The musical year
It wouldn’t be terribly fair to do a musical “best of” list for 2008, considering I’ve only heard a small percentage of everything that’s been released this year. So anyway, here are my top 5 albums of 2008, plus a general round-up of what else has or indeed hasn’t floated my boat over the last 12 months.
From the beginning, 2008 looked set to be the year of the somewhat soul-influenced white female solo artist, with Adele and Duffy in particular the focus of sustained marketing pushes. If you were being charitable, you could argue that both girls were talented performers who deserved their breaks, on the other hand it would be hard to disagree with the assertion that neither girl would have got anywhere if the record companies weren’t desperately jumping onto the Winehouse bandwagon.
The Adele marketing blitzkrieg was particuarly crass, especially the ultimate PR stunt of giving her a Brit award purely for her “potential” (i.e. marketing budget), and perhaps this contributed to her being outsold around 8:1 by Duffy, whose 60s retro stylings seemed to chime far more with the zeitgeist. And also, at the risk of sounding horribly un-PC, perhaps size had something to do with it. I think it’s great to have mainstream artists who aren’t supermodel-thin, but sadly it’s such a rare occurence that when it does happen the whiff of tokenism hangs heavy.
Anyway yes, retro was still one of the motifs of the year, with Mark Ronson still riding high on the success of Version and Back to Black, and current indie voice-of-the-people Alex Turner knocking out his Last Shadow Puppets record seemingly as a bit of fun, and yet it received far more acclaim than other major albums by comparable artists. When times are hard and the world has gone a bit shitty, nostalgia is like a big, warm, comforting hug.
I guess the other Important Records this year were by “name” artists such as Coldplay, Keane, Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis, The Killers and their like. I can honestly say I’ve heard none of these, nor do I have any intention to. If this counts as being a snob then so be it, but I’ve heard all the lead-off singles and even the latter two didn’t spark any genuine interest and I’ve enjoyed both bands in the past.
Speaking of which, let’s say a big hello to Kings of Leon! The NME rightly called Only By The Night one of the most divisive albums of the year. It’s made their end of year poll and everyone else’s (including a preposterous number 1 spot in Q’s), but for all the new fans KOL have attracted by vaulting headlong into the mainstream they’ve equally alienated an awful lot of people who liked them far better when they still had rough edges and some mystique. I really, really hate the term “sell-out” and all the negativity it implies - it’s perfectly possible to adopt a more commercial look or sound and still create great work. It’s just that KOL are a textbook case of a band who’ve made a lunge for the mass market and in doing so lost everything that made them interesting in the first place. The fools.
KOL also headlined Glastonbury in June, which I attended for the second year running (ooh get me) and enjoyed with reservations. The weather was far better and it made a huge difference having actual grass to sit down on, but the lineup was far weaker than 2007. I did hugely enjoy Jay-Z’s set, which I thought was pretty much a tour de force from the opening video montage and karaoke Wonderwall onwards. The man knows how to put on a show, and made a complete nonsense of all the pre-game controversy. The irony of complaining about someone from a different genre headlining a festival which has always prided itself on its inclusivity and diversity was apparently beyond some folk’s comprehension. And the arguments about “the Jiggaman” glorifying violence and hating women would hold more water if they weren’t coming from the type of people who hero-worship Pete Doherty and other such fantastic rock role models.
A few quick mentions for albums I liked but which didn’t quite make the all-important top 5. Distortion by the Magnetic Fields was slightly disappointing judged by Stephin Merritt’s incredibly high standards. The feedback gimmick hindered the better songs and did little to disguise the weaker ones. It did, however, contain in the form of The Nun’s Litany the greatest lyric of this, and possibly any, year (“I’d like to be an artist’s model/An odalisque au naturel/I should be good at spin the bottle/While I’ve still got something left to sell”).
Nick Cave’s Dig Lazarus Dig!! was a real fire and brimstone affair, Cave clearly still full of vim and vigour after last year’s Grinderman side project, although I much preferred the more subtle tones of the superb Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus double (the same goes for the corresponding live gigs). REM’s Accellerate, although far from a classic, was a sharp, spunky record and could easily pass for the work of men 20 years younger.
Despite providing two of the tracks of the year in Kids and the fantastic Time To Pretend, MGMT couldn’t sustain that level of quality throughout Oracular Spectacular (they were pretty rubbish at Glasto too). Tilly and the Wall’s O was a pleasant surprise, The Gaslight Anthem are something of a poor man’s Hold Steady (see below) but The ’59 Sound is still good work, and although I can’t quite get into Fleet Foxes they’re clearly making lots of people very happy. Onwards to the top 5...
5. Neon Neon - Stainless Style A concept album about the bloke who created the DeLorean, by the bloke from the Super Furries and an ultra-hip electro producer? Very much so. Fun, accessible and genuinely inventive.
4. Mystery Jets - 21 In which the Mystery Jets successfully completed their transformation from proggy oddballs to 80s-worshipping pop heroes. Young Love, featuring Laura Marling's gorgeous vocals, is up there for tune of the year.
3. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive Boys and Girls in America is an awfully tough act to follow, and while this doesn't quite reach those heights it plays as something of a cross between the big hooks and shoutalong choruses of that record and the denser, more claustrophobic sound of their earlier work. Craig Finn's seedy lyrical landscapes and vocals are still without peer.
2. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend However you try to describe their sound - modern US indie rock meets Graceland is my attempt - it sounds horrifically smart-arsed. Good job these songs come with such instantly memorable melodies and bucketloads of charm, then.
1. TV On The Radio - Dear Science Previous TVOTR records were somewhat "difficult", with tunes coming second to wilful eclecticism. Somehow, with Dear Science they've managed to brew together indie rock, soul, jazz and funk whilst never losing focus of the songs. This year's Arcade Fire-style alt-rock heroes, only a bit less epic and a lot more funky. A properly rewarding album.
