Albums of 2008 - Hartwell Edition

While I am not extremely musically inclined myself, aside from my aspirations to be the world's greatest/least prolific hip-hop MC, I do enjoy music from every genre, as long as it fulfills my requirement of being amazing.

As such, I often wait for Elliott Sussman and Kieron Gillen to post their tops of the year, and then I promptly buy them and enjoy letting them do the hard work of sifting through the noise. This ties into my philosophy of media curation, and the need to not experience everything. This year, however, I discovered a lot of music on my own that I particularly enjoyed, so without further ado, here's my top ten albums of 2008.

10. 808s and Heartbreak by Kanye West - Really, what can I say about Kanye that hasn't been said better elsewhere by people with an ear for it? Let's try: Kanye West reminds me of my favorite brewery, Dogfish Head Brewing. While my favorite beers are not necessarily Dogfish beers, and I don't absolutely adore everything Dogfish puts out (in fact, some things, Midas Touch or the song Drunk and Hot Girls, I deplore), I relish the fact that they're consistently trying new things. Whereas Dogfish has scientists analyze pottery shards to reverse engineer a 3,000 year old recipe for a drink, Kanye turns into an auto-tuned electronic-soul crooner. Dogfish puts out a 90 minute IPA and then tops it with a 120, and Kanye releases Graduation to crown his Late Registration success. This willingness to perpetually redefine and reinvent adds a level of freshness that the rest of the hip-hop/craft brewing world needs to pay attention to.

9. Vampire Weekend – This self-titled debut has a unique steel drum fun sound, and unabashed pop frivolity mixed with strangely high-brow topics, though it never approaches them on the level they deserve. This disc is great for popping in the car player when you’re feeling a bit down, as its bouncy aura will have you tapping your foot on the gas pedal.

8. The Devil, You + Me by The Notwist – I’ve been in love with The Notwist for a number of years now, and this disc is their best effort since Neon Golden. Simple and sad, this album creates an atmosphere for you to visit.

7. Canopy Glow by Anathallo – This is just gorgeous.

6. Partie Traumatic by Black Kids – Another great party-pop album, this one has so much upbeat, you can’t feel depressed listening to it, even if the subject matter itself seems kind of melancholy at times. Definitely worth a listen, this came to my attention through the single which was featured on iTunes as a free download a few months back.

5. Funplex by The B-52s – A seventeen year silence can be viewed as more of an incubation period, as the B-52s return to treat your party to a hurricane of classic B-52 mentality fused with a blend of everything they’ve encountered over the years. Electronica influences meet kitsch pop in a fusion of ridiculous joy.

4. Dear Science by TV On The Radio – Pop meets soul meets rock in this absolutely fantastic follow-up to Return To Cookie Mountain. There are several songs on here I would have paid the full album price for, and the entire thing flows so effortlessly even if songs don’t sound anything alike from one track to the next. This is a stunning effort, and TV On The Radio’s best to date.

3. Alopecia by Why? – One of my favorite artists, Why? has finally topped Oaklandazulasylum with this record. Having reinvented himself from hip-hop to indie rock a few albums back, this is a breathtaking merger of the two selves. Fatalist Palmistry is the most overly poppy song on here, until you listen to the words. The whole album seems to be a focused meditation on death, but without all the baggage that would normally imply. I listened to this album exclusively throughout March.

2. Ruth by Elliott Sussman – Elliott’s first full-length release from Blackberry Studios, Ruth is a celebration of and farewell letter to Mount Washington and the years he lived there on Ruth Street. The whole thing has a sort of infectious pride for where you’re from, even if it doesn’t happen to be Pittsburgh. Between singing of his love for springtime or his disdain for sad, self-pitying singer/songwriters, Elliott has crafted a 1920s, smalltown folk gem that feels as modern as anything else on this list. My number one song of the year is the hidden track off of this spectacular release.

1. TV Loves You Back by The Restiform Bodies – I was really worried I was going to hate this album, Restiform Bodies Anticon debut, since I’ve been waiting almost 8 years for it, and my expectations had grown steadily with every nugget they let trickle out in the meantime. Fortunately for clichés, this not only meets my wholly unrealistic expectations, it blows them away. Taking hip-hop where it needs to go next has long been the province of artists on the Anticon label, but Restiform Bodies has proven themselves the Tony Stark of rap with this release. They’re consistently fifteen minutes ahead of everybody else, and since nobody is there yet, they don’t have anyone to have beef with. They take that surplus energy most rappers spend inflating their egos and apply it to tackling the bigger themes in life in the most honest ways imaginable, never resorting to lecturing their audience, as they don’t know the answers either. More albums need to be driven by this beautiful marriage of curiosity and creativity.