Tucker and I got out our abacuses and our protractors and we
calculated the best songs of 2008.
Please enjoy.
50. Baby Dee – “Big Titty Bee Girl (From Dino Town)
Ostensibly, Big Titty Bee Girl is advocating the inclusion of an Albino in your posse. However, there’s a perverse joy that comes through as Baby Dee sings about hitting said Albino with a bat, shooting said Albino with a gun, taking away said Albino’s hat and leaving him in the sun, pooping in his pie, pissing in his sink, and tying a sausage to his dick before sicking the dog on him. A sad, sad song.
49. Brightblack Morning Light – “Hologram Buffalo
Most bands drive to the end of the song. Brightblack Morning Light drive to the end of the night—through the cornfields, in the rain, dragging a 1979 Rhodes. A five minute song that lasts five years, “Hologram Buffalo” could be the dyed-in-the-wool hippie band’s clearest mission statement.
48. The Roots – “Rising Down (Featuring Mos Def and Style P)”
“Hello Hello Hello Hello” goes the vocal sample woven into the beat of Rising Down’s opening track—because, after 15 years and 8 albums, The Roots still need an introduction. Mos Def spits some Ghostface-dense rhymes about, maybe, speed addicts; Black Thought is concerned about the environment; and Styles P shows up out of nowhere to hate on Claritin because why the fuck not.
47. John Legend – “Green Light (Afroganic Remix Featuring Andre 3000)”
John Legend’s club banger gets a sweet reggae reworking and Andre 3000 continues his hot streak of guest spots (possibly the best streak of his career) by freestyling some near-lame yuk-yuk jokes. Mindbending.
46. Mogwai – “Batcat”
Ladies, meet Mogwai. Likes: grinding guitars, growling, feedback, creepy animal hybrids, volume, and scaring children. Dislikes: you. Mogwai do know how to fry an egg, though.
45. The Raveonettes – “Sad Transmission”
The Ravonettes build one of those paeans to 60’s pop that
everybody loves these days (almost everybody.)
Then, they systematically dismantle it by drenching it in electronic
squall, shoegaze guitar and reverb. The
titular sad transmission could be pirate radio or a call from the bottom of a
well.
44. The Constantines – “Life and Death"
The Constantines’ unsung triumph, Kensington Heights, shows a mature band at the height of their talent. “Life and Death” plays it awfully close to the vest, knitting a slow build so tight you could bounce a quarter off it, and swelling into the joyous declaration, “I was lucky to get out alive.”
43. Leila – “Deflect (Featuring Martina Topley-Bird”
2008: The Year of Trip-Hop?
Portishead, Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird all came out of the woodwork
this year, with Topley-Bird rocking this mostly overlooked gem from Leila’s Blood, Looms and Blooms. The song twists through several permutations,
transforming from a low-key burner into a whispered torch-song into a stomping,
aggressive guitar workout.
42. Islands – “I Feel Evil Creeping In”
The notoriously berserk Islands restrain their ADD impulses and make their own “Stairway to Heaven,” paved with evil. “In the back of my mind,” it starts, “I want to do bad things/ I want to be unkind.”
41. The Sea & Cake – “Weekend”
With two incredible albums in two years, The Sea & Cake
have doubled their output in this millennium both in quantity and quality. “Weekend,” with Sam Prekop’s indelible vocals
and a series of electronic squiggles running through it, sounds timeless and
nostalgic—but couldn’t have been born anytime but now.
40. Cut Copy – “Feel The Love”
“Feel the Love” seems to start Cut Copy’s In Ghost Colours in the middle of a song before nicely revealing the gist of the album’s sound in its first two lines: “All the girls I know are crying/ But all the clouds have silver linings.” They go on to play a beautifully sad, New Order-indebted song that leaves you feeling sadly beautiful.
39. The Magnetic Fields – “California Girls”
The Magnetic Fields rework The Beach Boys the way only New
Yorkers could: “I Hate California Girls.”
