The 411 Music Top Five 11.24.09: Top 5 Favorite Songs From 2008

Posted by Ben Czajkowski on 11.24.2009

The 411Music Staffers get closer to the end of their decade-long countdown. This week, they discuss their Top 5 Favorite Tracks from 2008! They talk about everything from T.I. and Rihanna's "Live Your Life" to Kanye West's "Paranoid", Vampire Weekend's “A Punk” to AC/DC's “War Machine”, and Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction" to Gnarls Barkley's "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?" Stop in, check it out, and leave your lists!

Leah Jewel

5. T.I. featuring Rihanna - "Live Your Life".

This track is delicious, not only for T.I.'s lyrical prowess and swagger, Rihanna's beautiful voice, but the beat is hitting hard and I'm loving it.  The song's positive and uplifting message speaks volumes to my soul.  Who knows how many have been lifted up by T.I., of all people!  Who knew?!  One never knows from where inspiration will flow.  Peep the video.

 

4.  Santigold - "LES Artistes". 

The sheer uniqueness of sound brings to the foreground, the artist's ska and punk musical roots. Santigold gives it to us on this one.  There's nothing standard, common, or girl-next-door about this track.  I love most, its originality and uniqueness of sound.  What more can I say?  Check the video.

 

3.  Portishead – "We Carry On". 

Always a fan of Portishead, this track is definitely one of my favorites.  It's not just as tasty as the band's other trip-hop/ electronic/ experimental hits, but this cut is even tastier than the rest, mostly due to the fact that it was one of the first signs of new studio life from the group since the band's hiatus, which started in 1999.  They came running back out with this one with a bang!  Turn up your speakers.  There's nothing wrong with the sound.   You are about to undergo total immersion!

 

2.  M.I.A. – "Paper Planes". 

This track just exudes hot.  The beat is driven the steady rhythmic cadence of experimental sounds.  One of the things I love most about hip-hop as a musical genre' is it's experimental nature.  Throw out the rule book, employ simulated cash register sounds, and create yourself a funky beat!  Add water, lyrical genius, and a Shrilankan girl rapper.   Place it in the oven for a year and voila!  You've just created my number two.

 

1.  Jamie Foxx, featuring T.I. – "Just Like Me".   

The piece's sing-song nature has become quite popular among numerous hip-hop and R & B acts these days.  What Jamie Foxx does, refreshingly and brilliantly different than the cookie-cutter, is to embed a real and lovely melody.  Additionally, his singing ability and style is lovely.   T.I. is by all accounts, a deft lyricist.  This collaboration works.  The video is absolutely hilarious, which is neither here nor there; just a heads-up.  Enjoy!

 

Lucas Wesley

2008 is one of the first years I actively pursued finding new music from beginning to end and also had a lot of money. So I gots a lot.

Honorable mentions:

Abe Vigoda - "Dead City/Late Wilderness," the rest of Who Killed Amanda Palmer, the rest of 808s & Heartbreak, the rest of Jim, Beck - "Modern Guilt," Ben Folds - Kylie From Connecticut," Black Francis - "The Seus," Brian Wilson's That Lucky Old Sun (song cycles can't be broken), Cut Copy - "Lights & Music," Moby - "Disco Lies," Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Lie Down Here (& Be My Girl)," Oasis - "I'm Outta Time," Portishead - "We Carry On," R.E.M. - "Supernatural Superserious," Randy Newman - "A Piece of the Pie," Raphael Saadiq - "Sure Hope You Mean It," Rhymefest - "Man in the Mirror," Ringo Starr - "R U Ready," The Tallest Man On Earth - "A Field of Birds," Sigur Rós - "Góðan Daginn," Tricky - "Slow," TV On The Radio - "DLZ," The Virgins - "Rich Girls," Wale - "The Kramer"

5. Elvis Costello - "Stella Hurt".

Momofuku was a return to form in ways that When I Was Cruel purported to be, but actually wasn't. It rocked and had a certain punch Costello had been lacking for a little while. Many called "American Gangster Time" the best on the album, and I admit it's the coolest. But "Stella Hurt" rocks the hardest, and when he really wants to, Costello can rock harder than almost anyone else. I saw him live with The Police about two months after the album came out, and this being the second time I saw him, I had only one hope in mind: that he would play "Stella Hurt." He opened with it. I love Elvis Costello. Only bad live versions of the song exist, sorry.

 

4. Amanda Palmer - "Leeds United".

I was a bit of a late arrival to the Amanda Palmer party. While some high school kids were listening to The Dresden Dolls thinking about how much they relate, I was...doing whatever else I was doing. Probably listening to Prince. But when the word came that this famous young songstress was doing an album with Ben Folds, my interest was piqued. Pretty much every song on Who Killed Amanda Palmer? has a validity to it as one of the songs of the year, hence my honorable mention. But this is the one that wins because it's the most bad ass. Sometimes that's all it takes.

