This is Fifty Second Week.

In what’s become an annual tradition, I’m about to burn through quick reviews of 52 albums that slipped under the radar this year. I hear a lot of music each week, and there often isn’t time to a) form coherent thoughts on all of it, and b) write those thoughts down in this column. Usually I’m obligated to just pick one or two discs and ramble on about them, and some weeks, that’s a tough call.

What you’re about to read was created in real time. I have a counter on my desktop set to 50 seconds. That’s how long I’ve given myself to talk about each of these albums. If I’m in the middle of a sentence, or even a word, I stop when the buzzer rings and move on. If I do this right, the whole column should take me just about an hour to finish up.

Of course, I’ve been thinking about some of these records for months, which helps. But this year, there are some I simply don’t remember, and some I just heard this week, so we’ll see how I do. I’m going to be reviewing these discs alphabetically, and this year we’re literally going from A to Z. Hang on, dear reader. This is Fifty Second Week.

Adem, Takes.

Bought this on a recommendation, and it’s pretty sweet. Adem is a member of Four Tet, and here he turns in acoustic versions of some interesting songs, like PJ Harvey’s “Oh My Lover.” Best of all is his acoustic rendering of two Aphex Twin (!) songs.

Beach House, Devotion.

A critical darling, this album is hazy and lazy and lovely. The music is dreamy and, yes, a little like watching the waves come in on a beach, despite the cheesy electronic percussion. The vocals make this thing, though.

Big Blue Ball.

I can’t believe I never reviewed this. Something like 17 years in the making (Chinese Democracy!), this is Peter Gabriel’s multi-artist, multi-cultural project. And the songs are very good, thanks to Gabriel and Karl Wallinger of World Party. Recommended, highly.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Lie Down in the Light.

I remember pretty much nothing about this album, except that it’s very pretty, and pretty dull. Will Oldham writes some traditional-sounding folk songs, and gets some friends to help him record them. That’s it. There isn’t much to it, but I remember liking it, at least briefly.

Blind Melon, For My Friends.

Now this one I remember. The first non-Shannon Hoon Blind Melon album is just as good as the two they did with their now-deceased singer, and new guy Travis Warren makes a good showing for himself. These are typically hippie-dippy tunes, but just as complex as ever.

Bon Voyage, Lies.

Album three for Jason Martin (Starflyer 59) and his wife, Julie. This is more electronic and dark than the previous records, but Martin’s gift for a strong pop hook is all over the place. Plus, they do “Girlfriend in a Coma”!

Billy Bragg, Mr. Love and Justice.

Been a long wait for Billy’s new one, but it was worth it. Here are 12 more righteously pissed-off folk songs, performed with a band on disc one and with just Billy and his electric on disc two, just like the old days. He hasn’t lost a single ounce of his pent-up anger, and you can hear it most effectiv…

Jonatha Brooke, The Works.

Brooke pulls a Mermaid Avenue, writing music for lost Woody Guthrie lyrics. To her credit, she doesn’t try to write Woody Guthrie songs – tunes like the opener “My Sweet and Bitter Bowl” are pure Jonatha pop, complex and literate.

David Byrne and Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

Two words: Bo. Ring. I don’t get the acclaim at all. Is it just because of who these two guys are? They’ve made a gauzy, simplistic pile of mush here with none of the hooks I’ve been told are here. I doubt I’ll ever play this again.

Alice Cooper, Along Came a Spider.

Am I really going to give a good review to Alice Cooper after trashing Byrne and Eno? Yeah, I think so. This is another rock opera from Cooper, and it’s full of glammy little treats. It’s a disturbing/fun look at a serial killer, and another chapter in the Steven epic. What more do you want from Alice?

Rivers Cuomo, Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.

It’s funny just how much more I enjoy these home recording compilations than I do Weezer’s actual albums. Here Cuomo gives extensive, probing liner notes, putting these strange, romantic songs in context. We get three more bits from Songs From the Black Hole, and a cover of “Don’t Worry Baby” to boot.

Cut/Copy, In Ghost Colours.

