This is a list of albums that I discovered/re-fell in love with this year.

I was thinking of hacking Kirstin's post from her and doing the same thing, but I realized that my music knowledge is rarely 'up-to-date,' and the music I find often has been on shelves for some time.

So, these are the albums that helped give 2008 some musical definition and who/where/how I came across them...

Aesop Rock- None Shall Pass
(Rob took me to an Aesop show and I had a lot of fun. This guy is good.)

Andrew Bird- Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs
                     Armchair Apocrypha
                     Noble Beast
(Rob has been monumental in turning me on to music I'd never listened to.  Earlier this semester Rob treated my earbuds to the wonderful Mr. Bird)

Band of Horses- Everything All the Time
(Rob)

Beach Boys- Pet Sounds
(Re-fell in love)

Black Keys- Magic Potion
(94.9 and all its glory)

Black Mountain- Black Mountain
(Kirstin's recommendation)

Bob Dylan- Blond on Blond
                  Bringing it All Back Home
                  Desire
(Re-fell in love)

Bob Marley- Kaya
                    Trenchtown Rock Anthology
(Re-fell in love/Kirstin's copy of Trenchtown Rock Anthology)

Carol King- Tapestry
(I copied this from Penny at work... she hooked me up with a number of great albums)

Chubby Checker- Selftitled
(Rob)

CocoRosie- La Maison De Reve
(My friend Mike from school had me listen to the single off of this album and I fell in love)

Coheed & Cambria- Second Stage Turbine Blade
                             In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
                             Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume I: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness
                             Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume II: No World for Tomorrow
(Neverender was an amazing experience and these albums shaped its precedent weeks)

David Bowie- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
(Re-fell in love)

Death Cab for Cutie- The Photo Album
                                 Something About Airplanes
(I just love Death Cab and didn't have these albums. Glad I do.)

Deerhunter- Cryptograms
                    Microcastle
(Rob. Deerhunter... the kind of band I should have been listening to a long time ago)

Donovan- Sunshine Superman
(Rob/Re-fell in love. I've known Donovan's music, but never his albums)

Ellis- Undefended Heart
(I heard of Ellis through Morgan at the Women's Center.  She's a great, folky, live performer with an amazing voice.)

Frank Zappa- Chunga's Revenge
(I'll credit this to Kirstin's friend Barnaby. I saw Zappa in his record collection and wanted to have some too.)

Fred Jones- Life & Wine
(Losing Ray early this summer set his album into full rotation in my music catalogue)

Gogol Bordello- Super Tantra!
(Erin. She mentioned it. I bought it. I experienced it... and I want more!!!)

Grateful Dead- American Beauty
(Re-fell in love)

I Monster- Neveroddoreven
(Charlotte and I dropped acid to this... a good, happy mind fuck at times)

Jay-Z+ DJ Danger Mouse- The Grey Album
(Someone at work mentioned this to me... DJ Danger Mouse mixed The Beatles's The White Album with Jay-Z's The Black Album, and gave us The Grey Album.)

Jeff Buckley- Grace
(94.9's The Big Sonic Chill)

Kings of Leon- Only by the Night
(I've followed Kings of Leon for a while and this album is beautiful!)

Lil' Wayne- The Carter III
(Garret/Jaeger listen to Lil' Wayne a lot, and I've grown fond of his words... he is a true wordsmith)

MGMT- Oracular Spectacular
(94.9 did an interview with these guys and I dug their sound... this album is great.)

Neil Young- Live at Massey Hall
(I found video clips of this on Youtube and learned it's a recorded album. To me... this is the difinitive Neil Young. Him, a piano, and a guitar.)

The New Pornographers- Challengers
(Rob. Much homework was worked on to this album.)

Nine Inch Nails- Pretty Hate Machine
(Re-fell in love)

Radiohead- Gagging Order
                    In Rainbows
(I randomly found Gagging Order and it fulfills two loves... Radiohead and acoustic albums.)

Sigur Rós- Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
(I caught wind of their new album from 9.49 and stole it before it was released. It's just fucking beautiful)

Silversun Pickups- Pikul
(94.9)

Slightly Stoopid- Live and Direct
(Re-fell in love)

TV on the Radio- Dear Science
(Rob)

Ween- Quebec
(I looked into Ween after I hear Kirstin raving about them... and I must say, "Rave-worthy")

There might be a couple I've missed, but, most definitely, these albums shaped and molded my 2008 musical feast.

I was just 'talked to' by my mom for my behavior.

According to mother, as in the case with my uncle Jeff, I need to learn to swallow the bullshit that my relatives serve for dinner.

I still say "fuck that." Sure... I love them for raising me into the youngster I was, but they are in no way responsible for raising me into the ?man? I have become and I don't think I owe them the respect they feel they deserve.

