6.26.2009
I went a slightly different direction for 2008’s songs list — there’s some crossover with yesterday’s albums list because my favorite three albums happened to have my favorite three songs of the year, but other than that I tried to spotlight 20 singles and album tracks by artists who didn’t quite stand out enough across the board to crack the albums best-of. Get your left-field on after the jump and remember, the Rawkblog pledge drive ends this weekend — please give now! Read the rest of this entry »
2008, Best of 2008, Lists
6.25.2009
Women / photo by David Greenwald
Apologies for the tardiness, folks, but with some distance from the — let’s just go ahead and say it — shitty trends that characterized 2008, I feel pretty good about the year. It didn’t offer a lot of new classics to my ears, but it was a fantastic time for indie-folk (excluding Bon Iver: Shitty!) and new artists, or at least those who were fresh to me — I became a Hold Steady and Mountain Goats convert, and the debuts of Fleet Foxes, Women and White Hinterland, among others, have only aged well in recent months. A great year? Nah. (My actual favorite album of 2008: Reckoning by R.E.M.) But worth digging into, after the jump. [Ed. note: Like what you see? It’s Pledge Week — please donate!]
Read the rest of this entry »
2008, Best of 2008, Lists
12.23.2008
Editor’s note: Women’s self-titled debut is a stunning album, perhaps the year’s most vital 30 minutes; while it will will place high on my year-end albums list, I haven’t blogged on it and don’t want it to get lost in the crowd. Also, I’m on vacation and I have a million blurbs to write to do this year-end list properly so I may just wait for the site relaunch in January. (We’re relaunching in January!)
The closest thing 2008 had to a trend this year was the emergence — and prominence, at least among listeners who still care about new rock music — of a fresh, experimental lo-fi scene, one that ranged from No Age’s Smell-y noise to Vivian Girl’s throwback pop soup. But despite the hype, and the shot of energy the waning indie scene so sorely needs, too many of these bands’ albums are full of underwritten tracks hiding under tape hiss and two-minute runtimes. Read the rest of this entry »
2008, Best of 2008
12.19.2008
Spoiler: Fleet Foxes ftw! I’m excited to see ‘em win (and my album of the year, Cut Copy, in the top five) and a little shocked that No Age didn’t take the top spot — I figured they’d be a lock for it, given the band’s blend of post-Sonic Youth experimentalism and vegan cookie-eating. (Though talented, they will not be on my list.)
(Photo by Frank Chromewaves)
I won’t go into the rest of the list, which you can see here, mostly because nit-picking anyone else’s list but your own is a fool’s errand, but, An explanation: Pitchfork gets a lot of play here, much more so than any other music publication. Why? I grew up reading the site; in high school, their ’90s lists and early ’00s picks — back before they grew infatuated with hip-hop, expanded the staff, and started breaking away from the guitar-centric indie rock that initially defined them — helped shape my taste. For a while, they were exceedingly trustworthy for my weekly record store trips (minus Neon Golden, ugh). So it’s been fascinating and occasionally disappointing to watch them expand their range of coverage and adapt to the shifting currents of what’s left of indie over the years. (I think “indie” has about as much meaning left as “alternative” did when we started using it in reference to Nickelback, but that’s another post.)
Anyway, folks, chime in — as indie’s biggest arbiters, where did Pitchfork go right and wrong? I’m not happy about the absence of Okkervil River and Lambchop, especially given how boring that Bonnie “Prince” Billy album that made the cut is, and I was crossing my fingers for Gentleman Jesse. (Another thought: As good as Fleet Foxes are — and I love ‘em — does their album even come close to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or You Forgot It In People or Alligator or any of the decade’s best? Nah. Bum year.)
And since I know you’re wondering: The Rawking Refuses To Stop!’s top 50 songs list will be posted on Tuesday. The best non-2008 discoveries of the year goes up Wednesday, and in a Christmas miracle, albums of the year will be posted on Thursday. I’ll see you then.
Best of 2008, News + Links
12.16.2008
All photos by David Greenwald
You voted, and the results are in: the first-ever Rawky Awards are an unprecedented success, with you fine readers making great picks (read: picks that I agree with) and voting in droves. Thanks for playing — the results are after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Best of 2008, Lists, Michael Cera, Rawky Awards
12.12.2008
The men of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin know a thing or two about being underrated — they’re (spoiler!!11one!1!) the resounding winners of The Rawky Award for Best Band Blogs Forgot. The full Rawkys list will be up later today, but first I thought it’d be fun to see the Boris bros’ picks first — they were nice enough to send over their top 9 underrated albums of the year, which you can see after the jump. [Continue reading...]
1. Apart Of Someone – Our Cat Philip
2. You’re Not A Dream – The Mommyheads
3. Windows – Michael Holt [Ed. -- Of the Mommyheads, natch]
4. All We Could Do Was Sing – Port O’Brien
5. You Don’t Speak For The Club – Drew Danburry
6. Devastator – Catfish Haven
7. Before Daylight- Cindy Woolf
8. Howard Zinn Arcade – Washington Irving
9. Pershing - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
We’ll be hearing from some of our favorite artists all month about their year-end favorites — don’t miss the first one, Grizzly Bear crooner Ed Droste’s Top 5 Recipes I Learned This Year.
***
Best of 2008: Weezy F. Listy. Click below for more.
Best of 2008, Lists, SSLYBY
12.11.2008
Fleet Foxes / photo by David Greenwald
[Editor's Note: Rawkblog contributor Alfred Lee will be making a big comeback in the coming weeks. This post marks his return. Welcome back, bro.]
For all I know, Dave may have never even opened a single issue of New York, but I still imagine it to be his newsstand glossy of choice. (Maybe it’s the fact that of all mainstream pubs, New York comes closest to the high-low approach adopted by most arts/culture-related blogs.) [Ed. -- Vulture is my pop culture blog of choice!]
Anyway, the magazine’s released its year-end culture issue, which is exactly what it sounds like — a bunch of lists, sprinkled with a few going-through-the-motions thinkpieces. But for what it’s worth: Mad Men is TV show of the year, Rachel Getting Married the film of the year and Aleksander Hemon’s The Lazarus Project the book of the year.
And since this is, after all, a music blog, here’s their full, Pitchfork-approved year-end music list, after the jump. [Continue reading...]
1. Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III
2. TV on the Radio, Dear Science, (which just picked up Rolling Stone AND Spin top spots)
3. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
4. Portishead, Third
5. Hercules and Love Affair
6. Santogold
7. Fleet Foxes
8. Erykah Badu, New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War
9. Beck, Modern Guilt
10. Vampire Weekend
Not too controversial. And finally, because I know deep down you all miss him, here’s some vintage Ja Rule for ya.
-Alfred Lee
***
Best of 2008: Only the strong survive. Click below for more.
Best of 2008, News + Links
12.8.2008
Photo by David Greenwald
All in all, 2008 was another great year of music, but as we look back at the year that was, we’re reminded that it was good for more than just new tunes. Over the next few weeks, some of our indie rock pals will tell us about their year-end favorites in the form of, of course, top 5 lists — and who better to start with than Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear, who chose to share his culinary adventures. See his list after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Best of 2008, Grizzly Bear, Lists
