This Winki's Top 10 Best Albums Of 2008

Let's stick to the title-says-it-all cliche and I have already explained more elaborately on the other post (top 10 songs of 2008) earlier. These are This Winki's Top 10 Best Albums of 2008 in a very specific order:

10. David Byrne & Brian Eno - Everything That Happens, Will Happen Today

This is probably the sweetest reunion of the year (since My Life In the Bush of Ghosts) and most probably the best electro-pop effort of 2008. The two gigantic figures of contemporary music as we know have once again collaborated on a neat amalgam of potent materialistic set of tracks. And once again the pair seemingly knows their jobs much better than they used to. It’s fascinating how Byrne and Eno are reluctant to grow old and stick to their glorious pasts and leave it all behind. That’s why Everything That Happens sounds brilliantly fresh, optimistic and lively.”Home”, “Life Is Long” and the 2nd-to-none single “Strange Overtones” are nothing but disciples of decades’ long experiences and maturity. [Read More]

09. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

If we could bury M83’s mastermind Anthony Gonzalez' sweet-noise past somewhere real deep, Saturdays = Youth can be his most personal effort. He has wisely eliminated the apocalyptic essence of his artistic ego thoroughly and replaced it with his own 80s nostalgia. Here you can have an album to be proud of. It does not sound like any other M83 album but unlike zillion similar turn-arounds, Saturdays = Youth is a glorious success. More than anything else Gonzalez had forgotten about, there’s vocals, but yet starkly dreamy and 2 decade old ones, old from the Jesus and Mary Chain kind and electronic the New Order way. This is what happens when a noise-art songwriter goes spontaneously pop. [Read More]

08. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lie Down In the Light

If Will Oldham’s I See A Darkness was his evil ego, Lie Down In the Light is his Bright Side of the Moon! The most studio-friendly record of this brilliant folk singer/songwriter turns out to be a thick ray of joy. His voice sounds even more tender and flexible than ever. His acoustic guitar is more versatile and his vision is so much clearer than any other work of his. There are no more bloods and no more isolation. Bonnie “Prince” Billy is truly here to stay. By the way this album might not be an old Oldham fan's favorite and they might still prefer his Palace Brothers years. But Lie Down In the Light is inevitable and timeless in its own way. For every dark gloomy afternoon, there’s a silver lining after all. [Read More]

07. Steinski – What Does It All Mean? 1983 – 2006 Retrospective

This comes totally unexpected. I hardly ever listen to hip-hop and anything near rap. But every time I came across, I found a brilliant item. Madvillain, Dangerdoom, most big EM stuff, Outkast and now Steinki (eliminating the Double Dee here) and his touch of classic rap and disco-like material. This 2 disk collection of sturdy rhythmic disco-rap is probably all an 80s rap enthusiastic ear would have requested. It may not be actually the music of 2008 but at least it was released this year. All the classic “Lesson” mixes and all the exquisite small cuts are selected in one double disk to meet the needs of a full-grown party for quite a long time.

06. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

I’m always eager to hear music that is impossible to be labeled. Los Angeles grabs many tags simultaneously: It sounds deliberately low-fi on a general scale, it feels so electronic and ambient and it has its own unique hip-hop aesthetics and most of all, it has a spectacular theme and therefore it’s very cohesive. That’s why it attracts many listeners with its eclectic recipe: Electronic, experimental, ambient, lo-fi indie and of course hip-hop. Actually I’d better mention another record here: The Bug’s London Zoo comes so very near only if didn’t sound so urban hip-hop. But the reason I chose this wonderful set of wisely conducted soundscapes is the genuine understanding of what audience needs and transforming it into an abstract package of soul-less and numb vibrations. In this manner of speaking, Los Angeles is even as futuristic and obscure as The Fuck Buttons debut album earlier this year. [Read More]

05. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

I can have respect for the critics and music listeners who have preferred MGMT’s (read Management) debut album Oracular Spectacular to Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Britney’s Circus or TV On the Radio’s Dear Science. This debut sounds so promising and teenagerly mature. And although it has a Columbia record label and sounds so mainstream at times, it’s well-accepted among the editors and critics. And I should admit it’s a perfect pop album: making lots of lists and producing a handful of hits in only one package (“Time To Pretend”, “Electric Feel”, “Kids”, “The Youth” and probably “Weekend Wars” which is my personal favorite.) The key to all these is eclecticism, but not from a disastrous kind The Scissor Sisters experienced and God only knows what they’d be without some superficial easily stirred up international fans. Eclecticism that extracts the joy out of The Flaming Lips, the melody out of Muse and the pop sensation out of the Bee Gees. Oracular Spectacular definitely deserves a spot on this list. By the way, the album was first released in 2007 but its major release was in early 2008, so that's pretty much we have it here. [Read More]

