Top 25 of 2008: 15-11

15. Vampire Weekend – S/T

I really didn’t want this album on my list for a couple reasons. First, because the leaked version came out last year and many people included it on their lists then and as someone who is, relatively, up on music that makes me feel behind (which I am). Second, it’s just too damn college with talk of oxford commas and professors and Romance languages. Third, it’s too cutesy and I hate these kinds of drums: steel-, kettle- whatever drum-bongo things.

Vampire Weekend owes its inclusion to two different factors: one, the genius playlist feature that Apple debuted a couple of months ago. Every time I created one some damn Vampire Weekend song popped up and I really liked it. Two, I was leaving a party about a month ago. It was late and I hadn’t had a particularly good time, being sort of out of my crowd among Ivy league graduates and rich kids from Wellesley. I put my ipod on random and the first song it chose was “Walcott.” Everything was perfect.

14. Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight

Their name is horrible and their music completely predictable. Their singer has one of those thick Scottish accents that usually wears on one after awhile, and he uses it to sing faux-poetic lines like “it takes more than fucking someone you don’t know just to keep yourself warm.” Everything just seems to have this veneer of cliché and the whole song persists in a self-adorned naïveté.

I love it.

Frightened Rabbit has no need to invent a new genre or add some DJ or a second drummer to make them original—they’ve no need for original. They play the music they like and they play it perfectly.

13. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

I have this album much higher than I had its predecessor though I admit that Night Ripper is the superior album. Everything about Night Ripper was a revelation: the way it mixed genres and paired absolutely crap songs (My Humps) with fantastic ones (Heartbeat). It was a more significant statement than this album. I don’t feel like articulating what exactly that statement was, but suffice it to say I came to this conclusion after I posted my entire list.

Anyways, I will still probably listen to Feed the Animals more because it’s simply more fun. Whereas Night Ripper is somewhat weighed down by its uniqueness and its statement (admittedly I feel like such seriousness is foisted on it by listeners, it’s not fault of Girl Talk himself), Feed the Animals is just downright fun. I still laugh when I listen to some of these pairings, especially the one with Jesse’s Girl.

And it’s a great party album.

12. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

I’m not sure I’m allowed to put this album on my list. I’ve been listening to it since at least October 2007 when one of my ex-girlfriend’s friends lent me an advanced copy. He went to college with the duo and after he found out I was a big fan of The Knife he handed me MGMT. I listened to it and definitely liked it, but I guess I didn’t really take it seriously. I had a lot of “real” albums in rotation at this point and MGMT fell by the wayside. I didn’t think anyone besides me and Teddy (the friend) actually even knew this band existed.

But then strange things started happening. MGMT popped up on Rollings Stones’ “Hot List.” Not one but two students made me mix CD’s that included “Kids.” I told Teddy, via the ex-girlfriend, about the “Hot List” thing and apparently he was even surprised.

So I started listening more intently. Originally I’d never gotten beyond “Time to Pretend”—which I loved but viewed as the only really good song on the list. But I found that I loved every single song. “Electric Feel” is absolutely addictive and I even like “Pieces of What.”

The moral of the story is, the next time someone hands you an advanced copy listen to it.

11. Hercules and Love Affair – S/T

Had I written this list during the summer I have no doubt this album would have topped my list. It’s perfect for summer mornings. It’s ethereal yet it’s beat wakes you up. I love hearing Antony’s voice with upbeat, rather than slow, sad bastard music. I love how it unabashedly apes the 80’s, even down to the highlights, which constantly remind me of Ace of Bass—which for the record is not a good, but a great thing.

Unfortunately as the leaves began to change color and the temperature began to drop (then sporadically rise and then drop and rise again, they should have called it global crazy weather) I just didn’t listen to it as much. Which is why it fell just outside the top ten.

Actually, I feel sad about this...