 

3. Jamie Lidell - "Another Day".

As I just mentioned, I spend a lot of time listening to Prince. Prince is a god of soul and merging genres together to make his own sound. Now, I'm not calling Jamie Lidell Prince, but he has a way of merging electronic music with soul and 60's sunshine pop to create something sublime. This track is one example of such sublimity. The little Bacharach mid-section gets me smiling every time. And man, that voice! It's amazing he cut it up and played with it so much in the past only to reveal on his third album, oh, by the way, I'm probably the best white soul singer alive. Nowhere is that more evident than on this opening track.

 

2. Kanye West - "Paranoid".

Let's get the potential controversy out of the way. 808s & Heartbreak is the greatest album of this generation of this decade. And I mean that, and the sentence even makes sense to me, since Smile is a better album, but it's not of this generation. But Kanye's use of autotune and synthesizers created the most brilliant pop songs in decades. I love every second of the album. But on "Paranoid" it reaches an entirely different level of perfection. This song more or less reframes the entire genre of electronic pop (along with the entire decade of the 1980s) in the vision of Kanye West, and it's immaculate. If you don't like this song, you don't like pop music. And I know there's some people that read that and think "you're damn right I don't like pop music!" Well, shame on you. You should like pop music. It's the truest form of music and the only kind that understands what music is meant for.

 

1. The Magnetic Fields - "California Girls".

Speaking of immaculate pop music. Okay, so, Stephin Merritt composes 69 perfect songs and releases them all at once, and then thinks to himself, "what's next?" After a concept album about the letter i, he moves on to what he considers the only truly original album released in decades, The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy. And then he copies it, because that's what you do when you find something truly original. The result was pretty much perfect, though. There is no better noise pop in the world. This song is perfect, folks. The rest of the album can be kind of iffy, I hate to say. But for one track he took a Beach Boys title, flipped it upside down, and more or less murdered it, only to revive it as a completely new, possibly better song. And I say that as a huge Beach Boys fan. I don't know what else to say. Struggling songwriters, all you have to do is take your great big battle axe to sacred cows and you'll have new masterpieces. And you can hear me say as the pavement whirls: I love "California Girls."

 

Paul Schofield

5. MGMT – "Kids".

Before I start, here's a rant at MGMT. I didn't love their album like everyone else did, but I will admit that their singles were very good. I have doubts that they can follow up with the success they have achieved so far. Having said that, if they come up with a better song than Kids I will eat a variety of hats.

 

4. Port O'Brien – "I Woke Up Today".

The most joyful song of the year, and perhaps of any year. For those who don't know, Port O'Brien are what Arcade Fire would be if they had been lost at sea for several years, and their album is excellent. This song is an absolute stomp, impossible not to sing along to, and if you can't smile at this, or at the exquisitely charming video, then you don't deserve oxygen.

 

3. Elbow – "Grounds For Divorce".

Finally, this was the year that Elbow got the recognition they richly deserved, winning the UK Mercury Prize at last on the back of what really is an excellent album. Everyone fawned over One Day Like This, which very nearly made this Top 5 as well, but for me Grounds For Divorce is brilliant. Guy Garvey's voice is perfectly delicate yet tortured, and the riff is dirtier than your nan's underwear after Christmas dinner.

 

2. Vampire Weekend – "A Punk".

The most instantly catchy song of the decade, a song that everyone seemed to love, and a guaranteed indie disco floor filler (my favorite kind of floor filler). Vampire Weekend were one of those bands who seemingly came from nowhere, got hyped to oblivion, yet couldn't help but get everything right. I don't think anyone would disagree that they were massively overplayed, but if you're going to overplay any song, make it this one. Simply brilliant.

 

1. Bon Iver – "Skinny Love".

Some albums are great albums, but very few have a great story behind them as well. If you don't know, Justin Vernon disappeared to a log cabin in Wisconsin for a few months following the breakup of his previous band, and from that solitude he poured his heart out in some of the most emotional songs of the decade. Skinny Love is up there with Johnny Cash's Hurt on the blubbometer, it's truly heartbreaking, and it's easily up there with the best songs of the decade.

