We are exactly half-way through 2008 so I’ve put together my top 60 songs of the year…and have made them all available to download in one long mix. While the list is generally intended to be as objective and comprehensible as possible, it’s obviously compiled with the general taste of SeeWhatYouhear.com in mind (just about every single one of these tracks have been featured on the site).
There are always going to be some that have been overlooked and, given the amount of varying release, re-release and leak dates, there will be technicalities to contend with too. I’ve also included two Bon Iver tracks…just because I feel like it. But in general terms, there is so much quality here that I think it speaks volumes about how much great new music is out there. Here’s hoping the second half of the year provides just as many gems!
Update: This has been reuploaded, upon request. This has been reuploaded for a second time.
So here we go…I’m quite happy with this as an extravaganza mix (all styles are clumped together, starting with super-poppy, ending with the super-sad), so please note that the following are not ranked in a valued order.
1. The Dodos – Fools
An Uplifting, Soul-saving Burst of Energy
2. Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Ivy League hipsters’ catchy brand of Graceland-era indie-pop – now heard absolutely everywhere. There is no escape.
3. MGMT – Electric Feel
Oracular Spectacular’s irresistible pop sensibilities make for feel-good listening, mixing together Scissor Sisters, Prince and Bowie.
4. Women – Black Rice
Lo-fi garage throwback with tracked harmonies, catchy Wilson-esque melodies and a great bass breakdown – this ticks all the boxes for me.
5. Port O’Brien – I Woke Up Today
Sure to kick your day into gear, this track features no lead vocal as such, but more of a hepped-up choir in full force…and it’s all the better because of it.
6. Yeasayer – Wait for the Summer
Combining far-flung influences with sugary, supercharged harmonies, this is an extravagant tune that channels uncertainty into a moment of ominous beauty.
7. Born Ruffians – Little Garcon
Peppy, pimple-faced and positively overflowing with directionless pop hooks, this is bound to be the cutest little song you’ll hear all year.
8. The Ruby Suns – Tane Mahuta
This is a gorgeously sunny song from a record chock-full of them – perfect for that Friday feeling.
9. El Guincho – Palmitos Park
Coming hot on the heels of the indisputably brilliant Peson Pitch by Panda Bear, the comparisons were both inevitable and unenviable. But the sound here is appropriately tropical, the loops more tangible (in some cases even assuredly repetitive), giving El Guincho (Pablo Díaz-Reixa) a messier dynamic all his own.
10. Au – RR vs. D
Portland multi-instrumentalist Luke Wyland and his ensemble producing quite the burst of colour.
11. Julianna Barwick – Dancing with Friends
Just one warm voice, growing into a memory that may not have even happened…
12. Noah And The Whale – 5 Years Time
This song is so chirpy and so cheerful that it very well may leave you with a headache. I first heard of Noah and the Whale when they were in Austin shooting a Take Away Show in a rented house with Vincent Moon during SXSW. Since then, their heartwarming live shows has seen them pick up slots on the stages of Glastonbury, Oxegen, Lollapalooza, V, Field Day, and the End of the Road festivals, all this summer.
13. Young Coyotes – Momentary Drowning
A young, unsigned act from Denver with heaps of energy, this track is the perfect sing-along to get you floating through mid-week.
14. The Acorn – The Flood Pt.1
Concept albums can often be the kiss of death for any band, let alone those still relatively unknown, but beyond the heartfelt backstory the music here showcases enough substance not only to avoid any accusations of pretension, but also to win them plenty o’ revered indie credibility in the process.
15. French Kicks – Abandon
I had never heard of “modded pop” before, but if it’s typified by the flitting, lo-fi production and soaring melodies on display here, I’ll be doing my best to find more.
16. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal
One of the most powerful, perfect and life-affirming songs of the year.
17. Working For A Nuclear Free City – Rocket
A gorgeously intricate composition.
18. The Breeders – Overglazed
Its lyrics comprise just four simple words, but this blast of the Breeders’ trademark peppy garage-pop sees the Deal sisters sounding just as sprightly as they did in 1993.
