The Audiobahn: 2008 (open letter to Fleet Foxes fanatics)

So, 2008 kind of caught me off guard. November rolled around, and there I was, struggling to really think of 5 albums that had grabbed my attention. Now, this may have been in part due to the fact that my Macbook crashed early in the year, leaving me in a tough spot to listen to albums I had previously bought/downloaded. Realizing I would want to make some sort of rough “Best Of” list, I scrambled to get my hands on as many 2008 albums as possible.

Which brings me to this one:

Best album of 2008, right!!? Well, not exactly. Don't get me wrong-- Fleet Foxes is a really good album. It is a great blend of ephemeral, woodsy folk and sunny pop that reminds of a simpler, more naturalistic time. Which was great the first time I heard it and it was Midlake's 2006 album The Trials of Van Occupanther:

This is not to say the bands are similar at all-- Midlake favors arrangements with strings, keytars, guitar solos, and a huge harmonic sound that sounds something like Fleetwood Mac meeting up with Coldplay writing the songs that Ben Folds never could, but it still does irk me a bit to hear Fleet Foxes talked about as the first band ever to make haunting, natural folk-inspired indie music.

Anyway, I don't want to focus on the negative: I really enjoyed “Ragged Wood,” “Quiet Houses,” and “Blue Ridge Mountains” off their debut. While I can see the merit of some of their songs with more sparse arrangements (i.e. “Sun It Rises” or "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song"), too many of them become unremarkable and/or boring for me (take for example, the closing track “Oliver James”). When you find it difficult to enjoy at least 3 songs on an album, how can you in good faith include it in your Top 10? I certainly can't.

That said, here are my actual favorite albums from 2008 (I'll spare lengthly individual write-ups for the time being since I'm getting to this so late and many have already been widely acclaimed-- those deserving a more in-depth review will likely see one in the coming weeks). Many of these were not discovered or fully discovered by me until the end '08, but I've given them enough listens in that I'm fairly confident in my rankings:

Plants and Animals – Parc Avenue [Secret City]