Best Songs of 2008

So here it is, at long last. I've finally gotten my list together. It's a very long and important process for me that starts in January and lasts the whole year. Using NPR's Song of the Day daily newsletter, NPR's All Songs Considered (long live Bob Boilen!), several independent music podcasts, and now iTunes Genius, I listen to a bunch of music during the year, and as I do, I collect songs that I enjoy and put them into my Best of 2008 playlist. In December, I go through the whole thing and cull it down to about 35 songs, enough for 2 discs. And here it is. I'm very proud of it this year, it marks the first year that I've mostly stayed away from mainstream radio and mainstream pop. The songs are in playlist order.

Disc 1

1. Take My Love With You -- Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the Trueloves
2. One Red Thread -- Blind Pilot
3. Lonley Anywhere -- the everybodyfields
4. D.A.R.L.I.N.G. -- Beach House
5. Jenny & Steve -- Blue Skies for Black Hearts
6. Dying Is Fine -- Ra Ra Riot
7. In The Night -- Basia Bulat
8. Singing To The Earth (To Thank Her For You) -- Apollo Sunshine
9. I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory -- Kathleen Edwards
10. This Is Not a Test -- She & Him
11. The Cornflakes Song -- Dick Prall
12. This Is -- The Lifters
13. A Great Silence -- Emery Byrd
14. Just Like Heaven -- The Watson Twins
15. Lately -- The Helio Sequence
16. Viva La Vida -- Coldplay

A few notes on disc one. Track 2, One Red Thread, is phenomenal. Track 8 is my regression back into the Hippie Liz of my college days. And 16 is just a really great song. I don't care if it was in an iTunes commercial.

Disc 2

1. White Winter Hymnal -- Fleet Foxes
2. There's No Blood in Bone -- Mono in VCF
3. Cherry Tulips -- Headlights
4. Sultan -- What Made Milwaukee Famous
5. Lucy Rider -- Alberta Cross
6. A Beautiful Mess -- Jason Mraz
7. Decimate -- David Ford
8. See These Bones -- Nada Surf
9. Addicted to Company -- Paddy Casey
10. On Our Way Home -- The Silent Years
11. You Don't Love Me Yet -- The Winterpills
12. What a Catch, Donnie -- Fall Out Boy
13. You Don't Know Me -- Ben Folds featuring Regina Spektor
14. Roll On Babe -- Vetiver
15. If I Could Change Your Mind -- Sloan
16. Skinny Love -- Bon Iver
17. The Re-Arranger -- Mates of State
18. Time To Pretend -- MGMT

And some notes on disc 2, which contains many of my most listened to songs of the year. Track 1, White Winter Hymnal, is one of the three best songs of the year. Watch for Fleet Foxes on SNL this Saturday night. They will blow you away. Track 8, See These Bones, is just such a good song, especially in the last minute and a half. Track 12 is also a great song, regardless of Fall Out Boy's popularity. It's just this amazingly composed opus of wonderfulness. Track 13 is the best track from an otherwise unremarkable (and rather annoying) Ben Folds album. But that track is gold. Track 16, Skinny Love, and track 17, The Re-Arranger, are the other two best songs that fill out my three best of the year.

In all, it was a good year for indivudual music tracks, and a bad year for albums as a whole. I, personally, am not a fan of the "album" as it stands now, which is (most often) merely a selling tool for four or so great tracks, with a bunch of filler crap in between. Thank God for iTunes, which made it so I don't have to by entire albums of music anymore.

If you'd like to have a copy of Liz's Best Songs of 2008 yourself, feel free to let me know.