38. Busta Rhymes – “Don’t Touch Me (Throw Da Water On Em)”
Puffy Dad’s posse The Hitmen continue their string of successes after their production on last year’s “The Roc Boys (And the Winner Is…)” by updating Public Enemy’s sound with sirens, horns and mad bongos. Busta turns in his best performance in ages, pausing ¾ of the way in to finally take a well-deserved breath.
37. Frightened Rabbit – “Keep Yourself Warm”
With The Midnight Organ Fight, Frightened Rabbit find a niche inexplicably vacant for the last 25 years: the Scottish U2 (early 80’s era, of course.) But Bono never declared “Jesus is just a sponge-boy’s name,” as they do on “Head Rolls Off,” or admonish “It takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to keep yourself warm” as they do on this album highlight. Bet Bono’s kicking himself now.
36. My Morning Jacket – “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Pt. 1”
Remember when you heard “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Pt. 1”
and thought that My Morning Jacket’s Evil
Urges was going to be AWESOME?
35. Black Mountain – “Bright Lights"
This 16+ minute behemoth of a classic rock song was THIS CLOSE to being sung at Tucker and
Nina’s wedding. By Tucker. With Nina on drums.
34. The Faint – “The Geeks Were Right”
The Faint project a world where “Egghead boys with thin white legs/ Have modified features and software brains/ But that’s what the girls like” and every guitar sounds like it’s plugged into a calculator and used as a drumstick.
33. Re-Up Gang – “20K Money-Making Brothers On The Corner”
Five Reasons “20K Money-Making Brothers On The Corner” is better than “A Milli”:
1. The title alone is built better for the current economy.
2. Pusha T claiming, “We ain’t a part of your coke-rap genre” is like Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka claiming he’s never been “a little bit gay.”
3. The second, secret return of Clyde Smith.
4. No Lil’ Wayne. We love Weezy, but his rap on “A Milli” is pretty tired.
5. They’re giving this shit away, proving dudes in a lower tax bracket are also usually more generous.
32. Hercules & Love Affair – “Time Will”
Antony Hegarty perfects disco anguish on the stunning opener to Hercules & Love Affair’s self-titled debut. Hegarty may be hell-bent on turning every music fan in the world a bit sexually ambidextrous, as it’s impossible to hear “Time Will” without falling a little bit in love.
31. Air France – “No Excuses"
Two dudes from Sweden pick up the gauntlet The Avalanches threw down at the turn of the millennium. “No Excuses” nicks all of Since I Left You’s best tricks, down to the voices that bubble under the music. Plus, you can dance to it. Of course, my dad could have made it.
30. Plantlife – “Time Traveler”
The secret history of rap music, told by the man sentient
being that was there.
29. Why? – “The Hollows”
An excellent entry in the legion of “This goes out to…” songs (see also: Lifter Puller’s “Let’s Get Incredible), Why? dedicates “The Hollows” to “all to my under-done, under-tongued, monk-lunged frontmen” before pausing to watch “two men fuck in the dark corner of a basketball court.”
28. Sigur Rós – “Gobbledigook”
Sigur Rós evolve their sound—for the first time in 10 years—into an Animal Collective-style pastiche of clattering drums, yelping and nakedness.
27. Talvin Singh – “Diya Milan (Radio Edit)”
Where the fuck did this come from? According to the interwebs, “Diya Milan
(Radio Edit)” does not exist. However,
we’re pretty sure it actually is an Indian-influenced slow-burn comedown
track. It came for free on a shiny disc
attached to some sort of a bound and printed information source. Any idea what that’s about?
26. Ra Ra Riot – “Too Too Too Fast”
Ra Ra Riot figure out that the key to synth pop is acceleration. Wes Miles sings like an emo Rick Ocasek (but in a good way), manages to pull off a spoken chorus, and even rocks a bit of a falsetto. Cellist Alexandra Lawn sings back up vocals like a devil sitting on Miles’ shoulder, winding him up. The drums are unstoppable. This is the rock & roll we want back.
25. Max Tundra – “Which Song”
English musician Max Tundra rocks an Amiga 500 like it’s 1989, but it doesn’t keep him from having romantic troubles: “If this song is the one about you and me/Then which song is the one about Kelly B.”
