Icon's favourite 25 albums of 2008

plus other recommendations and goodies!

"It's December. All the major albums have already been released or leaked. It's time to rank everything and shove your opinion down everyone's collective throat. Yay! Lists!

So, yeah. 2008 has been pretty good. Not great, but not quite the black hole of goodness that most people make it out to be. On first look there is no major album to catch everyone's attention, either critics or fans. Well, outside of anything Pitchfork gives a 9+ to. Or, uh, whatever those major albums people are buying. In fact, of my top 5 I had only enjoyed a previously released album by one band. The others I had never heard of or though no great things of.

This isn't 2007, there aren't infectious albums such as In Rainbows, Random Spirit Lover, or Strawberry Jam. What there is plenty of, however, is consistency. Many of these albums are just that, albums. They are one, or many, thoughts and themes and sounds brought together and are meant to be listened to in entirety. These albums can be enjoyed as much on the first listen as on the 50th. 4 of my top 5 were released in the first half of the year, 3 were released in the first quarter, 1 was leaked in 2007. I've grown to love these albums and there is not much separating anything. #6 is roughly as strong as, say, #21. And as such my rankings will probably change right up to the minute I post. But these 25 albums won't change. Anything else I choose to recognize will be under the heading 'Recommendations,' which I'll post throughout.

so let's do this"


 * -icon

25 - Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

 * 1) "Nonpareil of Favor" – 5:48
 * 2) "Wicked Wisdom" – 5:00
 * 3) "For Our Elegant Caste" – 2:35
 * 4) "Touched Something's Hollow" – 1:26
 * 5) "An Eluardian Instance" – 4:35
 * 6) "Gallery Piece" – 3:48
 * 7) "Women's Studies Victims" – 2:59
 * 8) "St. Exquisite's Confessions" – 4:35
 * 9) "Triphallus, to Punctuate!" – 3:23
 * 10) "And I've Seen a Bloody Shadow" – 2:23
 * 11) "Plastis Wafer" – 7:11
 * 12) "Death Isn't a Parallel Move" – 3:01
 * 13) "Beware Our Nubile Miscreants" – 4:52
 * 14) "Mingusings" – 3:01
 * 15) "Id Engager" – 3:24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHFUXH4PP5c

Hell has frozen over. In 2007 Of Montreal released Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. An Of Montreal record. That was good. What? How? They're annoying as all hell, they mash pop sounds with high pitched vocals and strange lyrics in such a way that had never, ever sounded good -- yet on Fauna, they finally clicked. It wasn't so on first, or even second listen, but once "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" hit multiple times I was won over. A strange, disturbing 9 minute song that was the albums focal point, it is the song that made me a fan. . . somewhat. So how to follow up a good album when you're Of Montreal? Another good album, apparently.

While a follow-up this sounds nothing similar to Fauna. There are 15 songs that all change genres suddenly, with songs bleeding into songs only to stop abruptly and start a new song once again. They're a collection of 15 songs that inside contain more microsongs which would fit in more with what the Fiery Furnaces release, and it works very well. This album really does everything it can with the pop format, using screeching vocals or guitars, funk, rock, pianos, electronics and anything else you could possibly thing of it is never boring and always has something to look forward to around the corner. Something many of Pitchfork's bands of 08 (Fleet Foxes, Cut Copy, etc) can't boast.