that truly deserves to be this high up.  Coldplay haven't taken their music in some new direction or something, instead Eno has included some new, very interesting percussion throughout helping their sound to evolve.  He has also got rid of Chris Martin's piano as the main instrument, although he has completely got rid of it, it's still there just playing it's equal part with e guitars and drums.  If anything this is the "rock" album the have been trying to achieve for a long time because I noticed Chris Martin playing guitar on a majority of tracks live, even if it was an acoustic guitar.  Regardless of how the changes have been made, they have all culminated in probably Coldplay's strongest album to date.

5. Glas Vegas - Glas Vegas

On paper an album with songs on depressing subjects such as teenage stabbing and absent fathers should not work.  The thing is though that the song writing and the scottish vocals mixed atmospheric instrumentals are so good mean it not only works, but makes for one of the better debuts this year.  I think the real quality of this shows from the band's ability to find poetry in any subject.  They will forever be remembered by football fans who I can imagine chanting "Here we fucking go" for a long time to come.  I must admit I hadn't really heard a lot of the hype about this band (apart from hearing the sessions they had done on various radio stations), but from what what I hear it more than lives to expectations.  Even though I hadn't paid that much attention to all the hype, it still is a bloody good debut.

4. Santogold - Santogold

This was always going to be a good album considering the production team (including Diplo, Sinden, Switch and Radioclit as well as others) she had behind her.  Each track on the album takes a different direction, but the funny thing is that they all gel really well together as an album.  Like many albums this year, this pays homage to tracks of the 80's, particularly rock and pop.  She has been refered to as the new M.I.A and I think that is the only contemporary artist that she is comparable to her because she brings together a huge amount of genres and styles.  Not to mention "Top Ranking: A Diplo Dub",(the mixtape she made with Diplo that only just missed out on making the countdown) being the only mixtape Diplo has brought out with another artist besides M.I.A.  She must be good because it seems everyone on the music scene these days wants to collaborate with her (Jay-Z, N.A.S.A., Mark Ronson).  And with a debut album this good it's not really a massive surprise.

3. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

When I first heard some Vampire Weekend's early demoes over at Good Weather For Airstrikes I immediately thought to myself that whenever they were going to release their debut it would be a hell of a record. I couldn't have even predicted just how good the debut would be or the how much of a  huge a success it would be.  The sound of this album is a very interesting because it's a blend of pop-rock mixed with african beats and instrumentals.  It's refreshing for a rock band not be trying to be as grungy as possible, whereas these guys just embrace the fact that they are from privileged backgrounds and went to Ivy League collages in America, even to the point of singing about college professors in parts of the songs.  All these elements should not make for a good album, but it makes for on of the most refreshing listens this year.  My benchmark for a good album is one that I do not tire of and come back to.  That's the case with this album, except I come back a lot more than usual.

2. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

When I first heard I thought to myself "this must be a fluke, no band can write songs this catchy consistently".  It was a brave move releasing the opening track on the album as the first single.  It paid off  because on the album, almost every song is catchier than the last.  It is the perfect blend of new wave  synth pop and disco psychedelia that all culminates in one of the most feel good albums of the year.  Throughout the album when I first heard it I kept thinking to myself that this album could have been made in the 80s and that is largely due to the duos ability to dabble in different styles of songs the whole way through and especially for their penchant for 80's style synth pop.  You can always tell a good band not by the reaction of the general public, but by the reaction of their peers.  This collection of songs has to be one of the widely covered ones I've heard in a long time so it must be good.  

1. Kings of Leon - Only By The Night

This in the end was an easy decision, this album got the most plays on my iTunes this past year plus there was their absolutely stunning live show.  Kings of Leon are another band who didn't massively try to change their sound for this album, but rather refine it.  Although jut hearing the mega-hit Sex on Fire, you'd think their whole writing style had changed to the extent that they were actually writing choruses.  Thankfully a majority of the tracks do stick yo their style that attracted fans to the band in the first place.  With the cult success they'd managed to build with the first two albums they then built on with a more mature third and this was nothing short of an attempt to reach a wider audience and to finally crack stadium rock.  Some of the album (Sex on Fire, Use Somebody) is sure to ensure that they do reach the wider audience with immediate mass appeal already making the two tracks mentioned their most successful songs in the charts to date.  Despite this mass appeal that they have managed to achieve, they have managed to write tracks in the old style such as my personal favourite Revelry.  Although the established fan base are likely to be pleased by tracks like this, they may be a little disappointed that this album does come across a little cold at times and the attempts to become a bigger stadium rock band have made them seem a little clean and clinical.  The big thing is where the band go from here, whilst the band may be happy with the mainstream success they have hadwith this album, fans will certainly be hoping the band return to their roots.

So there we are, another year another countdown sorted.  Blatantly some of you will read it and disagree, so please don't keep them to yourselves put your opinions in the comments.  It was a hard choice for number 1 this year because for me any of the top 3 could have been number 1.  The big albums came in the form of debuts (12 out of 25) or bands simply sticking to their styles and really perfecting them.