What was great in 2008? (From Dorset Echo)

What was great in 2008?

8:30am Saturday 20th December 2008

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WHAT with the breakdown of the global economy, mass panic, hair-tearing despair and all the rest of it, you probably won’t be harbouring too many fond memories of 2008.

I certainly won’t – I can’t wait to see the back of the bloody thing, if I’m to be witheringly honest – but nevertheless, that shouldn’t be allowed to distract us from the fact that some genuinely fine music came along between times.

Here, then, are my top 10 albums of the year, all of which helped in some way to either take our minds off or blissfully ameliorate the prevailing tide of creeping dread which characterised the closing overs of this dreariest of years. Roll on 2009 – here’s wishing uncomplicated, lemon-scented happiness and full-bellied prosperity for each and every one of you.

10: BON IVER
For Emma, Forever Ago (4AD)
IT’S impossible not to be seduced by the myth surrounding this album: Justin Vernon, alone in a snowbound Wisconsin cabin, recording his eloquent song cycle of heartbreak with only his beard to keep him warm... subsisting on roadkill and the bones of lost trappers.

9: LATE OF THE PIER
Fantasy Black Channel (Parlophone)
WHEN I reviewed this earlier in the year, I spent the first half of the review ripping it to shreds before belatedly realising that I’d actually come to love it in the interim. Combine the inconsequential daftness of Sigue Sigue Sputnik with the exploratory artiness of Magazine, and you’re getting something of the essence of Late Of The Pier’s ornery nature.

8: ELBOW
The Seldom Seen Kid (Polydor Group)
I READ a review of this recently which suggested that The Seldom Seen Kid is not necessarily any better than the other Elbow albums; it’s just that everyone finally got it. A fair point, on reflection, although I still think that this is the place where Guy Garvey’s lovely heart beats most strongly. Wonderful singing, gloriously poetic lyrics.

7: NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS
Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! (Mute)
SPEAKING of poetic lyrics, Nick Cave surpassed himself on this hefty, lusty, literate and splenetic broadside from the frontline of growing old resentfully, yet with monumental chutzpah and brio.

6: VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
Trisector (Virgin)
NO ONE is growing old with quite as much vigour as Van Der Graaf Generator, however. Peter Hammill has been coolly appraising The Reaper for his entire career, and Trisector finds VDGG giving the spectre a proper kicking.

5: BRIAN WILSON
That Lucky Old Sun (Capitol)
IN THE mood of sentimental, rheumy-eyed contemplation I’ve found myself in all year, this album has chimed most vividly. The Beach Boys sound wasn’t broke, but Brian fixed it anyway.

4: THE COMPUTERS
You Can’t Hide From The Computers (Fierce Panda)
I HAVEN’T lived with this for very long, but its omnidirectional punk rock fury just lights me up. I was sold within the first few seconds of Teenage Tourette’s Camp.

3: FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS
Flight Of The Conchords (Sub Pop)
MY HEROES. Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie made me laugh more than anyone when their series was aired on BBC4, and their songs last the course far longer than any comedic construction has any right to.

2: BECK
Modern Guilt (XL)
IT WASN’T initially apparent that Beck had lost his mojo until Danger Mouse helped him find it again. An edgy but cool return to top form.

1: FLEET FOXES
Fleet Foxes (Bella Union)
FAIR enough, it’s a no-brainer; but I never claimed to have a brain anyway.

Somehow, Fleet Foxes turned out to be just what we were all looking for this year even if we hadn’t realised it yet: ambling out of chilly Seattle with a contrastingly warm nimbus of reverberant, communal harmonies, shirt-obscuring beards and a general air of returning to first principles and down-home simplicity.

They’re setting a wonderful example with the amiable purity of their approach and the deep human chord it strikes within us.

I think it was Gandhi – or possibly Bernard Manning – who said ‘you have to be the change you want to see in the world’, and Fleet Foxes seem to embody an unforced, natural compassion which would go a long way in the kind of world I’d be keen to inhabit if we could just get everyone to stop mullering each other for five minutes...

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