24. Mark Stewart – “Mr. You’re A Better Man Than I”
When Ex-Pop Group member Mark Stewart schools the new jacks on industrial techno, at this point, he’s just showing off.
23. Tricky – “Council Estate”
“Council Estate” could be an answer song to Lupe Fiasco and Matthew Santos’s “Superstar.” On one side of the argument, Santos whispers, “If you are who you say you are/ A superstar/ Then have no fear.” On the other, Tricky demands, “Remember, boy, you’re a superstar.” Tricky’s statement may be more definitive, but in his version the fear is also included.
22. Beck – “Chemtrails”
Chalk up another solid year for Danger Mouse. Dude collaborated with The Black Keys, The Shortwave Set, and Martina Topley-Bird this year, but never forgot he was also the only major rap producer ever to roll with the Elephant 6 collective. His 2008 albums with Beck and Gnarls Barkley may be his strongest work to hark back to that time, and “Chemtrails,” the best track off those albums, spins Beck into a churning, Beatles-worthy haze.
21. Gang Gang Dance – “House Jam”
2008 was a great year for moody, after-hours electronica. What skyrockets Gang Gang Dance’s “House Jam” ahead of most is that it never quite decides what it wants to be. Stray ambient noises clash with aggressive synthesizers and 1000 ghostly voices as vocalist Lizzie Bougatsos simply tries to hold the whole thing together. Along the way, they may have redefined what a “House Jam” even is.
20. Kelley Polar – “Chrysanthemum”
If it had been released fifty years ago, “Chrysanthemum”
would have rendered Hair, Harvey
Milk, and the 1980s obsolete. Even so,
everyone would have inevitably discovered the part about killing people in
their sleep—probably once all of the free love subsided.
19. Autistic Daughters – “Gin Over Sour Milk”
A deathly trudge into the abyss by a super-group of
experimental musicians, “Gin Over Sour Milk” sounds as bitter and remorseless
as it must taste.
18. Atmosphere – “Wild Wild Horses”
It’s always a coin toss as to whether or not Slug’s drunken
love stories will turn toward the misogynist and self-loathing. On “Wild Wild Horses,” he restrains his
uglier tendencies, describing disintegrating love in the third person
until—surprise!—the male protagonist turns out to be a popular rapper whose
exes watch him enviously from the audience.
Ant’s horn-dappled production and one of the best choruses of Slug’s
career still manage to make “Wild Wild Horses” an Atmosphere career highlight.
17. The Bug – “Poison Dart (Featuring Warrior Queen)”
With “Poison Dart”’s grimy dread, The Bug captured the
feeling of nerve-melting tension in 2008.
Seemingly determined to bend dubstep to his will, he may also be
determined to bend the world to dubstep’s will.
Whose hands are we in?
16. Ricardo Villalobos – “Enfants (Chants)”
Perennially underrated Ricardo Villalobos spins a simple concept—children’s voices over minimal techno—into a 17 minute opus. Your move, Lindstrøm.
15. Erykah Badu – “Hip Hop/The Healer”
Of all the stand out tracks on Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah: Part One, the skeletal
“Hip Hop/The Healer” stands out a little further, produced by the consistently
surprising Madlib, On “The Healer,” Erykah Badu claims that hip hop is bigger
than religion and the government. She
could have thrown The Beatles in there for good measure.
14. The Teenagers – “Homecoming"
If success were measured in smarmy French punchlines, The
Teenager’s Reality Check would be the
album of the year. Its opening track,
“Homecoming” tells the story of a British dude and an American girl who have
their perfect European romance. We don’t
want to spoil any of the plot twists, but let’s just say that things don’t
quite turn out the way you’d expect.
13. Religious Knives – “In Brooklyn After Dark"
Brooklyn’s Religious Knives
slow Flipper’s “Sex Bomb” down to an 11 minute psychedelic crawl, remove the
sex, and add a pipe organ. Yes, a real
pipe organ.
12. Jamie Lidell – “Rope of Sand”
The tone of “Rope of Sand” may be wistful, but the lyrics
sometimes border on straight-up goofy: “Shoes don’t know which way they’re
going, so who are you following?”
