The ever-persistent snow and the holiday season somehow managed to hamper efforts to generate new content for this blog.  It seemed best to post one last item before the year ends...just to let you know we're still in business. 

To add to the long debated and discussed lists from music bloggers and magazines, here's my contribution.  These are my favorite albums of 2008.  There were a lot of albums that came close to making it on my list like Wolf Parade's latest, Swissy's debut effort, and even the second surprise effort by those kooky folks from Los Campesinos!  The latter didn't make it only because I only recently picked it up...so I hadn't really even squeezed it for what it's worth.  We even saw two surprises from Nine Inch Nails that also almost cracked our countdown.



10.  Made In The Dark - Hot Chip
This album became a source of comfort during the cold, wet first months of 2008.  It didn't matter that the rains consistently tried to batter our spirits.  We had fuel to perservere as we listened to sunny-sounding bangers like Shake A Fist, Ready For The Floor, and One Pure Thought.




9.  Re-Arrange Us - Mates Of State
This happily married couple from Kansas sounds like a two-person version of The New Pornographers.  I'm not surprised that Porn-man AC Newman asked for their music skills to pretty-up his upcoming solo album.  Try tracking down their version of Phantom Planet's California (yep, the OC's opening tune) as performed on a live segment of NPR's This American Life.  It's worth the search.

 


8.  Intimacy - Bloc Party
BP's third effort seems to split the difference between Silent Alarm's sense of urgency and A Weekend In The City's drive for more electronic percussion.  This actually may have ranked higher in the list had it not been for the effort of a Pinoy band in this year's number 3 slot who mined BP's original sound and made out like gangbusters with love from music fans in-the-know.


  

7.  Sun Giant EP/Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Both these efforts had to be combined to show how this group started out small and shot through the stratosphere in record time (and not in a Vampire Weekend sort of way either).  Earlier this year, local weekly rag The Stranger wrote an extensive bio on the band as they were just about to make a splash releasing Sun Giant.  Mere months later they've been booking gigs left and right throughout the country and were making the late-night talk show circuit as well.  Their rich vocal harmonies kill on record and on stage.  They're worth every good word written on paper and on the net.




6. Paramita - Paramita
This Pinoy band made it through their split with a major label and a guitarist by making a contribution to the second Apo Hiking Society tribute compilation and hooking up with Manila-based indie label Terno Recordings.  The result is a more widely varied, harder rocking trio that is a mainstay on the imprint's live showcase evenings around the metro.  It's great to see the band evolve from simpler music arrangements.




5.  Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - David Byrne and Brian Eno
It's fantastic to see that two of the pillars of modern rock aren't bent on making half-baked music just to pay the bills.  The former Talking Head and the former Roxy Music-man have again come up with a set of music befitting their identities and mindsets these days.  This is an excellent example of letting the songs take over the press clippings and media ads when it comes to talking.




4.  Midnight Boom - The Kills
2008's manic nature seemed to have been captured in song by this trans-continental duo in the form of Midnight Boom.  The power of guitars, samplers, sequencers, and two pissed-off emotional wrecks have never sounded any more dangerous and appealing at the same time.  I'm glad that The Raconteurs got them to open for the band on their fall tour.  There's a kinship they share in the love of guitar-based drama.




3.  Endings Of A New Kind - Taken By Cars
This is the reason why Bloc Party's Intimacy was pushed down to the lower reaches of my favorite albums this year.  February 2008 was the start of a nationwide campaign in The Philippines for this upstart group of dance-punk enthusiasts.  After being underground darlings and getting the annointed blessings of Manila station NU 107 through their In The Raw segment, this band made it known that the Brits and the Americans don't possess the monopoly to create catchy and Gang of Four-influenced guitar-based booty shaking music.




2.  Consolers Of The Lonely - The Raconteurs
This album was a pleasant surprise to fans of the band who didn't know they were releasing an album up until two weeks before it shipped to stores.  Who knew that a campaign to release the album before doing any formal publicity could be quite the success in the age of the internet and reduced profit margins for the record industry?  As an even better personal memory of the year, it was great to see the band play once at an intimate and packed small venue and another instance at a multi-thousand seat theater.  The only item on their agenda during both performances was to lay the audience to waste with their music and stage presence.




1.  Bipolar - Up dharma Down
The crown jewel of the Terno imprint has done it again!  Nothing caps off the year better than having to hear the atmospheric music of this amazing four-piece.  Aside from having to finally see them perform live earlier this year, it was great to hear them play the songs that eventually made it to this album.  Lyrics, arrangement, and inventive presentation with the hard-copy of the album fulfilled every expectation I had with the band and then some.

Today, we present a playlist that surveys some of the outstanding songs coming from each band's respective albums.

Track List:
One Pure Thought - Hot Chip
My Only Offer - Mates Of State
Flux - Bloc Party
Sun It Rises - Fleet Foxes
Goodbye, Goodnight - Paramita
Life Is Long - David Byrne and Brian Eno
Tape Song - The Kills
Uh Oh - Taken By Cars
Hold Up - The Raconteurs
Sana (radio recording) - Up dharma Down

Download playlist here.

I'd like to greet everyone a happy new year.  With all of this great music behind us, we wonder what surprises and events await us in 2009.