the Best Songs of 2008
Because I’m not as smart as Pitchfork this is neither a round number, nor are they ordered sequentially because I love them all. Nonetheless, here are my top 57 songs of 2008. I hope you’ve enjoyed them all as much as I have and if not, get on it.
Able Baker Fox – Stuttering // When the founding members of Able Baker Fox collaborated on an EP with their previous bands, they set down a terrific cover of the timeless Queen/Bowie track “Under Pressure.” This, the standout track from their debut record, has an equally classic rock feel from the moment that opening riff hits, a brawny rocker that features the same trade-off vocals.
Alkaline Trio – I Found Away + Do You Wanna Know? // About four albums ago, Rolling Stone magazine called Alkaline Trio’s music “pop punk for grown ups.” Interestingly, since then their albums have gotten progressively more focused on a teenage demographic, amping up the dark/Goth leanings of certain members and leaving the maturation behind. There are exceptions, of course; “I Found Away” may still have those dark tones, but it’s a speedy, energetic rocker with some of the album’s best hooks. Meanwhile, the lone member that still writes songs for/about grown-up stuff (ie getting old, mature relationships, etc) contributes his best song ever.
Austin Lucas – Go West // I’m beginning to think it’s no coincidence that there are only a few letters different between “Austin” and “astounding.” Every time this guy puts out a record there are at least a few songs that completely leave me aghast (in a good way). The twang in his voice might be off-putting to some, but the sheer amazement of what this guy can do in a single take with just a guitar and his vocal chords leaves me breathless.
Basia Bulat – I Was A Daughter // A Canadian songstress gets her big break…from a European label. I love the record but it makes little to no impact in Canada. This one is good for the handclaps alone, not to mention the incredible rush that comes after the bridge.
Be Your Own Pet – Zombie Graveyard Party // They broke up this year, which sucked because their records are really rocking and bizarre and random and wonderful. I never really understood the “they’re too arty” criticisms because they always came off to me like they were just kids goofing around and having a good time. There’s no better evidence than a song that is literally about partying in a graveyard after becoming a zombie.
Black Mountain – Tyrants + Lucy Brown // Jagjaguwar did a smart thing by making “Tyrants” the free mp3 given away on their site as a teaser for In The Future. Anyone who isn’t blown away by the scope and execution of this song must be daft. It’s the very essence of Black Mountain jammed into eight minutes of intensity. Perhaps sensing the overwhelming Seriousness of their wildly acclaimed full-length, the band followed it up with some fun, looser tracks via a contribution to Sub Pop’s 20th Anniversary Single Series. The a-side, “Lucy Brown,” is basically the sound of the band doing enough drugs that they actually think it’s 1975. A steady riff, keyboard flourishes, and lyrics about being bummed when your mom confiscates your drug stash.
Bloc Party – Flux // What the new Bloc Party LP should have sounded like, this song mercifully retains what made the first album so amazing while tastefully mixing in small amounts of the stuff that have made the quality of their subsequent albums so diminished. That means fake drums to placate the one with the electronic fetish, reverby guitar parts to placate whichever one has the U2 boner, and Kele Okereke’s cloying anxiety about coupling. Thankfully, it all works.
Bon Iver – Skinny Love // While I don’t get the hype surrounding this album and I certainly don’t think it’s the best of the year (Who gives a shit if the guy recorded it in a cabin? Tons of bands do that. This just sounds like Iron & Wine to me, but with less finger picking and more annoying falsetto), there are still a couple of good to great songs. I like this one because he kind of sounds like Tunde Adebimpe at some points.
Chuck Ragan & Nagel – No Rubber Tired Vehicles Beyond This Point // My review of this track says all I need to say. Ragan might be the best songwriter to come out of punk rock in decades.
City & Colour – Waiting… // I learned to love this song in a hockey rink in Estevan, Saskatchewan while reporting on a concert sponsored by Richard Branson’s Virgin Mobile corporation that was awarded to the town because they had the highest per capita rate of people who logged on to a website and promised Sir Richard that they would reduce their carbon footprint. The song is almost as good as the story.
