VAGUE SPACE: Record of the Year 2008

This year turned out to be a rather interesting year in music. Lots of anticipation early for new albums by The Mountain Goats, Destroyer, Xiu Xiu, Stephen Malkmus, The Magnetic Fields, My Morning Jacket, and of course, Wolf Parade, many of which disappointed. Unexpected releases by Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Okkervil River, and Conor Oberst that didn't quite live up to previous albums, but some of them grew on me. Big blog and indie rock hype for bands I just couldn't get into for the most part (Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, No Age, Cut Copy, Vampire Weekend -- did I ever mention how much I don't like Vampire Weekend?). But despite those trends, this year in music, at least to my ears, was dominated by new bands I'd never heard before, many with debut full-lengths that blew me away. This Will Destroy You. Fleet Foxes. Los Campesinos! Wye Oak. The Dodos. Late entrant The Rural Alberta Advantage. And the band responsible for my #1 favorite song of the year, Canada's Plants and Animals. In fact, my top 3 favorite songs of the year were from debut full-length albums. That's pretty damn impressive. The future of music looks as strong as ever.

1. "Bye Bye Bye" Plants and Animals (3:38, 123 plays)
2. "Threads" This Will Destroy You (5:42, 133 plays)
3. "Four Night Rider" The Rural Alberta Advantage (1:55, 68 plays)

The battle for first went right down to the wire. "Bye Bye Bye" was the clear favorite for most of the year, but I couldn't stop listening to This Will Destroy You's self-titled debut full-length up through this fall, and its best track, "Threads", threatened to overtake the majestic splendor of Plants and Animals' "pop" gem. Then, out of nowhere, in late November I heard the self-released album by the RAA and fell instantly in love with "Four Night Rider." In the end, the Plants and Animals track held on, but it's just as likely that one of the other two will be remembered more fondly a year from now. For what it's worth, "Threads" had the most plays of the year of any song on my iPod/iTunes.

4. "Inni mer syngur vitleysingur" Sigur Ros (4:02, 102 plays)
5. "Sax Rohmer #1" The Mountain Goats (3:42, 122 plays)

The most difficult to spell song handily made it into the top five, along with a Mountain Goats track that seemed to be on my iPod playlist for the first several months of the year.

6. "White Winter Hymnal" Fleet Foxes (2:27, 132 plays)
7. "4 Minute Warning" Radiohead (4:06, 60 plays)
8. "Lost Coastlines" Okkervil River (5:32, 117 plays)

The Fleet Foxes song won the readers' choice poll over at Pitchfork for song of the year and I obviously love the selection. It was also the title of a short piece of creative nonfiction I wrote in my writing class this semester, although no one in the class liked the title (and no one had heard of the song) so I had to scrap it for my edited version. It was the 2nd most played track of the year and held off a beautiful Radiohead song and the Okkervil River track that scored the most weeks at #1 in my Top 10 list at the side of this blog (8 weeks, tied for 2nd most ever behind 2005's "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" 9 week run).

9. "BlindBlindBlind" Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band (13:18, 74 plays)
10. "Gobbledigook" Sigur Ros (3:08, 103 plays)
11. "Language City" Wolf Parade (5:02, 99 plays)

Sigur Ros grabs two top 10 songs at the expense of a Wolf Parade track off a wonderful album that is very much in the running for album of the year (to be revealed next week), but failed to land any songs in the top 10. In the meantime, the longest song in my top 100 is the best song by the Godspeed! You Black Emperor offshoot that I've ever heard.

12. "I Don't Feel Young" Wye Oak (3:02, 91 plays)
13. "Dark Leaves Form a Thread" Destroyer (3:36, 92 plays)
14. "I Lost You" The Walkmen (3:32, 64 plays)
15. "Soldier's Grin" Wolf Parade (4:37, 89 plays)
16. "Pop Lie" Okkervil River (3:12, 91 plays)

The Walkmen make a surprising return to relevance in my life, while second tracks from At Mount Zoomer and The Stand-Ins, both in the running for album of the year, appear. But it's a surprisingly beautiful little song from a little American band with a debut album and not a lot of hype (Wye Oak) that ends up beating them all.