04. Beach House - Devotion

It’s probably out of my hands. I had a wonderful time on March 2008 having a dream-like trip to Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand. And on the way, this album was constantly on my headphones. Like a sweet tender lullaby. Devotion is an album of great concern to me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget this wonderful piece of work for a long time to come. There are wedding bells, ghostly romance, dying gospel rhythms and spectacular heartfelt singing. I came upon this album through Pitchfork’s recommendations (best new music section) and I’m grateful for that. “Gila” is already on spot number 2 on my top 10 songs of 2008 and I’m absolutely positive about Devotion and its magic as well. [Read More]

03. Little Joy - Little Joy

Sadly enough, I still haven’t found time to write a review on this album. I’m not a Strokes freak don’t get me wrong (knowing I have already given out my 2006’s album of the year title to the widely criticized third effort of the band). But Little Joy (as the title explains it all) is so inevitable and remarkable to easily skip and forget about all that. I’m not that eager to call this album a side-project but here we have The Strokes' drummer Fabrizio Moretti, Los Hermano’s Rodrigo Amarante and Binki Shapiro. This short 11 piece of an album could be considered as the holiday version of Is This It? As Moretti’s voice awfully resembles Julian Casablancas' and the music more or less is as vintage as his original band. But that’s probably Little Joy’s strong link not a vulnerability point. If Jens Lekman’s Night Falls Over Kortedala was last year’s holiday album Little Joy pretty much fills the gap this year with its Devendra Banhart-ish arrangements (they share the same producer Noah Georgeson) and its minimal low-fi vibrations.

02. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

If Fleet Foxes’ old-school and fairy tale-ish classic sound does not award them the best new artist of the year, there’s no possibility left for anything else. The sequel to the Sun Giant EP could be nothing but an exquisite selection of massively dream-like set of timeless vocal harmonies and first class songwriting from the kinds we may only have experienced in 60s and early 70s rock’s glorious arena. Fleet Foxes bring you a hippie version of Simon & Garfunkel. You can confess they rock while you’re unable to ignore they play indie-folk to full degree. This record stands firmly on its own from various perspectives and in most cases this debut deserves many titles it has already won. [Read More]

01. Shugo Tokumaru - Exit

If Shugo has a "Japan’s Sufjan Stevens" moniker on the back of his T-shirt, it’s Sufjan that has to be proud. I don’t think any other list ends with this album (the pitchfork will release the first half of its top 100 just today thoug, therefore I'm totally unaware of that.) but I have gradually convinced myself upon this one. I came across many fantastic albums that surely deserved positive votes: Fleet Foxes, Beach House’ Devotion and even The Raconteurs’ Consolers Of the Lonely and Dr. Dog’s Fate. And I still believe they are all brilliant albums in their own way. But Exit somehow sounds more abstract and noble. Why abstract? Well, there’s almost everything here if you inspect it closely: We have Japanese folk of course, we have indie-pop, we have experimentalism, a big amount of alternative tendencies and a very small amount of pride and delusions of grandeur to taste. But all in all, it’s none of the above at the same time! Not every junk mixture of too many things can turn out something like this. Exit might not sound overwhelming. In fact it is more or less minimal, but somehow minimal to its optimal pinnacle (!!). Obviously Shugo has various influences upon the songwriting and production of this quite small masterpiece but he has refused to lean towards even one of them fortunately. If Sufjan Stevens strives out full-time (and wonderfully appealing) to depict a fairy tale candy pop version of America, Shugo is least likely to be a symbolic patriot as he deviates amongst his own semi-idealistic venture-outs. Add his Japanese language to the abstract issue and don’t tell me I’m being an idiot by repeating this word over and over, I have Pablo Picasso to cling onto, I have Jackson Pollock as vivid evidence and I have Luis Bunuel who all happen to be – in a larger scale the 20th century pioneers of this phenomenon. Shugo is nevertheless an intelligent disciple of the very mod culture wave. Only half-the-planet away from where it all once upon a time took place! [Read More]

Also Read:
Top 10 Best Songs of 2008