We’re not heading to Venus, but still we stand strong. And so, here’s the final ten:
10. “Pressure Suit” – Aqualung (Memory Man) – Here’s the first of two guilty pleasures creeping amongst my top ten. I can’t really explain it, but once I heard this song, I put it on repeat for a couple of mornings straight. I hadn’t done that with a song since high school.
9. “Misery Business” – Paramore (Riot!) – I could explain away Aqualung by citing the instrumental prowess of a one-man band or maybe the pathos inherent in the lyrics, but I have no excuse at all for liking Paramore so much. They’re just this band out of Franklin, Tennessee. Not a one of them is old enough to drink, I’m sure. But they’ve got this energy and passion, all of it channeled through the throat of their red-headed lead singer girl. And more power to ‘em. (Bonus YouTube-ry)
8. “My Moon My Man” – Feist (The Reminder) – Feist didn’t disappoint me the first time I heard her. And she didn’t this time either. (Bonus YouTube-ry)
7. “Do I Disappoint You?” – Rufus Wainwright (Release The Stars) – Best concert I saw this year. Maybe the best I’ve seen in five years. The man is George Gershwin reincarnated … or maybe Cole Porter.
6. “Who Am I Kiddin’ But Me?” – Over The Rhine (The Trumpet Child) – Finally, an Over The Rhine disc that ought to be bright enough to catch the attention of more than just the handful of us that’ve followed them since the early nineties.
5. “Got Up This Morning (featuring Jolie Holland)” – Sage Francis (Human The Death Dance) – This was an odd one. I didn’t expect to find this on my final list, but here it is. There is probably some rule being broken here about placing a white-boy hip-hop artist above the likes of Kanye (who we saw in the upper teens) and Common (who I didn’t even list at all), but Sage Francis is someone all together different. Signed to the punk-friendly Epitaph label, what he does has been categorized as emo rap, perhaps unfairly. But categories aside, there is something brutally honest about the man’s way with a rhyme. And yes, he did score points with me by name-checking Ginsberg and Bukowski in “Got Up This Morning.” The production is nothing to dismiss either. And hey, anybody who can manage to bring in Jolie Holland on not one but two tracks … he’s got to be doing something right. (Bonus YouTube-ry)
4. “Used To Did” – J Roddy Walston & The Business (Hail Mega Boys) – Without Dorie Turner, I’d have no idea this band existed. This speaks volumes about their need for better marketing. But that aside, J Roddy and company flat out rock. Keep your Kings Of Leon. I’ll stick to this four-man wrecking crew from Cleveland, Tennessee (via Baltimore, Maryland). (Bonus YouTube-ry)
3. “All I Need” – Radiohead (In Rainbows) – Too much hype, sure. And man, did their e-commerce site suck the mightiest of winds. But I love me some Radiohead. Hail To The Thief wasn’t my cup of tea, but the two previous saw me through some interesting times. In Rainbows picks up the pieces that fell behind Amnesiac and reassembles them with something that Thom Yorke never seemed to possess previously: a little optimism. “All I Need” is the lyrical and structural proof of it.
2. “Rich Woman” – Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (Raising Sand) – If I see only one concert in 2008, let it be this one.
1. “Archangel” – Burial (Untrue) – Something Warren Ellis said in an email about the first release from Untrue. “It’s antediluvian South London three years from now. It’s cold and it’s underwater.” While I don’t wish floods or catastrophe on London anytime soon, Ellis was right. Untrue is music from an uncertain future, dark and mechanical in places, but still undeniably human. Choosing to remain anonymous, only Burial’s producer knows his identity. For the rest of us, he’s everybody out there in the darkness, using whatever technology is available to make even the simplest of connections. I like rock and roll and Americana and jazz and hip-hop as much as the next person, but Untrue is the soundtrack that pulses beneath every text message, every email, every online video game, every podcast, every blog entry … well, for this year it is. (Bonus YouTube-ry)
I’ve a few others stashed away. Some runners-up and also-rans. I’ll get to those within the week. In the meantime, tell me what you think. What did you have on repeat? Or better yet, what lodged unwelcome in your brain for weeks on end?