This is actually really good, a seamless hour-long blend of club beats and ‘80s melodies that works from note one. I ended up buying it because of Pitchfork’s review, but I enjoyed it a lot more than you’d expect, given that.

Department of Eagles, In Ear Park.

This is one of the ones I’ve just heard, so bear with me. This is a side project for one of the guys in Grizzly Bear, but it sounds a lot like that band to me, mixed with some clanging pop. If Michael Penn were more relaxed and ambient (and indie), he might sound something lik

Filter, Anthems for the Damned.

Because nobody demanded it, Richard Patrick comes back for a fourth round with Filter. And you know what? He made a pretty good record. This one is based around the horrors of war and the perspectives of soldiers, but it has what Filter has always had – beefy guitars and some good hooks.

Jon Foreman, Fall and Winter.

The first half of a season cycle by the frontman for Switchfoot, Fall and Winter finds Foreman stripping down to acoustic guitars but keeping his finely honed sense of melody. I was a little unprepared for just how Christian the lyrics would be, but the songs are very good.

Jon Foreman, Spring and Summer.

And here’s the other half, the brighter and poppier half. This set is worth buying for “Instead of a Show” all by itself, a scathing indictment of Christian opportunism. Plus, the four CDs total come packaged in a very neat digipak diorama.

The Gaslight Anthem, The ’59 Sound.

Imagine Bruce Springsteen fronting the Alarm from 1985, and you have some idea what this sounds like. It’s all fist-pumping stuff, quite like the Hold Steady, but after a while, it all starts to sound the same to me. But the first few tracks are great.

Hoss, Love Takes a Holiday.

This is a local band, and I’ve owed them a review for months now. This is their second album, I think, and it’s a big step up. If you like Ryan Adams-style country-flavored rock, this is right up your alley, particularly the dynamic “You Said.” Go here.

Freedy Johnston, My Favorite Waste of Time.

Freedy does covers, and his influences are exactly who you think they are. Marshall Crenshaw, the Beatles, the Eagles, Tom Petty, etc. He even covers Matthew Sweet’s “I’ve Been Waiting,” a song that dips into the same well he’s always visiting. Good stuff, but predictable.

Joy Electric, My Grandfather the Cubist.

Never got around to this one either, but it’s just as well. After a string of excellent releases, Ronnie Martin strikes out with this overlong, over-simple effort. Some of the songs are good, but all of them are too long, and Martin’s vocals are the weakest they’ve been in some time here. Try The Otherly Opus instead.

Judas Priest, Nostradamus.

A two-disc concept album from Judas Priest? That sounds impossibly, epically bad, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. Oh, it’s not good, but these plodding, just-barely-over-the-top songs are more boring than anything else. Priest should not take themselves seriously.

KMFDM, Brimborium.

A remix album from last year’s Tohuvabohu, this sounds exactly like you’d expect. KMFDM has been doing the exact same thing for more than 20 years now, and when it works – as most of this record does – they still pack a punch unlike virtually anyone else out there. No pity for the majority, indeed.

Mark Kozelek, The Finally LP.

The former Red House Painter and current Sun Kil Mooner runs through a bunch of fascinating covers, mainly with just voice and guitar. He makes AC/DC sound beautiful and puts the saddest spin ever on “Send In the Clowns.” Kozelek is awesome.

The Lassie Foundation EP.

Three songs from a band I thought dead. Wayne Everett’s Lassie Foundation puts on a more ambient edge this time, but they still can turn out a killer melody, as they do on “Three Wheels.”

The Last Shadow Puppets, The Age of the Understatement.

This was a surprise. A side project for Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, this band combines the snotty attitude of that one with some wondrous textures. It helps that these are also pretty good songs. I like this more than Turner’s main band.

The Listening, Transmission 1.

A very welcome four-song return from this band. This time they’ve opened up and warmed up their sound, taking a bit from Mute Math (and their producer, Tedd T.). The first song, “The End,” is simply unstoppable. Can’t wait for the full-length.

Gary Louris, Vagabonds.

