2008 In Music

This is an abbreviated version of my Favorites of 2008. For the full list go to my MySpace blog here. These are the three albums I felt passionate enough to write about, and they are in all honesty a couple of my favorite albums of the last few years.

3) King Khan & The Shrines - The Supreme Genius of King Khan and The Shrines

You will not find a more eclectic, rousing, dirty electric, and insanely catchy album released in the last year, not to mention a more batshit insane front man. "Supreme Genius" is a compilation album of sorts combining tracks from What Is?!?! with a bunch of stuff from Kahn's catalog, and it a experience for you ears to behold. Some label it "garage rock" but to me it's more like the bastard love child of Little Richard, The Rolling Stones, Eric Budron and War, [Cracked Out] James Brown, and 60's Psychedelia. Like my next entry it's really a labor of love that embraces all the insane amounts of fun and excitement that can come from playing straight up rock and roll. This is a band i'm ashamed of not listening to earlier.

2) The Moondoggies - Don't Be a Stranger

I read a review a while back that put it best, "this is the kind of country music that would of existed a long time ago if Garth Brooks never came into existence." That said, I don't think I've heard an album that is such a joyous celebration of the resounding fun and energy that music can bring into our lives in a long time. The Moondoggies are a band that when hearing their music makes me, for the first time in a while, pretty damn optimistic about where music is headed in the next few years. Bands like the Fleet Foxes and Grand Archives have got a lot of attention in the last year or so for kick starting this sort of hearkening back to "real" country / folk / roots music, but The Moondoggies affliction for conjuring up tunes that are more akin to the likes the The Byrd's, The Band, The Allman Brothers Band, Neil Young and The Flying Burrito Brothers style of high energy foot stomping Country Rock is more my cup of tea. Listening to this album really makes me feel like music is coming full circle, this is music being made by people my same age, who apparently grew up listening to the same stuff my parents had me listening to, and its really awesome to see them take those influences and make something new of it. Not to mention these are some of the coolest and friendliest musicians I have meet in a long ass time, coming from such a pretentious Seattle music scene, it's good to know that there are some people out there who are just having fun with what they are doing, and doing a damn good job at it.

1) The Walkmen - You & Me

It's usually pretty difficult for me to pick a resounding number one album of the year for me, but this year You & Me takes the cake. It's not that all the other albums on my list aren't great, there just really wasn't another album that struck a chord with me quite like this one. This album is really the bands return to form. It's a more mature, sparse and swaggering version of 2001's Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone, an album which is amongst my all time favorites. You & Me is the perfect album for all moods, (my favorite being the sitting at home drunk by myself self-loathing variety) it leads and directs you through its different movements and textures pretty much flawlessly through Leithauser's painful crooning vocals, and the bands incredible tight musicianship. I think my favorite part about this band is that they everything you'd expect, nothing more and nothing less. They know the style of music they play, and they stick to it, and develop it, and layer it, they don't stray to far from their original formula and lose track, cause their is absolutely no reason for them too. I really think they are one of the single best American bands of the 2000's, their no bullshit rock takes you back to a time when music could be appreciated more for its sparse craft and beauty and not it's unnecessary flair.