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.
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
