Thursday, January 15, 2009

Favorite Music of 2008

We're now midway through January and before we get any deeper into 2009 I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of my favorite music from 2008.

I have chosen, somewhat arbitrarily, to limit my selections to music that was released in 2008 and to exclude classical (I listened to a lot of classical -- KUSC is great --, but mostly made new discoveries of work released in prior years -- and most of it is centuries old anyway). With two exceptions I also excluded jazz from this list. I tend to listen to too many movie scores, and in general it's hard for me to say what I consider the "best of" 2008, so I've chosen instead to list music I found myself giving multiple spins to, and which I've continued listening to this year.

I've divided up my list into three categories: 1. All In (which includes things like Mainstream, Indie, Industrial, Rock etc.) 2. Me-TAL, and 3. Scores.

I've picked 100 albums released in 2008 and arranged them alphabetically (again, couldn't really decide a ranking order, though those with asterisks rise above others). Here they are.

All In (which includes things like Mainstream, Indie, Industrial, Rock etc.)

1 Alanis Morissette - Flavors Of Entanglement
2 Anathema - Hindsight*
3 Brazilian Girls - New York City
4 Beck - Modern Guilt
5 Chemical Brothers - Brotherhood
6 Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends*
7 David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
8 Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
9 dEUS - Vantage Point*
10 Eagles of Death Metal - Heart On
11 Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
12 Filter - Anthems For The Damned
13 Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
14 Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires
15 Juana Molina - Un Dia**
16 Monkey - Journey to the West
17 Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV*
18 Nine Inch Nails - The Slip*
19 Pat Metheny - Day Trip
20 Pat Metheny & Anna Maria Jopek - Upojenie
21 Quiet Village - Silent Movie
22 Santogold - Santogold
23 Steven Wilson - Insurgentes (Deluxe Edition)
24 Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation
25 TV on the Radio - Dear Science*
26 UNKLE - End Titles: Stories For Film*
27 Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

2. Me-TAL

1 Arsis - We Are the Nightmare
2 Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery
3 Cavalera Conspiracy - Inflikted*
4 In Flames - A Sense of Purpose
5 Krisiun - Southern Storm
6 Metallica - Death Magnetic
7 My Dying Bride - An Ode to Woe
8 Opeth - Watershed**
9 Soulfly - Conquer
10 Trivium - Shogun*
11 Vader - XXV

3. Scores

1 Alberto Iglesias - Che
2 Alexandre Desplat - Largo Winch
3 Alexandre Desplat - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button**
4 Andrew Lockington - City of Ember
5 Bear Mcreary - Eureka*
6 Bear Mcreary - The Sarah Connor Chronicles*
7 Brian Tyler - Bangkok Dangerous
8 Cezary Skubiszewski - Death Defying Acts
9 Christopher Young - Sleepwalking
10 Craig Armstrong - The Incredible Hulk
11 Danny Elfman - Hellboy II
12 Danny Elfman - Milk*
13 Danny Elfman - Standard Operating Procedure
14 Danny Elfman - Wanted
15 David Arnold - Quantum of Solace
16 David Sardy - 21
17 Dominic Frontiere - The Outer Limits (3 CDs)*
18 Ennio Morriconne - The Complete Edition (15 CDs)*
19 Hans Zimmer - Frost - Nixon
20 Hans Zimmer and John Powell - Kung Fu Panda
21 Harry Gregson-Williams - TCON: Prince Caspian
22 James Horner - The Boy in The Striped Pajamas*
23 James Newton Howard - Defiance*
24 James Newton Howard - The Happening
25 James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer - The Dark Knight Special Edition (2 CDs)**
26 Jan A.P. Kaczmarek - The Visitor*
27 Jason Graves - Dead Space
28 Javier Navarrete - Fireflies in the Garden*
29 Javier Navarrete - Mirrors
30 Javier Naverrete - Inkheart
31 Joel Goldsmith - Stargate Ark of Truth
32 Joel Goldsmith - Stargate Continuum
33 Johan Soderqvist - Let The Right One In*
34 John Debney - Starship Dave
35 John Ottman - Valkyrie
36 John Powell - Bolt
37 John Powell - Hancock
38 John Williams - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
39 John Williams - Indiana Jones Soundtracks Collection (5 CDs)
40 Klaus Badelt - Pour Elle
41 Lee Holdridge - National Geographic, The Explorers*
42 Marco Beltrami - Max Payne
43 Marco Beltrami and Marcus Trumpp - Mesrine
44 Mark Isham - Pride and Glory
45 Mark Isham - The Express
46 Mark Snow - Millennium (2 CDs)**
47 Mark Snow - X-Files: I Want to Believe*
48 Michael Giacchino - Lost Season 3*
49 Murray Gold - Doctor Who Series 4
50 Patrick Doyle - Igor
51 Paul Haslinger - Death Race
52 Philip Glass - Jenipapo
53 Ramin Djawadi - Fly Me to the Moon*
54 Rob Lane & Joseph Vitarelli - John Adams
55 Terence Blanchard - Miracle at St. Anna
56 Thomas Newman - Revolutionary Road**
57 Thomas Newman - Wall-E**
58 Tomandandy - The Strangers
59 Tuomas Kantelinen - Mongol
60 Tyler Bates - The Day The Earth Stood Still
61 VA - Heroes
62 VA - Temptation, Music from Californication

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