the video was made all with lasers. and lasers are COOL
* - tie for my favorite videos of the year.
Estelle - Pretty Please (feat. Cee-Lo)
"American Boy" was a bigger hit, and a great song too (Kanye on the verse is damn good) but there's something about the playfulness of this that gets me.
Young Jeezy - Put On
this is my "hard" song for the year.
The Hold Steady - Sequestered in Memphis
didn't love the new album as much as a I wanted to, but this has a great singalong feel. the video for Stay Positive was pretty great too, directed by Jake Davis.
5.) Drive by Truckers - Brighter than Creations Dark If Jeff Tweedy, from Wilco, would have grown up in Alabama I think he would have ended up in a band like DBT. I was more happy with this album for introducing me to a great countrified rock band. I had heard of them before, but this was the first album of theirs that I purchased.
4.) Kanye West - 808's & Heartbreak This took a few listens before I realized how much I like it. soul-sides talked about Kanye does the same thing every time he releases an album, he makes people talk about music. At first it was just hip-hop/rap, but now it's the whole pop world. And here's Robocop (I'm still not sure what the whole "ack-in' like a Robocop" is all about, but I'm sure that I like it!)
2.) Vampire Weekend - s/t Feels like this album is more than a year old. I had the EP downloaded summer of 07, I think. The best thing about this album is that I'm pretty sure that 20 years from now it will seem fresh.
1.) Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago The first 2 weeks I had this album, I listened to it every morning at work... I'm still not tired of it.
I posted links to Amazon's mp3 store and as luck would have it #1-3 are all on sale for only 5 bucks and 808's is only $3.99. I usually use Amazon for mp3 downloads, rather than iTunes, because they have a higher bitrate (256 vs. 128). I'm not really sure what it means, but I assume that bigger is better.
Coldplay - Viva La Vida Guilty Pleasure, everybody's gotta have one or two... or three or four
Al Green - Let it Down if ?uestlove is involved, count me in. Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It R. said he recorded this entire album on old school equipment with all live instrumentation (most of which he played himself) with no computer help, it has the feel of an old Marvin Gaye Motown album.
on the side project tip the strokes have a few: from the ok to the still not sure even the quiet guy has one. I heard a few tracks on Mark Ronson's show a while back and they seemed pretty alright.
this one looks the most promising though:
check out Devandra in the background with testicular maracas
they remind me a little of this and according to Mr. H maybe a little of this... these would only be known if you live in Iowa or the surrounding states. if you've never heard of/seen them before, count your blessings
TI's "Whatever You Like" might be favorite song of 2008. While it's not his best song (this is) it just makes me happy.
Here he is performing it live on Kimmel:
My favorite part of this performance is that he has no hype man. Instead his backup singer sings along with him on parts of the verses... amazing. It seems like usually rappers/hip-hoppers just rap over their own song and you can usually even hear the vocal track behind them. so, way to go TIP. he's just a fascinating dude... more on him later.
lastly... can some one please please please make a remix of this song with the girl from Coming to America that Prince Akeem is supposed to marry? Prince Akeem: What kind of music do you like? Imani: Whatever kind of music you liiiiiiike (spreads arms)