However, Jamie Lidell has such a flexible and delicate touch with his
vocals that he manages to sell them.
Instead of trying to make a capital-B Big statement with his album-closer,
he aims for something more ephemeral, letting the titular metaphor describe the
song as well.
11. Wale – “The Kramer”
Rarely do rappers comment on the samples or clips of
dialogue that get used to introduce songs, but Wale bookends “The Kramer” with
the clip of Michael Richards going on a racist tirade in a comedy club and the
clip of his apology for that tirade, and uses them to launch into one of the
most intelligent conversations about the word “nigga” in rap music,
period. In 4 minutes, he explores
personal, political and social implications of the word, and gives a dark,
thoughtful heart to his Seinfeld-themed
Mixtape About Nothing.
10. Drive-By Truckers – “The Man I Shot”
Rock’s most dependable songwriters ease up on the lyrical complexity and lean heavily on the twisting, gnashing guitars, whipping up a “Cocaine Blues” for the age of the rationalization: “The man I shot/He was trying to kill me/And I had to take him out.”
9. Big Boi – “Royal Flush (Featuring Andre 3000 & Raekwon)”
After half a decade of missing freethrows (“Hey Ya!” notwithstanding,) OutKast fuck around and hit a triple-double. Over a slinky bass wobble and some understated background cooing, Big Boi gets politicized, and Raekwon shouts out Manhattan subway stops, but the real show is Andre 3000, who chops up his words (“dang-erous,” “nega-tive”), compares himself to crack, and does the hokey-pokey.
8. David Byrne & Brian Eno – “Strange Overtones”
David Byrne’s victory lap begins here. “This groove is out of fashion,” he sings on “Strange Overtones,” “This beat is twenty years old”—which is probably 100% accurate and, at the same time, completely irrelevant. Though it bumps like vintage Talking Heads, “Strange Overtones” feels immediate to 2008, with Byrne’s voice gently leading everything into uncharted territory.
7. Santogold – “Lights Out”
In spite of all the genre-exploration she did in 2008—into
hip-hop, reggae, house, pop, R&B, you name it—Santogold reached her
greatest height beating the New Wave imitators at their own game with “Lights
Out,” a laid back, Strokes-indebted party jam.
6. The Dodos – “Fools”
It’s all about those drums.
On “Fools,” The Dodo’s Logan Kroeber sounds as if he’s playing two or
three rhythms at once. More importantly,
he turns the drums into the lead instrument—the beat practically becomes the
guitar riff, and the guitar becomes the time keeper. It all provides a foundation for Meric Long’s
vocal performance. Amid a series of
yelps and count-offs, Long sings tenderly and steadily, building to the final
chorus of “I’ve been/I’ve been silent.” “Fools” is the best way he could have
begun to make noise again.
5. M83 – “Kim & Jessie”
M83 mastermind Anthony Gonzalez tones down his shoegazier impulses in order to craft a song that purposefully echoes Tears For Fears and Kate Bush. “Kim & Jessie” is about luminous secret worlds with someone whispering and lurking in the shadows—which the music reflects, as M83 sends piercing synthesizers swooping in whenever things threaten to get too ethereal.
4. Fleet Foxes – “Mykonos"
Mykonos is a Greek island
where upper-middle class college kids go to party and sleep on mattresses in
the sand. Fleet Foxes are a
Seattle-based folk band formed by a group of self-effacing high school
friends. It’s unclear whether the band
has any personal connection with the island, but their “Mykonos,” from the Sun Giant EP—which tells a story of
someone escaping to somewhere “With a vision of a gentle coast/And a sun to
maybe dissipate/Shadows of the mess [he] made”—shows off everything that made
Fleet Foxes one of the year’s best bands: a capella four-part harmonies, an
epic scope, and an anachronistic pastoral sound.
3. The Mountain Goats – "San Bernardino"
San Bernardino, California is not a very nice place. I know, I grew up there. It is a city at the foot of the mountains where all of the smog and poverty from Los Angeles goes to settle. At one time, it was the murder capital of California. It has the worst air pollution in the United States. There are 53 registered sex offenders living in my former area code.
