The other day I put up my picks for the worst three (sorry Verve!), so now that a new year has dawned, let's get positive!

HONORABLE MENTION
Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul... A very high-energy and varied Oasis album, sadly overwhelmed by a hyper-compressed mix. "The Shock Of The Lightning" is a great single.
Weezer, Weezer (The Red Album)... Not a great album, but we finally heard Weezer Version 2.0 write music that sounds like Weezer Version 1.0, which is what many of their longtime fans were were waiting for.
MGMT, Oracular Spectacular... The most danceable rock album of the year.
Metallica, Death Magnetic... See my blurb about the Weezer album.
The Killers, Day And Age... They set out to make the year's best dance rock album, fell just short of MGMT's, but all the haters notwithstanding, this is fun music. "Spacemen" is a highlight here.
Sia, Some People Have Real Problems... One of the better background chill CD's of the year, from the woman who wrote That Song That Still Makes Me Cry.
Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy... Some of this music is what you'd expect to hear from a songwriter who took 14 years to put together an album (the overwrought intro to "There Was A Time" for instance), but there some great rock riffage in here, some killer hooks ("Better") and some level-10 schmaltz to be found ("This I Love"). Welcome back, Axl. Now get those other guys back in the band and we'll talk about my paying to see you.
Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes... It's just... so pretty!

OKAY, HERE WE GO

10. Kings Of Leon, Only By The Night... A band with a large amount of classic blues-rock influence fuses it with modern rock tendencies and ends up with something special, the feel of a sweaty rock club permeating every sound. Oh, and let's not forget the most preposterous shout-chorus of all time.

9. R.E.M., Accelerate... This is the first modern-era R.E.M. album that was better without former drummer Bill Berry. Current drummer Bill Reiflin has a hard-rock background and it gives the music on Accelerate an immediate, driving force that Berry couldn't have. Beyond that, it's a poignant protest album at times, notably with the short waltz of "Houston", built around the belief that even the worst of Bush's America has not messed with the heart of Texas.

8. David Byrne & Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today... Their first full collaboration since 1980's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, the music here is often painfully beautiful. A very rewarding listen, and the best album ever whose cover seems to have been borrowed from The Sims. The piano sample on "I Feel My Stuff" is quite lovely.

7. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend... David Arnold, original music composer for the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day, probably has a case to sue the pants off the boys from New York who comprise Vampire Weekend for the portions of "A-Punk" that clearly rip off his main theme from that movie. That aside, this is very imaginative, resourceful indie rock. And again, they have a song about Oxford commas, on which I go back and forth in opinion.

6. My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges... This year's "veteran indie band makes good" story, following the rise of Spoon in '07, as well as Wilco and Modest Mouse in the couple years before that. They've always been a great live band, but as a studio album this is a great leap forward for them, growing far beyond their jam-ish roots. "Highly Suspicious" is surely an acquired taste for some; it helps to close your eyes and pretend Strong Bad is singing the chorus.

5. Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst... I found Oberst's music as Bright Eyes unpleasant in my initial encounters with it several years ago (in the Berkeley co-ops); overly emotional, too wail-y, and so on. I then embarked on a plan of waiting several years for him to come to me. And with this brilliant album, Oberst has done that. The lyrics all seem very well-considered, the melodies are sweet and effective, "Sausalito" and "Moab" are as sweet a pair of songs as you'll find in this realm of music, and "Lenders in the Temple" really gets me. Very satisfying stuff. It's Modest Mouse with melodies and a slightly more positive outlook on life. (slightly)

4. Coldplay, Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends... When considered in the context of its principal competitors -- the other major pop releases of 2008 -- Coldplay's accomplishment here is immense. They put together the best pop album of the year, and they dramatically reinvented their sound. "Lost!" could have been just another piano-guitar ballad on another Coldplay album, but the mix they ended up with is something rarely heard on modern rock radio. And yes, it helps that Brian Eno was a part of this. And yes, Joe Satriani is a money-grubbing jerk whose lawsuit needs to fail. If you've bought into the conventional wisdom that Coldplay's music is "whiny", give the album a chance.

3. Death Cab For Cutie, Narrow Stairs... Yes, the album cover seems like a really bad Magic Eye puzzle. But after the big-hearted, sleek Plans, Ben Gibbard -- that bastard who's engaged to Zooey Daschanel -- has found something edgier and sadder here. The cast of characters on this album is a dark set indeed. A man fails to commune with Kerouac in "Bixby Canyon Bridge". A stalker makes his case for romance in "I Will Possess Your Heart". A woman settles for the wrong man in the album's best song, "Cath". Beach Boys-style pianos and percussion jingle away as a man sings of his inadequacy in "You Can Do Better Than Me". A fire rages without resolution in "Grapevine Fires". A man rudely ponders a one-night stand in "Pity And Fear". Catch this album in the right mood and it will transform you.

2. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Cardinology... It's the album that 2007's Easy Tiger wanted to be. It's also Adams' best CD since 2001's Gold. "Go Easy" is my favorite song of 2008, hands down, so simple and yet so profound. Adams sometimes wears his influences on his sleeves, in this case 70's classic rock (some Dead influence) and mid-80's U2 (especially on "Cobwebs"). Ryan's lyrics are more intimate than before; I like his geographic references to New York, which come across in evocative ways ("Go Easy", "Cobwebs", "Crossed Out Name").

And the Refs UnBrendans Number One Album of 2008 is...



Sun Kil Moon, April.

How lyrics can be so tear-inducing and yet never obvious or forced speaks to the accomplishment Mark Kozelek has achieved in putting together this masterpiece. It's a 75-minute album on which there isn't a second I'm compelled to skip. It's an album sung by a middle aged man contemplating memories of places, friends and lovers gone by, wishing for them not to disappear. These themes show up on almost every track, to incredible effect on "Lost Verses", "Lucky Men", "Unlit Hallway", "Moorestown", "Like The River" and the epic "Tonight In Bilbao". Dammit. I can't even type the names of these songs without welling up a bit. I feel very fortunate I got to hear him play many of these songs live at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater last April. And I feel fortunate that his music came into my life.

Okay, nap time!