Outrageously subjective! Gravely imbalanced! Pointless!

Yep, that's right: it's time to post my picks for the Greatest Music Made, Played, and Filleted in 2008. A few qualifiers, so as to limit the amount of hate e-mail I'll receive:

• These picks, while more accurate than anything written by Dan Brown and far more metaphysically sound than anything ever said by Deepak Chopra, are wildly, hopelessly subjective. And that's the objective truth of the matter.

• I've tried to select only music released in the past year. I do cheat in a couple of instances (and I've noted the dates where I've fudged). Also, there is little classical music listed here, not because I don't listen to classical music (I do, quite often), but because I haven't needed to buy much classical music lately. I figure the 15 days and 23 hours of classical music I already have on my iTunes will be enough for a while.

• There is no rap, Philip Glass, Yanni, death metal, Icelandic yodeling, Avril, or Top 40 country listed here because I don't listen to such, uh, noise. Only music, please.

• I hope to later add a bit of commentary to some or all of these picks, but I need to go to bed soon so I can watch "The Price Is Right" tomorrow morning.

And now: Carl the Snarl's Favorite Fifty Slices of Music From 2008, in no particular order:

1. Invisible Cinema, by Aaron Parks.
2. The End Is Not The End, by House of Heroes
3. Seen, by Morley
4. January, by Marcin Wasilewski Trio
5. Count to Ten, by Tina Dico
6. Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, by Gil Shaham
7. November, by Jeremy Pelt
8. Esperanza, by Esperanza Spalding
9. Me and You and the World, by Dave Barnes
10. In Rainbows, by Radiohead (2007)
11. Chasing Shadows, by Tony Grey
12. Godár: Mater, by Iva Bittová
13. Solo, by Martin Sexton
14. Baboon Strength, by Charlie Hunter
15. Nine Levels, by Greg Osby
16. Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends, by Coldplay
17. Soul, by Seal
18. The Good Life, by Justin Townes Earle
19. Third, by Portishead
20. Crossing the Field, by Jenny Scheinman
21. Into the Blue, by Nicholas Payton
22. Gossip in the Grain, by Ray LaMontagne
23. Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, by Sigur Rós
24. My Foolish Heart (Live at Montreux), by Keith Jarrett Trio (2007)
25. Two Hands, by Leon Fleisher
26. Symphonica, by Joe Lovano
27. Beyond Standard, by Hiromi's Sonicbloom
28. 19, by Adele
29. Floating Point, by John McLaughlin
30. Safe Trip Home, by Dido
31. Beloved One, by Lou Rhodes (2007)
32. Down To Earth, by Jem
33. The Submarine, by Whitley
34. Eight Belles, by Amy Seeley
35. Gently Disturbed, by Avishai Cohen Trio
36. Yael Naim, by Yael Naim
37. Live, by Brad Mehldau Trio
38. Seventh Tree, by Goldfrapp
39. Season of Change, by Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band
40. Dark Angel, by The Reasoning
41. All I Intended To Be, by Emmylou Harris
42. Flight of the Conchords, by Flight of the Conchords
43. Play, by Brad Paisley
44. XV, by King's X
45. Resurgam, by Alias
46. Wheels, by  Dan Tyminski
47. Hindsight, by Anathema
48. Force of Four, by Joe Locke
49. Moonshine, by Dave Douglas
50. Earfood, by Roy Hargrove Quintet

Comments

[Paul H]

Carl, I am constantly amazed and impressed by the immense amount and variety of music that you listen to. :-)

Have you heard of Thieves' Kitchen? They released a CD last year called "The Water Road" that is pretty good. They are a prog band from England with a female vocalist, and on this latest album they feature two former members of Anglagard. It's not a "must have" album, but it's worth checking out if you get a chance.

[Tom Marcello]

Thanks for the recognition of Joe Locke's "Force of Four.
Joe looks forward to more recordings with this band in the future.

Best.

Tom Marcello
manager / Joe locke
tom@joelocke.com
www.joelocke.com

[Nick Milne]

There is no rap, Philip Glass, Yanni, death metal, Icelandic yodeling, Avril, or Top 40 country listed here because I don't listen to such, uh, noise. Only music, please.

