Music Of The Weak: But What If We Were Wrong?

For us music obsessives, a large part of the fun of list season—after, you know, making one (and possibly checking it a couple of times)—is scoping out the competition.  One of the reasons we do our year-in-music wrap-ups here at the Factual Opinion is so that we can be a small part of the bigger conversation.  But we also dig the other side of that conversation—the side that says, “Yo, dude, you totally missed this.”

Almost immediately after we cobbled together our lists of favorite albums and songs of 2008, I began seeking out the music from other peoples’ lists.  The bittersweet truth about December for music critic-types is that we often discover nearly as much music in that month as in the rest of the year.  In the spirit of full disclosure, here are 10 albums and songs which might have competed for spots among our favorites if I’d gotten there in time.

The Gaslight Anthem – The ’59 Sound

If they didn’t want all the Bruce Springsteen comparisons, The Gaslight Anthem probably shouldn’t have addressed the first song on their first album to “Mary.”  But The ’59 Sound escapes what could have been a cheap homage to The Boss by re-imagining each of Springsteen’s stylistic lynchpins—his infatuation with early rock & roll, his craftsman perfectionism, and the cowboy-like way he sings like a stoic conduit for a wealth of emotion.  These guys are so good, they manage to quote Counting Crows on “High Lonesome” and still come off as one of the coolest bands of 2008.

Empire of the Sun – “Walking On a Dream”

In the video for “Walking on a Dream,” Empire of the Sun’s Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore flit around Shanghai like two rejected members of X-Force International.  (I joke, but this is potentially the exact video Tucker and I would make if we had a band and an HD camera.)  In their day jobs, Steele makes genre-tweaking, Beatles-inspired Australian indie rock with The Sleepy Jackson, while Littlemore makes sample-based Cut Copy-style dance pop with fellow countrymen Pnau.  Together, they make good on the last half-decade of indie rock’s 80’s synth-pop obsession by recasting themselves as The Eurythmics, with Steele playing the Annie Lennox role.  In blue face paint.

Kassin+2 – Futurismo/“Ponto Final”

The collaboration between Alexandre Kassin, Domenico Lancelotti, and Moreno Veloso (son of Caetano) has yielded three albums, each credited to a different member of the trio.  Nestled in the middle of Futurismo, an exquisite 21^st century bossanova album that draws on American and African influences, “Ponto Final” accelerates Kassin+2’s typically laconic tempo, and revs up into a darker, grimier, more propulsive rock song than is typical of the album.

[For some parts of the world, this album was available last year.]

Zomby – Where Were U In ’92?

If 2008 had a formula, it would probably be “Dubstep + X = Awesome.”  For Zomby, a(nother) secretive London beat-maker, “X” equals hip-hop and early 90’s rave music.  His debut album, Where Were U In ’92?, packs a lot into a short amount of time (under 40 minutes, which seems more and more like a perfect album length.)  Like 2008 favorites The Bug and DJ /Rupture, who also deftly incorporated dubstep into their respective albums, Zomby has a healthy respect for more than one zeitgeist.  “Tears in the Rain” flips a Supremes sample into ghostly girl-group trip-hop, while “Daft Punk Rave” twists a familiar clip from the Parisian duo into an acid-house free-for-all.

Dances With White Girls – “Everyone’s Got to Make a Living”

Diplo – “Brew Barrymore”

Low Motion Disco – “Things Are Gonna Get Easier”

Dances With White Girls takes the same 20^th Century Steel Band sample that anchored “Jenny From the Block,” and reclaims it for a house anthem.  Diplo pauses with the baile funk for a second and reconstructs A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation” as… a house anthem.  Low Motion Disco uses The Five Stairsteps’ “Oooh Child” as fuel for a chill-out room joint.  Recontextualizations of pop songs are nothing new, but 2008 was a great year for them.  Around The Factual Opinion offices, it takes every once of will power in my being to not give all the credit for the trend to Girl Talk.

Thunderheist - "Jerk It"

Popping up on both SPIN’s and Pitchfork’s year-end wrap-ups, the video for Thunderheist’s “Jerk It” is long form, visual double entendre:  A young lass spends three minutes literally messing around with an enormous cock.  But even without the, um, helping hand of a kickass video, “Jerk It” is a formidable song in its own right.  Starting with a sultry and confident electro pulse, Thunderheist build to an ecstatic climax of snare, bass, and the command to “Dust it off and jerk it,” before giving way to a delicate series of hand claps.  If any one other song this year personified sex so ferociously, none of us would have ever been able to leave the house.

-Marty Brown, 2009

Comments

[Chris Jones]

I still say Superabundance was one of the best albums of 2008.

Even if I'm saying it all on my own, by Christ.