Best of 2008 So Far

With the year a little more than halfway over, I thought I'd take a minute to reflect on some of my favorite releases in the first six month of the two thousand and eighth year of Our Lord.

Best Hip Hop Releases:

1. Erykah Badu "New Amerykah Part 1" I gave this a really high score, and I still think it is a phenomenal record. You have to listen to "Soldier" on a system with good bass to truly understand. It's beautiful, angry, and banging.

2. Cool Kids "The Bake Sale" plus all their sundry mixtapes. I fucking love these guys. Call them hipster douchbags if you will, but I'm on board.

3. Atmosphere - "Strictly Leakage" Their free party album is full of classic funky breaks and Slug at his emo rap best, having fun and killing it.

Also. Atmosphere - "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold." A little downtempo, with a few clunky tracks, but still packing enough great songs to make it worth repeated spins.

4. Invincible "Shapeshifters" An activist rapper who is white and female and doesn't sound like the Consolidated? Believe it.

5. Red Ants "Omega Point" I've been listening to this some more, and goddamn is it evil and delicious, like a good sludgy Black Sabbath track, only it's hip hop, and they are rapping about conspiracy theories.


Best Non Hip Hop Releases

1. Fleet Foxes S/T Like My Morning Jacket if they were a baroque medieval folk band.

2. Dodos "Visiter" Charming, pretty folk music that manages to not be to precious for its own good

3. Radiohead "In Rainbows." Goddamn is this good. After a few albums of meandering bullshit, they finally cut the crap and start writing songs again.


I don't really have any other top picks. There are other albums I like, but am not in love with, like the She & Him album, the Port O'Brien record, the Vampire Weekend album, etc. There is a lot I haven't heard, like the Hercules and the Love Affair album, which is supposed to be awesome, the Lil Wayne album, the new Torche album, etc Most of the other stuff that made other best of lists that isn't on mine is stuff I haven't heard and can't be bothered to check out.

So what did I miss? What am I totally wrong about? I'm pretty sure that all of my picks will stand the test of time, but then again, I don't listen to all of the stuff that made my year end list very much anymore either.