ain’t supposed to die on a saturday night: the 2008 round-up;

So The X Factor is over for another year, which means that ’round these parts we can get back to talking about the soundtrack of your life and the music that saved it as opposed to mawkish, overwrought cover versions of such songs that even my poptastic little sister found inappropriate.

Life is so crazy of late. The one thing I wanted from this year was simply to make the most of it, and I think that I’ve done so for the most part, but these last few weeks have run away from me in such a crazy gallop that I’m scared to go to sleep in case I wake up and it’s 2009. Friends are texting, asking if we can see each other before the holidays, and I’m having to decline as I still have a week of work a family wedding and a Christmas in the Midlands. I’m off until the 5th as of next Tuesday, and I’ll be grateful for the chance to catch my breath (and make some mixes!). This all sounds like a story best saved for my last post of the year, but my point is that if I don’t get these lists posted between blitzing my Christmas shopping today I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to do so again. A precursory recap of how my 2007 picks stood the test of time has been one casualty, but suffice to say at least the top two have held their positions.

But that was then, and this is now. Onwards, then, to List Season 2008.

LAST YEAR’S GIRL’S FAVOURITE, IF NOT THE BEST, ALBUMS OF 2008:

10. Vivian Girls: Vivian Girls [buy]
By all accounts the backlash has already started against these cutesy one-trick ponies, but I don’t use the internet anymore therefore I don’t care. I unashamedly adore the Vivian Girls’ scuzzy debut and their punk-rock slumber party live show, and I think you should too.
I said: “More reverb!” cried bassist Kickball Katy, with a laugh and a toss of her long red hair. “If you can still make out what I’m saying, then we need more reverb!” (December)

9. The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride [buy]
One of the greatest lyricists of our generation returns with another brilliantly understated, beautifully melodic masterpiece. 2008 was a good year for fans of the Mountain Goats, with a couple of EPs (a “pay what you want” download plus a tour EP with Kaki King) thrown in for good measure – next year a proper UK tour though, eh?
I said: [I]t’s as if Get Lonely got a certain kind of melancholy out of our John’s system, and its follow-up is the manifesto of a proud iconoclast. (January)

8. Laura Marling: Alas, I Cannot Swim [buy]
A precocious talent, the debut of Reading’s Laura Marling carries a maturity far beyond the singer-songwriter’s tender years. Marling’s is one of those too-early-in-the-year releases that I hope doesn’t slip under too many people’s radar as the lists get drawn up, and her haunting melodies stay with you long after the album’s end.

7. Okkervil River: The Stand-Ins [buy]
The “companion piece” to last year’s runner-up, the songs and musical interludes that make up The Stand-Ins apparently formed part of the “Stage Names” sessions. While the latter is certainly a stronger album overall, I didn’t realise just how catchy and clever these songs are until I was lucky enough to hear them live.
I said: As live bands go, on a scale of one to the Hold Steady, the Texan indie rockers score at least a 9.5 in my head. (November)

6. Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago [buy]
I was a late convert to this wonderful album – particularly as, if my sources are right, it was originally released in 2007! There’s something rainy-day desperate, yet lush and beautifully moving, about Justin Vernon’s high vocals; but this album will forever take me back to breakfasts of bacon and Coca-Cola in Australia when James couldn’t believe I hadn’t yet heard it in its entirety.

5. Death Cab For Cutie: Narrow Stairs [buy]
A return to form? But Lis, didn’t you actually LIKE Plans? I hear you cry. Well, yes, but I certainly didn’t wake up one morning in November wanting desperately to listen to the album in its entirety. I guess that’s what happens when your old bandcrushes decide to rebel against their slow descent into teen movie indie landfill and trail their new album with an eight-minute single with the creepiest lyrics since “Every Breath You Take”. Ten years and a world removed from their debut, Death Cab For Cutie are as relevant and as worthy of obsession as ever. Snow Patrol et al, take note – this is how it should be done.
I said: [I]n this age of short attention spans and single track downloads, [Narrow Stairs] is a complex beast best appreciated as a complete package. I love everything about this album – from the CD booklet (remember those?) with its die-cut edges, to the perfect segues that refuse to let me prune even the imperfect tracks from shuffle. (May)