19. Deerhunter – Never Stops
It’s no secret…it’s out there and it’s fantastic. It also has Brian Eno written all over it .
20. Vivian Girls – Where Do You Run To
Taking their name from the work of outsider artist Henry Darger, the Vivian Girls are a garage style indie band that have crafted a set of exquisitely sweet lo-fi ditties in the style of the Wipers, the Vaselines and even the Shangri-Las.
21. The Oh Sees – Block of Ice
For anyone getting ready to go out, ignoring clocks, mirrors and phonecalls just to take one last listen to a song that will get you in the right frame of mind – this is for you.
22. The Muslims – On my time
It is very, very evocative of Stooges-era Iggy, yet so assured that it doesn’t act to its detriment.
23. White Denim – Shake Shake Shake
clearly tipping their hats to the forebearers of garage rock, White Denim are visceral, loose and full of the kind of energy you can only get from recording live.
24. White Williams – New Violence
There’s something incredibly familiar about this track…in a confounding, slightly amusing way. I know that hook from somewhere – I’m certain of it. I can almost hear it as “Blue…(something)” but filling in the rest is a challenge that keeps me coming back to the song. The body of the tune works as a concoction of admirable influences, adapting the hip out of Eno, Bolan et al. into just the right shade of cool, not trying too hard and not taking too much either.
25. The Raveonettes – Dead Sound
The sultry pop songs of Lust, Lust, Lust play like an inebriated walk-through of The Everly Brothers, The Velvets and The Jesus Mary Chain, the various fragments crystallising together in whispered two-part harmonies and deft guitar lines saturated with reverb. On its own terms, however, the album offers a seductive (but ultimately apathetic) meditation on sex, drugs and the chemistry of a relationship in bloom.
26. M83 – Kim & Jessie
We *heart* the ’80s. That’s the first thing this track exclaims. And it doesn’t stop there: just delve further into the brilliantly titled Saturdays = Youth, check out the video for ‘Graveyard Girl’, or even take a cursory glance at the album’s artwork. But rest assured, for Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez (aka M83) has refined these elements into a poignant aesthetic that rises far beyond mere retro indulgence and kitsch nostalgia.
27. Plants and Animals – Faerie Dance
An irresistible 7-minute-plus track from Canadian outfit Plants and Animals. Slow, hushed and reflective to begin with, it trickles along gently until hitting a dramatic segue of stabbing piano and cielo before kicking into a fantastic finale of a sing-along chorus punctuated by an exquisite touch of lap steel.
28. Lykke Li – Little Bit
Swedish pop princess Lykke Li has won more than her fair share of hearts this year with her unconventional but undeniably catchy album.
29. Daedelus – Fair Weather Friends
L.A. based producer and instrumentalist goes floating through IDM and left-field hip-hop.
30. Santogold – Creator
Not just another M.I.A. knockoff, Santi White and John Hill produce a brash, bass-heavy fusion of reggae, electro and indie rock.
31. Ersen – Sor Kendine
If any singular exponent of the powerful Turkish Anadolu Pop scene could be described as eclectic it would have to be Ersen. His chameleon image in Turkey has teetered on the edge of versatile and schizophrenic over his 40-year sporadic career and his versatile talents as a vocalist have served as a refreshing alternative to his contemporaries in one of the most progressive musical micro-cultures in the history of rock music.
32. Clinic – Free Not Free
A compelling mixture of garage rock and northern soul.
33. No Age – Eraser
L.A. drum-and-guitar duo no effect pedals…just some focused energy and the will to allow their songs to create the first impressions. Away from the narrative efforts of their studio work, a set of melodic, feel-good songs buried under some seriously thrashy guitar,
34. Times New Viking – Teen Drama
With an aesthetic of no production values whatsoever, Times New Viking take lo-fi to an ear-aching extreme.
