My Favourite Albums Of 2008

I thought I may as well start off with a list of my favourite albums from 2008, because it probably best sets the scene for what will be on this blog. In order to compile my astonishingly brilliant list I am using this foolproof equation to calculate the perfect top 10: my most played albums on last.fm + the albums I think I like best + whatever ones are the coolest. It's an incredibly mathematical, painstaking process that obviously has taken me weeks to perfect, which is why I'm only posting it now. So at long last, here it is:

10. Laura Marling – Alas, I Cannot Swim

I first saw Laura supporting Grant Lee Phillips a couple of years back and she looked ghostly white, fragile and startlingly young. Despite her looks, I didn't realise that she was actually just 17 because her folk-tinged voice and intricate acoustic arrangements suggested someone who had spent many more years listening to Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, and experiencing similar heartaches. The album is the same and it's a way more impressive debut by a British female than the ones that dominated the press over the past year (cough, Duffy, cough, Adele). Plus she was among the fantastic few that supported Neil Young at his Hop Farm fest during the summer and immediately gets a thousand cool points for that alone.

9. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever

It was someone on last.fm that recommended Bon Iver to me way before the music press picked up on them and I admit I was reluctant to include Justin Vernon's little heartbreaker of a record because, to be perfectly honest, it's off-puttingly cool and trendy. But it's such a gorgeous, sad, slow-building, charmer of an album it's hard to deny its power. Plus they rock out live in complete contrast to the album's lo-fi feel: when you expect them to come out all mopey and shy and mumbling in the microphone, you get witty stories, epic feedback-denched guitar solos and rousing sing-alongs. How can you not love that?

8. Hawksley Workman – Los Manlicious

Hawksley actually released two albums this year: the first, a rather safe collection of his more accessible pop tunes and ballads called Between The Beautifuls that veered at times rather too close to Sting territory. The second though, while not quite as quirky as Hawksley at his eccentric best, was an altogether more sexy beast with songs about Girls On Crutches, Lonely People and Kissing Girls (You Shouldn't Kiss), leaping from raw rock to dance numbers to theatrical pop. It's pretty cool and evidence that the Hawkster needs to mash up his mainstream sensibilities with his weirder self more often.

7. The Gutter Twins - Adorata/Saturnalia

This is kind of cheating. Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan made their musical relationship (along with being real life best buddies - I still giggle when I read that Guardian interview with the stony-faced, emotionless, seemingly solitary Lanegan telling them "Greg is my best friend", aw BFFs!) official this year with two Gutter Twins releases, but I'm including them as one. In truth I've probably listened to the covers-filled EP Adorata more just because, aside being a fantastic songwriter, Dulli is one of the best interpreters of other people's songs, and add Lanegan's unique soul-quaking thunderous voice to the mix and it's just perfection.

6. A.A. Bondy - American Hearts

To tell the truth I have no clue who A.A. (Scott) Bondy is or his former rock band Verbana but this stripped down record with nods to Dylan and Townes Van Zandt slowly crept into my heart this year particularly the sweet longing of There's A Reason and the stomping drugs boogie of Vice Rag. People have compared him to Ryan Adams and while it's not completely off the mark he's actually much more unique than that. I can't wait to see what he does next.

5. Mark Olson & Gary Louris – Ready For The Flood

To be fair Gary Louris' solo album Vagabonds is probably the equal of this reunion of the two voices that launched The Jayhawks, with uplifting soaring melodies and introspective love-lorn ballads, but his first record with former bandmate Mark Olson has, what folks in The Jayhawks fandom like to call, the "Univoice", that sublime blending of their two voices harmonising. It's not particularly upbeat and Chris Robinson's production, while thankfully sparse, is a bit muddy (couldn't he have turned up the vocals, those glorious vocals, up a notch?) it's a magical thing to hear Olson and Louris back singing together. Long may it last.

4. Kathleen Edwards – Asking For Flowers

I've always liked, never loved, Kathleen Edwards' records but something happened between the making of her second album and her new one, Asking For Flowers, because for the first time I completely fell in love with her music. Before she had a cool Lucinda Williams crossed with Tom Petty thing going on but with Asking For Flowers she finally came into her own. Maybe it's because she's a little more world-weary, that the romance has faded, that she's more open-hearted, but whatever it is, this album, which sees her become more storyteller than simple soul-bearing confessional singer-songwriter, is a welcome progression.

3. The Mars Volta - The Bedlam In Goliath

Thinking about it, I'm probably the kind of fan that The Mars Volta hate: I loved At The Drive-In, my ideal song isn't 30 minutes long and I do find lyrics you need a dictionary to translate a little laughable in their pretension. Yet somehow I became kind of obsessed with The Bedlam In Goliath, which in many ways returned to At The Drive-In's in-your-face rock sensibility. It wasn't as grandiose as their last two albums and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala perhaps overdid the Bjork-inspired vocal effects, but it kind of grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me awake the way the best loud rock music does.

2. Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue

I know a lot of people were disappointed that Jenny abandoned the gentle country storytelling of her first solo album Rabbit Fur Coat but I loved the more bluesy soulful rock 'n' roll as heard on Acid Tongue. There's still tender folky moments, such as on the title track, but she sounds like she's having the most fun on the nine-minute-long, three-songs-rolled-into-one The Next Messiah and the funky sing-along Jack Killed Mom. Definite proof, I think, after the lack-lustre Rilo Kiley effort Under The Blacklight, that she really was saving her best stuff for her solo career.

1. Lindsey Buckingham - Gift Of Screws

Of course, I'm bias here because I think Lindsey is something of an under-appreciated genius and rank Tusk, Fleetwood Mac's legendary punk-inspired follow-up to Rumours, as one of the greatest things to ever hit music stores, but Gift Of Screws really is something special, straddling the line between his most accessible Mac songs and his most left-field offerings. One minute he’s laughing manically and yelling Emily Dickinson lines like a demented Elvis Costello, on the suitably oddball title track, the next he’s cooing sweetly “did you miss me in the morning?” on the melodic sunshine pop of Did You Miss Me. It's twisty, weird and sexy, as well as contemplative and moody, and showcases his jaw-dropping cascading finger-picking. In short, everything we love Buckingham for.