John Darnielle’s San Bernardino is a place of comfort and
hope, with a certified “welcome” sign (believe me, no such sign exists), but
the idyllic place he sings about in The Mountain Goats’ “San Bernardino” isn’t
mythological fiction; it’s the place my parents thought they had found when
they stumbled into town in the 60’s.
Over a simple guitar and strings, “San
Bernardino” tells their story, practically the way
I’ve heard it told my whole life, which makes both the song and the
circumstance even more bittersweet.
2. Portishead – “Machine Gun”
Portishead announced their return after an 11 year hiatus with an unflinching drum machine loop and an edge they never showed in their mid-90’s heyday. The idea defines simplicity—dueling drum machines, stuck on repeat—but the Bristol veterans’ unwavering confidence with it, letting the unadorned, cacophonous industrial noise carry the Beth Gibbons indelible vocals, turned “Machine Gun” into the best (and most iconoclastic) single of their career.
1. TV on the Radio – “DLZ”
Oh, by the way, the world's falling apart. Looking back from a less turbulent time, TV on the Radio's "DLZ" will represent the undercurrents of hope and fear running through 2008. At present, it's a lifeline. Thousands of artists this year scrambled to come up with a line as simple and cutting as "Congratulations on the mess you made of things," with the flexibility to be personal and political. Yet, the surgical lyrics only tell half of the story. The other half gets relayed by the clattering drums doing battle with the "la la la" refrains. 2008 felt to many like a time when hope was given to us in the form of a beautiful new rug that subsequently got yanked out from beneath their feet. Many felt the opposite: a sense of desperation restored by a promise of change. "DLZ" proposes that either feeling could be accurate, so that when Tunde Adebimpe screams, "This is beginning to feel like the long-winded blues of the never," he could feasibly be both scared and serene.
-Martin Brown, 2008
How'd the Pharoahe Monch remix of The Healer/Hip-hop strike you?
Posted by: david brothers | 2008.12.16 at 16:51
shit, i didn't even catch that one. Marty? marty! Goddammit, Marty, we better have a good excuse for this one.
I'd bet it's supposed to be where that fucking Busta Rhymes song goes. My complaint is that my pipe organ song isn't higher on the countdown. I mean, Pipe Organ. PIPE ORGAN
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2008.12.16 at 17:04
Alakazam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvCizD-GyUM
I'm definitely going to go through the list in detail later on (dodging work at the moment), but it's a solid remix to an already good track.
Posted by: david brothers | 2008.12.16 at 17:48
Monch's verse is pretty great, but the remix mix doesn't really mix much, does it? I do like the part where he goes "tick tick tick tick" and the song fades out.
"Don't Touch Me" is fucking bonkers, dude. Why you mad at Busta?
Do you remember when David Byrne turned an entire building into a musical intrument? http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/
AND HE'S ONLY AT NUMBER 8!
Posted by: Marty | 2008.12.16 at 17:50
Damn good call on the second best song of the year. I'm still repping Jack Johnson's "Angel" for it's simple elegance, but hey, I fell in love again this year, so maybe I'm all gushy or something.
Why are you guys not showing Charles Hamilton any love? Or the Mark Ronson & Rhymefest Michael Jackson mixtape? But especially Charles Hamilton..."baby sonic" was about the best statement song possible from a 90s kid who grew up on Juicy. (Straight jack on the sample, reinterpretation of growing up as a fantasy, etc.)
BTW - I'm enjoying the Hell out of this music retrospective. I've been holding back on commenting and trying not to swamp poor Marty with "why is this on there and that isn't???" e-mails! lol
Posted by: Kenny | 2008.12.16 at 17:54
Really enjoyed going through this song-by-song today (and there's plenty more for tomorrow!) Awesome!
Posted by: Squidhelmet | 2008.12.16 at 18:56
Kenny-you might want to start soon. In my experience, you can only stay in love with a list and willing to fight it out as long as you can't see what's around the corner. I'm betting a certain reader is just chomping at the bit to find out whether a certain Jason Mraz album is going to show up.
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2008.12.16 at 19:08
Wait, so you're not going to have Mraz on this list? This is bullshit!
