pitchfork have this reader's poll, and instead of my valuable views being smudged in with all the other troglodyte votes, i thought i would tell your FACE what i think and how you should think. this is democracy.
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favourite album 2008
rip it off - Times New Vikingthis album is the sound of artistic shabby canvas sex and spooning. all the time, but represented on a piece of parchment, by the egyptians. it's so brutish, goofy and shit, and it doesn't care, and this is why it is just like love. it's such a stylish, landmark record, not too indie, not too goat-eyed and indifferent, it's leftist and green and so appallingly produced it makes you long for band practice in the garage. 'i wanted to buy you flowers' Beth and Adam sing through bass-ridden dead-amp distortion on The Early 80's (adorable greengrocers' apostrophe a must), and its like, but you already did.
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favourite song 2008
suicide notes - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
It's a silly idea to choose yr favourite song in any year, (i was going to put Water Curses but for untold reasons, i cant bare to listen to it anymore, or perhaps something my
coki? hmm..), but my random discovery of Ariel Pink was so lucky musically -- his sound - -weird-ass, emotional, lost in the worst/best GENUINE trip of the 70's. music journo's often talk about music being trippy, but that's because they're recalling when they did speed a month ago. the Haunted Graffiti is really warped in a way that seems to be due to a labour of love. and it's singable. it's like when you have to spend time with cousins you cant really remember the names of and you havent slept, and you realise how old they look and the insertion point on the inside of your elbow really itches, and time is really subjective and flopped over. suicide notes is really cool because i pretend the chorus goes Jodie, Jodie, which is a friend of mine from when i was really young, and it hazes the whole thing up.
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best live act 2008
The Kills
i've seen more shows that usual this year, but the crystal castles show at the beginning of the year made me realise how they are now tamers of 14-year-old zombies, and they whip them into shape (or Alice does, dominatrix that she is) and that really bored me. then Shred Yr Face at Elec Ballroom was excellent and sexy, traditional fun, as was the No Age aftershow later at Bar Vinyl, where Randy was a really nice guy (and reading their recent interviews, fucking hilarious), as well as Fucked Up, where everyone there got mollested. but seeing the Kills, and not really expecting much at all (i had presumed my tastes had changed significantly, No Wow being the last album i got), they were fucking nang. classically composed, genuinely enjoying themselves, and always with this beautiful, sad poetry between them. it was as if Kate Moss was standing in the middle like a ghostly form, seperating them, and the glances (and sometimes lustful, full-on stares) they gave eachother were taut with happy, glad-to-be-on-the-road melancholy. i began imagining the conversations they would have at whatever shitty Stoke hotel they were staying at, wondering how Alison would lean out the window whilst she smoked. the nicest thing about the Kills is they are probably the most timeless, ageless band of the decade, and there is definitely something worth keeping in that.
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best new artist 2008
David Altmejd
it doesnt say music artist, and there are too many to choose from, so let me tell you about the awesome contemporary sculptor David Altmejd. he's canadian, uses dead/synthetic animals (often wolves) in his work, with huge fuck off crystals coming out of their chests, and digital watches on their wrists. often his sculptures are so dense with tiny images, little freaky men made out of whatever, queuing up inside the body of some transcreature, full of color without the 'u', all with a pastel, rural cool. not so much an artist's artist, as a fashion designer's artist.
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most overrated album
the seldom seen kid - Elbow
blah blah blah! hello sire, whats yon band call-ed? el-BOW. EL-bow -- really? and you feel thou deservest a stance on the highest of crap, dans Mercury prize, throne, yes? above Burial? Yes? whyest you better sit on d'cunt then chaps!!.... Elbow winning the Mercury seemed to say everything that needed to be said about music this year -- no one knows what they are supposed to like. Kasabian-lite for lonely mid thirties? fine. very innovative. get out of my sight. Los Campesinos!' We are Beautiful, We are Doomed was also on the shortlist for this, theyre mawkish fucking shit-children too.
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most underrated album
anywhere i lay my head - Scarlett Johanssonoh no he dit'ent! yeah, i know. but bear in mind she couldve put out any old absolute chart-topping icecream toss, but she actually chose to make a decent, muddily-produced, personal record. it's a series of tom waits covers, but it's clearly something she wanted to do since she was a kid, and then got to, and even though shes a fairly pants singer, it just makes the whole thing more shoegazey and goofy (pictures of her in her wellies). it's refreshing that it wasn't shit, is what i mean, in earnest. rubicund lips and wellies are a good combo.
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