Spango Dips

Holy moly, I think I’m finally there! I limited my revisions to ten thousand.

The usual apologies for not having been able to include literally every song I liked last year are in order. Had the list been allowed (by the gods) to run a little longer, such diverse and talented artists as Hercules and Love Affair, Crystal Castles, Sigur Rós, Frightened Rabbit, Dodos, and Amadou & Mariam might have enjoyed inclusion. It was not to be, alas. Here are the real winners.

1. M83: Kim & Jessie
2. Cut Copy: Out There on the Ice
3. Vampire Weekend: M79
4. Deerhunter: Nothing Ever Happened
5. Fleet Foxes: Drops in the River
6. Vampire Weekend: Oxford Comma
7. Femi Kuti: Tell Me
8. Beyoncé: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
9. Jay Reatard: Always Wanting More
10. Portishead: Silence
11. TV on the Radio: Golden Age
12. Q-Tip: Gettin’ Up
13. No Age: Teen Creeps
14. Santogold: L.E.S. Artistes
15. Women: Shaking Hand
16. David Byrne and Brian Eno: Strange Overtones
17. Gang Gang Dance: House Jam
18. Bon Iver: Re: Stacks
19. No Age: Cappo
20. Beach House: Gila
21. M83: Couleurs
22. Deerhunter: Never Stops
23. Fuck Buttons: Sweet Love for Planet Earth
24. Dragging an Ox Through Water: Houses and Homunculi
25. School of Seven Bells: Half Asleep
26. TV on the Radio: Love Dog
27. Fucked Up: Black Albino Bones
28. Fleet Foxes: Blue Ridge Mountains
29. High Places: From Stardust to Sentience
30. Lil Wayne: Shoot Me Down
31. Beach House: You Came to Me
32. The Walkmen: In the New Year
33. Deerhoof: Offend Maggie
34. Harvey Milk: Motown
35. No Age: Sleeper Hold
36. Empire of the Sun: Walking on a Dream
37. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Night of the Lotus Eaters
38. Cut Copy: Lights and Music
39. Passion Pit: Sleepyhead
40. Telepathe: I Can’t Stand It
41. The Laughing: Canopy
42. Death Cab for Cutie: Cath…
43. Lykke Li: Little Bit
44. Fleet Foxes: Ragged Wood
45. M83: We Own the Sky
46. Jay Reatard: See/Saw
47. Kanye West: Love Lockdown
48. Atlas Sound: River Card
49. Max Tundra: Number Our Days
50. Crystal Antlers: A Thousand Eyes

Now I can go get the new Animal Collective!

1. Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
2. Cut Copy: In Ghost Colours
3. Deerhunter: Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
4. Portishead: Third
5. M83: Saturdays = Youth
6. No Age: Nouns
7. Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
8. Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna
9. Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
10. TV on the Radio: Dear Science
11. Fuck Buttons: Street Horrrsing
12. Point Juncture, WA: Heart to Elk
13. Marnie Stern: This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That
14. Q-Tip: The Renaissance
15. The Mae Shi: HLLLYH
16. Beach House: Devotion
17. High Places: High Places
18. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
19. Mount Eerie: Lost Wisdom
20. Frightened Rabbit: The Midnight Organ Fight

The big story is how many first-timers there are on here. I can hardly believe it myself, but the only artists on this list ever to appear on one of my previous Albums of the Year lists are TVotR and Portishead (who snuck Dummy in at #20 back in ‘94; yes, I have been doing this for that long). Firstly, there are five debut LPs on the list—Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver, Fuck Buttons, Fleet Foxes, and High Places—all of them knockouts. [If last year's singles-comp Weirdo Rippers doesn't count as an LP, then No Age's is the sixth. Last year's list, as a point of contrast, had one debut.] Then there are Deerhunter and M83—both of whom I formerly had had no better than a passing, rootless interest in—who impressed the shit out of me with albums that constituted quantum leaps in each group’s artistic maturation. Cut Copy utterly dominated my iPod all summer, and I had literally never heard of them before IGC dropped; same deal with The Mae Shi and GGD, who each broke out in spectacular fashion after toiling too long in obscurity. Local faves PJWA finally put out their magnum opus, two years in the making, and it was worth the wait. And finally, there were heartwarming comebacks in 2008 as well, most memorably from the aforementioned Portishead, but also from Q-Tip, who put out a record that actually challenges the Tribe back catalog, and Nick Cave, whose Bad Seeds’ release of this year sounds fresher than anything he’s done in a decade.

Also, props to Jay Reatard, whose Matador Singles ‘08 tragically fails to qualify for consideration on the same grounds on which Weirdo Rippers was excluded last year (i.e. it’s a compilation of singles, not an LP). Format classification aside, it (MS’08) is one of the most sublimely perfect punk rock collections to be released in years, and it will be well-represented on my Songs list.

That about sums it up. Hopefully I won’t regret any of my placements this year as badly as I regret last year’s placement of Burial’s Untrue and Arcade Fire’s colossal Neon Bible. [Both should've been higher.]

Said Songs list will follow soon; that one’s much tougher to get together.

I did not get out as much this past year as I perhaps ought to’ve, but here were some times when I was glad I did.

1. Metallica, Rose Garden, Portland, OR, November 1
2. Chromatics, Rotture, Portland, OR, March 14
3. Polvo, Berbati’s Pan, Portland, OR, September 6
4. Dirty Projectors, Backspace, Portland, OR, April 15
5. Vampire Weekend, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR, March 25
6. Battles, Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR, September 4
7. Sweater!, Hippodrome, PDXPOPNOW!, Portland, OR, July 26
8. Fuck Buttons, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR, April 21
9. Death Cab for Cutie, Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, June 23
10. The Joggers, Berbati’s Pan, Portland, OR, September 6
11. Point Juncture WA, Holocene, Portland, OR, November 20
12. Radiohead, White River Amphitheatre, Auburn, WA, August 20
13. Rush, Clark County Amphitheater, Ridgefield, WA, June 1
14. Starfucker, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR, September 18
15. Dragging an Ox Through Water, Hippodrome, PDXPOPNOW!, Portland, OR, July 26
16. No Age, Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR, January 28
17. M83, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR, November 27
18. YACHT, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR, March 25
19. A Weather, Hippodrome, PDXPOPNOW!, Portland, OR, July 27
20. TV on the Radio, Roseland Theater, Portland, OR, September 5