Everybody else is doing it: Our picks from 2008
It’s not Monday, but it’s a mix.
Everywhere you look, it’s a roundup of the best of 2008. So last week, Crunchy husband and I cranked out a CD of good sounds from the year. It was slapped together so it would be done before Christmas. I think we are both surprised how it came out. There’s a lot of clapping involved, which is never a bad thing. To us, anyway. Not sure how the neighbors appreciate it, but they always call us the quiet ones in the corner, so…
This mix will no doubt evolve over the next couple days with all the music we’d waited ever so patiently for Santa to bring. Most of which he didn’t bring because he and Mrs Claus each forgot to check the Amazon wish lists, so we wowed the (obviously very cool and knowledgeable) HMV guy with our stack of “I didn’t get this for Christmas but I really wanted it, so here I am and it’s on sale hooray! and you haven’t had the Fleet Foxes on your shelf for weeks, can it be that you really don’t stock it??”s yesterday. His accolades at our impressive taste in music wavered at Dido, but he obviously didn’t hold it against us too much because he produced a Fleet Foxes cd for us, out of thin air it must have been, I’d looked everywhere, multiple times. [I thought we were going to have to leave without Bon Iver too (yes I know, where HAVE I been?) when the one cd located in the 'Bon Iver' section was actually Michael Bolton's "Greatest Hits" (good god. Imagine my surprise. I should have been staring at the visual depiction of the emotions of a man who holed himself up in a cabin with only his laptop, grief, and his liquid voice through a cold Wisconsin winter to tend to a broken heart and got, well, Michael Bolton's mullet staring up at me, proclaiming he has greatest hits. The cd almost flew across the store), but I found For Emma, Forever Ago elsewhere. It took some, uh bending but I got it.]
We spent the night working on a puzzle and listening to our new cds, so stayed tuned for an updated version. I have a feeling there might very well be chiggers involved.
Our Picks from 2008, Part I, Let’s Clap and Dance and Stuff:
1. Amerykahn Promise- Erykah Badu
2. Strange Overtones- David Byrne and Brian Eno
3. One (Blake’s Got a New Face)- Vampire Weekend
4. Breaking It Up- Lykke Li
5. Surprise- Gnarls Barkley
6. Exit Through You- Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel/Big Blue Ball
7. Dishwasher- Fujiya & Miyagi
8. Integratron- Dengue Fever
9. Radio Retaliation- Thievery Corporation
10. Tazeb Kush- Dub Colossus
11. Shadow- Papa Wemba/Big Blue Ball
12. Sing for You- Tracy Chapman
13. Sleep Through the Static- Jack Johnson
14. Mykonos- Fleet Foxes
15. 6am Corner- Kathryn Williams & Neill MacColl
16. I Keep Faith- Billy Bragg
17. More News from Nowhere- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
18. Mr E’s Beautiful Blues (Live from Town Hall)- Eels
Tuesday, 30th December 2008 at 12:20
It was all going so well….we picked out our favourite tracks and Nora created a running order which sounded really good …flowed really well….and then I realised we could cram another 4 or 5 tracks into 80 minutess so slotted in a few extras which probably don’t work quite so well (…so they got squeezed to the outside …one on the front and two on the back end and a couple hidden in the middle….) The Eels is a couple of years old I know, but was out on the ‘Useless Trinkets’ compilation which some nice person gave me for my birthday this year…… hopefully these will still stand up in twenty years time when they will get re-released as special editions with whatever the new technology of the day will be …solar powered Bose’s?? : )
Tuesday, 30th December 2008 at 20:03
Whatchu got against Michael Bolton, man? He is the greatest mullet-wearing singer since Billy Ray Cyrus. “How can we be lovers?”, “Soul Provider”, “I said I loved you…but I lied”, “Time, Love and Tenderness”. That’s quality cheese, right there, lady. Respect the cheese.