17. "Gloomy Planets" The Notwist (4:50, 91 plays)
18. "A New City Life" Pants Yell! (2:53, 59 plays)
19. "Two French Sisters" Pants Yell! (3:42, 91 plays)

The Pants Yell! album Alison Statton actually was released late in 2007, but since I hadn't heard it or any of the songs until this year, I allowed it to be eligible for the 2008 Vague Space awards. There was much deliberation between myself and myself, but in the end, I felt it needed to be included. Both tracks are absolutely wonderful breaths of pop beauty. Oh, and The Notwist makes just as surprising a return to relevance in my life as The Walkmen.

20. "Burial on the Presidio Banks" This Will Destroy You (7:43, 57 plays)
21. "In the New Year" The Walkmen (4:22, 53 plays)
22. "The Modern Leper" Frightened Rabbit (3:48, 81 plays)
23. "Quiet Houses" Fleet Foxes (3:32, 79 plays)

This Will Destroy You is a post-rock band that owes much of their sound to Explosions in the Sky (mostly), Mogwai, and Mono, bands that have done similar sounding apocalyptic music for a much longer time. But I'd be hard pressed to say that those bands, as much as I absolutely love them, have done any better than this Texas band's debut full-length for Magic Bullet Records. "Burial on the Presidio Banks" is the closing track on the 51-minute instrumental record that has only one misstep (second track "Villa Del Refugio") and that is truly, utterly majestic and beautiful from "Threads" (track 3) to "Presidio", nearly 35 minutes of postrock greatness. I should have probably saved all that description for my album of the year list, but this is probably the most unknown of the bands on my chart and I hope my readers will check them out.

24. "Desmond Hume Has Come Unstuck in Time" Goodnight, Sleep Well (5:21, 71 plays)
25. "On Tour With Zykos" Okkervil River (4:54, 92 plays)
26. "Wet Gold" The Octopus Project (2:48, 72 plays)
27. "Heretic Pride" The Mountain Goats (3:43, 75 plays)

Okkervil River is the first band with 3 tracks on my countdown, while another band with a self-released debut album makes an appearance on my chart. Goodnight, Sleep Well are from Ohio and their Recovery EP is available on their myspace page for $5. It's very do-it-yourself and cool. And a pretty great album.

28. "Luciana" The Rural Alberta Advantage (2:57, 38 plays)
29. "Edmonton" The Rural Alberta Advantage (3:52, 35 plays)
30. "South Shore" iLiKETRAiNS (5:13, 17 plays)

Download iLIKETRAiNS - "South Shore".mp3

These songs were difficult to place, since I've only been listening to them for a few weeks, but suffice it to say, I think they definitely belong in the Top 30 of the year. I've gone on and on about the RAA, so let me say something about iLiKETRAiNS, an unapologetically intense post rock group who typically sing about historical events in rural English settings that many post rock fans have come to love over the past couple years. I couldn't quite concur, but I absolutely adore their entirely instrumental EP released last month, The Christmas Tree. "South Shore" absolutely blows me away.

31. "Kissing the Beehive" Wolf Parade (10:52, 67 plays)
32. "Festival" Sigur Ros (9:25, 44 plays)
33. "The Mighty Rio Grande" This Will Destroy You (11:18, 56 plays)

A third song on the list for each of these three bands are also the longest tracks on their amazing albums. These songs each start out kind of weak, but explode into majestic wonders. It's truly beautiful to hear the bands spin such magic in music.