From the beginning, 2008 looked set to be the year of the somewhat soul-influenced white female solo artist, with Adele and Duffy in particular the focus of sustained marketing pushes. If you were being charitable, you could argue that both girls were talented performers who deserved their breaks, on the other hand it would be hard to disagree with the assertion that neither girl would have got anywhere if the record companies weren’t desperately jumping onto the Winehouse bandwagon.
The Adele marketing blitzkrieg was particuarly crass, especially the ultimate PR stunt of giving her a Brit award purely for her “potential” (i.e. marketing budget), and perhaps this contributed to her being outsold around 8:1 by Duffy, whose 60s retro stylings seemed to chime far more with the zeitgeist. And also, at the risk of sounding horribly un-PC, perhaps size had something to do with it. I think it’s great to have mainstream artists who aren’t supermodel-thin, but sadly it’s such a rare occurence that when it does happen the whiff of tokenism hangs heavy.
Anyway yes, retro was still one of the motifs of the year, with Mark Ronson still riding high on the success of Version and Back to Black, and current indie voice-of-the-people Alex Turner knocking out his Last Shadow Puppets record seemingly as a bit of fun, and yet it received far more acclaim than other major albums by comparable artists. When times are hard and the world has gone a bit shitty, nostalgia is like a big, warm, comforting hug.
I guess the other Important Records this year were by “name” artists such as Coldplay, Keane, Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis, The Killers and their like. I can honestly say I’ve heard none of these, nor do I have any intention to. If this counts as being a snob then so be it, but I’ve heard all the lead-off singles and even the latter two didn’t spark any genuine interest and I’ve enjoyed both bands in the past.
Speaking of which, let’s say a big hello to Kings of Leon! The NME rightly called Only By The Night one of the most divisive albums of the year. It’s made their end of year poll and everyone else’s (including a preposterous number 1 spot in Q’s), but for all the new fans KOL have attracted by vaulting headlong into the mainstream they’ve equally alienated an awful lot of people who liked them far better when they still had rough edges and some mystique. I really, really hate the term “sell-out” and all the negativity it implies - it’s perfectly possible to adopt a more commercial look or sound and still create great work. It’s just that KOL are a textbook case of a band who’ve made a lunge for the mass market and in doing so lost everything that made them interesting in the first place. The fools.
KOL also headlined Glastonbury in June, which I attended for the second year running (ooh get me) and enjoyed with reservations. The weather was far better and it made a huge difference having actual grass to sit down on, but the lineup was far weaker than 2007. I did hugely enjoy Jay-Z’s set, which I thought was pretty much a tour de force from the opening video montage and karaoke Wonderwall onwards. The man knows how to put on a show, and made a complete nonsense of all the pre-game controversy. The irony of complaining about someone from a different genre headlining a festival which has always prided itself on its inclusivity and diversity was apparently beyond some folk’s comprehension. And the arguments about “the Jiggaman” glorifying violence and hating women would hold more water if they weren’t coming from the type of people who hero-worship Pete Doherty and other such fantastic rock role models.
A few quick mentions for albums I liked but which didn’t quite make the all-important top 5. Distortion by the Magnetic Fields was slightly disappointing judged by Stephin Merritt’s incredibly high standards. The feedback gimmick hindered the better songs and did little to disguise the weaker ones. It did, however, contain in the form of The Nun’s Litany the greatest lyric of this, and possibly any, year (“I’d like to be an artist’s model/An odalisque au naturel/I should be good at spin the bottle/While I’ve still got something left to sell”).
Nick Cave’s Dig Lazarus Dig!! was a real fire and brimstone affair, Cave clearly still full of vim and vigour after last year’s Grinderman side project, although I much preferred the more subtle tones of the superb Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus double (the same goes for the corresponding live gigs). REM’s Accellerate, although far from a classic, was a sharp, spunky record and could easily pass for the work of men 20 years younger.
Despite providing two of the tracks of the year in Kids and the fantastic Time To Pretend, MGMT couldn’t sustain that level of quality throughout Oracular Spectacular (they were pretty rubbish at Glasto too). Tilly and the Wall’s O was a pleasant surprise, The Gaslight Anthem are something of a poor man’s Hold Steady (see below) but The ’59 Sound is still good work, and although I can’t quite get into Fleet Foxes they’re clearly making lots of people very happy. Onwards to the top 5...
5. Neon Neon - Stainless Style A concept album about the bloke who created the DeLorean, by the bloke from the Super Furries and an ultra-hip electro producer? Very much so. Fun, accessible and genuinely inventive.
4. Mystery Jets - 21 In which the Mystery Jets successfully completed their transformation from proggy oddballs to 80s-worshipping pop heroes. Young Love, featuring Laura Marling's gorgeous vocals, is up there for tune of the year.
3. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive Boys and Girls in America is an awfully tough act to follow, and while this doesn't quite reach those heights it plays as something of a cross between the big hooks and shoutalong choruses of that record and the denser, more claustrophobic sound of their earlier work. Craig Finn's seedy lyrical landscapes and vocals are still without peer.
2. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend However you try to describe their sound - modern US indie rock meets Graceland is my attempt - it sounds horrifically smart-arsed. Good job these songs come with such instantly memorable melodies and bucketloads of charm, then.
1. TV On The Radio - Dear Science Previous TVOTR records were somewhat "difficult", with tunes coming second to wilful eclecticism. Somehow, with Dear Science they've managed to brew together indie rock, soul, jazz and funk whilst never losing focus of the songs. This year's Arcade Fire-style alt-rock heroes, only a bit less epic and a lot more funky. A properly rewarding album.
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