Try as I might, I couldn’t see my way clear to including Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreaks on my list of 2008’s best. Too much Auto Tune, too little mischief, not enough of the entertaining ego-tripping that characterized his previous albums. That characteristic braggadocio was replaced by whinging regret, an angry longing and a conceit that

A warning … this is perhaps the most geek-tastic mix I’ve ever done. Put it this way: I love hip-hop, late 70s pop funk, electronic soul, unexpected covers … and sci-fi, Star Trek in particular. All of that is in here. Seriously.

So get your headphones. Download. (Stream the Revisited version I did in 2011 from SoundCloud.) Let’s go.

Source Tracks (In Order of Appearance):

1. “Heartless” – Kanye West
2. “I Want To Be Your Man” – Zapp & Roger
3. “Heartbreaker (Part I, Part II)” – Zapp & Roger
4. “A View To A Kill” – Hollywood, Mon Amour
5. “I Just Realized (Tom Moulton Mix)” – The Brand New Heavies
6. “Amazing” – Kanye West
7. “No One’s Gonna Love You (Blackbeard Rework)” – Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators
8. “Love Lockdown” – Kanye West
9. “They Were Lyin’” – Ayah
10. “Brave New World” – The Foreign Exchange
11. “Paranoid” – Kanye West
12. “Green Light” – John Legend (featuring Andre 3000)
13. “Say You Will” – Kanye West
14. “Sick” – Sam Sparro
15. “I Can’t Give You Up” – Smoove & Turrell
16. “Welcome to Heartbreak” – Kanye West
17. “Everywhere” – Common (featuring Martina Topley)
18. “That Girl” – Esthero

(And yes, if you ask nicely, I will go back and split the 48-minute mix into tracks.)