LOWAG's Best of 2008 Part I

Welcome in 2008! That's what British Sea Power said when they unleashed Do You Like Rock Music? on the world this February. And with this unleashing they ushered in a music rennaissance, quite superior to the bilge that was unceremonoiusly dumped into the sea and ultimately stained our beloved lost coastlines in the year 2007. Long-term, hardcore readers will recognize some of the acts (or "bands") from posts throughout the year. Short-term, softcore readers will not.



Bands wherein I heard one song and thought to myself "I should listen to the album" but never did


Mates of State (My Only Offer), the Submarines (You, Me, and the Bourgeosie i.e. the iphone song), Nada Surf (See These Bones), Luke Doucet (Blood's too Rich), Johnny Flynn (The Box), Dearestazazel (Lovely, Lovely), and Greg Laswell (How the Day Sounds)

New Alliances

Oxford Collapse
Los Campesinos!
Velocity Girl

New Truces

Coldplay (We keep having to re-sign truces after each album)
The Clinic (Welcome back)

Peace treaties that lapsed

Mercury Rev
Snow Patrol
The Killers

Declarations of War

Vampire Weekend
Of Montreal (to the death! to the death!)

Before I launch into my yearly walk-through of albums, there were three bands where I listened to one song off their new album and didn't listen again: Of Montreal (heretofore known as "Of Crapreal"), My Morning Jacket, and Bon Iver. I cannot stand Of Crapreal. Really. I cannot. I've tried hard enough, but Kevin Barnes has managed to get me to do the unthinkable: Declare war on an Elephant 6 band (granted they're a later Elephant 6, but still). Well, I do hate Marshmallow Coast as well, but that's like hating F.P. Santagelo. Who? Exactly. (He was a utlity infielder for the Giants back in the 1990s.) MMJ's I'm Amazed sounded like a horrible 1970s song by someone like Alabama. And finally, I thought Bon Iver was boring.

So, as the Indie Mob gathers their vintage pitchforks, their hip old-fashioned Zippos, and hemp rope made by the indigenous people of the Peruvian highlands to burn me at the stake (I hope they buy carbon offsets), I bring to you the list of bands wherein I listened to their entire album this year, broken down into divisions of likeability.

"Just yell at me, Dad!" "Son, I'm not going to yell. I'm too disappointed to yell" Division

Day and Age - The Killers. To paraphrase the Lion King, Oh the shame! You've besmirched your name! and I got downhearted, cos your new album smells like you farted! On that mature note, this album represents the Killers choosing the wide path that leads to everlasting ignominy and ignoring the strait and narrow path leading to band immortality as they turned their sound from guitar-oriended w/synths to synthy. They are now doomed to be the next Duran Duran. Yes, people lap up songs like Human now, just like the people lapped up "Union of the Snake," but the bleakness of Notorious, Big Thing, and Liberty lies ahead. I just pray that the ghost of Simon Le Bon appears to Brandon Flowers in the following dialogue:
Brandon: Simon, why do you wear such chains?
Simon: I forged these chains year by year, awful synth filler song after awful synth filler song.
Brandon: But you sold so many records! You were so good at business!
Simon: Business!! Creating epic music for mankind was my business! Rocking out was my business!! *wails* How oft did I siphon away the label's money from new, impoverished rock bands so that I could create terrible 1980s music videos? How oft did I ignore the poor earnest bands slogging along in clubs when all I had to do was reach out my hand and say to an AR rep, "I support this band!" But NOOOOOOO!! *clangs chains, and wails* You will be visited by three spirits....hey, what are you doing?
Brandon: I'm writing a variant of my Christmas hit. This one's called Don't Shoot me Creepy Marleyesque Ghost Simon. By the way, why isn't this someone like John Entwhistle or another rocker who choked on his vomit. After all, you're not dead.
Simon: Aren't I? Aren't I?