35. Apse – A R K
Post-rock is normally a genre that normally does very little for me, particularly when it’s the case of a sound and dynamic that seems completely interchangable. But Apse are a band that won me over almost instantaneously. Having been around for nearly 10 years, they seem to be quite a well-kept secret, but those eerie melodies and cryptic undertones are something that sets them far apart from their contemporaries.
36. The Felice Brothers – Frankie’s Gun!
Tales of whiskey, teenage pregnancies and robbery all revisit a storytelling fabric so dog-eared that it’s difficult to add anything new, but the Felice Brothers’ likeness to Bob Dylan and The Band has won them a dizzying amount of plaudits.
37. David Karsten Daniels – Martha Ann
Evocative of Will Oldham but with enough colour and variety to retain its own identity, Fear of Flying sticks out like a beacon amongst an overcrowded genre of American songwriters.
38. Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed – It’s Easier
It may be hard to believe that this a 2008 recording, but still only 24, Reed decided to give himself a crash course in the blues by way of Mississippi and Chicago, culminating in an album of impressively slick Rhythm & Blues numbers with The True Loves as his backing band.
39. Neon Neon – Stainless Style
The unlikely combination of Boom Bip and Gruff Rhys has made for a concept album of ’80s electro. The subject matter? The life and times of car-maker John Delorean, no less.
40. Pepi Ginsberg – In My Bones
There’s a touch of PJ Harvey to this, and it sounds suspiciously like Dr. Dog are acting as the rhythm section (she’s a friend of the band), but it packs a punch and has been stuck in my head for some time.
41. Grizzly Bear – While You Wait for the Others (Live on KCRW)
Easily the very best song that hasn’t yet been recorded, let alone released in 2008. Just unbeatable.
42. Subtle – The Crow
ExitingARM may be one of the poppiest records to come out of left field this year, but Subtle are in no danger of losing their “genreless” niche. As the final instalment of a cerebral three-part story arc, what separates this album from its predecessors is the presence of obvious singles.
Yet despite being laden with hooks and harmonies, the catchiness of songs such as ‘The Crow’ only highlights the opaqueness within. As ever, Doseone’s rapid-fire poetry bombards the listener with cryptic metaphors, abstract imagery and tongue-twisting enunciations while depicting a nightmarish realm of elaborate mythology.
43. Shearwater – The Snow Leopard
Rooted in natural imagery (Meiburg practices ornithology in his free time), the album envisions a menacing make-believe wilderness worlds away from the interference of mankind. Having been inspired by Peter Matthiessen’s book of the same name, ‘The Snow Leopard’ represents a fitting climax where the album’s solitary figure finally becomes overwhelmed by his journey. Such scenes could have easily been grandiose, but the arrangements are handled with a precision that guides the songs into one flowing movement, absorbing the listener with a vivid fairytale of creatures mythical, endangered and extinct.
44. Joseph Childress – Animal
This gem of a song was recorded in a closet somewhere out on the road over the last few years. What else do we know about Joseph Childress? Next to nothing. There isn’t even an album out to promote by posting this; it’s just too beautiful not to…
45. Sunnybrook – Big Waving Hands
Not only does this song give you a sense of golden-ness almost immediately, but before the first line has even finished, I have to admit it’s one of those rare occasions where it makes me tingle every time.
46. Jonquil – So Far So Good
This is a new song from Jonquil who are about to release their Whistle Low EP, coming on the back of their unbelievably beautiful and inexplicably overlooked second album, Lions. Since they were last mentioned on this site, Drowned in Sound finally caught wind of the Oxford collective, gifting them with an emphatic 9/10 review, as have NME and various other indie outlets. If you have yet to discover them, start here and get yourself a copy of Lions as quick as you can.
47. Frightened Rabbit – Keep Yourself Warm
Naïve twee pop with a Scottish charm.
48. Golden Boots – Days Are Night
Specialising in “Crumbly western Alt-alt-country,” Golden Boots’ twangy, downtempo style found here is another track that relies on a hint of Dr. Dog.
