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This isn't a Top 10 List. It can't be. These albums are so disparate, there's no way to compare them to each other. And this isn't comprehensive, either, of course. But, with those qualifiers, here are my Picks of the Year in Review, in no particular order:
Beck's getting old, and this album shows him at his most grown-up in years. After the over-long and messy The Information, Beck teams up here with skilled producer DJ Danger Mouse to create a trimmed-down pack of Beck being serious and rather depressed. That doesn't mean it's depressing to listen to, however. "Gamma Ray", the surf-rock tinged second track, sings of the joys of death at the hands of the atomic bomb, and "Replica" finds Beck singing about a shattered relationship over a glitch-dub backdrop. Still, even with all the death and sadness around him, Beck makes this album a winner.
I would be seriously in error not to mention the other major Danger Mouse project to put out an album this year, Gnarls Barkley. Cee-lo Green rasps, coos, and groans his way through an amazingly diverse series of auditory creations by the hands of Danger Mouse. "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" is a startlingly heartfelt track, with Cee-lo wringing real emotion from the minimalist funk groove melody. Although there are a few clunkers -- "Whatever" being the weakest song on the album -- and it's not as strong as their debut, it's still worth a spin.
A thick, sludgy guitar riff opens this album from Canadian collective Black Mountain, with feminine wailing and a driving organ in the background. Listen without an introduction, and you might be forgiven for thinking that the album came out in 1978, not 2008. But no, this is the future all right, and it's Prog. There are some lighter moments --"Stay Free" and "Wild Wind" are two examples -- but make no mistake: this is a rock album. The centerpiece is the seventeen-minute monster, "Bright Lights", which, if it doesn't make you move might mean you're clinically deceased.
Before I heard this album, I didn't like Noise. It's a real genre, of course, populated by people with lots of piercings in strange places and a taste for auditory pain. But this album is a softer, kinder Noise, music that will lull you into a pleasant mood before launching waves of feedback strong enough to shatter glass. That, and your eardrum. The tracks -- one is hesitant to call them "songs" -- all flow into each other, but the standout section on the disk is "Okay, Let's Talk About Magic", a ten-minute odyssey of feedback, distorted vocals, clanking percussion, and odd beauty. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
Love them or hate them, Sigur Rós have made Iceland relevant on the international music scene. This album, their fifth (translation: With a Buzzing in Our Ears we Play Endlessly), has the band moving closer and closer to traditional forms, although all but the last track "All Alright" are still sung in Icelandic. It's a fun, energetic album, quiet when it needs to be, loud and bombastic when it feels like it. The band sounds like they borrowed Phil Spector's Wall of Sound for "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur", an anthemic track with a full brass section, while "Festival" builds and falls away before climbing to a triumphant climax. The album won't win them any new fans, but it represents the band's desire to keep experimenting with their sound.
I stumbled across this album on emusic, just browsing around for something interesting. Imagine my surprise to discover that this was the most recent album from a German band that's been around since 1989, and this was also the capstone to their creative evolution. Over the past few albums, the band has drastically altered their sound, and this contemplative, electro-tinged album is the culmination of those changes. No one track stands out heads and shoulders above the rest, but they all share in the quality of lead singer Markus Acher's voice, which is often filled with longing and sentiment.
In Rainbows might just be the first album to fall victim to its distribution method being too attention-getting. Releasing the album for download online has overshadowed what the album really is: a fantastic album. So what if it's not as huge a leap as it had been from Pablo Honey to OK Computer, or any other transition the band's made over the years. Thom Yorke is home again after his experiments in electronica on The Eraser, and his lyrics are as bold as ever. Bob your head along to "Bodysnatchers" and get lost in some of the best music that alt-rock has to offer.
The Kronos Quartet and Terry Riley strike again with this beautiful, haunting creation. Riley is an experimental classical composer, constantly pushing, even now, in his 73rd year, the boundaries of the traditional forms. Here, the Kronos Quartet, joined by pipa player Wu Man, weave an amazing tapestry of delightful sounds. There are, of course, the traditional stringed instruments, but they are joined by childlike babbling and the playing of actual children's instruments from around the world. Expand your horizons.
Despite the title, this is not some post-ironic turn through the halls of nostalgia. No, what British Sea Power have done here is taken the overbearing earnestness of bands like The Arcade Fire, which wear their worries on their sleeves and then sing about them in thinly veiled analogies, and turned it into pretty damn good rock music. Lest you think they don't care though, just listen to "Lights Out For Darker Skies", which, I'd wager is the best song ever written about... light pollution.
What a downer of an album. Benjamin Gibbard, the mastermind of Death Cab for Cutie, must have had a terrible year. Good for us, though, because the album's great. The highlight, and the source of no small amount of handwringing among fans, is the 8-minute "I Will Possess Your Heart", with the first four minutes of that being nothing but a big instrumental lead-in. Past that, though, there's the pathos of "You Can Do Better Than Me" and "Your New Twin Sized Bed." The opening track, "Bixby Canyon Bridge," is a fantastic little indie-rocker, and the album just clicks.
Finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning a band from New Jersey that an internet friend of mine turned me on to. Tape and Wire are an unsigned three-piece punk group with one album out, called Sleep! It's available for free download, as well. I highly recommend you pick it up for a listen. "Melon Shambles" is a fantastic 3-minute jam about teenage alienation, "Teenage Pricks" is all about growing old but not growing up, and the entire album pulses with an infectious energy that even comes through the depressing songs.