If it comes down to 'walking on eggshells' around me, then fine. They are the only people I know who feel that way, therefore it's their own fucking problem.  None of my friends, coworkers, classmates, select relatives feel like they need to watch what they say around me. 

I don't feel like I need to watch what I say around my family, save sailor talk, nor do I feel like I should.  They have no problem running their damn mouths, why should I?

What do you think would make your life better?
Submitted by Simon.

Winning a Nobel Prize Medal for Literature would make my life better... with it would come a sense of life-time achievement and the notion that my work has reached the hearts and minds of others.

Literature

I want a typewriter.  To be exact... I want an Underwood Portable circa 1915-1931.  I want to feel/hear the rhythm of the typewriter.  I want to introduce a new element into my process.  I want to experience the process of my favorites.
 
Kerouac, Chandler, Faulkner, Hemmingway, Hitchcock, Wolfe, and Sinclair trusted Underwood's machines and I want to too.

"Preserve the sanctity of marriage!" they proclaim... then why the hell aren't they boycotting, searching for the criminalization of, showcasing their hateful resentment toward the ABC series The Bachelor?

God I that show sucks... "20-some-odd women are lined up waiting for me and one of them, I know, will become my wife.  No matter that I've never seen these women, let alone spoken with them."

What the fuck? 

Santa has it easy what with all those elves and reindeer lending him a helping hand (and hooves), but we have technology to make our lives easier. How does technology make your holiday shopping and planning easier?
Sponsored by Best Buy.

**********************

www.amazon.com

No... FUCKING good.

I feel like I'm hyping myself up for this a bit too much, but I don't care--this was something of a step for me: to put a creative work out for a somewhat general population to read.
So now that it's been published under my name, I'll post it here:

The Midst

The sky is closer now than it has ever been and I'm walking beneath it with my hair being thrown by its steady hand. My sunglasses are sitting tight and the eyes they hide are wandering, wondering along my path.

Tight-trim edges of grass line the walk ahead, each meeting pavement with an abrupt, aberrant end. The flower-beds lay below single trees in each tight-trim sprawl of grass, nature of the suburban standard.

Tan tiles, beige tiles, salmon tiles, too, with white stucco and contrasting trim inviting the hiding wandering, wondering eyes into a uniform view.

The sky is closer now than it has ever been. It's sitting tight atop the suburban roofs. The five clouds atop the sky, atop the shake-shingle, suburban roofs, move askew within the suburban sky.

My clock tells me it's five-O-eight because the neck-tie cars are entering the community of shake-shingle-suburbia. They enter with tinted windows with wandering, wondering eyes behind them. They think: “A stranger in our midst, shaded by hair and spectacles, possibly dangerous with a pair of testicles.”

Tinted neck-tie windows enter their piece of pavement only to close the doors behind them. Engines still billowing from their neck-tie tail-pipes – each within the skeyes of this shake-shingle suburbia closed within its pavement parking garage.

They are tucked neatly inside. They are sucked sweetly inside. They are fucked and numbed, soured and succumbed by the images devoured with their nightly supper.

I step forward, a pace unbroken, along a white-paved-path with my sunglasses tight and my hair still dancing in the sky's steady hand while the shake-shingle on my left and the one on my right, the one before it and the one after it, open their windows to a glinting blue glow... an audience laughter wafting from within. I hear tap-tap, plastic digits and neck-ties masticate to rhythms of the MAN-kind machine and its glinting blue tractor beam.

“He is a stranger in our midst who's danger and spectacles, with his hair and testicles,... tonight at ten!” The neck-ties will never, never win with carousels set to speed: Consume.

Beyond audience mastication and tappy-tap plastics, my clock tells me it's five-thirty-three and the sun's touch agrees – warm, pleasant, solar breath before its light fades to night.

One still remains outside, out front, on top of the neck-ties water-worked, tight-trim green grass. He is without his neck-tie, not grown into it. The one still remaining, sitting in a small red wagon, handle lying on the neck-tie grass, watches this stranger in his midst with wandering, wondering eyes. He, sitting in his small red wagon, without his neck-tie, hiding from glinting blue lights, holds up his hand to the stranger in his midst.

The stranger

waves back.

What would you attempt to do if you knew you wouldn't fail?
Submitted by Beautifully Broken

Peter Pan

I've always wanted to fly.  My dreams, when I was younger, would often be based around my desire to fly.  When I'd finally make it off of the ground, the feeling in my stomach, in my arms, in my feet, was sensational.  The only problem with the new-found ability to fly was that no one could see me while I was in flight.  If I'd ever try to show someone, I'd merely levitate a couple of centimeters off of the ground. It was frustrating.