Quarterlifeparty

Well here we are: 2009.  Excuse our absence, I have been away from a computer for about 19 days (which has been refreshing) and brent has been taken captive by his employer.  We hope everyone’s holidays were as good as ours.  Now that that’s all over with though, here we are, standing on the edge of the decade (!!), refreshed, reinvigorated, and ready to start off another great year in music.

But…before we do that, it’s time to look back at what was 2008.  It’s time for the millionth top ten albums list you have probably read this year.  This time me and brent both came up with a list we could both agree on together.  It wasn’t without painful casualties (sorry Shearwater and Portishead), but after much debate, and the occasional spar, here we go:

M83 – Saturdays = Youth

Brent: When the first song was released off this album earlier this year, “In Coleurs”, I think there was some skepticism and worry that M83 might be heading in a trancier, more generic direction, but we were quickly proved wrong on first listen of the album. “in Coleurs” melded in perfectly with the rest of the album. It was really hard not to put this at #1 just for my two favorite songs of the year “Kim & Jessie” and “Graveyard Girl”, some of the catchiest songs to come out of indie music in the past few years. It makes me wish I was I had been a little older in the 80’s to enjoy the birth of the music that this is inspired by.

Ryan: I’m admittedly a bit biased when it comes to M83, but as Brent mentioned, when i heard “In Coleurs” and heard interviews of the 80’s influenced direction Anthony Gonzalez was going for on Saturdays = Youth, I was sure it would come off as ironic and derivative; i.e. a disappointment. Thankfully I was wrong and M83 once again put out an album that runs deeper than the surface will have you beleive without being overly obtuse. the amazing thing about this album is that he obviously was influenced by the 80’s and going for that sound and it didn’t come off as 100% nostalgia or ironic (unlike so many other bands lately); it had a sense of nostalgia but with more listens really came into it’s own thing entirely; something that M83 amazingly does with almost every album, similar to how Before the Dawn Heals reinterprets the Shoegaze sound.

M83 – Kim and Jessie (MP3)

Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

Brent: This album makes me want to cry every time I hear it. Beautiful heart-wrenching songs hit one after the other, laced with a gorgeous serene simplicity and a unique voice. Plus, “Skinny Love” is arguably one of the best songs to come out in the last 10 years.

Ryan: Sadly this is an album i didn’t get into until later in the year. If i had gotten into it earlier this might have made it to #1 as it touches me emotionally in a way that an album hasn’t done in a long time. I’m still not 100% sure how to pronounce the band name yet, but i know I can’t get enough of this album. It’s so simple, yet goes right to your core. It’s as if Elliott Smith came out with an album that was about depressing/dark things, but had a sense of hope in the end. The vocals are similarly over-dubbed and the instrumentation is sparse, which just accentuates the feeling of lonely comfortablness. While the “simpleness” runs throughout the album, the songs are different enough to keep the album interesting throughout the listen and after each repeat listen. Isolated warmness is how I would best describe this great album.

Bon Iver – For Emma (MP3)

Fleet Foxes – Self Titled

Brent: I think the most consistent album of the bunch, mixing loose gospel melodies with folkish goodness. I was disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to see them live this year, but I think the album itself showcases their natural talent. “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” still gives me shivers. Every song on the album sounds like it could have been written 100 years ago.

Ryan: I don’t have much to add from what Brent said. I do know I listened to this album A LOT. And whenever it comes on shuffle, I play the entire album through. Which to me is always a sign of a great album. I heard their live show is great and not seeing them will haunt me for sure.

Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal (MP3)

The Walkmen – You & Me

Brent: I think this album deserves to be so high because of two things. 1) the Dank and somber mood it creates consistently throughout the album and 2) The Walkmen’s ability to show us something more while holding tight to their sound. I think they finally found the production quality that suits them best and Leithauser’s use of quiet as well as the loud showed a unique maturing voice that transcended their previous efforts. He has perfected his weary and jaded swagger, the midpoint between Dylan and Sinatra. When he sings “I Know it’s true, it’s gonna be a good year” he couldn’t sound more like he knows it won’t be and is pissed off about it. The Rainy Day album of the year.

Ryan: I have tried and tried and tried to like this band…but to me it always came off as lots of screaming. The holding back that happened on this album really opened up the band to me. Not only did it create much more dynamic range to each song, but when Leithauser finally did break into a cold scream it meant something…something that couldn’t be ignored.

The Walkmen – In The New Year (MP3)

Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours

Brent: Cut Copy put out the most fun album this year. I know this isn’t a deep statement by any means, but I don’t think I kept going back to one album more. The live shows repeatedly lived up to the albums quality. The album’s breaks come with perfect timing and build ups, it’s not a new technique but it’s masterfully done on this this album and not with a heavy hand. The short interludes between songs give it a great flow as well. It is one of those albums that immediately puts you in a good mood. The party album of the year.

