Commentary on 2008's Top 50 Lists

I didn't write my Top 50 because, honestly, I only truly loved about 10 albums that I listened to this year. Upon viewing other peoples Top 50 lists, I was very surprised to see a lack of certain albums/songs and this is what I felt should've been in most lists. Note: This is just my beef.

Albums
A Larum by Johnny Flynn-Though folk music isn’t the most popular in the world today, how did virtually no one give Johnny Flynn’s debut ‘A Larum’ the amount of attention that it deserved? I have as of yet seen him on any top 50 lists, which really surprised me. He has an absurd amount of maturity for his 25 years and his sound is definitely one of the most original (at least of this decade) that I’ve seen. This was definitely one of my favorite albums for 2008, so let’s hope that 2009 is a much better year for him.

Age Of The Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets-Alex Turner’s gone hipster and is not sounding like the Arctic Monkeys and whose this Miles Kane, what has he done? These are two very common beefs people had about this side project. If you don’t think about the two’s other/past projects and you treat this as a stand alone, this album is really good. Owen Pallett even did the strings! How this wasn’t on too many top 50 lists is beyond me.

The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation by The Wombats-Yes, I know, it’s the Wombats, one the worst groups to hail from England who’ll never be anything more than mindless pop, right? Wrong. Like many groups that manage to top the charts, The Wombats are seemingly no different, except for the fact that their sheer power is undeniable and their drummer (Dan Haggis) and bassist (Tord Øverland-Knudsen) truly know their way around their respective instruments. It’s surprising that they didn’t make it on virtually any Top 50 list, but groups like The Ting Tings did.

Jim by Jamie Lidell-Though this was very different from his previous album (Multiply), as in severely lacking in the electronic sound, that is no reason to forget about such a fantastic artist. Jamie Lidell embraced very tightly his soul abilities and upon hearing it, even just once, you can’t help but fall in love with it. The general compositions are also very well arranged, so he should get props for that at least. I’ve only seen this on one Top 50 list, and that was Under the Radar’s.

Modern Guilt by Beck-I’ve read nothing but good reviews for this album, and upon listening to it myself, I very clearly understood why. The main problem people seemed to have with this album is that it didn’t sound like The Information, which if you know Beck, every one of his albums is different than the previous. I absolutely adored this album and what very shocked to see that The Epitome of Cool was seen in so little Top 50 lists.

Song
Being Somebody Else by The Coral-I know I’m extremely biased when I say this, but I don’t really get why this was in no one’s top ‘songs’ of 2008. I understand wholly that I’m possibly the only one who loves The Coral as much as I do, but it’s a very good song and their first release since Roots and Echoes.


Being Somebody Else

To me the best list I saw was in Under The Radar Magazine so you should check it out.

Happy 2009!