I find the order that you put these records in to be rather refreshing. I'll be honest, when I perused the "best of 2008" lists of various respective magazines and websites back in December/January, I got increasingly more frustrated when everyone kept naming Bon Iver's "For Emma, Forever Ago" as the #1 album of the year - even though you and I both know that I loved that album.
There are several albums on your list, that I pathetically haven't even made it to yet, i.e. Blacklisted, Portishead (although Portishead has never really been a big listen for me int he first place), Evidence (because I don't care for him, although I'd like to retry it), and My Morning Jacket. Also, I realized while reading your list that due to escalated prices around Nashville, I let it slip my mind to purchase The Mars Volta's most recent release.
I, without a doubt, agree with your choice of "In Rainbows" and "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" as your top two. Those are two albums that, on a personal and more musically inclined level, consistently produce new and refreshing gifts every single time they are listened to, whether it is once a day or once a year. For me, it is difficult to find an album that is tied to a time period or nostalgically valuable to me, but those are two albums that will be well-remembered to me, probably for the rest of my life.
I would say that, though I do like The Last Shadow Puppets, their album probably wouldn't have made my "best of" list, had I made one, and both albums by Santogold and TV on the Radio would have gone in its place.
Erykah Badu's album was a highly underrated album, which creates a large portion of the appeal for me. And even though you didn't ask for what "I would have done", I would have probably moved both "Evolver" and "Only by the Night" up on my list, as well as switched around the positions of "Rising Down" and "Consolers of the Lonely".
Otherwise, I loved your list, and although you know this already, I am so glad that, even though you didn't publish it by the time you had hoped to, you still did it. It is a wonderfully well-rounded and esteemed list, and you should be proud of it.
You know, I'm very proud of this list actually... because it is the first one I've done where I rank albums in terms of how well I reacted to them (how "good" I think they are) in a descending fashion... with an lj-cut for the last ten!!! And I only included albums from 2008... which, is something I have never done in my best-of list. Overall, I think the order of them came in a flash of creative inspiration, much like light bulbs when writing... so it feels refreshed to me, too. I think it is a well-rounded scope of what I took and left throughout the year.
There are several albums on your list, that I pathetically haven't even made it to yet, i.e. Blacklisted, Portishead (although Portishead has never really been a big listen for me int he first place), Evidence (because I don't care for him, although I'd like to retry it), and My Morning Jacket. Also, I realized while reading your list that due to escalated prices around Nashville, I let it slip my mind to purchase The Mars Volta's most recent release.
I, without a doubt, agree with your choice of "In Rainbows" and "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" as your top two. Those are two albums that, on a personal and more musically inclined level, consistently produce new and refreshing gifts every single time they are listened to, whether it is once a day or once a year. For me, it is difficult to find an album that is tied to a time period or nostalgically valuable to me, but those are two albums that will be well-remembered to me, probably for the rest of my life.
I would say that, though I do like The Last Shadow Puppets, their album probably wouldn't have made my "best of" list, had I made one, and both albums by Santogold and TV on the Radio would have gone in its place.
Erykah Badu's album was a highly underrated album, which creates a large portion of the appeal for me. And even though you didn't ask for what "I would have done", I would have probably moved both "Evolver" and "Only by the Night" up on my list, as well as switched around the positions of "Rising Down" and "Consolers of the Lonely".
Otherwise, I loved your list, and although you know this already, I am so glad that, even though you didn't publish it by the time you had hoped to, you still did it. It is a wonderfully well-rounded and esteemed list, and you should be proud of it.
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Overall, I think the order of them came in a flash of creative inspiration, much like light bulbs when writing... so it feels refreshed to me, too. I think it is a well-rounded scope of what I took and left throughout the year.
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