Hall of Awesome: Best Albums of 2008

10

Sigur Rós

Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust

9

Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes

8

She & Him

Volume One

7

Gnarls Barkley

The Odd Couple

6

Girl Talk

Feed the Animals

5

Death Cab for Cutie

Narrow Stairs

4

R.E.M.

Accelerate

3

Spiritualized

Songs in A&E

2

Coldplay

Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

1

Bon Iver

For Emma, Forever Ago

2008 was a year of rediscovery for me, a time to take in all the music I'd been missing out on for the last few years. I fully absorbed In Rainbows and if I could take back my Best of '07 list, it would be at the top. I took advantage of Amazon.com's daily discounts on MP3s, snatching up The Shins' Oh, Inverted World, Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand, Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People, M.I.A.'s Kala and others. Also, to celebrate the election, Ryan Catbird gave away everything his label had released for free, so I'm still taking in the vast quantities of music he's supplied me with (thanks again, man, and let me just say Manishevitz' East to East is fantastic). So, I'm surprised I was able to cobble together ten albums I actually got around to listening to this year, and some of them I didn't even hear for the first time until a few weeks ago. I only recently decided to include Fleet Foxes on my list, even though I had their song "Blue Ridge Mountains" on my 2008 Mixtape, thus breaking one of the few rules I give myself. I really don't feel like getting into the specific reasons why I picked each album, other than to say that I didn't expect new albums by R.E.M. and Spiritualized, two acts I felt had become irrelevant in recent years, to make my list but there you have it. Also, Bon Iver not only wins the best album of the year award, but also the best album to listen to during a drive through a rainstorm in the middle of the night award. Anyway, click on the album titles to stream them, courtesy of La La.

Honorable Mentions:
Ben Folds, Way to Normal
Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst
The Explorers Club, Freedom Wind
Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords
Jeff Hanson, Madam Owl
Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul
The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Pershing
Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day and Others, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: The Soundtrack