2008 - The Year in Music

Playlist by Rich Pickings - 19th December 2008

Our credit got crunched. But look back (In ascending order) at the year's best tracks according to your truly.

Pendulum - 9000 Miles (In Silico, 2008)

The album sucked. Only on this did they get the prog-epic drum and bass effect they were looking for.

Alphabeat - Fascination (This is Alphabeat, 2008)

Oh sod off. It's pop.

Fucked Up - Days of Last (The Chemistry of Modern Life, 2008)

Punk rock symphony, the candian toilet trashers evaded our best efforts to see them live in 2008 this won't happen next year.

Chairlift - Bruises (Single, 2008)

Apple are the Levis of the noughties: star making, star creating. You have to ask if they were listening to the words, but this was nevertheless a slight gem.

The Black Dog - Short Wave Lies (Radio Scarecrow, 2008)

It felt like 1993, the guys who weren't Andy Turner and Ed Handley did very nicely thank you.

The Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr. A (The Trick To Life, 2008)

And neither do we really need another ELO, but Mr. Blue Sky is a classic. oh, this probably isn't anything to do with it if the lawyers are reading.

Iglu & Hartley - This City (Single, 2008)

Now we don't actually need another RHCP. But they could bring back the athletics tube sock in a big way.

Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong - Where Do You Go (Single, 2008)

Oh how we hated the name, the pretentious interviews, the ghastly videos. But urrrrrrgh. This was good.

Friendly Fires - Paris (Friendly Fires, 2008)

Indie pop - not new rave or we get cross - at it's ecstacy gobbling best

The Killers - Spaceman (Day & Age, 2008)

Day and Age found the Las Vegans caught between two stools, back came the synths but out went the intensity. This was them at their pilfering, derivative best.

White Denim - I Can Tell (White Denim, 2008)

Nutty Texas three piece who meld the sixties, seventies and nineties together with rockin' superglue.

The Envy Corps - Wires & Wool (Dwell, 2008)

Guitarist Brandon Darner had a stroke onstage during the gig last year - the best excuse for delaying an album release we've ever heard.

The Cool Kids - Bassment Party (The Bake Sale , 2008)

Backwards looking rap from mates of Lil' Wayne - not an uzi in earshot.

The Ting Tings - Shut Up & Let Me Go (We Started Nothing, 2008)

Ok, this was Blondie by another name and Katie White is soooooo annoying, but when they're good..

Neon Neon - I Lust U (Stainless Style, 2008)

Gruff Rhys. Doing electro pop better than the Ting Tings. What's not to love?

Benga - Pleasure (Diary of an Afro Caribean Warrior, 2008)

Whilst the fuss is around Burial, Dubstep's movers and shakers continued to pioneer the movement throughout the year. Diary of An Afro Warrior may not be it's Timeless in commercial terms, but it could be it artistically.

Hello, Blue Roses - Shadow Falls (Single, 2008)

No, we've never heard of them either. Although it's someone from the New Pornographers we now understand. Anyway, it's ace.

Hercules And Love Affair - You Belong (Hercules And Love Affair, 2008)

Studio 54 for the noughties? Anthony Hegarty re-emerged as a diva as an acid house diva.

The Vivian Girls - Tell The World (Download, 2008)

Gargantuan punk with a frissant of all the best girls bands in the world ever.

Hot Chip - We're Looking For A Lot Of Love (Made In The Dark, 2008)

Croony techno ballad which made us think of our nearest and dearest.

Mystery Jets - Two Doors Down (Single, 2008)

Sounded like The Thompson Twins de-bagging Haircut One Hundred. In a good way.

Flying Lotus - Comet Course (Los Angeles, 2008)

Warp? Lost it? you must be kidding.

Santogold - You'll Find A Way (Santogold, 2008)

Santi White decamped from punk, took Glasto by storm and let go this indie pop defining gem.

The Little Ones - Tangerine Visions (Morning Tide, 2008)

Ultimately Morning Tide didn't rewrite surf pop history as anticipated, but it was great to have them back.

Pacific - Hot Lips (Single, 2008)

Quirky? What hell does quirky mean exactly? Like Das Pop but with a little more class, this made our summer.

Guillemots - Kriss Kross (Red, 2008)

Kissing cousins to eighties jock relics The Woodentops, this was their finest hour.

Oasis - Shock of the Lightning (Dig Out Your Soul, 2008)

The Gallaghers came out fighting in 2008 - and for once not with each other.

Glasvegas - Geraldine (Glasvegas, 2008)

Probably the best song abotu a social worker ever. And she's real!

The Whip - Trash (Single, 2008)

Grinding forward/backward electro pop. It does sound like a bit like New Order though.

The Helio Sequence - Can't Say No (Single, 2008)

Indeed - open up your heart and let this pop gem directly into your frontal cortex.

Goldfrapp - Cologne Cerrogne (Seventh Tree, 2008)

From techno dominatrix to straw munching demelza, this was a remarkable transformation and she wsn't alone. The Kate Bush revival starts here, not least on this gorgeous Bond theme from the eleventh dimension.

The Courteeners - What Took You So Long (St. Jude, 2008)

Liam Fray may never stand astride british music like the collossus he sees in his dreams, but together with his backing band, at least the short term fabric of our universe has experienced a sligh ripple.

Ladyhawke - Manipulating Woman (Ladyhawke, 2008)

The elfin Kiwi Pip Brown produced the pop album of the year, full of reconstituted hubris from a decade which was hardly short of puff. This could equally have been My Delerium, Paris is Burning or five or six other equally thrilling tracks from it, such was the depth of quality.

Sam Sparro - Black And Gold (Sam Sparro, 2008)

An ode to god, disguised as a disposable love song. The australian posessed a voice of velvet warmth, perfectly counterpointing the noughties soul background which a thousand sweaty white van drivers would be bogling to in your rear view mirror.

Moby - I Like To Move In Here (Last Night, 2008)

Critics revelled in Last Night's commercial failure, but in amongst the misfires lurked a sweet, deep house jam.

Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss A Beat (Off WIth Their Heads, 2008)

Every Chief's album has at least one classic pop song - if there is such a thing as indie in Britain any more, this was chav-saluting anthem was it's apex.

Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains (Fleet Foxes, 2008)

Whilst in Britain we choked on lo-rent lad rock masquerading as a brit pop revival, across the pond it's been a remarkable story of ever growing diversity. Fleet Foxes' underlined Sub Pop's spirit of reinvention and crafted the most spritual music of the year, bar none.

Lil' Wayne - Mr. Carter (Tha Carter III, 2008)

In a year in which rap began to stretch under it's own weight once again there were few big name winners; Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. not only confirmed himself as the planet's biggest rapper, he produced his finest work to date in the process.

MGMT - Electric Feel (Oracular Spectacular, 2008)

Every year one band shakes off the hype and come through with the goods - Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden made 2008 their year, and this throbbing mix of Hall and Oates and sixties kitsch was the finest moment of Oracular Spectacular.

Wiley - My Rolex (Single, 2008)

Like all great music, it meant nothing, it said nothing, and yet it communicated. Unlikely to win an Ivor Novello and yet covered by intelligentsia darlings Hot Chip, it sat it's big ass down in your chair and your girlfriend couldn't take it's eyes off it.