Now that it’s almost December, you’ve no doubt been thinking about the best entertainment offerings of the year. You also probably haven’t cast a vote for anything in weeks! So now is a perfect time for you to make your 2008 favorites official. It’s the third time we’ve turned to our readers to rank the best releases of the last twelve months. This year is more fun because Videogum is on board. So in addition to asking you to rate this year’s musical highlights, we wanna know the best TV show, movie, and Web video.
The categories are…
- Best Album
- Best Music Video
- Best Live Act
- Indie Rock Crushes
- Most Overrated Act
- Best Music Blog — Aside From Stereogum
- Best TV Show
- Best Movie
- Best Web Video
As always, there are no nominees (except for the Web Video category), so the race is wide open. Once you start typing in your choice, the fields will suggest likely candidates based on your spelling. Please use this auto-fill if your desired pick pops up! It will save us so much time tallying, because formatting and spelling will be consistent. (You can vote for whatever you want, even if auto-fill doesn’t suggest it. Once a few people suggest the same thing, it automatically gets added to the auto-fill suggestions.) One randomly selected entrant will receive CDs of the Top 50 Best Album winners, courtesy of Beck’s, as well as a TBD gift from Videogum (UPDATE: Videogum is contributing a one-year 3-DVD-at-a-time subscription to Netflix.). So use your real e-mail address in the form so we can contact you if you win. One vote per person, and voting closes 12/2.
Coming soon: details on our Gummy Awards live event in NYC, which will double as Stereogum’s 5th Anniversary party.
Vote at gummyawards.com now, and feel free to campaign in the comments.
UPDATE: If you experience any technical problems when submitting your votes, please e-mail web@stereogum.com. We’re working on the bugs. Thanks!
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album?
birdmonster – from the mountain to the sea.
it rulezzzzzz
Because the guy is a legend, and it’s his best album in about 40 years, I need to mention One Kind Favor by B. B. King.
reading these comments makes me realize how out of the loop i am because even though ive heard of these bands i listen to almost zero of them
Suprised these few albums aren’t getting much love (high on my list):
1. Au – Verbs
2. Pattern is Movement – All Together
3. Deerhoof – Dear Maggie
I have a mancrush on Daniel Rossen and his little geeky body.
1. Microcastle/Weird Era Cont
2. Surf City – Dickshaker’s Union
*sorry if double-posted*
3. MBV – Santa Monica Civic
4. Bass player for Dirty Projectors
5. Fleet Foxes
6. Drowned in Sound (it’s a blog now, meh)
7. Seinfeld reruns (if that doesn’t count then It’s Always Sunny…)
8. Batman Begins pt2(?)
9. Sarah Silverman’s get out the vote for old Florida folks
shearwater guys. shearwater. the most underrated album of the year.
and dexter is the best tv show now and ever.
Dexter rocks my socks
Artist
MGMT
Album
Oracular Spectacular
Rating
Release Date
Jan 22, 2008
Label
Red Ink/Columbia
Type
Enhanced
THE TEENAGERS – REALITY CHECK
OWNS 2008
Best gig – Grizzly Bear + Radiohead @ Blossom Music Center
my faves this year
Black Keys – attack & release soundtrack to a fucked up relationship
Crystal Antlers – mind blowing live
Cool Kids – hope they dont fuck it up
Black Moth Super Rainbow & Tobacco – brain melting
The Lions – ethio steppers is an awesome track
Fuck Buttons – music to wake up to
thats all i can think of now……
am i the only one who thinks that the black keys album was great?
I know I’m gonna get slammed for this. This is what I’ve really liked though. No particular order:
Drive-By Truckers: Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (haven’t seen this anywhere and its great)
Fleet Foxes
Lil Wayne: Tha Carter III
The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
The Black Keys: Attack and Release
Blitzen Trapper: Furr
Conor Oberst
Here it comes haha:
Coldplay- Viva La Vida
Kanye West- 808s and Heartbreaks
Tha Carter III was undoubtedly my most-listened-to and most-talked-about album this year, but I’d be hard-pressed to call it a *good* album. Unique, fascinating, attention-demanding and bewildering, sure, but Wayne is definitely capable of better.
