Top 2008 Albums! (10 of them!)
Lists, Music, Philosophy, Pissed off rants, Website
Posted December 31, 2008 at 5:30 pm by Severed Head
Holy SHIT it was hard to pick albums this year! Here’s what I had to say last year:
Every year must have its mandatory top 10 list. I normally listen to a few certain albums a year, and when I listen to those albums years later, and they remind me of that year/time/certain feeling. So here are my favorite/most listened to albums this year. Hopefully when I listen to these later, they will remind me of the better times of this year. Also, it’s in reverse numerical order. Kind of like some sort of stupid countdown…. One last note before we start: A lot of people choose the top 10 2007 albums list as all the albums released in 2007. Well I don’t know that I even have any CDs released in 2007 other than In Rainbows or The Dethalbum (and Cannibal! Which didn’t make it onto the list! Shit!). That’s because none of my favorite bands released anything good this year. Nobody in general did. It’s been the year of shite-indie-bands-that-sound-exactly-the-same-as-every-other-shite-indie-band and way-too-much-screamin’-metal.
So yeah, just pretend I said that about this year too. Actually, a few of these did actually come out this year, or in 2007… Some are even left over from 2007, in that, I started listening to them then, and continued listening to them a lot in 2008. Anyway… I had a really REALLY hard time picking. At first, I was like “What the fuck am I going to pick? I can only think of 2 albums (now the top 2)… ANYWAY. JUST READ.
10. Ben Folds-Rockin’ the Suburbs
Pretty good! I got this album a while ago, and had always known Fred Jones, Part 2 (with John McCrea from Cake!!!), but I never realized how talented and funny Ben was until I met my wonderful girlfriend Julia. Anyway, it’s a really entertaining, catchy album, even if it is a bit pop at times.
9. John C. Reilly-Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
A collection of joke songs, kind of… But some of them are actually really damn good! In fact, most of them are pretty damn good, whether they were created for a parody movie or not… A lot of this reminds me of driving around in my car and singing at the top of my lungs… I would always have to warm up with other songs on this album before I could really get at the stronger ones like A Life Without You (Is No Life at All).
8. Jon Brion-Synecdoche, New York
It was such a hard pick between this and Eternal Sunshine, but I chose this because I’m still addicted to it. And with Eternal Sunshine, I skip over a lot of the non-score songs (not Beck though!!)… Anyway, aside from this being a perfect movie, I also feel that the soundtrack is pretty fucking amazing too.
7. Radiohead-8 Outtakes from Anesiac
While not much of an official album… In fact, I’m not sure if it was ever released… Anyway, this is one of the best collections of Radiohead’s songs out there. It’s a lot better than Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, the two albums it falls between… What a relaxing album. I must thank my friend Caroline for emphasizing how amazing this is.
6. YMCK-Family Music
Again, a really hard choice to say whether this was more prominent/favored than Family Racing. I chose this because I know all the songs a lot better. Family Racing still feels a bit more… Which is a bit odd, since I listened to them about the same amount… Maybe that makes the other one better. But this one has stuck with me more, which is why I chose it. So fuck off if you don’t like it.
5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds-Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
My favorite Nick Cave album in a long time! This goes particularly well with Grinderman. Anyway, again, I associate these both with driving A LOT. I remember listening to these on my trips to/from Flagstaff/Tucson. Good times!
4. KoRn-Untitled
Just when I thought I would never get back into KoRn, they come together and create a masterpiece. It probably never would’ve happened if not for the last track… And of course, seeing Jonathan Davis perform with a mind-blowing acoustic group in early December of last year.
3. Local H-Ham Fisted
Nearly forgot about this one! I had never really hard this album, but when I heard Local H play Feed in L.A., I knew I had to get into it… That song, for being composed primarily of like two riffs, is AMAZING!
2. Bumblefoot-Abnormal
Whoa. Just whoa! When I first heard this, I thought it SUCKED compared to Normal, but then it really grew on me. It’s a completely different way of organizing an album and bringing together a collection and making a concept album… And it fits perfectly. Once again, Bumblefoot has outdone himself!