D:

One of these things is not like the others.

[Carl Olson]

One of these things is not like the others.

You're right, Nick: Yanni, for all of his musical faults, can write a nice melody. ;-)

[MarkAA]

What, no chant or polyphony?

[Carl Olson]

Well, Paul, the secret is to steal album names from other sites and then act as though you've really listened to the music. ;-) Thanks for mentioning Thieves' Kitchen; I see that emusic.com has one of their CDs, so I'll check it out. For years I've mostly worked in environments and situations where I can listen to music rather constantly; that's one of the reasons I'm able to hear a lot of different tunes.

Mark: I have quite a bit of chant and choral music, but most of it I've had for a while; I don't recall buying any this year. I listen to a fair amount of Palestrina, Telemann, Bach, and a couple different recordings of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. I really enjoy various pieces sung by Anonymous 4 and Hilliard Ensemble. And one of my all-time favorite recordings is of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers singing Rachmaninov's Vespers. Gives me chills!

Nick: I actually know next to nothing about Philip Glass. I'm willing to hear you out. And maybe even hear some of his work.

[Rarakiroa]

Carl, I'm a regular reader of the blog and enjoy your commentary very much. What I particularly enjoy (among other things), is the sheer variety of your blog topics, especially posts like this or your iPod top ten lists because I'm always on the lookout for good music. I'll definitely check out some of these artists. While I'm at it, I'll throw in 2 cents for a local artist here in Dallas-Fort Worth - Estes Shane Whalen - who released "Goodbye Mr. Redfish" last year. Might be worth looking into when you're in the mood for low-key folk-rock.

[Nick Milne]

Fair enough, Carl. You aren't the first person I've heard badmouth Glass without any particular reason, so maybe it's just one of those proverbial things.

I can't claim to have heard his entire body of work, but I've never heard anything of his yet that I haven't liked. The best place for you to start might be Solo Piano from 1989, which is wonderfully good. "Metamorphosis One" and "Metamorphosis Two" are my favourite off of this (fine performances of them here and here, respectively), but all of it is quite nice.

His soundtrack work has been prodigous and varied. Two examples to consider to get a sense of his style would be his work for The Truman Show, on the one hand, and Koyaanisqatsi on the other, the latter being especially suited to his talents. There are two tracks from the latter that deserve particular attention: "Pruit Igoe" and "Prophecies." Check them out.

Also, Icelandic yodeling isn't so very bad either when performed competently. Sigur Ros seems to think so, anyway; in addition to it having (in part) inspired their own manner of performance, they have also included some of it on the soundtrack to their 2007 film, Heima. You should probably see that, by the way. It's amazing.

[Janny]

If you have Brad Paisley in your list, you can't then turn around and call Top 40 Country "noise."
Mutually exclusive, Carl...and you know it. :-)

Emmylou's not exactly Top 40 Country, but the fact that she's in the list...ditto.

Just a thought from a country/classical/jazz/opera/Celtic music fan...

JB

[Carl Olson]

If you have Brad Paisley in your list, you can't then turn around and call Top 40 Country "noise."
Mutually exclusive, Carl...and you know it. :-)

Well, you have me there, Janny. However, I like to think that Brad Paisley (and a few others) are popular despite being good. (By the way, I have a couple of friends who are hardcore, traditional country fans and they don't care for Paisley.) I've listened to enough Top 40 country radio to come to the rational, objective conclusion that 97.5% of it is aural dreck. For instance, I cannot fathom the incredible popularity of Kenny Chesney or Tim McGraw or John Michael Montgomery, none of whom should be more than singers at the local watering hole on Thursday nights. Some of my favorite country artists include Dwight Yoakam, Johnny Cash, Steve Earle, Justin Earle, Alison Krauss, Buddy Miller, Junior Brown, Hank Williams, George Jones, Clint Black, Kasey Chambers, Kelly Willis, (some) Randy Travis, The Mavericks, Robbie Fulks, Radney Foster, and, of course, Emmylou Harris.