Constantines (& Feist) – Credit River + Island In The Stream // I was pretty disappointed by the new Cons album, “Credit River” being about the only up-tempo rock track that really hit home. I can totally relate to it also. Their low-key cover of a schmaltzy Bee Gees tune made famous by two of country’s oddest legends came out brooding and wonderful, due in no small part to Feist’s breathy, understated performance.
Dead To Me – Little Brother // Punks don’t like war, but they do like the Clash.
Death Cab For Cutie – Long Division // Thankfully one of indie rock’s best guitar bands re-introduced themselves to guitars and rock. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t make myself care. This is the standout of the latest album as far as I’m concerned because it sounds like it could be on the Photo Album or We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes.
The Decemberists – Raincoat Song // While the Decemberists have proven they can pretty much do anything they want and make it sound: a) good, and b) like the Decemberists, I still enjoy them most when they simplify. Like my favourite Colin Meloy songs (“Angels and Angles,” “Red Right Ankle”), this track is broken down to Colin Meloy’s voice, a simple acoustic guitar accompaniment, and their astoundingly gorgeous melodies.
Dillinger Four – Gainseville // Grown-ups who actually do make pop-punk for grown-ups do the impossible and write a happy song. For the first time ever.
Drag the River – Tobacco Fields + Lizzy // One of the saddest moments of the year for me was hearing Drag the River was breaking up again. With three or four releases planned for 2009, however, it appears to be about as effective as every other break-up they’ve gone through. Still, hearing some of the incredible back-porch country they produced on You Can’t Live This Way makes even the slightest slow-down in their output impossible to bear.
Final Fantasy – the Butcher // I wish both of the EP’s Owen Pallett put out this year were as good as this song is. More instruments, his best vocals to date, and probably his best melody make for the most gripping song he’s ever constructed. I’m hoping for more like this on his up-coming full-length.
Frightened Rabbit – the Modern Leper + Poke // A really terrific album yields two albums that each have an element of why I love music. “The Modern Leper” features an inspired lyric with a twisted romantic edge, while “Poke” floats along on just a few plucked guitar notes and the kind of ethereal vocal melody that come along just once in a blue moon.
Fucked Up – Son The Father // Before embarking on a musical journey for the ages, the hardcore brutes open their latest album with its most blistering song. Setting the lyrical agenda for an album that raises all the questions about the origins of life you’ve ever had (and some you never thought of), it also establishes the musical game plan for the record by opening with a flute and featuring excellent guest vocals.
The Gaslight Anthem – Great Expectations + Miles Davis & the Cool // Punks with an overwhelming Springsteen boner write some incredible, mature pop rock songs soaked in a broth of Drugstore Cowboy attitude, vocal reverb, Marlboros, and regret.
The Hold Steady – Constructive Summer // Propulsive rock and roll spiked with a Jerry Lee Lewis piano part, this song comes out of the gate running. It builds and builds through a quiet bridge, exploding into the last verse as songwriter Craig Finn romanticizes a past filled with constant drinking, rocking, and rebellion.
Jaguar Love – Highways of Gold // While the idea of members of the Blood Brothers and Pretty Girls Make Graves combining to form a new band sounds pretty incredible, it actually proved kind of hard to listen to over the span of an entire album. You can’t beat the first track though: a remarkable combination of jangly guitars and lightly restrained vocals from a man generously referred to as a wailing banshee that isn’t nearly as cloying as some people found the Bloods.
Kanye West – Love Lockdown // While 808’s and Heartbreaks is very upsetting to me as a huge Kanye West fan, nobody can front on this song. As much as I enjoy his previous work, Auto-Tune still drives me fucking crazy.
Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground – Hey Momma // A song so effing good it overshadows the rest of the album it opens. Takes frequent left turns into folk, dub, rock, and psychedelia and back in just a few short minutes.
