Here are 3 of my favorite albums of the year, all of which feel like they could have been recorded in the mid 1980's, but benefit from the flashy production techniques of this century. I wouldn't be surprised if they all made the Top 28 for 2008. Listed in ascending order of rating:
Neon Neon "Stainless Style"
Could be the soundtrack for a Bret Easton Ellis novel. There are odes to cars, The Cars, Raquel Welch and Michael Douglas. The standout tracks are "I Told Her on Alderaan", "Steel Your Girl", "Dream Cars" and "I Lust You" featuring Cate Le Bon. The album seems to fluctuate between dance-pop (Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals influenced) and hip-hop (Boom Bip influenced), and the rap tracks don't work quite as well, although most of them are at least fun to listen to the first time through. "Sweat Shop" becomes downright annoying after a few listens though. I would hope that the next project from these guys focuses more on the Gruff material, and less on the hip-hop side of things. The cover art seems appropriate as well, and should give you an idea of what to expect.
KristianStrom.Com Official Album Rating: 3.75/5.0
Cut Copy "In Ghost Colours"
For fans of Depeche Mode, New Order, Human League, My Bloody Valentine and "late period ELO". New-wave revival from Melbourne, Australia seamlessly blends electronic, pop and rock elements into a complete and accomplished album. Can be used for Halloween season house parties in an emergency. Three solid electronic opening tracks, followed by an ambient break, three fairly solid rock tracks, followed by an ambient break, and then we have "Hearts on Fire" and "Far Away", both of which are instant, 80's, current, 2008, no, wait I'm confused- classics. And then another instrumental break and the gorgeous and airy "Strangers in the Wind". Remains in heavy rotation after several months.
KristianStrom.Com Official Album Rating: 4.5/5.0
M83 "Saturdays=Youth"
Please listen to me and ignore http://www.metacritic.com/ on this one. If you search the three M83 albums it lists to date, this one ranks at the bottom with a composite score of 69. I have been following France's Anthony Gonzalez aka M83 for some time now, and I can definitely say that Saturdays=Youth is his finest album to date, and also one of the best of 2008. While his first two albums are both refreshing and disturbing sonic landscapes (I could appreciate them both, but neither was a particular favorite of mine), this latest album is an actual record that you can listen to while you're not doing anything else.
There is something undescribable about this album that taps into my subconscious and somehow reminds me of what it was like to be a kid who grew up in the 80's. Apparently, Gonzalez is 26 (I am 27, born in 1980), so we must have seen some of the same flicks and listened to the same Top 40 countdowns. As usual, http://www.pitchfork.com/ explains it best:
"The album has the same nostalgic sparkle as Hughes' (John Hughes of Pretty in Pink/Breakfast Club/Ferris Bueller/Better of Dead fame) films, a soft-focused mythology of eternal summers and young love. In the liner notes, Gonzalez dedicates it to "all the friends, music, movies, joints, and crazy teachers that made my teenage years so great!" At 26, Gonzalez is just the right age to look back on this era with rose-tinted glasses, forgetting the alienation and anxiety, remembering only the sweetness. Whenever the darker side of teenhood rears its head, it's heroically battled back: On the shoegaze-thick "Dark Moves of Love", "everything is wrecked and grey," but the song ends on a poignant note: "I will fight the time and bring you back!" On the album's cover, heartbreakingly radiant youths (one of them a dead ringer for Molly Ringwald) strike poses in a gold and russet pasture-- the same kind of beautiful misfits that Hughes arranged in after-school detention. In lyrics filled with lusty eruptions ("They are Gods! They are lightning!"), archetypal teens invent themselves with innocent fervor: A love-struck young couple in "Kim & Jessie"; a goth with a crown of black roses and a heart of bubblegum in "Graveyard Girl".
Does "Couleurs" remind anyone else of an Orbital track?
Check out the wonderful low-budget videos for "Kim and Jessie" and "Graveyard Girl" at Youtube.
KristianStrom.Com Official Album Rating: 4.75/5.0
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