So we're halfway through 2008; what are your top 10 albums of this year, so far?

portishead - third
jamie lidell - jim
devotchka - a mad and faithful telling
nick cave and the bad seeds - dig, lazarus, dig!!!
firewater - the golden hour
hercules and love affair - s/t
why - alopecia
four tet - ribbons EP
nine inch nails - the slip

i honestly haven't really heard all that much new stuff this year. it's all been in the past like six weeks. i've been in vinyl/old stuff mode for months now. did man man come out this year? i like that one too. apparently i should listen to air france as well. what's the deal with fleet foxes.

oh yeah! and alejandro escovedo. there's some rock-based rock. i saw him on the today show the other day. weird.

I really wanna hear from Dan, Ned and Spencer in this thread. C'mon guys.

not a good year for records I like, so far at least.

this year I am digging:

The Fall - Imperial Wax Solvent
Times New Viking on Matador
Wooden Shjips LP
Brothers Unconnected CD
V/A - Victrola Favorites
Sun City Girls - Live At Sit & Spin
United Bible Studies new 3" CD
El Guincho - Alegranza

nothing else that I can think of. Portishead is only OK.

if I heard them, I'm sure I would like the Grouper album and the Pierced Arrows album.

I see an awful lot of indie rock on these lists though, which just doesn't do it for me

Same for me, which is why I rarely listen to any music from this decade despite having a burning urge to find new bands to really get into and follow.

Right, because there's been no music made this decade except for indie rock.

btw, people who were asking, The Juan Maclean's album is called The Future Will Come and hypothetically comes out august/september

1. Toumani Diabate - The Mande Variations

HMHB

Shiiit, that's another one I forgot! OK that probably makes my ten

Torche - Meanderthal

This is a maybe - it's really good but not sure if I'll be listening to it come December

I like the Torche a lot too, but am also unsure whether it'll make the cut at the end of the year.

The Gnaw Their Tongues album you mentioned up there, is it Reeking, Pained and Shuddering? Great album.

Other things nobody has mentioned that could make my top ten by the end of the year:

Pyramids s/t
The Victim's Shudder - Terror Romance

So far, 289 albums have been listed.
204 of them have only been listed once.

Here are the 31 with 4 or more mentions...

1. Portishead – Third (24)
2. Hercules & Love Affair - s/t (13)
3. Vampire Weekend - s/t (12)
4. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah: 4th World War (11)
5. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III (8)
6. Spiritualized – Songs In A&E (7)
7= Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid (6)
7= The Fall - Imperial Wax Solvent (6)
9= Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Not Heal (5)
9= Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward (5)
9= Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours (5)
9= Fleet Foxes – s/t (5)
9= Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree (5)
9= Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (5)
9= Kelley Polar - I Need You Told Hold on While the World is Falling (5)
9= Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus Dig!!! (5)
9= No Age - Nouns (5)
9= Shearwater – Rook (5)
9= The Hold Steady - Stay Positive (5)

And with 4 mentions each:

Black Mountain – In The Future
El Guincho - Alegranza
Goslings - Occasion
Ladytron -Velocoforo
Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now Youngster
MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
Santogold
Studio - Yearbook II
The Dodos - Visiter
The-Dream - Lovehate
Times New Viking - Rip It Off

The Gnaw Their Tongues album you mentioned up there, is it Reeking, Pained and Shuddering? Great album.

Nope, it's 'An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood' (dude has a tremendous way with words given that it's not his first language) which Crucial Blast put out a couple of months back. I have five or six things of his now but not the one you mentioned, should chase that up

Will check that one out.

Good grief @ Mike.

Oh, I'm a VERY quick worker...

(...and also a bit under-worked this week)

01 - Air France - No Way Down EP
02 - Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista
03 - John Maus - Love Is Real
04 - Sparks - Exotic Creatures Of The Deep
05 - Moto Boy - ST
06 - Crystal Castles - s/t
07 - Neon Neon - Stainless Style
08 - El Perro Del Mar - From The Valley To The Stars
09 - Sebastian Tellier - Sexuality
10 - The Raveonettes- Lust Lust Lust

That Paavoharju album's a good 'un.

