PC's Top Favorite Albums of 2008 etc.

Not to be out-commented by Matt Millsap, I have decided to post my Top Favorite music albums of 2008, including the Top 5 Favorite Albums that came out in 2008 and the Top 5 Favorite Albums I discovered in 2008 regardless of when these albums were produced.

First, in alphabetical order, my Top 5 Favorite Albums that came out in 2008:

Accelerate, R.E.M.

I actually did not possess this album until Christmas Day but I have really enjoyed it. As a moderate R.E.M. fan, I think it is their best album since Monster.

Chinese Democracy, Guns N' Roses

A pretty good album that matches much of what is on Appetite for Destruction but cannot even approach the monumental work on Use Your Illusion.

Still, I appreciate Axl Rose’s work on this folly project even if it should have been much better given the time he spent on it.

In Rainbows, Radiohead

I enjoyed this album even though it is their slightest album since Pablo Honey (ouch!). Of course, a slight Radiohead album is a sole, marble slab in an empty field in comparison with much of the corn stalks that pass themselves off as popular music.

Modern Guilt, Beck

Oh, how I love a Beck album! Beck’s Music, Tom Stoppard’s plays, and Terry Gilliam’s films are what make life in art worth living and worth pursuing. (I had the horrible thought last night about what I will do when these three people die!)

I do not believe that there is a Beck Album I do not thoroughly enjoy. The first time I listened to Mellow Gold back in 1994, I knew that this man was pure genius. It only took the arrival of Odelay to convince the rest of the world of his immense musical gift.

Modern Guilt is a great album but a little hard to get into. His last album, The Information, was the same way. However, I love both albums and simply relish the time I can spend swimming along on the melodies and in between the lyrics.

Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay

Yes, this was a very good album as Matt Millsap will tell you. I am somewhat behind on the whole Coldplay phenomenon, having only listened to their four albums just this year. However, they are really good and are probably destined for permanent greatness. To put them up with Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Bjork, and the REM and the Red Hot Chili Peppers is not a stretch. They are darn good song writers with a fabulous ear for melody. So much so that they make it seem easy.



Now, in alphabetical order, my the Top 5 Favorite Albums I discovered in 2008 regardless of when these albums were produced:

Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan

A fabulous album which was/is a magnificent musical achievement. I quite love Bob Dylan and am only sorry that I did not appreciate him while I was in college. Nevertheless, this particular album is hauntingly surreal with extended allegories, wordplays, and several off-kilter tunes that surprisingly work in spite of themselves. Very much like Beck in that sense.

I do think that is one of the hallmarks of artistic genius – the ability to make the unusual and the relatively unused and make marvelous what no one would ever think possible.

Grace, Jeff Buckley

I had been hearing about this album for sometime now and the lauds it had been garnering from so many great musicians. I must say that I was blown away by it. This is a real gem of an album; amazingly simple but profoundly executed. Again, several off-kilter tunes that surprisingly work. What is even more amazing is that this was a first album. What is devastating is that this was a last album. Buckley died in a swimming accident after this album was released.

There is no taste more bitter than the savoring the absence of what might have been. I suppose this would put him up as the Syd Barrett of Generation X. Of course, Barrett was a musical genius and Buckley only great. Still I have put Grace on my Top 20 list.


London Calling, The Clash

Yes, this is an epic achievement of an album. Every song! When I kept seeing this album on so many Top 500, Top 100, and Top 10 lists, my curiosity was peaked. My first listen through left me generally nonplussed. The second listen led me through a battle zone of thundering rockets going off all around me. The third listen made me a convert. Yes, this album is on my Top 20 list. It really, really is fantastic and something of a miracle of the music world considering from where it sprung. I highly recommend this album to anyone interested in music.

A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay

A very good pop album that’s immediacy is such that I need not go into any further detail.

Sandinistas! The Clash

This is the follow-up album to London Calling and a massive monster of an album. Originally at three-LP, it can be purchased as a double album now.

The album is difficult to explain given its immense profusion of styles and lyrical content. Perhaps the album might have been greater if some of the fat had been originally trimmed down to a two-disc version (like a Harry Potter book) but there it is anyway: the pop music equivalent of the Battle of Algiers.



I mentioned my Top 20 List. I’m always one to publicly support that which is wonderful in art, even when it’s in pop music. Allow me to give that list in two groupings of the Top 1-10 and Top 11-20, both in alphabetical order:

Top 1-10

Abbey Road, The Beatles

Bigger, Better, Faster, More! 4 Non Blondes

Freak Out! Frank Zappa

London Town, Paul McCartney

Mellow Gold, Beck

Mutations, Beck

Odelay, Beck

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd

SMiLE, Brian Wilson

Tommy, The Who


Top 11-20


Grace, Jeff Buckley

Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin

London Calling, The Clash

More, Pink Floyd

MTV Unplugged in New York, Nirvana

OK Computer, Radiohead

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, Roger Waters

Purple, Stone Temple Pilots

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, David Bowie

Quadrophenia, The Who