1. Local H-12 Angry Months
Wahhh. One of my favorite albums ever. I listened to this album once or twice a day pretty much every day during May and June. Almost every day, when I’d drive to work, I’d listen to this… So I associate a lot of it with where I would be when I was driving. For example, I’d almost always get to “Jesus Christ…” right around when I was arriving at work. And then, when I’d go on lunch, I’d continue the album, so, particularly, the last 4 tracks, remind me of going to Taco Bell or Kyoto Bowl (which has horrible food, but I can still taste it when I listen to some of these!)… I love all of these songs and almost always have since I heard it, but Hand to Mouth brings back the most emotions in me.
Honorable mention:
Beck-Odelay
Blur-Blur
Jon Brion-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Carter Burwell-Burn After Reading
Paul Gilbert-Silence Followed by a Deafening Roar
Paul Gilbert & Freddie Nelson-United States
Jonny Greenwood-There Will Be Blood
Grinderman-Grinderman
Liars-They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Local H-The No Fun EP
The Offspring-Rise & Fall, Rage & Grace
Serj Tankian-Elect the Dead
Roger Waters-The Pros & Cons of Hitch Hiking
YMCK-Family Racing
Hope you enjoyed that. Not much else to say. Haha… Looking at the scene in general, it hasn’t changed a lot from 2007. The biggest problem though? Going to last.fm and seeing that the number 1 artist right now is Coldplay. What. The. Fuck…. Is wrong. With. YOU. FUCKING. IDIOTS. No, I’m just kidding. I mean, everyone is entitled to their own opinion in music… But seriously. Coldplay? Really?! REALLY?!
God… WHy is Britney at number 17?! And Oasis at 13?! GAHHH
Posted December 24, 2008 at 5:42 am by Crumb Bandit
Nothing “fell into place” as they say. Everything I touched or saw pissed me off. Everything that I thought was going my way stopped seeming so. Nothing “ran smoothly”.
“Is it better to plea ignorance of your boyfriend (in front of your parents) or am I a horrible liar?”
My response to my own question is ignorance
then I tell myself to calm down, which doesn’t work, nothing is fucking running like it should, and suddenly realize that I had green tea today.
Caffeine ruins me. Among other things.
Posted December 21, 2008 at 6:46 pm by Crumb Bandit
RIAA appears to be giving us music lovers a bit more room to breathe.
Posted December 18, 2008 at 8:04 pm by Crumb Bandit
Have you noticed that the speed of our connectivity as fellow students and Americans on TV and the Internet leads to strange quirks that everyone says once or twice in passing convorsation, only to suddenly stop using the current cliche and use other popular terms all within days or hours of other people using the same term? Sometimes the phenomenon lasts for weeks to Months, while at other times, it’s a slow build up over a period of weeks and then suddenly everyone uses it for two or three days, and suddenly everyone stops using it.
For example. A new cliche is “Lies”. Used when the person wants to believe what you are saying, but can’t.
Another example would be “Touche”. This highly over used cliche is about as cliche as the word “cliche” itself. It makes me want to put “quotations” “around” “every” God “damned” Word just to “piss” you “off”.
It was a dark and snowy night,
Posted December 7, 2008 at 7:48 am by Crumb Bandit
And it begat that Mary and Joseph were going a winter vacation. Mary was about to have a child. In the middle of winter. It was dark out, and the stars shown brightly, but because it was cold, they seemed like ice stars. They laid down in a bed of cold hay next to the ice cube sheep, the cause of insanely high christmas’ hotel rates and mule prices. All through the house, no one made a peep. Not even the mouse, who was asleep, you dummy! Mary had a kid there, and then suddenly a ghostly yet jolly fellow with a huge beard, dressed up in red and white, gave Mary the boy’s name, Jesus. Then he flew off, not thinking that this kid was anything special, being born in a stable after all, obviously they don’t deserve presents. But when these nearly frostbitten shepherds and their frosty goats heard about someone crashing their stable, they were furious. That was their step mother’s guest room. Some wise men like Nostradamus rode some crazy animals towards the stable because santa betrayed Mary and Joseph for a Pint of Milk and the measly sum of 7 gold tokens. But the Wise men knew better. In the Mayan calendar, it was predicted that they should go give perfume to some random kid in a stable.
And that is why christmas is flawed. Cause Santa came first, and some idiot put Jesus birthday on santa day even though Jesus doesn’t need one cause he is so f-ing badass.
DANGER: YOU MAY BE SHOT IF YOU READ THIS
Posted December 2, 2008 at 3:21 pm by Severed Head