2008 Year-End Round-Up: Part 2

Another 12 months, another best-of album list agonized over, another set of fists raised to the critical heavens in anger when I saw the albums I loved most relegated to middle-of-the-pack status (if that) on countless other blog and magazine best-of lists. But who needs rage when there's ten great albums to celebrate? (Band name links go to official/MySpace pages.)

10. Gentleman Jesse & his Men, Gentleman Jesse & his Men (Douchemaster): Taking a break from his day job as bassist for Atlanta-area punks the Carbonas, Jesse Smith churned out this effortless 34-minute power pop master class debut, sorely indebted to the late, great Exploding Hearts (R.I.P.) as well as genre touchstones like the Buzzcocks and the Undertones, with a little early Elvis Costello/Nick Lowe-esque smart-aleckery (dig the This Year's Model-aping cover) thrown in for good measure. It's easily the best album released in 2008 that should've been released in 1979.

9. Furr, Blitzen Trapper (Sub Pop): Sub Pop circa 2008 in a nutshell: The sensitivos may have curled up under a blanket with a hot, but not too hot, cup of chamomile and swooned over the harmonies of Fleet Foxes, but those of us who like a little meat on their rock (so to speak) wisely opted to crank BT's fourth album, and first for the venerable Seattle label. Less frantic but still as brimming with ideas as their 2007 breakthrough Wild Mountain Nation, Furr finds the band operating at the peak of their Crazy-Horse-gone-glam powers. Mark my words: BT's Eric Earley will be the Jeff Tweedy of the 2010's.

8. Acid Tongue, Jenny Lewis (Warner Brothers): After Rilo Kiley's maligned/misguided (though I still call it misunderstood) Under the Blacklight, RK frontwoman Jenny Lewis returned with solo album #2, a record that boasted dangerous levels of charm and breezy wit. Lewis could've coasted on her sun-kissed, California-girl looks (siiiiigh), but those who dwell on those superficialities ignore her considerable songwriting talents and warm, honeyed voice. On Acid Tongue, Lewis inspires goosebumps (the sweeping title track), blown speakers ("Jack Killed Mom", "Carpetbaggers"), and, in the case of one particular blogger (cough cough), a fervent wish to move to California.

7. Trouble in Mind, Hayes Carll (Lost Highway): Despite the online-only metaphorphosis of No Depression, one of America's finest music publications, plenty of Americana acts found the audience they deserved this year (James McMurtry, Reckless Kelly, O'Death, the Mother Truckers, among others) that normally found them in the pages of ND, but damned if Carll didn't top them all with Trouble in Mind. Yes, the record's rife with cliches -- drinkin', wanderin', chasin' tail -- but Carll's friendly voice and keen sense of humor elevates the material from the genre ghetto. As long as we're reveling in cliche, let it be known that Carll's the kind of guy you'd love to have a beer with.

6. Real Emotional Trash, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks (Matador): After the glitchy, go-it-alone vibe of 2005’s excellent “Face the Truth,” the one-time Pavement frontman flung wide the gates of Malkmus Manor and brought back his sometime-backing band the Jicks for his fourth album, Real Emotional Trash. Expansive where its predecessor was hermetically sealed, “Trash” found Malkmus obsessed with loose-limbed jams instead of tighter songcraft; it’s nearly an hour of Malkmus-as-shaggy-guitar-god, yet he rarely lost his way, as he did on 2003’s guitar-focused, yet meandering, “Pig Lib.” The 10-minute title track, split in two halves, didn’t overstay its welcome, and in fact favorably recalls mid-period Pavement; "Hopscotch Willie" chugged like a warped homage to Bob Dylan's narratives. Meanwhile, shorter, more recognizably Malkmusian tracks – like “Cold Son” and the charming, sly “Gardenia” – served as breath-catching moments between guitar workout exercises. It was still a treat to hear Malkmus get in touch with his inner Guitar Hero. (Can you tell I borrowed this write-up from the initial review I wrote for the Hartford Courant?)