4. Sun Kil Moon: April [buy]
Some of my most quality music listening happens in transit, staring out of the window at nothing in particular and appreciating a particular album or artist on a level I’m just not capable of if it’s merely on in one ear while I’m doing something else. I listened to April hurtling backwards on some particular train journey or other, and then again on the long flight home from the other side of the world when I began to realise that sleep was out of the question. Mark Kozelek’s ethereal voice is like a security blanket to me, wrapping me up in a dreamworld where my heartrate slows and panic subsides.
I said: April… is a strange record; one which requires patience but which ultimately sounds familiar. The sprawling compositions almost overlap in my head to become a comforting soundscape… (September)

3. Kathleen Edwards: Asking For Flowers [buy]
I always seem to pick the boy singers; preferring, as I said once, to imagine myself as the girl sung about rather than the girl doing the singing. Since I discovered Kathleen Edwards, fell for her immediately and bought up her entire discography on the one weekend, she has consistently bucked the trend and her third album is another stormer.
I said: It’s the voice that draws me in. It’s throaty and a little bruised, the voice of a girl who’d go for a couple of drinks and a cheeseburger, not pass over dessert because she simply couldn’t, and laugh with you all the way home. It’s a voice that’s also perfectly in my own pitch, meaning I can sing along in the kitchen. And it’s a voice that can do honest, tender, sincere. (April)

2. Matthew Ryan: Matthew Ryan vs The Silver State [buy]
A couple of weeks ago, as I started to think about this list seriously, I had a moment of despair as I considered the fact that there hadn’t been an artist unknown to me before this year who had grabbed me as completely and unexpectedly as the Twilight Sad did last year. I was, of course, wrong – it’s just that Matthew Ryan’s is one of those voices that feels as if it has been with me much longer than it has in reality. A bonus from my contact at Jesse Malin’s record label, ripped to my iTunes and almost forgotten about until one dark evening when it mattered most. Ryan wears his Springsteen influence proudly (“her mascara was born to run”), but his earnest lyricism has a poetry all of its own.
I said: I’m on such a Matthew Ryan kick lately, and this song is amazing. It even inspired me to have a proper hunt around for my Clash t-shirt (the one that was Jay’s Clash t-shirt…) (July)

1. The Hold Steady: Stay Positive [buy]
See, I reckon if the Album of the Year comes as a surprise to anybody then I’m clearly not doing my job as a blogger. Whether it’s in the play tallies, the shows seen, the fake tattoos or the constant namedrops, the Hold Steady are so clearly my favourite contemporary band and one of the few bands worth getting Web Sheriffed over. Craig Finn writes the most memorable characters, the greatest screwed-up Catholic girls, the most vivid killer parties, and the music Tad, Franz, Galen and Bobby create around those stories is perfect and earnest and real. A band who go from strength to strength, and who need a place on your “must see live” list.
I said: The characters that populate the Hold Steady’s earlier work are back… and they’re as druggy and messed-up as ever. But this time they’re older, sadder, dealing with the consequences and trying to lift themselves from their obscurity. It makes for a depth that, although not lifting the album to the giddy greatness of their finest hour, Separation Sunday, certainly edges it above its blogworthy predecessor. (July)

2008′s Honourable Mentions: The Indelicates, American Demo; Marah, Angels of Destruction; Amanda Palmer, Who Killed Amanda Palmer

2008′s Albums Which Might Have Made The List Had I Had Them Longer Than A Week: The Gaslight Anthem, The ’59 Sound, Mark Kozelek, The Finally LP, Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.

They say the devil is in the detail, and there’s plenty of that after the jump.

MOST DISAPPOINTING FOLLOW-UP ALBUM BY A PREVIOUS TOP TEN ACT AWARD:
Jenny Lewis, Acid Tongue. She’s still hot though.