 

Dan Haggerty

Honorable Mentions:

Bauhaus – "Too Much 21st Century", Brainstorm – "Fire Walk With Me", Lair Of The Minotaur – "Doomtrooper", Opeth – "The Lotus Eater", Testament – "The Evil Has Landed", Uriah Heep – "Wake The Sleeper"

5. AC/DC – "War Machine".

What can I say - I've been getting drunk to AC/DC for 26 years.  A new album might be the same old, and truth in advertising it is, but the guys did I fine job of it and added a few necessary staples to their live shows.   At least in the opinion of this admitted fan. This one begs for crowd participation in an arena of punters raising their fists and chanting along.  Is it a complex song?  No.  AC/DC mastered the art of taking easy looking tabs that no one would try to get over and then make them catchy as hell.  This song is "exhibit A" of that fact. Nothing but fun, with a groove and on the rocks.  

 

4. Dismember – "Under A Blood Red Sky".

This whole album is one big ass honorable mention because for my money it was the best thing to go deep impact on 2008.  This is brutal Swedish death done right with a guitar tone that could commit genocide.  What makes this song so great is that you can hear the Priest and Maiden worship in these licks while the band rips your head off.  It's like a brutal spin on the British Invasion with the violence meter cranking in the red.  Plus the pure Iron Maiden tribute at the end is just all kinds of awesome. 

 

3. Amon Amarth – "Embrace Of The Endless Ocean".

This was a fun album, some good moments with a few filler tracks, but when you get to the final track the album bursts with this epic that might very well be one of the best in the whole Norseman's catalog.  Seriously.  This is sweeping, rolling, melodic, but tightly paced.  You can feel the ocean spray as well as see the endless ocean as the long boats sail off into infinite adventures. 

 

2. Grand Magus – "Iron Will".

I'm an old school doom fan at heart, still secretly wishing for the return of record players, giant pioneer speakers, and riffs that hit like anvils.  Don't forget the HEAVY in metal, people!  Anyway, Grand Magus returned in 2008 with a fantastic album that was packed full of glorious metal striking by the ton, from the hard thumping 70's to hints of NWOBHM.  Only catch was it has a modern production that was not over done and a tone that made the songs feel modern and immediate.  Here the band packs more groove per riff than allowed by the Geneva Convention and lesser songs are pulled off their course to helplessly orbit the might that is "Iron Will". 

 

1. Death Angel – "Resurrection Machine".

Some many good tracks to pick from on this album, but this one wins simply because it combines everything I loved about 80's thrash while giving it a modern spin.  The measured riffs ripple with head banging precision while the song maintains equal volumes of heavy and metal.  For combining multiple decades of metal evolution in one neck wrecking masterpiece that crushes as much as it cruises, this is my pick for the best song of that year.  

 

Paul Hollingsworth

Top Five - Paul Hollingsworth - Top Five Favorite Songs of 2008

5. Fleet Foxes - "White Winter Hymnal".

It's not really folk, country or pop, but instead exists somewhere in the borderlands where all three genres intersect haphazardly in squiggly lines. There's a strong element of folk, but folk far removed from Dylan and Guthrie. The lyrics are pastoral and country-fied. But the harmonies and arrangements are pure pop bliss.

 

4. Snoop Dogg - "Sensual Seduction".

Somehow, maybe due to a batch of super great herb, Snoop Dogg traveled back in time to 1980 and stole this song from Rick James. While he was there, he also borrowed whoever directed Prince's early videos. Snoop has never shied away from releasing pop songs, but none of them have been as clever as this time. Everything in the world of music would know be a lot better, also, if this had been the one and only Auto-Tune song ever released.

 

3. The Black Keys - "I Got Mine".

Straight ahead rock and roll. No frills. Nothing extra. Just a couple of guitars, drums and a bass. Pop needs more back to basics songs like this.

 

2. Gnarls Barkley - "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?".

True fact: This song is better to every way to the duo's 2006 hit, "Crazy", why it wasn't as big as a hit is one of the great and dad unsolved musical mysteries of the decade. I'm not sure when we'll get another Barkley record, but it'll take something out of this world to top this tune, or the video for that matter.

 

1. MGMT - "Time To Pretend".

Debut singles (and albums) are not supposed to be this good. New bands usually spend some time perfecting their sound, getting all their influences out of their systems, and generally just figuring out what the hell they are doing. MGMT did all that on their first release. As good as this song is, it's probably not even the best tune on the album.

 

The Final Word

As always, the last thoughts come from you, the reader. We're merely unpaid monkeys with typewriters and Wikipedia. Here's what you need to do: List your Top Five for this week's topic on the comment section using the following format: 5. Artist - "Song from 2008": Why you chose it. 4. Artist - "Song from 2008": Why you chose it. 3. Artist - "Song from 2008": Why you chose it. 2. Artist - "Song from 2008": Why you chose it. 1. Artist - "Song from 2008": Why you chose it.