It’s that time of the year, my favorite time of the year. Not because of Christmas, although that’s nice. No, it’s because of this webpage, Fimoculous’s Lists of Lists. This is the third year in a row that I’ve been enriched and excited about this page. Essentially it’s a collection of the lists from around the internet.
Lists such as Pitchfork’s Top 40 Music Videos, Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year, Yahoo’s Top Searches, Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Entertainers of the Year, This Recording’s Top 20 Albums, Paste’s Top 50 Albums, Yahoo Movies’ Top 10 Trailers, Multinational Monitor’s 10 Worst Corporations, and NYT’s 100 Notable Books.
However, the best part is the music collection, in which I’d check out the top albums of the year that I’ve missed. I compare and contrast and the albums that fall in genres of music that I enjoy (of which there are many) that I haven’t heard of, then I check them out and if I like them, then I’m ecstatic because I’ve found a hidden treasure I would’ve never known about if it weren’t for Fimoculous’s lists.
I decided to add my own personal Top 20 favorite albums of 2008, based on statistics gathered by my charts page on Last.fm.
- The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust
- Shiny Toy Guns – Season Of Poison
- Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
- Shocking Pinks – Shocking Pinks
- Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
- Glasvegas – Glasvegas
- Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
- MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
- You Me At Six – Take Off Your Colours
- Santogold – Santogold
- The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing
- Creature – No Sleep At All
- The Sword – Gods Of The Earth
- Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s – Animal
- Kings of Leon – Only By The Night
- Stars – Sad Robots EP
- Justice – Planisphère
- M83 – Saturdays = Youth
- Snow Patrol – A Hundred Million Suns
- Titus Andronicus – The Airing Of Grievances
By no means are these the best albums of 2008 period, but my own personal favorites based on the limited amount of music I can cram into my life. I was kind of surprised to see Shocking Pinks up there. I didn’t realize that I liked that album as much as I apparently did. The top album on my list, The Raveonettes’s Lust Lust Lust, is such a superb album, even now I’m not sick of it and tend to go back to it every now and then to enjoy it all over again.
As for individual tracks, here’s my top 20 favorite songs for 2008:
- MGMT – Pieces Of What
- Elbow – One Day Like This
- Los Campesinos! – You! Me! Dancing!
- Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
- The Raveonettes – Dead Sound
- The Raveonettes – Lust
- M83 – Kim & Jessie
- M83 – Skin of the Night
- Vampire Weekend – A-Punk
- Shiny Toy Guns – It Became A Lie On You
- The Raveonettes – Hallucinations
- Shiny Toy Guns – Season of Love
- Vampire Weekend – I Stand Corrected
- Vampire Weekend – Walcott
- Vampire Weekend – The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance
- The Raveonettes – Black Satin
- Vampire Weekend – Mansard Roof
- The Ting Tings – Shut Up and Let Me Go
- Vampire Weekend – One (Blake’s Got a New Face)
- Vampire Weekend – Campus
Every year is filled with opportunities to enjoy so much good music that it is almost overwhelming. 2008 was no different, and I sincerely look forward to next year’s treasure troves of great music.