The former Jayhawk makes an appealing country-tinged solo album – again, if you like Ryan Adams, you should really like this. The songs are tight, particularly my favorite, “To Die a Happy Man,” and the pedal steel guitars complement Louris’ voice nicely.

Gary Louris, Acoustic Vagabonds.

And here he is doing six Vagabonds songs with nothing but acoustic guitar and voice. It’s nice, but I hate feeling like I’ve shelled out cash for something that should have been a bonus disc.

Mates of State, Re-Arrange Us.

Man, this is happy stuff. Mates of State is a husband-wife duo, and they make clap-along, hummable pop music, mostly with pianos. I like it quite a bit, especially the repetitive shout “Now,” but about half an hour of this is just enough.

Eric Matthews, The Imagination Stage.

Poor Matthews gets ignored everywhere, even this column. Here’s another hour of complex, well-produced pop music from a guy who should be much better known. He’s even dabbled with electronic sounds on this one, in addition to his usual plethora of instruments. Very good record.

Motley Crue, Saints of Los Angeles.

Well, they did try. This album reunites the original fearsome foursome, but the results are a bit tepid, and too concerned with sounding “modern.” The song titles are often better than the songs: “Chicks = Trouble,” “Motherfucker of the Year,” “White Trash Circus,” etc.

Mudcrutch.

Tom Petty puts his old band back together after, like, 30 years. And what do you know? It’s the best thing he’s done in many, many moons. There’s a looseness to this album that’s been missing from Petty’s work since Jeff Lynne got ahold of him, and the interplay is great. It’s an old-time rock record.

Mudcrutch, Extended Play Live.

And here they are doing four songs live. Only four songs? I don’t get it either. But I do like the 15-minute take on “Crystal River.” Mudcrutch, far from being a gimmick from an aging rocker desperate for ideas, is actually quite a good rock band.

Nas.

I bought two rap records this year – Kanye West’s, and this scathing thesis on race relations in America. Nas is on point throughout – you can tell that this album was originally given a much more provocative title. The word in question is the focal point of the whole thing, and Nas’ conclusions, delivered with his trademark skill, are thought-provoking.

Old 97s, Blame it on Gravity.

Another appealing slab of country-rock from Rhett Miller and his compatriots. I remember liking this just as much as I always like the 97s, but I don’t recall much more about it. Deserves another listen, which it will get.

One Day as a Lion.

Zach de la Rocha makes his long-awaited reappearance on this five-song EP from his new project. And it’s basically Rage Against the Machine with no guitars, just an indomitable drum machine and some low, low, LOUD bass tones. It’s pretty much what you’d expect, given that description.

The Orb, The Dream.

Alex Patterson returns to making trippy ambient electronic wonderfulness, after too many years of trying to write pop songs. There’s some classic Orb stuff on this one, but it’s still nowhere near the high points of Orbus Terrarum and Orblivion.

The Presets, Apocalypso.

Really, there’s only one way to describe this, and that’s electronic cock-rock. The synths make like sleazy guitars, the vocals dare you to come out and challenge them, and the whole thing has a masculine swagger that you just don’t find in this style of music that often. I ended up liking this more than I expec

Ra Ra Riot, The Rhumb Line.

Energetic, Arcade Fire-style rock with cellos aplenty. Apparently this album is a eulogy for one of the band’s members, who died before recording sessions started. Given that, it’s amazingly upbeat, and very enjoyable stuff.

Retribution Gospel Choir.

After putting together Low’s nightmarish dreamscape, Drums and Guns, Alan Sparhawk got himself a ROCK band. This pulses with life – the tempos are slow by anyone else’s measure, but by Low’s, this is positively quicksilver. And it rocks!

She and Him, Volume One.

This is the cutest thing ever. Actress Zooey Deschanel and musician M. Ward got together to cut an old-time session, full of romantic longing. It’s mostly Deschanel originals, and they’re sweet and sunny, but the covers are well-chosen too. It’s just… so cute!

South, You Are Here.

A sparkling return to form for this British band, after stumbling last time out. This is well-written acoustic pop music, with a few nice twists and turns. I’m especially fond of “Better Things,” but this is the best South album yet, in my opinion.