Ryan: I’ve been a Cut Copy fan since they released Bright Like Neon, and I thought there was no way they would be able to match that album. Well here I stand. Wrong again. Not only did they match it, but surpassed it. Mellow synthesizers were replaced with frenetic beats, hazy vocals with anthemic hooks, and a downtempo late night album was morphed into a Friday night dance party album. Not to take anything away from Bright Like Neon, but it’s almost like Cut Copy took off the safety belt on this one. If you saw them live at some point, then this statement rings even more true. The minute interludes throughout the album give time for a breath or two, only adding to the album (rare for such “filler songs”), and don’t take away from the total number of “normal” length songs. The only question is…where do they go now? I can only hope to be proved wrong again.

Cut Copy -Hearts on Fire (MP3)

Wolf Parade – At Mt Zoomer

Brent: I think this is an album we were most unsure of where to put on the top ten. We knew it belonged there, but its one of those albums that’s hard to put a finger on. It doesn’t immediately fit into a style you can grasp, although the songs are ones that keep taking you new places on repeated listens. It’s a little proggy, a little psychedelic. Take those two things and add the unique voices in Wolf Parade and you get a musical frankenstein that is creatively interesting.

Ryan: I listened to this album for a month straight, and on each listen a new song stood out. It was one of the surprising albums of the year for me, as I seemed to get into this album more than their debut Apologies to the Queen Mary. A unique band, with a unique sound, that still knows how to create a great mix of weird, catchy songs.

Wolf Parade – California Dreamer (MP3)

Grails – Doomsdayer’s Holiday

Brent: This album came to me as a surprise, a suggestion from a friend who had been a fan for years. On first listen I thought “WTF is this?”, there were many things I just didn’t get but knew that if I listened more the songs would somehow come into their own, and they do. I think the musicianship on this album is impressive.

Ryan: This album was definitely an acquired taste. One that fit right into my apocalyptic prog pallette. It’s songs are long, ambitious, vocal-less slow burners that on the surface seem to have everything going against them, but turn out to be hugely successful in a way that your left with a feeling of “whoa” after each song. To say that Doomsdayer’s Holiday is an appropriate title would be a huge understatement. Think Pink Floyd mixed with indian/eastern guitar riffs, and the soundtrack to Pan’s Labyrinth and you might be in the vicinity, yet still pretty far off. To have an album so hugely epic and unwieldy in scope have such an effect on you is nothing less than a huge achievement.

Grails – Acid Rain (MP3)

TV on the Radio – Dear Science,

Brent: I don’t think I got from this album what a lot of other people did, but I do recognize that it is a great album. TV On The Radio put out a very accessible album that still had the depth of their previous, more experimental, ventures. But even though it was accessible, the band still sounds like noone else out there, continue to find new ways to define their sound, and showed that they could turn their sludgier style into bright danceable tunes.

Ryan: I will be the first to admit that when i listened to this album I had a slight case of backlash. I have been a fan of TV on the Radio since their debut EP, and this seemed like such a deviation from that EP and their last album, but the more I listened to Dear Science, the more I realized how undeniably good it was. I think the order of the songs really threw me off, but who am I to say what order someone else’s songs should be in? The fact remained that all of the songs stood strongly on their own, and “Family Tree” might be one of the most amazing songs I have heard in the past 2 or 3 years.

TV on the Radio – Family Tree (MP3)

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

Brent: I think what puts this album on the list is the songwriting. One song after another is a gem of psychedelic, classic rock inspired, music done with a modern twist. It’s an impressive second album (although this could be considered their debut) that shows the potential and talent of the members of MGMT. Now only if they could liven up their live shows.

Ryan: I LOVED this album when it first came out. I am sure everyone around me got sick of hearing me talk about it…then I saw them play an uninspiring live set and I was turned off for the next 3/4 months. After a while I decided to not judge on one or two sub-par shows and give the album some more spins. I was transplanted right back to how I originally felt when I first heard the album. Song after song of strong hooks, interesting instrumentation, and solid lyrics. Each song has its own feel to it, and its own “weirdness” yet not too weird to not have you humming it throughout the day.

MGMT – Time to Pretend (MP3)

Dungen – 4

Brent: I don’t really have much to say about this album, it was an anomaly to me. On first listen it was like “Yup, this is good” and I never have stopped thinking that. It’s different, there is no need to understand the language, it has a wide variety of musical styles on it and it just sounds good to my ears. I think it first hit me on the first listen of the guitars in “Samtidigt 1″.

Ryan: This album somehow became one of my most listened to albums of the late summer/fall. It might be because it was always in my car, but so were other albums, but this one seemed to always find it’s way back into the cd player (in the rare case it wasn’t already in there). The songs were just the perfect mix of easy on the ears, edgy guitars, and interesting vocals (even if I couldn’t understand one of them). I guess the best way to describe this album for me was: relaxing. This album always reminded me of what a psychedelic Vince Guaraldi (the Charlie Brown pianist) would have sounded like, or if Schroeder ever grew up and discovered various illegal substances.

Dungen – Fredag (MP3)

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Tags: Uncategorized , top 10 of 2008