THE “RYAN ADAMS NEEDS TO WIN SOMETHING” AWARD FOR AN ALBUM THAT WASN’T AS BAD AS EXPECTED:
Ryan Adams, Cardinology – has one phenomenal song, and several pretty good ones!

BEST COMPILATION ALBUM:
Various Artists, All Aboard: A Tribute to Johnny Cash (Anchorless Records)

BEST REISSUE:
Although this year should’ve been all about the Replacements, the deluxe two-disk Strangers Almanac (Whiskeytown) was a fantastic treatment of one of my all-time favourite albums.

BEST MOST BONKERS USE OF THE INTERNET:
Paul Westerberg, 49:00 – the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it almost hour-long mp3 which disappeared as quickly as it arrived due to dubious “copyright issues”, only to be replaced with its missing fuck-you “5:05″.

EP OF THE YEAR:
The National, The Virginia EP, although The Twilight Sad’s Here It Never Snowed, Afterwards It Did comes a close second.

“HEY! YOU! GET OFF OF MY FEED READER!” AWARD (SPONSORED BY RADIOWANK)
Fleet Foxes. My complete indifference for their much-feted self-titled album, which I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to more than about twice, has troubled me for months now. It’s perfectly pleasant, but that’s about it. I need a little more fire.

LAST YEAR’S GIRL’S TOP SONGS OF 2008 (END OF YEAR MIXES SOON!)
5. The Gaslight Anthem, “The ’59 Sound”
4. The Helio Sequence, “Hallelujah”
3. Leona Naess, “Leave Your Boyfriends”
2. Okkervil River, “Singer-Songwriter”
1. The Hold Steady, “Lord, I’m Discouraged”

BAND OF THE YEAR:
The Hold Steady.

LAST YEAR’S GIRL’S TOP GIGS OF 2008:
3. Tom Waits @ Edinburgh Playhouse, 27th July [review]
2. The Hold Steady @ Glasgow Garage, 25th February [London review]
1. Light of Day London @ Putney Half Moon, 8th December [blog]

BEST MINI-ALBUM WHICH TECHNICALLY ISN’T OUT UNTIL 2009:
Ben Nichols, The Last Pale Light in the West

MUSIC BLOKE OF THE YEAR
Glen Campbell for his bizarre covers record, featuring tracks by the Replacements, Foo Fighters and Travis amongst others. It shouldn’t work. In fact, I don’t think it does work. But, fucking hell. The guy is both a genius and certifiably insane.

MUSIC BIRD OF THE YEAR:
Cheryl Cole.

LAST YEAR’S GIRL’S ULTIMATE MUSIC MOMENT OF 2008:
Finally hearing Ryan Adams perform “Come Pick Me Up” live, or sitting back and watching my clever, talented mates metaphorically kick the Web Sheriff’s arse.

LAST YEAR’S GIRL DOESN’T WANT TO GIVE HER BOYFRIEND THE SATISFACTION OF NAMING THE DARK KNIGHT AS HER FILM OF 2008, SO HERE ARE HER TOP TEN:
10. The X-Files: I Want To Believe (OH HAI PITY VOTE!)
9. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
8. Charlie Wilson’s War
7. Juno
6. Persepolis
5. Burn After Reading
4. Iron Man
3. Son of Rambow
2. The Dark Knight
1. High School Musical 3: Senior Year

LAST YEAR’S GIRL’S WORST FILM OF 2008:
The horror that was Wall-E. From the original post: I can’t watch monosyllabic robots fall in computer-generated love when humanity has devolved to the point that they’re zooming around a space station on automatic beds while their bones have wasted away. Also, holy RECYCLING GOOD! OBESITY BAD! message shoved down the throats of my generation’s childen, batman! Although considering the only family in the cinema were munching their way through jumbo-sized tubs of popcorn, they probably needed to hear it from somebody.

Right, I’m knackered. Cup of tea?