Aside from that, love all of it except for Atmosphere. Even Busta, who has done everything in his power to make me hate him - especially with the "I won't even discuss my weird religious positions or my hatred of gays and I don't rap about the apocalypse anymore" thing.
And "Strange Overtones"! I heard that on the radio one day and could swear to crap it was a classic Talking Heads record I'd just never heard. I can't believe he's still got it in him.
Posted by: Sean Witzke | 2008.12.16 at 19:27
Sean-I got a chance to go to the New York premiere of that last Wes Anderson flick, and the place was wall-to-wall celebs, paparazzi (because of Owen's suicide attempt), just non-stop starfucking and nonsense...and here comes David Byrne, wearing this hand-tailored white suit with sequins. Fucking sequins. And yet it was, no bullshit, no exaggeration, one of those "hush falls over the crowd" moment. Hell yeah he's still got it. He'll still have it when he's dead and buried. Guy is a force of nature.
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2008.12.16 at 19:36
Tucker, are you comparing Jack Johnson to Jason Marz? That's cold....
I fell in love with a girl and the song "Angel" makes me think of her because I heard a *really* bad cover one night and it still suited her perfectly.
I'll keep talking past this list's expectancy because I'll beat a horse until he's dead, buried, resurrected as a zombie, and buried again. You can never be too careful when zombie horses are in the game because they can always make a play. (How's that for a mixed metaphor!)
Posted by: Kenny | 2008.12.17 at 09:19
Kenny, I proposed to Nina while listening to Method Man/Mary J Blige do "all that I need." I'm the last person to give somebody static for liking something sentimental. I couldn't be more lame unless I was wearing a Star Trek outfit. Don't worry though-the Mraz question will be answered soon enough.
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2008.12.17 at 10:18
Look you. Enough with the Mraz bashing! I'll say it loud and I'll say it proud: I LIKE JASON MRAZ. A LOT.
He's got a great voice. He's actually a former Muscial Theatre dude who went to AMDA (probably while Paul was there) and has a really well trained voice, that inspires me to sing better, and that is not something to be mocked, you. You! ANd his latest album has a really different vibe than his first, including some Jamiroquai sounding stuff. And YES, I LIKE JAMIROQUAI.
I mean, can't you find anything, anyone else to use as your barometer of lameness?!?! I think you've used him in a joke, like 14,000 times in three weeks since the day that I confessed to you how much I liked his new album.
I think you're just trying to hurt me.
(picture my very sad face right now. You know the one...)
Sad. Face.
Me.
Posted by: NINA!!!!!! | 2008.12.17 at 15:47
How do you say Mraz? Muraz? Murz?
Posted by: david brothers | 2008.12.17 at 18:32
Wow, considering that I usually agree with your music taste around 50% of the time, I was surprised that only one track on here, Teenager's Homecoming, appeared on my list...last year (not that I'm trying to be all "oh, I was there first, na-na-na-na-na", it just got a lot of play on 120 Minutes UK last year).
Did you hear the Evil Nine album, btw? In particular El-P's vocal on All The Cash?
Posted by: Chris Rice | 2008.12.18 at 06:35
You know, I had a hard time finding music I was really enthusiastic about this year--I really had to work for it. (And in the end I'm really excited about what I discovered.) But I also find myself getting more excited about other end-of-year wrap-ups than I have the last couple of years, because there's such a lack of critical consensus. Sure, Fleet Foxes and TV on the Radio are showing up all over the place, but once you get past the six or seven albums that everyone's agreeing on, there's a whole wealth of music out there--a lot of it that one person probably had to work really hard to discover.
Also, I haven't heard the Evil Nine joint, but it's going on my to do list (along with Mark Ronson & Rhymefest, Kenny.)
Posted by: Marty | 2008.12.18 at 10:44
Martin, the song Diya Milan does not exist. Piya Milan does. It's by Talvin Singh and came on the Wire Tapper CD.
I'm from India, btw and while "Diya Milan" means "lamp meet", Piya Milan means "lovers' meet", which makes sense. :-)
Posted by: Satyajit Chetri | 2008.12.29 at 05:23