Top 10 Albums 2008

2008, the year of Chinese Democracy is over. Unfortunately, neither the one nor the other worked out. I don't even want to append as expected because I can hardly imagine anybody was actually expecting anything. And all the hope for 2008 was already used up.

Anyways, in 2008 I bought again around 40 CDs, most of them within the last days of my trip to Philadelphia because CDs are so much cheaper in the US than in Germany - and that's not only due to the Euro exchange rate. So I only influenced the US Amazon 2008 charts, but not the German one. Maybe that's why not even one of my personal Top 10 made it into the latter :-)

And what does it tell you about the year 2008 in music (or the people buying music) if the first 3 places are taken by albums from 2006 and 2007? I found some great CDs though and here it is, my personal Top 10:

1. The Walkmen - You & Me


2. Gus Black - Today Is Not The Day...


3. Rainald Grebe - 1968


4. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular


5. Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night


6. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes


7. Sun Kil Moon - April


8. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend


9. The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride


10. Randy Newman - Harps And Angels

Most surprisingly there is a German album on the list. I can't remember when the last one was even close to that. But '1968' by Rainald Grebe is so amazingly sarcastic - I'm still laughing whenever I listen to it. As a sample his performance in German satirical TV show Neues aus der Anstalt: Der Präsident.

Most of the other 12 songs are even better, but this one fits Germany's Presidential elections this year. Since the president doesn't have actual power in Germany (that's also what the song is about) the parliamentary elections at the end of September are more interesting. Though German democracy isn't actually endangered let's see what uses up our hopes this year :-)