Brightest Young Things

So instead of doing a typical top 10 albums of the year list, I decided to create a playlist of my favorite songs of 2008. The catch? Each track on the playlist has to have the same track number on the playlist as it does on the album from which it came. So, for example, track 1 on the playlist must be track 1 on the original album, and so forth. Not only does it put a slightly different spin on the traditional year-end list, but it also allows you to include some great songs from some not-so-great albums if you so choose. So without further ado:

1) Shugo Tokumaru – “Parachute” (from Exit) – I first stumbled across Shugo Tokumaru when I heard he was opening for the Magnetic Fields on their fall tour. When I opened up his Myspace page and “Parachute” came on, I was blown away. Tokumaru shows some impressive chops playing a lightning-fast acoustic guitar riff while his child-like voice and toy instruments evoke The Boy Least Likely To if they decided to embark on a crystal meth binge. It’s happy, it’s adorable, it’s fantastic.

2) Shearwater – “Rooks” (from Rook) – Shearwater’s 2006 breakthrough, Palo Santo, showed that they were more than just an Okkervil River side project with its quiet, instense beauty. But on this year’s Rook, Jonathan Meiburg took his band to the next level. On “Rook,” Meiburg pairs his Jeff Buckley-esque voice with one of the most straightforward rock songs the band’s ever attempted. The combination is stunning and evokes comparisons to a little band called Radiohead. Meiburg even quit Okkervil River this year to focus solely on Shearwater, and the move appears to be paying serious dividends.

3) Antony & the Johnsons – “Shake that Devil” (from Another World EP) – Until I heard this song, I never really “got” Antony Hegarty’s work, now it all makes sense. Antony here builds a bleak, horrifying tension for the first 2 minutes and 23 seconds as his unique voice is backed only by an eerie droning synth. The song then suddenly switches gears as he’s joined first my drums, then a squeaky saxophone, then finally a bass. Even as the structure becomes more traditional, the song continues to feel unsettling and tense. This song will assuredly conjure thoughts of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive for anyone who’s a fan of David Lynch’s work.

4) The Dodos – “Fools” (from Visiter) – On Visiter, their 2008 breakthrough album, the Dodos broke the mold of what a guitar-and-drums duo rooted in blues and country can sound like. The album’s finest song, “Fools” has a huge sound that conjures the epic feel of The Arcade Fire, an incredible feat for just two guys. And if you think it’s just studio trickery at work here, the band will quickly prove you wrong with their live show, where the band sounds even bigger than they do on record.

5) Wolf Parade – “California Dreamer” (from At Mount Zoomer) – Wolf Parade’s follow-up to their incredible debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, may not have lived up to the expectations, but the album still had a handful of stellar tracks. Chief among them is the album’s centerpiece, “California Dreamer,” on which Dan Boeckner lets fellow songwriter Spencer Krug veer the band further off the rails than they’ve even been before. The song is much more reminiscent of Krug’s other band, Sunset Rubdown, than anything Wolf Parade’s ever done, but after the song twists and turns through a wild two-minute long bridge, we’re instantly reminded of what band we’re really listening to when the fist-pumping chorus comes flying back in our face.

6) Portishead – “We Carry On” (from Third) – When a band takes more than a decade between albums, it’s always a bit worrisome that they’ve lost their songwriting mojo. Thankfully that was not the case with Portishead, who left their signature trip-hop sound behind and created the darkest, most organic and perhaps best album of their career. “We Carry On” rides a synth loop and chugging, tribal drums for the first two and half minutes before Adrian Utley’s intense guitar riff joins the fray, completely changing the vibe of the song. As the track heads further and further towards the darkness, only Beth Gibbons’ gorgeous voice can help guide us towards the light.

7) David Byrne & Brian Eno – “Strange Overtones” (from Everything that Happens Will Happen Again) – The pairing that spawned three incredible Talking Heads albums in the late 70s and early 80s joined forces again in 2008, inspiring David Byrne to create his finest work in years. Though the results as a whole may not be as legendary as the pair’s earlier work together, the fact that a song like “Strange Overtones” emerged from the sessions is enough to deem the project a success. Though Eno seems to have taken a kitchen sink approach to this track’s arrangement, at its heart it’s a just a brilliant pop song and the closest thing to a new Talking Heads song we’ve heard in twenty years.

8) Frightened Rabbit – “Heads Roll Off” (from The Midnight Organ Fight) – Frightened Rabbit didn’t forge any new territory on their breakthrough album, but the Scottish band gets by just fine by writing fantastic indie pop anthems. “Heads Roll Off” follows a simple structure, taking a jangly guitar riff right out of Johnny Marr’s playbook and pairing it with pounding drums and Scott Huchison’s heavily accented emotive vocals. The song’s first line, “Jesus is just a Spanish boy’s name,” is one of my favorite lyrical snippets of the year.

9) The Walkmen – “Four Provinces” (from You & Me) – After A Hundred Miles Off, the Walkmen’s 2006 follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Bows & Arrows flopped, most people wrote the band off as just another flash in the pan. The Walkmen, however, knew they weren’t done and proved it by ditching their signature fuzz and crafting an album full of slow, quiet masterpieces. “Four Provinces” sounds like a rocker within the context of the album, but when heard on its own actually sounds quite tame. Singer Hamilton Leithauser keeps his signature voice largely reined in here, but when he reaches for that “Hey!” in the chorus, you can feel the struggle of the last four years taking its toll on him.

10) Vampire Weekend – “Walcott” (from Vampire Weekend) – Say what you will about Vampire Weekend, but they released a pretty fantastic, fun debut album this year. “Walcott” is perhaps the album’s biggest and brightest song and actually seems to run contrary to almost every other song on the record, as singer Ezra Koenig’s lyrics are about trying to leave Cape Cod, a place where they seem to have fit right in all album long. Here they combine a bouncy keyboard riff, a quiet/loud dynamic and a string section to make a wonderful little pop song.

11) TV on the Radio – “Lover’s Day” (from Dear Science) – Seriously, did anyone see a pop album coming from TV on the Radio? These guys absolutely nailed it on Dear Science, managing to put out their most accessible work to date without alienating those who have loved their music all along. “Lover’s Day” closes the album in epic fashion and feels almost like a triumphant victory lap for a band who knows they’ve just created something great. The song’s final two minutes soar, as horns and woodwinds blare and a chorus of “oohs” reaches for the sky and can’t help but leave you with a smile on your face.