Stereo Jealousy

Stereo Jealousy’s Top 40 Tracks of 2008, 40-31

December 31st, 2008

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I’ve waited right until the end of the year to unleash my lists – and they’ll be coming over the next few days.

Top 40 tracks
Top 40 albums
Top 10 live shows
Best Artwork
Biggest letdowns

To kick off, here’s the first installment of the tracks countdown.

	40: The Ting Tings – Shut Up And Let Me Go Columbia I’m starting my 2008 countdown with a confession; I was wrong. Wrong to blast this Salford duo as force-fed music industry pap. I’ll still count my bile as valid againts the horrendous That’s Not My Name, but this and stablemate Great DJ are perfect pop songs. MP3 Video
	39: Foals – The Race For Radio Supremacy Transgressive Foals entered 2008 as media darlings, yet some of the hype faltered in the news that Antidotes would not include Hummer or Mathletics. Yet the record was still intriguing, and probably benefited from the lack of big-single syndrome. This is the pick of the LP for me. MP3 Buy Antidotes
	38: LCD Soundsystem – Big Ideas DFA After a blistering 2007 where James Murphy and co strode above end-of-year lists like a colossus, Big Ideas was a rare 2008 outing for LCD. The knowledge of pop-hook craft remained, and this cut from the soundtrack to 21 is no mere offcut from Sound Of Silver. MP3 Buy Big Ideas
	37: Madonna – 4 Minutes Warner A huge success from the otherwise disappointing Hard Candy LP. Surely it would be difficult to fail with a superstar team of Madge, Timberlake & Timbaland? One of the pop records of 2008. MP3 Video Buy 4 Minutes
	36: The B-52s – Eyes Wide Open Astralwerks “I don’t want to clash, I don’t want to rehash the past” Kate sings, and it is no rehash – I never dared to think that the B-52s would sound this good, this up to date, yet so utterly them in 2008. A totally unexpected pleasure. MP3 Buy Funplex
	35: Mogwai – Batcat Wall of Sound There’s no following of the post-rock quiet-loud-quiet formula here, Batcat belts out of the speakers obliterating everything in it’s path. A highlight of their excellent 2008 live shows, where it sounded even louder and even more vital. MP3 Video Buy Batcat
	34: The Kills – U.R.A. Fever Domino Scuzzy, short and superb. The Kills finally got some mainstream exposure for this record – and that was before Jamie Hince’s massively publicized on-off thing with super-stick Kate Moss. MP3 Video Buy U.R.A. Fever
	33: Duffy – Rockferry Polydor Originally released at the back end of 2007, well before her media star began its rise, Rockferry is a rare treat, a blue-eyed soul classic and free of the Winehouse-isms that afflict the rest of her debut LP. MP3 Video Buy Rockferry
	32: Errors – Cutlery Drawer Rock Action Signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action, Glaswegians Errors outshone their illustrious stablemates in 2008. Cutlery Drawer is slightly atypical of their output, featuring a stark spoken word vocal by Londoner George Pringle. Wonderful. MP3 Buy It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever
	31: Emiliana Torrini – Gun Rough Trade How had I never caught Ms Torrini before? It was only an Amazon recommendation that belatedly turned me on to Me And Armini. Housed within was this staggering track – dark, taut and twisted with a breathy vocal to die for. MP3 Buy Me And Armini

Categories: Best Of 2008, Chart Tags: Best Tracks of 2008, Duffy, Emiliana Torrini, Errors, Foals, LCD Soundsystem, Madonna, The B-52s, The Kills, The Ting Tings

London Live: 17 – 23 November

November 18th, 2008

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Gig Of The Week: Genghis Tron, Behold The Arctopus, Rolo Tomassi, The Network – The Underworld

Prepare for supreme noise making at Underworld on Saturday as Americans Genghis Tron follow up their European stint with The Faint with a short UK tour. Backed by a multi-talented string of bands, not least Sheffield stars Rolo Tomassi (for the London show only), the potential of this night is stellar. This amazing line up is unbelievably not sold out – and under a tenner face value!

Tickets: See

Genghis Tron – Blow Back

Behold The Arctopus – Some Mist

Rolo Tomassi – Abraxas

Photo: Justina Villaneuva

Selected Releases: Monday March 10

March 10th, 2008

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Hercules & Love Affair
S/T

MGMT
Oracular Spectacular

The Kills
Midnight Boom

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Grand Archives
The Grand Archives

Thee Silver Mt Zion…
13 Blues For
Thirteen Moons

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Young Knives
Superabundance

Get Cape.
Wear Cape. Fly
Searching For The
Hows and Whys

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The Twilight Singers
A Stitch In Time

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Baltic Fleet
S/T

Bleeding Heart
Narrative
All That Was
Missing…

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The Low Lows
Shining Violence

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Adam Green
Sixes And Sevens

A great set of releases this week, the highlights for me are the Baltic Fleet album I blathered about last week, the Twilight Singers EP featuring Mark Lanegan on vocals, and the disco-fabulous Hercules & Love Affair, an LP picking up ‘Record Of The Week’ accolades everywhere. Elsewhere, MGMT have been generating hype amongst the press and Silver Mt Zion keep Constellation fans in sumptuous record packaging, and the tremendous U.R.A. Fever gets an LP release on The Kills’ Midnight Boom. Ex-Moldy Peaches annoyance Adam Green regurgitates would is likely to be another slab o’shite, and NME-darlings Young Knives attempt to better 2006’s patchy Voices of Animals and Men. Perhaps the most exciting thing, and album of the week is the Bleeding Heart Narrative CD, a limited sewn (!) edition of 200, outdoing Constellation in fancy sleeves is going some!

Hercules & Love Affair – Blind
MGMT – Electric Feel
The Kills – U.R.A. Fever