My Top 50 Albums of 2008

This has been a long time coming. I finished this list about a week ago and have been making slight tweaks all week, this is as good as it's going to get. Before I get to the list, I want to discuss a few things about these lists.
First, I acknowledge, and anyone reading this should also acknowledge, that these lists really come down, at some level, to arbitrary decisions. Sure there are some factors that I take in to account, but especially with a list this long, how do you decide the difference between position 36 and 37.
Now, why a list so large, when this large of a list is hard to widdle down from 170 albums (My long list) to 50 favorites. It's frankly because I believe there are some albums that deserve some amount of notoriety in a year of great music.
That being said, I do have some criteria for my list. The largest one is how often I find myself wanting to listen to the album. Foes it make it's way on to my headphones often? The next and almost as important criteria is if the artist is doing something original or creative within their genre. those are the 2 main criteria that I base my decisions on.
Now, the list:

50. Evangelicals - The Evening Descends
49. Snowman - The Horse, The Rat & The Swan
48. Abe Vigoda - Skeleton
47. Bun B - II Trill
46. The Long Blondes - "Singles"
45. Amadou & Mariam – Welcome To Mali
44. High Places - S/T & 03/07-09/07
43. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of Understatement
42. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus, Dig!
41. Plants & Animals - Parc Avenue
40. Love Is All - A Hundred Things to Keep Me Up At Night
39. Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed/Hold On Now, Youngster!
38. The Cool Kids - Bake Sale
37. Deerhoof - Offend Maggie
36. Blitzen Trapper - Furr
35. Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
34. Air France - No Way Down
33. Deerhunter - Microcastle & Weird Era Cont.
32. Lil’ Wayne – The Carter III
31. Times New Viking - Rip It Off
30. Shugo Tokumaru - Exit
29. 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 This is It And That Is That
28. Spiritualized - Songs in A&E
27. Shearwater - Rook
26. F*ck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
25. Gentleman Jesse & His Men - Introducing...
24. Mount Eerie/Julie Dorian/Fred Squire - Lost Wisdom
23. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah pt. One (4th World War)
22. The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
21. The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
20. M83 - Saturdays=Youth
19. Vampire Weekend - S/T
18. Conor Oberst – S/T
17. TV On The Radio - Dear Science,
16. Girl Talk – Feed The Animals
15. The Tallest Man On Earth - Shallow Graves
14. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
13. Jay Reatard - Matador Singles '08
12. The Walkmen - You & Me
11. So So Glos - Tourism/Terrorism
10. El Guincho - Allegranza!
9. Samamidon - All Is Well
8. The Dutchess & The Duke – She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke
7. Dodos - Visiter
6. Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
5. Fleet Foxes - S/T & Sun Giant EP
4. Department of Eagles – In Ear Park
3. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
2. Why? – Alopecia
1. Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances

I decided not to write blurbs about each album, but I realized what I had to say was useless. If anyone really needs me to defend my choices ask me in the comments, I'd be more than happy to.

Jeffrey

Delta Sprirt @ Solar Culture (Tucson)

Delta Spirit @ Solar Culture (Tucson)
December 16th, 8p

If you happened to see these guys open for Dr. Dog last september you know this isn't a show you want to miss... This group has amazing energy and emotion.

Buy Local Week - December 8 - 14th, 2008

In celebration of Buy Local Week, I thought I would post about some of my favorite local bands, venues and cool places to shop for music. If this were a regular blog I would also post about all the wonderful little places to by things locally in Phoenix, but its a music blog so I will stick to the music side. However, there are some wonderful little locally owned places to buy everything you would ever need to give anyone for Christmas... so where ever you are, Phoenix or other wise... DON'T GO TO WALMART FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING. My grandparents ran a hardware store for basically their entire lives... and did very well until the great bastard Wal-Mart came to the area and sucked the community dry. Aw... I feel better, that is my daily vent!

Local Bands:

Distant Colony (record label)
Foot Ox
Stephen Steinbrink (French Quarter)
Bri White
Andrew Jackson Jihad
James Fella

Local Venues:

The Trunk Space
The Modified
The Rythem Room
Ruby Room

Local Places to get Music:

Stinkweeds
Hoodlums
Revolver Records
East Coast Records

Sikhara / Clew of Theseus // James Fella /// Adam Mokan @ The Trunk Space

Sikhara / Clew of Theseus / James Fella / Adam Mokan @ The Trunk Space

December 10th 7pm

This is a very experimental group of individuals... but worth pushing out. None of them get enough credit. Go the show, support local music in anyway possible! Slash, James Fella is a genius!

Stephen Steinbrink New Album / "Ugly Unknown" Out in January

Stephen Steinbrink announced last week that his new album, Ugly Unknown is going to be out in January 2009. I'm not sure if it will be released though Gilgongo Records, Distant Colony or just by Stephen himself. Really, I am just exited to see another album put out by Stephen... In September I reviewed the last album he put out under the name French Quarter, it is really a beautiful album from a talented artist. You can listen to some of the new stuff as well as some of the old stuff on his Myspace.