Real Life Top 10: The Best of 2008

1. Girl Talk - Feed The Animal (Illegal Art): Greg Gillis understands better than anyone else the evolution of modern rock and pop music from artist driven to star driven to concocted star to simply pop culture being driven by a billion familiar sounds. His musical mutt approach (mostly mashing 80's pop with modern era hip hop) easily made Feed the Animal the most interesting and artistic record of the year - as well as the most ass shaking-ly danceable.

2. Rapphael Saddiq - The Way I See It (Columbia): Saddiq’s journey into soul music’s very soul pulls out al of the stops and never misses the spot. From Motown to Philly Soul to pure R&B, from Stevie Wonder to Marvin Gaye, Saddiq manages to update as well honor soul music straight from a modern hip hop heart.

3. Spiritualized - Songs in A & E (Sanctuary): Jason Pierce, by all accounts, was very seriously and life threateningly ill in the recent years. Song in A & E is his Lazarus moment, risen from his slab to create the longest and most beautiful self-eulogy ever. These are love songs for sure, but they cumulatively become a haunting metaphor for living and dying. "Soul on Fire" is a surefire candidate for song of the year.

4. K’Naan - The Dusty Foot Philosopher (IM Culture): Originally floated elsewhere in the world over the past year and a half, this record found its proper and much needed US release in ‘08. Having escaped Mogadishu, Somalia on literally the last commercial flight out in 1991, K’Naan learned the Emglish language in part through hip hop songs. Here he makes one of the finest records the genre has seen over the past half decade. "Stabbed by Satan" is also a song of the year cindidate.

5. The Black Keys - Attack and Release (Nonesuch): Already a dangerous modern uber-bluez duo, Danger Mouse got on board for production purposes and made them the most dangerous band in the land. A perfect new-millennium bluez record that only gets better when you see the boys play live.

6. The Streets - Everything is Borrowed (Vice): Mike Skinner seems to have vented all of his somewhat misguided anger last time out and now he’s back in form and on time. This is the beauty of hip hop/rap music - its utter versatility. Not since the golden era of jazz has a form of musical expression had such limitless potential.

7. TV on the Radio - Dear Science (DGC): Their obsession with where glam music wound up after it wound down (think Scary Monsters era Bowie) turns into a Frankenstein’s monster of near perfect weirdo pop.

8. Shelby Lynne - Just a Little Lovin’ (Lost Highway): Her tribute to Dusty Springfield is also her first promise kept since she recorded I Am Shelby Lynne. But if all it takes is nearly a decade and a few missteps until she records another record like this one and that one, it’ll be worth the wait.

9. Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts - Temporary People (Lonely Astronaut): That Arthur is an artist (we’re talking paint brushes and canvas stuff here) is pretty obvious in his music. As accessible as it feels at first, you can never quite get at what he’s getting at. Which is a good thing for this sort of glammy new wave drama music. Thank God he doesn’t spell his first name with an "f", because that might ruin what is a very good record.

10. Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal (EMI): He’s a 70's punk who has been through everything that being a 70's punk with musical chops who never gave up the ghost could go through. Here he sings it all - a documentary of all the sights and sounds of a musical life well spent. If you’re over 40 and ever listened to the Sex Pistols, its your life story also.

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