Top 5 Albums of the year 2008

[zipzap]

Despite all the doom and gloom about the sorry state of the music biz, it's been a really strong year for new music IMO and Oz music in particular (certainly wish I had shares in Modular records - 3 of the best albums from them this year with the Avalanches album supposedly any minute). List your top 5 and assuming any of us have anything remotely in common we can fashion together the official SAFooty top ten albums for 2008.

Gee this is hard... here are mine:

1. Fleet Foxes - s/t
2. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
3. M83 - Saturdays=Youth
4. Portishead - Third
5. The Cure - 4:13 Dream

Honourable mentions to:

B-52s - Funplex
Breeders - Mountain Battles
Charlatans - You Cross My Path
Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream
The Fauves - When Good Times Go Good
Glasvegas - s/t
Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt
Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads
Ladyhawke - s/t
Ladytron - Velocifero
Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of Understatement
Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Nada Surf - Lucky
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!
Presets - Apocalypso
Robert Forster -The Evangelist
Sigur Ros - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust (yes I copied and pasted that!)
Spiritualized - Songs in A&E
Van She - s/t

[Dirko]

My top 5

ONLY BY THE NIGHT - Kings Of Leon
APOCALYPSO - The Presets
VIVA LA VIDA - Coldplay
IN GHOST COLOURS - Cut Copy
SEVENTH TREE - Goldfrapp

[Swooper16]

No particular order:

Ladyhawke - selftitled
Trial kennedy - New Manic Art
Birds of Tokyo - Universes
MGMT - Orac. Spectac.
Flight of the Conchords

[Q.]

Good thread zipzap, although I don't think you have enough honourable mentions

In no particular order:

The Presets - Apocalypso
The Drones - Havilah
Children Collide - The Long Now
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Primary Colours
The Bronx - s/t


Unlucky to miss out:

Muph and Plutonic - And Then Tomorrow Came
Bliss N Eso - Flying Colours

[zipzap]

Good thread zipzap, although I don't think you have enough honourable mentions

Sorry, a bit self-indulgent. It was more an exercise in seeing how many albums I liked this year

[Mr66]

'XV' - King's X
'Black Ice' - AC/DC
'Warpaint' - the Black Crowes
'Sharing Space' - Cog
'Death Magnetic' - Metallica

[saintal]

1. September Malevolence - After this darkness, there is a next
2. Anathema- Hindsight
3. Opeth- Watershed
4. Metallica- Death Magnetic
5. Agalloch- The White EP

Gigs:

1. Dream Theater
2. Opeth
3. The Living end
4. Smashing Pumpkins

[Q.]

Good thread zipzap, although I don't think you have enough honourable mentions

Sorry, a bit self-indulgent. It was more an exercise in seeing how many albums I liked this year

S'all good, it's a top list

[mighty_tiger_79]

the killers

[brod]

According to MAG

5) The Black Keys – Attack and Release
When a planned collaboration with late soul legend Ike Turner went off the rails, The Black Keys turned to Gnarls Barkley’s Danger Mouse to produce this molten collection of pent-up riffs and grooves. The Black Keys’ dirt factor has always provided their edge; but Danger Mouse accentuated the soulfulness in Dan Auerbach’s voice and created a woozy, kooky musical world they’d never inhabited before. This would have all been meaningless without the superb batch of songs they’d written. It was the year’s happiest accident.

4) Portishead – Third
The most keenly anticipated comeback record of the year was the most extraordinary. Brimming with intoxicating atmosphere, analogue discord and personal paranoia, the seminal Bristol trio’s first studio record in 11 years was a revelation, even to hard-nosed admirers. More challenging and abrasive than Dummy or Portishead this was Bristol trip-hop transposed, re-imagined and re-contextualised. The densely psychological Threads made for one of the most gripping finales to an album in years. Barrow, Gibbons and Utley have (again) left us begging for more.

3) The Drones – Havilah
Havilah is a land mentioned in The Bible, relating to the Garden of Eden; a hard place with to imagine The Drones inhabiting for very long. Recorded to a self-imposed deadline and written at the band’s base in Victoria’s alpine region, the isolation rubbed off on the music. The abrasive songs still seethed, the scratchy riffs colliding with Gareth Liddiard’s mewling vocals and the band’s now assured sense of dynamics. If its sheer sonic filth stopped it being Australia’s purest record for 2008, it was certainly the most uncontrived. Riveting.

2) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!
Nick Cave got his groove back. The Bad Seeds were a rock band again, the epics and violin solos of his recent past had fulfilled their purpose. Cave’s stories were burned to life by the ambitious, dissonant inventiveness of a band with a licence to kill. This boiling collection of screeching riddles and droll whimsy dropped listeners into Cave’s ever evolving world of love, recrimination, and triumph, all writ large on the grand canvas of his musical, literary heart.

1) TV on the Radio – Dear Science
Bands like TV on the Radio mystify the commercial music industry. The Brooklyn quintet can’t be corralled via style, genre or colour. Of all the resonances throughout their remarkable third album, Dear Science, it’s this sense that popular music can be borderless that echoes loudest. It’s an incredible achievement for a band that only two years ago – following Return to Cookie Mountain (2006) – were still considered an obscure art-rock act. On Dear Science, they elucidate their sound without compromising any of its wonderfully complex, layered qualities. Where guitarist/producer David Sitek smothered previous material in a storm of noise and texture, cuts like epic opener Halfway Home, the abstracted waltz of Stork & Owl and the wondrous, arcing pop orchestrations of Golden Age shimmer and swoon, clash and coalesce in full, clear view. Vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone only add to the vista; their impassioned articulation of America on the social and political precipice proves urgent, personalised and downright compelling. Like all great records, Dear Science grows and refines with every listen. Conversely, and quite brilliantly, it’s also TVOTR’s most immediate to date – its questions of our future ringing strong and stark. –by Dan Rule.

[southee]

Hard to find anything this year....

I was pretty disappointed with the releases of many bands ie. guns n roses, Metallica, Coldplay etc...

I just pull out the old stuff (CD's, vinyl )

It is a scary time for the music industry!!!

[Snaggletooth Tiger]

MOTORHEAD: MotoriZer
STREET DOGS: State of Grace
THE BRONX: The Bronx III
FLOGGING MOLLY: Float
SOULFLY: Conquer