34. "Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats" Los Campesinos! (3:35, 45 plays)
35. "O New England" The Decemberists (4:19, 55 plays)
36. "Blue Ridge Mountains" Fleet Foxes (4:26, 72 plays)
37. "April 14" Saxon Shore (5:26, 40 plays)
38. "I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School" Mogwai (7:33, 35 plays)
39. "Good Friend" Plants and Animals (6:06, 51 plays)
40. "The Pilgriming Vine" Basia Bulat (4:37, 46 plays)

There's a bit of a dropoff after the top 33 in my eyes and after that point on the list, I'm kind of throwing songs I loved up here in not as careful an order. These are all really good tracks, don't get me wrong, but you can notice by the play count that they didn't necessarily blow me away. It was not a good year for Mogwai, though. The last time they released an album, they produced the #1 song of 2006. This year's The Hawk is Howling only got them the 38th highest track.

41. "The Deathbridge in Lethbridge" The Rural Alberta Advantage (2:15, 36 plays)
42. "Vid Spilum Endalaust" Sigur Ros (3:33, 50 plays)
43. "Possible Grenade" Brendan Canning (4:40, 56 plays)
44. "An Animal in Your Care" Wolf Parade (4:19, 48 plays)

The fourth track from each of The RAA, Sigur Ros, and Wolf Parade is joined by a track from the second album in the Broken Social Scene Presents... series. Bandmate Kevin Drew scored a top 5 song in 2007 with "Fucked Up Kid." Brendan Canning did not do so well.

45. "Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time" Los Campesinos! (2:37, 40 plays)
46. "Oh, My Darling" Basia Bulat (1:24, 61 plays)
47. "When Water Comes to Life" Cloud Cult (3:48, 73 plays)
48. "Good Lies" The Notwist (5:23, 46 plays)
49. "Juno" Tokyo Police Club (2:15, 51 plays)
50. "Fools" The Dodos (4:43, 38 plays)

A lot of short and sweet mixed around the impressive first track off The Notwist's first album in six years. Basia Bulat's debut album Oh, My Darling was actually released in 2007, but not available widespread until 2008 in the United States, which is when I picked it up. And I remember that CD getting me through a couple weeks without my car after one of my frequent animal accidents. So I thank Ms. Bulat for that. And her songs bring an unofficial count of Canadian artists to 15 of the top 50 songs. Pretty impressive, eh?

And here's the rest of the top 100, sans comments...