Kind of a weak year for indie rock, I think. T.I, Nas, The Cool Kids, and The Roots, on the other hand, all put out great albums.
Other stuff I enjoyed:
Beck: Modern Guilt (easily better than both Guero and The Information)
Cut Copy: In Ghost Colours (even though they’re basically the same band as Hot Chip, this album was catchy as hell)
Death Cab: Narrow Stairs (not their best, but leagues better than Plans)
Fleet Foxes: s/t (I don’t get the insane amounts of hype, but it is a pretty little album)
Girl Talk: Feed the Animals (PARTY PARTY PARTY)
Grand Archives: s/t (Criminally overlooked, really gorgeous straightforward indie rock from some former Band of Horses dudes)
Hot Chip: Made in the Dark (nowhere near as good as The Warning, but there are a number of good songs on here)
M83: Saturdays = Youth (kind of a dramatic style change, but I dig it, especially the first half)
The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride (better than Get Lonely, not as good as The Sunset Tree, a fairly average Mountain Goats record, which is still damn good)
Portishead: Third (gotta respect a band that can actually come back strong after 10 years (looking at you, Smashing Pumpkins))
School of Seven Bells: Alpinisms (these gals opened for M83, pretty good shoegazey stuff along the same lines)
TV on the Radio: Dear Science (still a bigger fan of Cookie Mountain, but lots of great great songs on here)
Why?: Alopecia (it’s not really fair to call Why? alternative hip-hop anymore, this was more of an indie rock record with vague hip-hop influences, still pretty kickass though)
Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer (obviously nowhere near as good as Apologies, I still enjoyed it though)
MGMT is for teeny bopper hipsters who like dancing to the shitty Justice remix of “Kids” and think that having an annoying, cheesy synth setting is some bullshit form of “neo-psychedelia” PFFT. They’re just a flavor of the moment…
Best album goes to….Deerhunter (I prefer Cryptograms because of its atmospherics/ambient passages, but the band proves it can also write legitimate songs this time around)
Justice didn’t do a remix to kids, that was soulwax. They did one to electric feel, and a good one at that. For albums of the year:
1. TV on the Radio
2. Nick Cave
3. Los Campesinos!
4. Lil’ Wayne
5. The Bug
6. The Week that Was
You guys seem to listen to only stereogum recommended stuff (and most of the records mentioned in the comments are basically the same). Isn’t the whole point of independent music to be able to make PERSONAL choices from the ocean of releases and not following the small selection of major labels?
Why the HELL has my post about women being shit at writing songs been removed?
I like the albums by these guys:
Abe Vigoda
Atlas Sound
Bon Iver
CYNE
Deerhunter
Destroyer
Errors
Evangelicals
Flying Lotus
Fuck Buttons
Harvey Milk
Johnny Foreigner
Los Campesinos (their second one more)
M83
Marnie Stern
Mount Eerie
Okkervil River
No Age
Ponytail
Portishead
Subtle
TVOTR
Times New Viking
Titus Andronicus
Vampire Weekend
Wale
The Walkmen
Why?
Wild Beasts
Women
Xiu Xiu
I love this time of year with all these end of year lists, always come across loads of great stuff
Islands- Arm’s Way is hands down number one. It’s a real album when most everyone else produces 2 catchy blog-hot singles padded with filler (MGMT, yeasayer, etc.) I stand by every song on this album, but pieces of you is probably the best.
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
They turned me on to electronic music and Alice Glass turns me on.
there should be a best album artwork award, and it should go to damien jurado….
Best Music Video: Call It Off – Tegan and Sara
Best Live Act: Tegan and Sara
Indie Rock Crushes : Tegan Quin
Other Indie Rock Crushes: Sara Quin/ Kate Cooper
* Best Album: Conor Oberst
* Best Music Video: Radiohead’s House of Cards
* Best Live Act: Benji Hughes
* Indie Rock Crushes: Jenny Lewis
* Most Overrated Act: Of Montreal
* Best Music Blog: Gorilla vs. Bear
* Best TV Show: Lost
* Best Movie: Dark Knight
* Best Web Video: Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals
the music slut’s top 50:
http://themusicslut.com/2008/12/the-music-slut-presents-matts-top-50-lps-of-2008/