So last time when we checked up on 2008 in full, we were on a pretty downbeat note. 2008 was full of small and minor disappointments and it showed. That doesn’t however mean that there wasn’t any greatness in the year. Granted, there was very little superb greatness compared to many of the years before, but there were good things. A lot of flawed, but good things. And now it’s the time to round them up.

After the cut: the official Flinty top 10.

10. SIGUR RÓS – MEð SUð Í EYRUM VIð SPILUM ENDALAUST

Forgive me for not knowing the capital form of that weird o/d/´ thingy.

Yes, Med Sud did disappoint, as I already talked about in the previous part. It had taken a big leap into a whole new realm for the band but in the end decided it wasn’t fully ready yet and backed away. The first half of the album is full of merry frolicking, somehow managing to merge Sigur’s fragile signature beauty with joyous romping. A lot of those tracks would be worthy candidates for a Best of 2008 mixtape. Sadly the album ends up losing its steam on the latter half, going back to the typical Sigur Rós style. This style, the touching, ethereal beauty that’s dominated their previous albums is by no means bad – it’s still a gorgeous style – but the contrast between them and the frolicky pieces is extremely jarring. As an additional fault, those pieces of beauty are shadows of the band’s past divinely gorgeous songs.

Still, on a year like this it makes a top 10.

Inní mér syngur vitleysingur

9. MOBY – LAST NIGHT

We already talked about Moby’s latest in the previous part and what I said there applies here as well, but let’s talk about it with some more words.

Last Night is a return to clubs, return to dance, a return to where Moby started all those years ago. He never lost the touch to it, he’s been creating excellent dancey tracks all the time, but Last Night marks the return to those dancefloor anthems that are sure to fill the club. At the same time Last Night is a concept album of one night in New York City – the thrill of the clubs and the final comedown as you come home and just chill. So the further the album progresses, the more chilled things become.

And this is good in theory and would have made a stellar album but one thing blocks Last Night from being all-around goodness: the filler. Last Night has 15 tracks (counting the hidden track) and there’s some admittedly weaker material there. The album’s end, the chilldown, especially melts into one big mush of same tempo, same style, nothing to separate (outside the stellar “Mothers of the Night”). The dance side works like an ace: “The Stars” is reminiscent of old classics like “Feeling So Real”, “Alice” pounds frantically, “Disco Lies” is funkdisco reimagined. It might not be Moby’s greatest material of all time, but it’s hard to deny their quality.

So overall: good, but too long.

Disco Lies

8. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE – NARROW STAIRS

Narrow Stairs is the final of the trio of ‘problematic’ albums I discussed in the previous part of this article series: an album that has the potential to be great but is heavily marred down by something. Normally albums like these wouldn’t make a top 10 but that’s 2008 for you.

Narrow Stairs in a nutshell: some of Death Cab’s finest songs ever married with some of their weakest. The hypnotic maniac stalker groove “I Will Possess Your Heart”, the worn and optimistically melancholic “Grapevine Fires” and the relentless “Pity and Fear” rank in the former category, the dull “Talking Bird” and the pointless, almost silly interlude “You Can Do Better Than Me” rank to the latter category. Overall Narrow Stairs isn’t one of the band’s strongest albums but it’s got enough of what makes DCFC great to, well, make it good. Ben Gibbard’s a genius all around, I tell ya.

I Will Possess Your Heart

7. M83 – SATURDAYS = YOUTH

If I had to pick the Single of the Year, I’d pick M83’s “Kim & Jessie”. Amazingly strong and grabbing, almost nostalgic atmosphere that is the aural equivalent of a beautiful summer day mixed with the most relentless pop hooks of the year, Kim & Jessie is pretty much perfect. The radio edit rapes it horribly, but still.

And all that could be considered to describe M83’s album in general. It’s the album that soundtracked my summer. It’s an album made for summer. Be it the dance anthem “Couleurs”, the airy electronic pop of “Graveyard Girl”, the ambient “Midnight Souls Still Remain” or the almost shoegazey “Skin of the Night”, Saturdays = Youth grabs onto you with its countless hooks and breathes the fresh, warm, sunny air of summers long gone into you. It sounds both instantly modern and instantly nostalgic.

It’s not a perfect album, the drive flattens down a tad by the end, but I can see this getting played for many, many summers yet. And perhaps with a few more years, it’ll ripen up to climb far higher on this chart.

Kim & Jessie

6. LAURA MARLING – ALAS, I CANNOT SWIM

There’s an article about this album by me on this site, if you want to dig the archives a bit. But what’s happened to this album since in my ears?

It’s still good, at times absolutely fantastic. Laura Marling is still one of the few female vocalists whose voice hits all the right spots in my ears. Her folky pop songs are fragile, homey and personal and have an amazing warmth to them. Alas I Cannot Swim has a few duller moments but good god, listen to how amazing the rest of the album is!

Really though. Marling’s still incredibly young and already doing material like this. Without wanting to raise any pressure, she’s got all the chances to create something absolutely perfect later on.

Cross Your Fingers / Crawled Out of the Sea

5. BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT – WORLD OF WARCRAFT: WRATH OF THE LICH KING SOUNDTRACK

What is this? A game soundtrack in my top ten albums of the year list? Yes indeed. And just to make it sure – I am referring to the actual soundtrack album here and not just the music in the game in general.