Ty Tabor, Balance.

The guitarist for King’s X goes it alone for the fifth time, and makes his best showing yet. This album is surprisingly slow and emotional, but it showcases Tabor’s gift for a melody, and his high, appealing voice. Best one here: “Maybe Crazy.” Only available here.

Teddy Thompson, A Piece of What You Need.

I thought it was too soon for Thompson, son of Richard and Linda, to have a new album, and I was right. This sounds rushed together, and the songs aren’t a patch on the ones he wrote for Separate Ways. It’s not bad, but it’s nothing special either – just another country album with a big voice.

Thrice, The Alchemy Index, Vols. I and II: Fire and Water.

The four-disc Alchemy Index outed Thrice as possibly the most ambitious modern rock band around right now. Fire is all screams and incendiary guitar, of course, but Water submerges things under a deep electronic

Thrice, The Alchemy Index Vols. III and IV: Air and Earth.

bed. Air is ambient and, well, airy, while Earth brings things to a close with a dirty acoustic sound. Taken as a whole, this shows off so many different sides to this band that it’s hard to believe they started off with such a limited screamo sound. This is mostly great stuff.

The Verve, Forth.

Holy reverb, Batman! The fourth album from these reunited anthem-poppers is a widescreen epic windblown masterwork of repetition. The songs are no great shakes, but man, this sounds big and important.

Martha Wainwright, I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too.

Why the hell didn’t I review this? In addition to coming up with the year’s best album title, Rufus’ sister crafted a superb orchestrated pop album. Her voice reminds me of Joanna Newsom’s in places, but her melodies are pure Broadway pop. This album is very good, and deserved better from me.

The Walkmen, You & Me.

A surprisingly gentle outing from these New Yorkers, You & Me glides by on dark atmospheres and a hushed atmosphere overall. It’s impressive stuff, even if it never quite lifts off, and Hamilton Leithauser has learned how to make the best use of his unconventional voice. Recommended.

Whitesnake, Good to be Bad.

Yes, a new Whitesnake. No, it’s not terrible. This is a return to Zeppelin-esque epic rock for David Coverdale, easily the best of the Robert Plant imitators. Nothing here is going to shake your world, but for what this is, I liked it. It’s a lot more impressive than I expected, particularly the slower songs.

Frank Zappa, One Shot Deal.

One of two posthumous Zappa releases this year, One Shot Deal is a mish-mash of things that somehow captures the anarchic spirit of a lot of Frank’s work. The first few tracks are utterly bizarre, but stick around for “Occam’s Razor,” a great guitar solo, and some new renditions of old favorites.

Frank Zappa, Joe’s Menage.

And finally, the latest in the Joe’s Corsaga, a full raw live album from 1975. The sound is rough, but it works for this material, and the rock versions of ’60s songs are worth the cover price. But you’ll most want to hear the 14-minute “Chunga’s Revenge,” including what Frank calls a “rhythm guitar solo.” Choice stuff.

And that’s that for another year. Thanks very much to everyone who’s stuck with me since 2000, and to everyone who’s joined the ride since then. I’ll be taking next week off, to recuperate a little bit, but on January 14, year nine begins. I am sincerely grateful for all the support, and for the good friends I’ve made through this column. You’ve all enriched my life, and I’m thankful.

Happy new year!

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Welcome to the 2008 Top 10 List.

Last week, I droned on and on about the numerous honorable mentions this year – a total of 30. If that didn’t convince you that 2008 was a great year for music, I hope the following 10 selections will. But if nothing else, I think this year’s list speaks loudly about my own taste – I’m an old-fashioned melody guy, a sucker for a well-written song, and I’m not looking for a whole lot else.

I think the reason some of my contemporaries have proclaimed 2008 a down year for music is that many critics are on a constant search for the new. They want sounds and styles they’ve never heard before – anything that sounds like last year, or last decade, is chucked out on its ear. And I think that mentality leads to a focus on sound instead of song. This year’s critical darling, TV on the Radio, is a good example – the sound is unique, whirring electronics meshing with horns and soulful vocals, but the songs just aren’t there, at least to my ears.

