I also quite enjoyed Cloud Cult’s latest offering, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes). It’s sincere, uplifting, often beautiful…if anything, maybe it’s occasionally a little too “cute” for mainstream tastes, but hey, I like a little cute in my tunage now and then. Besides, any band that echoes my (decidedly non-mainstream) spiritual ideas back to me is a golden find.

If you must indulge your inner hipster, skip that Vampire Weekend nonsense and choose Black Kids instead. Partie Traumatic is fun, infectious, and danceable, and “Hit the Heartbrakes” is one of my favourite songs for the moment.

Overall, 2008 was a damn fine year for music of all sorts. Some other albums that deserve mention:

Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals – One of the better mashup albums I’ve heard in a long time.

Joy Electric’s My Grandfather the Cubist – This formerly (and sometimes still) cutesy electro-pop project gets better and better with every album. Yeah, they’re a “christian” act, but don’t let that turn you off. Unlike the average religious outfit, these guys have some actual substance beyond the usual “god is great and we love him over and over again in many redundant ways” groove.

Kamelot’s Ghost Opera: The Second Coming – For the metal fans out there. Love these guys.

Pg. Lost’s It’s Not Me, It’s You! – Bringing the tasty post-rock instrumental goodness, and picking up the slack until the next Explosions in the Sky album.

This Will Destroy You’s self-titled album – More post-rock, epic and powerful.

I won’t pick on the list, as taste is entirely subjective. I can only say that I would have left off Madonna, Vampire Weekend, and maybe Santogold. I liked the latter, but it all ended up sounding a little same-y for me, aside from the utterly fabulicious “L.E.S. Artistes.”

Alanis Morissette’s Flavors of Entanglement
Brett Dennen’s Hope For The Hopeless
Buckcherry’s Black Butterfly
Jason Mraz We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.
Jay Brannan’s goddamned
Ray LaMontagne Gossip In The Grain
Scott Weiland’s Happy In Galoshes
and very possibly Pink’s Funhouse (although I’m not completely sold on it… Miss Understood was better)

I’m thinking I have a different taste than most here though, but those are all great albums.

1. Robyn’s self titled album is absolutely fantastic!

2. Santogold would be further up on the list.

3. I always have high hopes for Madonna (I guess I’m a stereotype, go ahead, stab me), but this album truly was a disappointment. Especially following Confessions, which I could listen to from the beginning to end. Hard Candy seems to have too many “filler” songs.

But like I said, it’s your list, so I’m not going to hate on you and say you have no taste like some of these other people who lack a little bit of class….

Ray Lamontagne’s “Gossip in the Grain”?

I wouldn’t label your list as the top 10, maybe the top 10 most popular.

At 50 Madonna is still the hottest chick in the game and forever the Queen of Pop.

(Disclaimer: Hard Candy is probably my 2nd least fav. Madge offering, but it’s … passable, more or less. Having said that, everything else she’s done in the 2000s — even American Life — I’ve been very, very, happy with.)

Ah but Sadly 2 years from now the names will all be different, Filled with the other 10 bands they have hiding in the wings that will sound exactly the same. I have to agree with Keith it’s to bad most of the gay community only really supports what is trendy at the moment , I remember when we set the trends and didn’t just buy into them.

Some of my faves from 2008. Snow Patrol : A Hundred Million Suns, John Mellencamp: Life, Death, Love and Freedom, Lucinda Williams : Little Honey.
Counting Crows : Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings and The Watson Twins : Fire Songs.

As for Madonna. I have to admit great business woman, But it stops there musically she sucks. always has always will, I’m so glad i missed that gay gene.

M83 “Saturdays=Youth”, Bauhaus “Go Away White”, Diamanda Galas “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty” and Xiu Xiu “Women as Lovers”

Thought about picking up the new Nick Cave but everything he’s done since “Murder Ballads” has just been really blah.

BTW I still don’t get Lady Ga Ga.

:)

I also think Headlights have one of the more underrated albums of the year. “Get Your Head Around It” is an amazing song that pretty much sums up my year.

I’m not saying your choices were bad (looks a lot like Billboard’s Critics List) but you need to be listening to a broader variety of stuff. Oh for the ’70s when everything wasn’t pigeonholed and we loved all kinds of music.