Kevin Seconds – Ione // The former 7 Seconds frontman hasn’t gone down the country-fried route of a lot the now-solo former punkers have, and thank goodness. His songs may still be primarily acoustically structured, but they usually have bounce and sass deeply ingrained.
LaGrecia – According To My Notes // There’s at least five songs on the LaGrecia album that could qualify for this list, but this is the one I decided to go with. It’s more in line with Jason Shevchuk’s other works, all speedy guitars and gruff vocals. But it also adds a daunting amount of melody and the best singing of his entire damn career.
Lemuria – Bee’s Spit // This song technically shouldn’t qualify because it was originally released last year and then compiled on a b-sides/leftovers album in 2008. However, it’s so damn good I couldn’t help myself. While it may not carve out drastically new ground musically, the lyrics are simultaneously adorable (“Sweeter than the frosting on the cake/sweeter than bee’s spit for Christ’s sake”) and cathartic (the theme: putting your head down and powering through tragedy). The bands singers also turn in terrific performances, combining for a dynamic harmony in the chorus that should not go unnoticed.
The Loved Ones – I Swear // Dave Hause’s album-closing torch ballad may not be the defining point of the band’s new sound, but it’s the most genuine moment on an album chock full of them. The almost-playful bounce of the bassline in the verses and the swell of emotion in the chorus are captivating as anything released in rock and roll this year.
The Lucksmiths – California In Popular Song // I love it when a song turns your expectations on their head. Having never even heard of this Australian group, I was blown away by their latest. When not writing songs about lost mittens or getting drunk, the Lucksmiths are constructing one of the most musically bright but lyrically depressing songs I’ve heard in years. In a nutshell: everything sucks and pop songs won’t make it better.
Malcolm Bauld – Every Time I Read The Words // One of the best Canadian songwriters working today turns in a dark, depressing lamentation on the classic muse of lost love. I adore songs with sad trumpets.
Me First & the Gimme Gimmes – I’m Gonna Write A Song // Cover bands don’t usually make these kinds of lists, but this song is great. Amping up the original by about a million times in every way possible, they also re-write it extensively, turning fluffy, insipid feel-goodery into as scathing an indictment of the Bush White House’s oil and foreign policies as we’ve seen in the last eight years. Sort of.
The Measure [SA] – Drunk By Noon // A band that showed an awful lot of promise at the beginning of their career has tightened up their playing and the hooks are coming effortlessly, especially on their latest EP, Songs About People…and Fruit and Shit. Besides, everybody likes songs about getting drunk, right?
Mike Hale – Before You Were Gone // His solo debut is so goddamned depressing it honestly left me breathless and this is the centerpiece. Like the Mountain Goats “Woke Up New,” the simple and immaculately produced acoustic weeper lays bare the feelings of a relationship that has reached an inevitable but devastating end.
The Mountain Goats – Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident // While I absolutely adore the fantastic metaphor of Heretic Pride’s “Autoclave,” no song on John Darnielle’s latest is quite as triumphant as this. The guitar, recorded so sparsely its barely there, conveys the emptiness of the act and emotions of the song’s characters
Murder By Death – ’52 Ford // One of my favourite bands tightens up their songs and decide they aren’t afraid to make every second track an old-school murder ballad. On this one the protagonist grows a conscience at the last second, only to find the shoe on the other foot. The band members are big movie buffs, and there’s definitely a cinematic quality to the storyline of this song.
O Pioneers!!! – Summers In Necro Norway With Spider Ryan // The Texan twosome continue their brutal assault on their own instruments and vocal chords with this inspirational 7” track. When frontman Eric Solomon furiously shouts, “Don’t be afraid to say this is who I’m gonna be,” over some of the biggest, gnarliest-sounding guitar I’ve ever heard I get chills down my spine.
Okkervil River – Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 1979 // It may get off to a slower start, but it’s classic Okkervil River; subject matter that has context far beyond the lyrics’ first blush, dense, complex melodic touches, and a passionate performance. Another highlight from a career that has seen peak after peak after peak with no evidence they plan to slow down.