I babbled about this album recently. If you want more indepth discussion on this, check that article out. Wrath soundtrack has been constantly playing in my headphones and even made me listen to more game music recently than ‘normal’ music. The orchestral grandeur is gorgeous, cinematic and downright epic. The album itself feels like a grand journey and some of the emotional heights in the purely instrumental (outside the vocal choirs that make appearances here and there) easily rival the moments when a person sings touching words in your ear on other albums.

Blizzard really turned the knobs to eleven with this soundtrack.

Wrath of the Lich King (Main Title)

4. COLDPLAY – VIVA LA VIDA OR DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS

Coldplay might be the complete opposite of cool but they’re one of my pet pleasures. In retrospect however, X&Y was worrysome. It was an album badly repeating the formula they had hit big with and whilst it contained its great moments, it had a lot of lackluster things going on with it. If the band would continue on a similar path, they’d surely become two-album wonders.

But Viva La Vida changed everything. Somehow tapping onto a brand new source of inspiration, Chris Martin and co managed to change themselves. Viva La Vida reigns proudly with a new-found energy and freshness. Taking inspirational cues from everywhere, from orchestral music to styles from all over the world and ambient music, Coldplay have expanded their know-how. Mixing all this with their trademark style of melodic pop rock anthems produced great results.

I know I’m not gonna turn anyone’s head with praising this album because Coldplay’s one of those easy to hate bands, but Viva La Vida sounds so incredibly rejuvenated and revitalised in each of its songs that it’s extremely hard not to get enthusiastic about it. The band might take the whole thing a bit too pretentious-artistically, but the music is excellent.

Lovers in Japan

3. R.E.M. – ACCELERATE

I don’t like the term “return to form” because it implies the artist has a set path that must be followed. I especially don’t like it when “return to form” is used on R.E.M. because their career after drummer Bill Berry’s departure has been just as amazing as it was before.

Hence, Accelerate isn’t a “return to form”. But it is a return to being energetic.

I rate R.E.M.’s later career high, very very very high. It isn’t very happy though. They’ve got their upbeat tracks (especially on Reveal) but there’s a certain calmness, a still melodic beauty and slight melancholy to a lot of the songs. On Accelerate, the band sounds like they’re having a party in the recording studio. You could almost imagine the band members laughing and goofing off while playing the songs. The whole band sounds incredibly refreshed, especially Mike Mills whose basslines are swerving and climbing amazingly throughout the album. The songs rock fast and short (the album clocks at 33 minutes) but make their point amazingly. And they really do rock.

Accelerate is fun. Really, really fun. It’s not my album of the year, but it’s the album I will have the fondest memories of in the future as it soundtracked my spring and summer heavily, many memories now forever tacked onto the music.

Supernatural Superserious

2. ELBOW – THE SELDOM SEEN KID

Elbow can do no wrong, it’s pretty much proven by now. I only found out about them this year and they’ve already become one of my very favourites. Four albums in and they’ve earned the title of being one of Britain’s very greatest bands. The immense depth and attention to detail in the music combined with Guy Garvey’s fantastic lyrics and absolutely gorgeous delivery (who else could make “holy cow I love your eyes” sound marvellously honest and touching) make the band sound unique and absolutely brilliant.

The Seldom Seen Kid can only be described as brilliant in itself. It’s Elbow’s most accessible album to date but they haven’t sacrificed any of their soul when taking a more open approach. In fact, Seldom Seen Kid shows that they can expand their sound gallery and still reign supreme over many others.

By winning the 2008 Mercury Prize and finally finding the public adoration that matches their critical love, 2008 can be described as Elbow’s year. And what better testament for that year than an album as emotional (”Friend of Ours” almost made me cry in a public place but I managed to control myself), as stunning, as touching and as downright brilliant as The Seldom Seen Kid.

One Day Like This

1. GUILLEMOTS – RED

Guillemots changed with Red. Having no intention to repeat the spectacular-beyond-words debut Through the Windowpane because, well, they had done that album already, the band decided to do something different. Instead of relying on solely Fyfe Dangerfield’s songwriting pen, the whole band took part on composing the music. And thus, Red, the eclectic and erratic pop beast was born.

Red is brilliant, there’s no other way to say it. Pop songs that melt your heart, anthems that are larger than life, tender moments sweeter than anything else. The participation of the rest of the band has increased the band’s range and while this makes Red a slightly jigsawy album at times, the wholeness doesn’t suffer. The dark club banger “Last Kiss” melts perfectly with the Bollywood-meets-Lion-King disco groove “Cockateels” (song of the year!), “Clarion” sounds like Animaniacs making a disco version of a Chinese children’s song and holds more creativity in it than most full albums this year, “Falling Out of Reach” and “Standing on the Last Star” open the floodgates in one eyes with their supreme prettiness, “Don’t Look Back” changes from a chilled groove to a fierce, aggressive monster in one song, the finale of “Kriss Kross” is perhaps the most gorgeous musical moment of the year, and so on and so on and etc… I could come up with a full paragraph on each song’s spectacularness because each moment is larger than life, each moment is something to treasure forever.

Guillemots are one of the best bands in existence right now and despite being so different to Through the Windowpane (one of my favourite albums ever made), Red has rightly deserved its place in the band’s discography. To be honest it drives me quite mad how negative people can be towards the album. But ah well, sometimes you can’t help expectations. Me? I’m crowning Red as my album of the year and one of the most glorious gems in a year that was otherwise slightly disappointing.

Kriss Kross

Tags: Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, Elbow, Guillemots, Laura Marling, M83, Moby, R.E.M., Sigur Rós, soundtrack, top ten 2008

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Retrospective, Reviews, YouTube Power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.