51. "Death to Los Campesinos!" Los Campesinos! (2:47, 72 plays)
52. "Graveyard Girl" M83 (4:51, 42 plays)
53. "DLZ" TV on the Radio (3:49, 36 plays)
54. "Foam Hands" Destroyer (3:50, 62 plays)
55. "New Kind of Love" Plants and Animals (7:56, 62 plays)
56. "Gillian Was a Horse" Damien Jurado (3:21, 60 plays)
57. "Friday - Everybody Goodbye" iLiKETRAiNS (5:58, 22 plays)
58. "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" Mogwai (6:44, 53 plays)
59. "He Doesn't Know Why" Fleet Foxes (3:21, 28 plays)
60. "Leather Wings" This Will Destroy You (3:31, 82 plays)
61. "The Grey Estates" Wolf Parade (3:26, 39 plays)
62. "Century Eyes" Shearwater (2:18, 46 plays)
63. "Churches Under the Stairs" Brendan Canning (4:20, 50 plays)
64. "Drain the Blood" The Rural Alberta Advantage (2:50, 38 plays)
65. "Dracula Family" Mogwai (6:01, 39 plays)
66. "Undeclared" The Dodos (1:53, 50 plays)
67. "Knee Deep at ATP" Los Campesinos! (2:49, 50 plays)
68. "Your Protector" Fleet Foxes (4:10, 26 plays)
69. "Valerie Plame" The Decemberists (4:59, 31 plays)
70. "Don't Haunt this Place" The Rural Alberta Advantage (2:37, 31 plays)
71. "Kids" MGMT (5:03, 45 plays)
72. "Poke" Frightened Rabbit (4:38, 32 plays)
73. "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed" Los Campesinos! (3:54, 36 plays)
74. "Halfway Home" TV on the Radio (5:32, 29 plays)
75. "Midnight Runner" Cut Copy (2:33, 41 plays)
76. "The Sun Smells Too Loud" Mogwai (6:58, 64 plays)
77. "Rooks" Shearwater (3:21, 36 plays)
78. "Flamingos (for Colbert)" The Walkmen (1:11, 38 plays)
79. "No One Said it Would Be Easy" Cloud Cult (3:34, 38 plays)
80. "F. T. W." Xiu Xiu (2:56, 50 plays)
81. "Le Ruse" Tapes 'n Tapes (2:56, 55 plays)
82. "Call it a Ritual" Wolf Parade (2:45, 62 plays)
83. "Water Curses" Animal Collective (3:26, 35 plays)
84. "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" The Mountain Goats (3:50, 33 plays)
85. "You, Appearing" M83 (3:39, 21 plays)
86. "Big Ship" Islands (4:17, 41 plays)
87. "We Can't Help You" Stephen Malkmus (3:04, 26 plays)
88. "Eagle on a Pole" Conor Oberst (4:43, 32 plays)
89. "Gravity" The Notwist (3:56, 32 plays)
90. "My Favorite Year" Destroyer (6:07, 26 plays)
91. "Warning" Wye Oak (3:49, 40 plays)
92. "Little Kids" Deerhunter (4:23, 34 plays)
93. "Teen Creeps" No Age (3:26, 21 plays)
94. "The Twist" Frightened Rabbit (3:33, 39 plays)
95. "In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall" Xiu Xiu (3:30, 32 plays)
96. "Duality of Deathening" Talkdemonic (2:53, 35 plays)
97. "This City's a Mess" Said the Whale (3:00, 28 plays)
98. "Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping" Grouper (2:53, 27 plays)
99. "Freddie and the Trojan Horse" The Radio Dept. (3:14, 24 plays)
100. "Dance Dance Dance" Lykke Li (3:43, 22 plays)

Fleet Foxes and Los Campesinos! have five songs among the top 100; This Will Destroy You and Mogwai joined Sigur Ros with four. But it's The Rural Alberta Advantage making the impressive December charge to land 6 songs on the top 100, joining fellow Canadians Wolf Parade at the top of the list of top 100 songs for 2008.

Comments

Very extensive list Bill. I only went 10!
So many great songs you have there.
I agree with the choice of songs from the Plants
and Animals and RAA albums. I love both those albums.
Naturally I love the Wolf Parade songs as well.
I have the This Will Destroy You album. I need to
spend more time with that one.

Look forward to your top albums!

Posted by: wayne | December 16, 2008 at 05:41 AM

Really enjoyable list. Lots of overlap with my favorites but plenty that I hadn't heard before - or given enough attention to the first time. I'd heard and enjoyed a few tracks from This Will Destroy You, but you've convinced me to go get their whole record.

I note from other posts that you're also a fellow supporter of Edgar Martinez for 1995 AL MVP. Well played. Vague Space is definitely going into the Google Reader.

Posted by: Charles | December 17, 2008 at 08:20 PM

Also, I just looked at the "top 200 songs list" and discovered that your favorite song of all time is "Trailer Trash." So yeah, turns out we have a lot in common in terms of taste. I'll definitely be exploring that list in some detail to see what I've missed.

Posted by: Charles | December 17, 2008 at 08:25 PM

Love the name of your blog Charles. Looks like good stuff. Thanks for reading.

Posted by: Bill | December 17, 2008 at 11:03 PM

Eat my shorts, this is absolutely the best individual song list of the last year I ve ever seen. These other columns just keep on repeating themselves. This is worth an award, seriously.

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Posted by: Air Jordan Shoes | December 20, 2010 at 05:04 AM

Je ne sais pas les autres chansons, mais d'essayer d'adopter de nouvelles chansons à mettre dans ma liste de lecture.

Posted by: casino en ligne | February 08, 2012 at 08:47 AM

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