Beautiful tracks and great finds, Mike. Good for those with downloads left on emusic.

I'm not sure that I'd put this on a best of 2008 list, because it is a Christmas album, but if you're tired of the same old Christmas songs, you might want to download "Snow Angels" by Over the Rhine. It is an album full of original new Christmas songs, some of which are excellent. My favorite is "White Horse", which I couldn't find on You Tube, so here are a couple of other examples from the album instead.

All I Ever Get for Christmas is Blue

Darlin' (Christmas is Coming)

You think it's hard putting together a year-end list. Try working on this.

Sarah was listening to Q the other day when she heard about The Blogotheque, a site which films and posts videos of indie artists (Fleet Foxes, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, other bands which will appear prominently in my best of 2008 list) playing acoustic versions of songs in public spaces. I particularly like Bloc Party's rendition of This Modern Love.

Albums to come shortly, but for now, I thought I'd post my favourite songs of the year. Where possible, I have embedded YouTube clips. I'll save the deconstruction/explanations for the albums.

It goes without saying that many of these will be making an appearance on your christmas discs. Mike, since I won't see you in time for the holidays, I'll make you a special groundhog's day disc.

10. Fat Hooks - Odd Nosdam

9. Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie





8. Creeper - Islands


7. Dead Sound - The Raveonettes



6. In the New Year - The Walkmen



5. Creature Fear - Bon Iver



4. Never Stops - Deerhunter




3. Fairie Dance - Plants & Animals



2. White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes


1. Cape Canaveral - Conor Oberst


Honourable Mentions: Everybody Here is a Cloud - The Cloud Cult, Gila - Beach House, Sex Tourists - The French Kicks, Travel in Time - Marching Band, River Card - Atlas Sound

agree mike. the stripped down acoustic version of 'hamster' was easily superior.

I preferred the original version.

Early front-runner for song of the year, with a very timely and urgent message for us all to consider:

I didn't even know there was a Luna documentary. Will have to scour the local indie video store.

I am working on my year end list. Am trying not to read other year end lists, other than Exclaim's, which I recently mentioned here, so that my own list isn't just a rehash of what everybody else is picking. I don't expect I'll be able to avoid inclusion of a lot of the usual suspects but will try to craft my list accordingly. Time to hold your breath.... now!

All of which leads us to the inevitable, but still fun, process of choosing our best of 08. I've been giving it some thought but am not ready. Anybody prepared to throw together a list of music discovered / loved / hated / surprised by / indifferent to / disappointed by this year?

I saw the Luna documentary Tell Me Do You Miss Me this week (it's a couple of years old now) and really loved it. Has anyone seen it? Reminded me what how hard it is to be a musician, perhaps especially in a rock band, for a living, and was a really good portrait of the people in the band, particularly Dean and Sean, who couldn't be more different people. Really hard to believe they survived 10 years (maybe because Sean is a fantastic guitar player). Also, what great simple songs.

Sorry that the link did not work. I was referencing Mike's very moving tribute to his recently deceased friend. But you're right, Stuart's ode to Paradise Radio, which has appeared as a link on the right side of the blog for the past year or two, was also touching.

With regards to criticism, I've just found that so much of what has been highly recommended or rated this past year has been, for the most part, pretty damn mediocre. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that 2008 has been, imo, mostly a pretty mediocre year for pop music in general. The reason I linked to this article and posed the question is because I felt that too many mediocre or just not very good albums were being given a pass or graded on a curve.

Two relatively popular cases in point:

Example 1: Coldplay's Vida La Vida, a collection of shallow, overproduced songs trying to out-epic each other, received mostly glowing reviews upon its release this spring, most of which were based on the fact that the album wasn't as bad as its predecessor.

Example 2: Kanye West's latest 808s & Heartbreak, listless vocoder-enhanced whining that NOW magazine just gave a glowing 4 stars, similar to accolades received elsewhere.

Are either albums terrible? No. But the reviews either suggest brilliance or gloss over the shortcomings. I think I'd like to read more balanced assessments.

UPDATE: Lest you think I'm picking on some bigger names, easier targets, here are some examples of over-hyped new bands/releases see, "Ra Ra Riot", "Ladyhawke" and "Santogold".

Interesting query, Kyle. Before I get into a response, I'm curious to know which post you were citing in your first couple of lines, as the link didn't work. Probably one of Stuart's.

So....from my perspective, criticism is meant to highlight the extra layers in the art, the artist's influences and intentions, put it in the context in which it was created, and consider the context in which it might be reviewed in the future. And good critics find words to illuminate the beauty and power of art, and potentially the truth or falseness.

All of this is obvious, I know. But I truly don't veer far from that perspective when I read criticism, even something as puny as local-rag critiques of pop music. So I tend to think, not about whether the critics are using a negative or positive lens, which I'm sure happens, but whether their critiques ring true, inspire me to listen, look at, watch, make the art mean more to me.

Good/great critics can be generally scathing (think of Jay Scott) but have to convince you of their love for the medium to be compelling - if you like movies, you won't want to read a guy (not every day anyway) who always says they're crap. They can also be cheerleaders, like say Roger Ebert, as long as their knowledge of the art form works for me.

All of which is to say that, no I hadn't noticed a trend towards pollyanna-ism in reviews. And Malkmus for me is dead dead dead (incl, the latest). Too bad re Malkmus, possibly as much a function of me not wanting him to change that beautiful thing that was Pavement as him getting "worse" at writing and performing songs (but more likely just that). So any paper that touts his latest as one of the best of the year is describing a rough year in pop, and/or isn't listening to the good stuff. 