5. Hold On Now, Youngster..., Los Campesinos! (Wichita Recordings): This decade has seen numerous stabs at recreating XTC's early, jittery, kitchen sink post-punk/pop (Art Brut, Dogs Die In Hot Cars, a few dozen others whose names are consigned to history); needless to say, none of those acts nailed it as well as Los Campesinos! did on their full length debut. Charming, self-deprecating, and with glockenspiels out the wazoo, songs like "Death to Los Campesinos!," "You! Me! Dancing!" and the other tunes that didn't include exclamation points burned bright and brought the fun back to indie rock. In fact, this album is such a blast, I won't dock them a point for the Fall Out Boy-esque song title, "This Is How You Spell 'Hahaha, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics'."

4. Momofuku, Elvis Costello (Lost Highway): After vowing to stop making albums, Elvis Costello thankfully reneged on that threat and delivered one of his spriest albums in years, with Momofuku. Named after the creator of Ramen noodles, and referencing both the quick prep of the soup and this record, Momofuku is one of the rare albums (by any artist) that favorably and accurately sounds like a musician's "old" stuff, while still moving the ball forward. (Witness the opening one-two punch of "No Hiding Place" and "American Gangster Time" could legitimately have been This Year's Model outtakes, "Harry Worth" mixes Imperial Bedroom with The Delivery Man.) And album closer "Go Away" proves Costello's got more piss and vinegar in him than actual Angry Young Men.

3. Accelerate, R.E.M. (Warner Brothers): And the winner of the Least Expected, But Most Hoped-For, Return to Form Award goes to... Having only been single-digits-years-old during R.E.M.'s '80s heyday (the first R.E.M. album I owned was a cassette copy of Monster), it did my heart good to hear the band at their R.E.M.-iest on Accelerate. The album's Side A – "Living Well Is The Best Revenge," "Man-Sized Wreath" (stolen Kool and the Gang riff and all), "Supernatural Superserious," "Hollow Man" and "Houston"– was the most exciting, passionate, alive string of songs committed to tape this year. Essay question: Which played a bigger role in Accelerate's success: Peter Buck's guitar or Mike Mills' backing vocals?

2. District Line, Bob Mould (Anti): After a few years in the non-guitar rock wildnerness, Mould made a move back to his bread and butter with 2005's Body of Song, and the (re)transformation was completed with District Line, a remarkably strong, well-produced batch of songs about breakups and relationships (with only a minor detour to indulge his ongoing interest in electronica, "Shelter Me"). "Stupid Now," "Again and Again," "Very Temporary" -- this is what modern rock should sound like in 2008; why has it fallen to near-50-year-olds like Mould and Michael Stipe to show the kids how it's done, 25 years after they already laid the groundwork? Yes, I know I'm a horrible rockist.

1. Consolers of the Lonely, The Raconteurs (Warner Brothers): And speaking of rockists... for the second year in a row, I hand the title of the Year's Best Album to Jack White III. I had a hunch Icky Thump would top my 2007 list after I gave it one spin, but who could've predicted the stunning rock 'n' roll punch of Consolers, given the Raconteurs' enjoyable, if lightweight, debut, Broken Boy Soldiers back in 2006? I was certainly caught off guard, even more so considering the album's existence was confirmed a mere week before its street date (and even then, it was still leaked early when iTunes mistakenly released it). Both White and co-conspirator Brendan Benson brought their A-material to their ostensible side project, and they repeatedly pushed each other to greater heights on Consolers: the can-you-top-this-verse trade-offs on "Salute Your Solution"; somehow finding space for and making perfect sense out of both Benson's mariachi boast "The Switch and the Spur" and White's album-closing soap opera, "Carolina Drama"; and, above all, reminding listeners of the redemptive powers of a good old-fashioned guitar rave-up, with "Hold Up" and "Five on the Five". There's a much longer piece floating around in my brain about rockism, the state of alternative/rock music in the early 21st century and my personal apotheosis of Jack White, but until that essay arrives, know this: No other band rocked more convincingly and more satisfyingly this year than the Raconteurs.