Old Man Luedecke – Thrown By The Bull // The occasionally accidentally bi-coastal banjo-slingin’ troubadour expertly weaves a sparse hard luck tale that anyone can relate to, rodeo experience or not.
Papermoons – Follow The Sun // One of my favourite discoveries of the last two years, this two-piece weaves such beautiful and delicate compositions it’s almost hard to comprehend. A treatise on how to properly live your life from two fellows barely into adulthood, it also kicks off one of the most rewarding listens of the year.
Shad K – I Heard You Had A Voice Like An Angel/Psalm 137 // The goofy track might hook the average listener, but this is the real meat of the best Canadian rap album of the year. This cautionary tale for black musicians is given incredible power by a beautifully sampled guitar track and some wonderfully sparse minor key piano.
The Steinways – Main Street, Flushing USA // A 7” with six new songs turned out to be my favourite Steinways release of the year, even though they put out a second full-length album as well. You could say every Steinways song is good because every Steinways song sounds exactly the same, but that’s a little bit disingenuous; this one is has more hooks.
The Stills – Everything I Build // It may be a touch 80’s, but there’s something about this song that gets me right in my moon shoes. Everything he builds may be breaking down, but this song is one big exception.
Sweatshop Union – High Grade // I’d like to say the new Sweatshop album is a return to form, but if you have to delete more than a dozen tracks of filler or mis-steps to trim its running time to 13 palatable ones that’s probably not the case. There are, however, still a bakers dozen of great pieces of music, and this one rides high on an unabashed B.B. King sample and some great flows.
Sylvie – Dark Ages // Regina has some bands that are genuine contenders on the international music scene and few seem to be rising to the occasion like Sylvie. With production from the legendary J. Robbins and more substantial contributions from other band members fleshing out their sound, Trees and Shade Are Our Only Fences could take them a long way.
Tokyo Police Club – Listen To The Math // Compared to their first two EPs, the Tokyo Police Club album was a lot more low key than I would’ve expected. This song sticks out for it’s measured pace and drum beat, the precious vocal, and the imagery in the lyrics. I also love songs that harmonize below the melody.
Trever Keith – Sick of Me // The man might be the most miserable bastard in the free world, but the Face to Face frontman sure knows how to put that into a lovely piece of music. Like his band’s under-rated 1999 album Ignorance Is Bliss, he eschews punk rock for a more textured mope-rock sound that complements his tenor nicely.
TV On The Radio – Dancing Choose // There are so very many reasons to love TV On The Radio, especially when they start writing fuzzed out pop songs that you can actually dance to for a change.
Two Hours Traffic – Stuck For The Summer // Like albums by Phoenix and the Dudes a couple of years ago, Two Hours Traffic play unashamed, unshitty pop rock. Good pop rock, not Weezer pop rock. The phrasing of the lead singer parallels the vocalist in Phoenix, which is weird because one of them is Canadian and the other is French. Like all good pop rock, this song is about cars, summer, and feeling good.
Why? – the Hollows + These Few Presidents // Pitchfork may have wet themselves over “Fatalist Palmistry,” but these two tracks make up the real heart of the album. One reflects the intensely dark moments Yoni Wolf occasionally falls into while the other provides a moment of ambiguity. It’s open to interpretation whether the beautiful, lilting keys that back the track and the line, “Yours is a funeral I’d fly to from anywhere,” are a touching tribute to a friend or lover or whether they’re a mean-spirited dig at someone Wolf just doesn’t like that much. Either way, this is one of the greatest twisted-pop records
Wolf Parade – California Dreaming // While you can count me in the camp of those who think the new Wolf Parade album was a bit inferior to their previous one, as far as I’m concerned the group will never write a song better than this one. It’s unhurried pace and heavy keyboard strokes might be overly reminiscent of Sunset Rubdown, but the way the song crests and falls, rising to a powerful and cathartic finish speaks to the cohesiveness and tenacity of the band as a whole.
Stay tuned; between now and the new year (and probably into the new year as well) we should have more “Best of 2008″ content for your perusal. Keep it classy, interwebs.