What to do when I haven't posted in awhile, and when others are frequently contributing poignant reflections? Link to (and thus leverage) another person's thesis in an attempt to drum up an interesting discussion? You bet!

The question: Are there too many positive music reviews? (As interesting as the initial post is, the comments below offer some thoughtful responses).

Several of us in the past have expressed our distaste for the manner in which some local music wags seem to delight in criticizing music, either to deliberately provoke or to project their indie credibility/sophistication/cultural know-it-all-ness. But has the pendulum swung too much in the opposite direction? Are we all too willing to embrace the mediocre?

In recent conversations with some of you, I've itemized some of my biggest disappointments of the year (to be posted here in coming weeks as part of year-end list making exercises, to which i look forward annually), like the Portishead and Stephen Malkmus discs, both of which appear--inexplicably to me--on Exclaim's Top 20 of 2008. I'm not sure the last time I read a negative review that wasn't also apologetic in tone, as if the author was embarassed by his/her reactions. I'm thinking some reviewers are becoming more sympathetic to their subject matter because 1) they know how little contemporary musicians are likely to make and 2) the reviewers probably have their own band as well and don't want to put themselves into a bad karmic position.

Thoughts?

I'm not sure why or how I never bothered listening to the Internet Radio despite the multiple lauds, but I finally did this week, and am pretty impressed. I found a pretty great jazz station called "DMT - Coltrane, Monk, etc" or something like that which I would also recommend. Great simple programming for an evening.

Also, not sure how many of you guys are using ITunes as your major source of music at home (connected to your stereo etc) but if you are, the relatively new Genius is pretty cool - makes great playlists automatically, lots of good info about the music etc.

Mike, sorry to hear about Randy. I liked the music, really soulful acoustic tunes.

Stuart:

My email address is michaeljgaines@rogers.com.

I completely agree about Radio Paradise. I discovered that station years ago and have listened to regularly since then. The owner/DJ programs sets of music that are generally cohesive in some way - the songs are connected musically, lyrically, thematicly or in some other way. He covers a broad range of styles (not all of which I enjoy) and there is very little talking. The web site has lots of nice features including discussion boards about the playlist, a database of songs and artists, a gift shop and lots of help for those who have difficulty listening because of firewalls or whatnot. I have often used Radio Paradise as an example of the huge potential of Internet Radio.

Mike can i have your email as I will need to email you my address should you wish to join us in january at the next cdclub session....some interesting selections in the tribute , I will check them out further tonight...

apologies, my blogg comment was being written, while you were putting the tribute on the site...
I meant no disrespect in disregarding the tribute....
My condolences.....

I dont know if I raved about this on metabeats before but I have to reopeat myself if I did...
You should check out paradise radio.....its on itunes radio under eclectic ...we play it all day at the office somedays and it is most incredible...They do what good radio should , which is mix music from many genres...country, rock , folk, alt rock, electronic and from the 60's to today. They also dont play just the hits, they pick the good but obscure album tracks that you never hear on commercial radio , mixed it with more well known tracks. For example last hour they played tracks off U2 unforgettable fire, Bob Dylan, blood on the tracks, Neil young , after the goldrush, the new , new pornographers, Elliott smith, some Beck off sea changes , ray charles , patsy cline, etc.....and a bunch of new bands I didnt know...generally they dont rock out hard, which makes it good for the office....

OK – I’ve got something for the blog. Late last week my friend Randy passed away. He’s been battling cancer for 9 years – 2 years ago, he was told he had 2 months left. I met Randy when our sons played on the same soccer team, and initially it was soccer and hockey that formed the basis of our relationship. Eventually, though, we discovered that we had some common ground musically. Randy came from Newfoundland, and he had a strong love of Celtic, folk and bluegrass music, but he also was into blues, jazz and world music. He was a pretty accomplished guitar player, but he shied away from performing, so I only heard him play when the two of us were playing alone. Whenever it was a larger group, he’d just listen. I had heard that he had taken a turn for the worse a few weeks ago, and I went to visit him. He looked much older and weaker, but after we talked about this and that, he said that he wanted to do some recording, and he asked me to come back with my guitar to help him. I did that a few days later, and we spent a couple of hours going over the material that he wanted to record. We were supposed to get together to do the actual recording a couple of days later, but he died before we could do that.

Over the years, Randy sent me a bunch of links to You Tube videos of performers that he liked. I had never heard of most of them, but most of it was very good. I believe I’ve mentioned him in a past entry in this blog, and included at least one of the links that he had sent me. I thought a fitting tribute to Randy would be to share a few more of them with you today. Enjoy!

The Subdudes - Standing Tall

HEM - Redwing

Martin Tallstrom - Freight Train

Griffin House – The Guy that Says Goodbye to You

Good God! What is up Metabeats? It's crazy quiet out there.

As the most recent blogger, I felt immune from the (dare I admit it) pressure to blog. Plus, I naturally assumed that, to a degree, the quietness stemmed from the reverence due such a bitching blog as my last one (and thanks).

But ignoring for a moment my crystalline brilliance in analyzing the music of the mid-90's, there is a genuine fear on my part that I won't be able to make it through another work week without a blog thread to amuse me. So I would ask that we each offer up what we are listening to on our IPods these days. Pop/rock? Jazz? Classical?