All right, you’s guys, I’ve got opinions about albums and since everybody likes to show off their super-important and highly-refined musical tastes by way of year-end lists, I’ve decided to join everyone…like a sheep to slaughter.  I’m gonna have some oldies which I’ve just been turned onto in 2008 sprinkled in there too, so please don’t be alarmed that I don’t only listen to new music.  In fact, it’s not healthy to only listen to new music.

After mine, you have to show me yours though…as creepy as that sounds.  So start thinking about everything you heard in this last great year of our unruly despot’s reign, and be ready to list ‘em by the time you finish looking at mine.

In no particular order…

Frances – All The While

Okay, yes, they are friends but this album is truly original and stands out in a sea of indie-rock music that is becoming more and more boring.  Hooks abound, beautiful harmonies, and amazing arrangements…all with a good sense of humor too.

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MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

Here’s an album I was all over when I got an advance copy.  It’s totally trippy and neo-psychedelic and totally up my alley.  Here’s me singing it’s praises last January…lalala.  The backlash is already present but isn’t it always there for bands who get any kind of recognition for actually being good?!  They sounded great at a super-packed McCarren Park Pool this past summer too!  I look forward to a second album from these cats.

Black Mountain – In The Future

Here’s another one that I got an advance of and I picked it for my year-end list last year even though it came out in 2008.  Trippy , heavy, ter’riff’ic!  These guys have a great loud live show too.  On the album, “Wucan” will hypnotize you…and live, “Wucan” will bewitch your skull.  You’ve been warned!

AC/DC – Black Ice

I refuse to link you to the Wal-Mart site (you’ve already heard my opinions of the big-box juggernaut), but I have Black Ice and I love it!  And “Rock & Roll Train” will become an instant classic.  It’s just pure great AC/DC-style stripped-down rock & roll, reminiscent of their best stuff from the 80′s (don’t forget Flick of the Switch!)

Man – Back Into The Future

Here’s a band that I still can’t believe I never heard of until 2008 and this is the album that I’ve listened to the most of the several albums of theirs that I got this year.  But keep in mind, this album is from the good old days of 1973…but it sounds great in this here 21st century.  The Esoteric remasters that I reviewed this year completely re-opened my musical mind and renewed my faith in the power of music.  There is so much amazing extra live material on this album (which was already originally a double), that it’s just plain ridiculous!  The live 19-minute “C’mon” alone makes this set worthwhile.  But there are plenty more layers.  Dig in!

Apache – Boomtown Gems

Pure snotty glammy garage rock that doesn’t take itself too seriously, brought to you by the excellent Birdman Records.  I saw these guys over the summer and loved the show…as you remember from this post.  You’ve got to hear ‘Boys Life’ from this album if you wanna get an idea of how fun and contagious their music is (listen to it on MySpace).  The rest of the album follows suit.  Buy it and relearn how to rock.

The Weight – Are Men

And here’s the band that I missed opening for Apache and Electric Shadows on the aforementioned live show night above.  But soon after I got a chance to review their most recent album, where I made the assertion that this album ‘should be in every dive-bar jukebox in the country’!  I’ll stand by that.  But be warned: this album may very well move you to drink beer and whiskey in excess.  I’m thirsty just talking about it!

Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs

C’mon!  It’s Dylan.  How can it not be amazing?  I have followed the Bootleg Series’ since the beginning when the 3-disc box of Volumes 1-3 was released in 1991.  I actually originally got it on cassette…and now own it on CD.  All of the Bootleg Series’, for that matter.  I was the least excited about this one coming out because I wasn’t sure how I would like a compilation of later-era Dyaln outtakes and live stuff, but it completely holds up…even more so than the last four studio albums, in my opinion.  I just love the variety of it!  Oh, and take a gander at this.

Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

If you’ve heard this album, you know it’s good.  If you don’t think it’s good, you’re probably a cynical douche.  Any debut that is as polarizing as this one was, has done something right.  It’s pretty funny that everyone that was down on this album was so upset that these Cape Cod-loving white guys would dare exploit African music.  Drop the punkier-than-thou code of ethics, buzzkills…no one protested when the Talking Heads did it.  The most hilarious slam that I read was by Julianne Shepherd in the Village Voice.  Here’s just a little bit where Julianne asserts how punk rock she is by making fun of a band that would dare know how to read music… ‘I bet these guys read sheet music—and carefully tousled nice-guy vocals drip so liberally with propriety that their style has, for me, become a resounding philosophical statement, a line in the sand. And because their whole steez is so ’80s, I am forced to choose Black Flag and Minor Threat.’ Julianne, please, you’re embarrassing yourself.  Anyone else will tell you that they listened to this album many times this year and it was almost addicting.  That’s perhaps because it’s upbeat and happy, and therefore not punk.  Fine by me.

Groundhogs – Split

Here’s a band that I’m still in the process of discovering, and what a rockin’ process it is!  1971′s Split is the first Groundhogs album I acquired earlier in 2008, and it is just full of guitar-tandem rave-ups and pummelling blues jams with lots of groove.  And it has the band’s probably best-known song, “Cherry Red”.  I’ll be listening to plenty more Grounhogs in 2009.

Dungen – 4

Okay, I’ve cheated at my own game here.  This is the 11th album I’ve listed, but it’s impossible for me to leave this one off.  You’ve seen me write about Dungen plenty of times in the past, and that’s because they’re one of the best current bands making beautiful psychedelic rock music…and all their lyrics are Swedish.  But you don’t need a translator when the music’s this good, but it does make it hard to sing along!  4 is a beautiful piano and guitar-heavy sounscape album that jams but then lays back and relaxes just when you want it to.  This album was an improvement on their last album, Tio Bitar, and it is up there with their already classic, Ta Det Lugnt from 2005.  Check out NewmRadio’s old posts and pics of Dungen here and here.

Howlin Rain – Magnificent Fiend

And lastly, but not leastly, it’s Howlin Rain!  I got to see them live at Mercury Lounge this year, and the guys just ripped it up.  Total West-coast throwback sound with plenty of reverb-drenched and wah-wah soaked guitars and Purple-esque B3 organ, great Dead-like harmonies and wailing razor-throated vocals by Ethan Miller.  The album just sounds fantastic.  Thank god there are bands out there who are not part of the louder-is-better CD mastering war that is happening in current music.

And since there are so many great albums to talk about, here’s some more (click on thru to the other side)…

Honorable Mentions: Josh Alscher – The Whisling Album, Q65 – Nothing But Trouble 1966-68, Earthless – Live at Roadburn, Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory (Remastered), Man – Slow Motion (Esoteric Reissue), Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter – Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul, Jeff Beck-Performing This Week...

Please bear in mind (or is it bare in mind) that I have not heard the Fleet Foxes album, which is at the top of every other ‘best-of 2008′ list that I’ve seen…and same goes for My Morning Jacket’s album and TV on the Radio.  This list is not scientific.  I am talking about albums that have impacted me personally in 2008. Now it’s time for you to talk about yours…

Filed in Best of 2008, Lists, Music on Sunday, December 21, 2008 · 8 Comments »