"bravo!" @ 'i've got way too much time on hy hands' mike.

fascinated as to the placing of "Songs in A&E" given the negativity that the album received here and there, but other than that, a good list for reference for the rest of my year ..

xpost. doh.

I am interested in Cut Copy, No Age and The Dodos, possibly. Anything else I should investigate?

The Raveonetts disc is great. Needs more love on this thread.

I really need to hear that new Fall album. Or do I?

Not really. Mark E Smith karaoke over some hacks.

I thought the Raveonettes was 2007 since I bought it early January, but AMG sez Feb 19th! Must have picked up a promo copy or something (it was 2nd hand).

New Fall album is better than last couple of Fall albums (damning with faint praise?)

I'm surprised at the low showing for Girl Talk's Feed The Animals, as tracks from that have been dominating the weekly "most played tracks" lists on the ilXor last.fm group for the last couple of weeks:

http://www.last.fm/group/ilXor/charts&charttype=weekly&subtype=track

I guess Raveonettes came out 2008 in US, 2007 in UK. That's why I didn't list it anyway, cos I do like it.

Only albums I've heard and loved from this year are:

NIN - The Slip
Cavalera Conspiracy - Inflikted

The second one in particular is a feel good record, partly cos I was into Sepultura as a teenage and this is basically a modern Sepultura record.

----

How many records to you people listen to? Some people are listing about 1 a week for the year so far, so assuming 'the best' make up only a quarter of your listening then your getting a new record every 2 days!
You can't possible give them all a proper chance.

My 'best' list on my Amazon lists now numbers 29 records, and probably represents 50-70% of what I've listened to "in full" this year - my research skills and 'will consider listening to' criteria have been honed by years of over consumption. I'm not interested in hearing everything anymore, just stuff I think I will like. Which is probably bad in some ways, but in terms of my mental health and relationship with music is terrific.

EVERYONE PLEASE GIVE THAT ATLAS SOUND RECORD A CHANCE.

it's kind of a grower but d a m n.

The Seu Jorge album has just jumped into my top ten and I'm barely halfway through it.

Unsurprisingly it reminds me of Africa Brasil by Jorge Ben.

I listen to music about 4-5 hours a day at work, so about 30 albums/singles/EPs a week. But I'm usually listening to old music.

thought Hot Chip would get a bit more love. think it's as good as the 'The Warning' overall.

Hot Chip has been one of the year's disappointments for me, along with Santogold and especially Foals (easily eclipsed by White Denim, whose album I'm enjoying a lot).

Who ist White Denim?

I would love the Hot Chip record if it were a lot more like 'One Pure Thought', but I never have the urge to sit and listen to the softer tracks.

Have dug the Portishead and Autistic Daughters albums, god knows there's a whole heap of stuff I haven't heard though.

I listen to music about 4-5 hours a day at work, so about 30 albums/singles/EPs a week. But I'm usually listening to old music.

ditto.

I guess Raveonettes came out 2008 in US, 2007 in UK. That's why I didn't list it anyway, cos I do like it.

I haven't made my list yet, but this'll be on it. So that's two votes, at least. Only 3 more mentions needed for Lust Lust Lust to climb into Mike's aggregate list above.

White Denim are a sort of Rag Week Animal Collective.

Of those mentioned so far, the only one that immediately leaps out at me as being "Definite Top Ten Even In An Average-To-Good Sort Of Year" material is The Fall.

Others that I've got / heard which may also be contenders - especially if things don't improve dramatically in the next 6 months: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; Neil Diamond; Elbow; Fleet Foxes; Gnarly Barkley; Guillemots (a little surprised not to see more love for those last two, esp Guillemots); Bon Iver; Portishead; Vampire Weekend.