49. Beach House – Gila
While the heavy-hearted dynamic that characterised Beach House’s debut is alive and well, Devotion boasts a much more expansive pallet. It’s denser, more colourful, and seems intent on asserting itself as much more alive and reactive than its predecessor. Yet it’s essentially the same soundscape: the hazy auburn glow of an antiquated keyboard matched with the slow moan of Scully’s slide guitar as Legrand weeps like an ageing chanteuse.
50. Sharon Van Etten – You Didn’t Really Do That
When I discovered this song I made an instant connection with it. It perfectly describes something I experienced in the last two months and so holds a great deal of resonance for me. So went ahead and bought the EP via her website: $6 (€3.99) for a handmade CD of beautifully stark folk songs recorded in a bedroom in Brooklyn. It came in a hand-made package with a lovely personalised letter that really warmed my heart. I encourage you to do the same…
51. Bon Iver – Skinny Love
As everyone no doubt knows by now, this song was recorded during a three-month solo sojourn by Justin Vernon somewhere in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin. Apart from committing songs to tape, these solitary days were filled with bouts of wood chopping in the onset of winter (the name Bon Iver being inspired by the French for ‘good winter’), providing enough space to inspire the introspective aesthetic behind his startling debut, For Emma, Forever Ago.
52. We/Or/Me – Tell Sarah
This song is about a note few people would want to write and even fewer would want to receive. An apology from a distance, a goodbye in hiding, it’s a simple-but-effective composition carried by a weary voice and a gently strummed guitar line. But it’s the even quieter female voice in the background and the very occasional twinkle of piano keys that really radiate throughout the song…making the farewell that little bit easier to take.
53. Megapuss – To The Love Within
With every new Megapuss track that appears, it becomes clearer that Devendra Banhart’s new collaborative project seems to be reverting to the style that typified his first releases – not just in terms of lo-fi production values, but in that magical campfire-spiritual character they instilled.
54. Allegories – Grass Toboggan
Hazy, gentle and drifting, this track by Canadian floaters Allegories is just one of twelve obsessively intricate dream-like soundscapes that comprise their debut album, Surreal Auteur
55. Grouper – Heavy Water/I’d Rather be Sleeping
The opening track sounds like it could soundtrack Super-8 footage of a trek through the wilderness, but this one…it’s warm, hazy, melting…and all I can hope for from new music this summer.
56. {{{Sunset}}} – Man’s Heart Complaint
A touching but solemn moment of introspection from this Austin-based group who dabble “in psychedelic volks-rots.”
57. Fight Bite – Swiss Ex-lover
Perfectly haunting.
58. Evangelicals – Snowflakes
Perhaps the production on this song reminds me too much of Mercury Rev, but stripped down to its core, this is just a beautifully simple song.
59. Bon Iver – The Wolves (Act I And II)
“What might have been lost” – Bon Iver at his most affecting. Heartbreaking stuff.
60. El Perro Del Mar – Inner Island
From the melancholic notebook of Sewdish songwriter Sarah Assbring, ‘Inner Island’ is another great example of her gift for quaint, effective melodies that just make you want to throw a comforting arm around her.
Update: This has been reuploaded, upon request. Click here for the mix.
Comments from the original SeeWhatYouHear posts.
There was no room for worthy contenders such as Echospace, Air France, Our Sleepless Forest, Abe Vigoda, Flying Lotus and Quiet Village because they didn’t fit with the atmospheric run of the mix and there was a 300mb limit. Similalrly, in or two cases (such as El Guicho) there will be debate as to whether I have picked the best song, but due to the above reasons, their representation on the list was more important.
Photo by colie
this is the best 08 mix. are you going to re-upload it?
Sure thing. I’ll get right on it.
[…] this song works really well as a companion piece to the previous post. As I hinted at in my ‘Best Songs of 2008‘ mix, I think the longing, minimal sounds of Texan duo Fight Bite have a lot of potential. […]
Hi,
It seems like a few of the parts on the new upload site are corrupted. I was only able to open up the first part.
Any ideas?!
Thanks so much for this and your great compilation,
a