Surprised to see absolutely no-one's mentioned so far: Bauhaus (although not entirely surprised as it was hardly the masterpiece I'd spent the previous 25 years imagining); Johnny Dowd; Futureheads; Last Shadow Puppets; Tindersticks.

Hadn't bothered with so far, but may need to reconsider based on the consensus here: Erykah Badu; Goldfrapp; Hercules & Love Affair; Spiritualized.

"my research skills and 'will consider listening to' criteria have been honed by years of over consumption. I'm not interested in hearing everything anymore, just stuff I think I will like. Which is probably bad in some ways, but in terms of my mental health and relationship with music is terrific."

OTM

Trust me Stu, you really don't want to reconsider Spiritualized and their 1974-style soft rock.

What, not even if I wanted something to file next to that bloody Dennis Wilson double CD that I somehow managed to let myself get talked into thinking I wanted to buy?

The Guillemots album I quite like but there's something stopping me going overboard on it. It's in my Amazon lists.

"The Guillemots album I quite like but there's something stopping me going overboard on it."

The fact that it's not as good as their last one, maybe?

I missed British Sea Power out of my "Others that I've got / heard which may also be contenders" list.

How many records to you people listen to? Some people are listing about 1 a week for the year so far, so assuming 'the best' make up only a quarter of your listening then your getting a new record every 2 days!
You can't possible give them all a proper chance.

A new album every 2 days might be an under-estimate for me, between promo copies and things I buy, borrow, or download. But I listen to music for much of my working day and just about any second that I'm at home, plus often while I'm in transit (walking, driving or subway/trolley/bus-riding).

Is that not normal?

I dunno. I reacted very strongly to the first one initially, but I think I prefer the EP / mini-album overall - it's more upbeat. The album's probably too long, and a little inconsistent. The new record is shorter, more consistent, more 'now' in many ways, and has a handful of songs I really like. I'd say it was on a par with or even a little better than the debut album, but it's not got... the two or three really AMAZING songs that the mini-alb um and debut proper did have. Every time a tune comes on iTunes randomly when I'm at work, I enjoy it more than I expect.

Anyway, my Amazon lists:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Albums-of-2008-part-1/lm/R3MWCGYF9TLFUQ/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Albums-of-2008-part-2/lm/R2CONECE0C2NL0/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full

A new album every 2 days might be an under-estimate for me, between promo copies and things I buy, borrow, or download. But I listen to music for much of my working day and just about any second that I'm at home, plus often while I'm in transit (walking, driving or subway/trolley/bus-riding).

Is that not normal?

It's not abnormal, and it's pretty much what I do (rarely in transit tho) but it's still inevitably going to sell good music short in a lot of cases. It's not especially hard for me to liten to everything I get sent, I'm hardly Chuck Eddy or whoever, but it annoys me when I rifle through a pile of stuff and find something that I've been really enthusiastic about to other people and still haven't managed to play more than twice. The same applies to the absurd pangs of quasi-guilt I feel when I devote a lot of attention to something (eg the Jay Reatard compilation) and other things get shorter shrift.

This is precisely why I'm being ruthless about what I listen to. I didn't deliberately get into music writing - someone has always asked me if I'd be interested in writing about X for Y first, pretty much (bar DiS) - I've only ever written about music because I'm a music fan. At points I've got caught up in being 'a music journalist' and generally that's resulted in me having a pretty fucked-up time re; my relationship with music - stressing, wasting time and money, writer's block, feeling like I don't love music anymore, etc - and I'm just not prepared to do that anymore.

In no order really, and not really 10:
Boris - Smile
Sun Kil Moon - April
Cloudland Canyon - Lie In Light
Genghis Tron - Board Up The House
Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
Jucifer - L'Autrichienne
Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Mouth
The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
Torche - Meanderthal
Autistic Daughters - Uneasy Flowers
Beach House - Devotion
The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

Also good: Ida, Portishead, Times New Viking, Sic Alps, Lau Nau, and that Growing EP!