What I’m looking for is simple – great songs, performed really well. Throw in a dash of ambition (make me an album-length statement full of great songs) and you’ll get even more of my love. I want a melody that kicks my ass, and a performance that makes me feel where you’re coming from. I want you to throw everything you have into writing the best songs you possibly can, learning from everyone who came before you. And I want to feel like you, the artist, are in the grooves of your record.

That seems easy. But I listen to so much mediocre music each and every day. Here’s the same three chords and vocal melody I’ve heard a hundred times. Here’s studio trickery in place of songwriting. Here’s music that just sits there, empty, with no life to it at all. Worst of all, here’s music crafted to make money, with no soul and no skill.

Ah, but every once in a while, I hear something magical. And this year, I heard more than the average share of magical stuff. Seriously, listen to Aqualung’s “Arrivals,” which I previously mentioned is my pick for the prettiest song of the year. When you’re done, breathe in – you’ll have forgotten to do that during the final chorus – and then consider: the album “Arrivals” is on, Words and Music, did not make this list. Every record listed below moved me and wowed me more.

The rules, for newbies: only new studio albums, comprised mainly of original songs, count for this list. No covers albums, no live records, no best-ofs, no remix compilations, no EPs. To qualify, the album in question has to come out on CD sometime during the year. And to make this list, I have to like it. A lot.

Shall we begin?

#10. The Feeling, Join With Us.

America just doesn’t know what to do with this band. After Cherrytree Records thoroughly botched the U.S. release of their debut, Twelve Stops and Home, this follow-up still hasn’t been released over here. Which is a real shame, since it’s a bigger and better effort. Where Twelve Stops was full of perfect pop singles, Join With Us is a fully cohesive album, with one studio-tastic epic after another. I haven’t heard a pop album this stuffed full with ear candy since Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk, 15 years ago. The Feeling take from 40 years of British popular music here, but the key to their success remains the same – they write outstanding songs. And they are unabashedly, purely pop.

#9. Amanda Palmer, Who Killed Amanda Palmer.

It took me way too long to get the Twin Peaks reference in the title of Palmer’s solo debut. It took me a lot less time to realize that the piano half of the Dresden Dolls has stepped outside her comfort zone and made a great little album here. Very little of this sounds like the cabaret punk the Dolls are known for. Instead, Palmer’s written some lovely pop songs, and sprinkled them with deceptively shocking lyrics. She paired up with Ben Folds here, enlisting him for some sweet strings and horns, and his production gives her a sheen of accessibility she’s never had. But the songs are purely Palmer, especially introspective rants like “Runs in the Family” and heartbreakers like “Blake Says.” Plus, she manages to make Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “What’s the Use of Wond’rin” about domestic abuse, purely through context. That’s a kind of twisted genius worth praising.

#8. Coldplay, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.

I hear you snickering. Stop it. Yes, this is how you know I’m gay. But you know what? The guys in Coldplay are already millionaires, and they don’t have to take risks, but they did here. They made a bold record that sounds like nothing they’ve done before, incorporating influences like Peter Gabriel and David Byrne. The resulting album is a grower, to be sure, but once it’s hooked you, it doesn’t let go. The secret, of course, is great songs – “Cemeteries of London” has the best “la-la-la” refrain of the year, “Violet Hill” is a dark wonder, and both title tracks are extraordinary. They sound like a million other bands here, but the one they rarely fall back on is Coldplay. They’re transitioning here, pushing open their cocoon and yearning to fly free. The next one should be amazing.

#7. Keane, Perfect Symmetry.

Oh, what a surprise, Keane on my Top 10 List. But I will tell you, no repeat performer on this list surprised me more this year than these guys. It’s a little too simplistic to say they’ve “gone ‘80s,” but it gets the idea across – leadoff track “Spiralling” starts with a jubilant “Woo!” and a synth line right out of the Thompson Twins. But keep listening, because Keane has taken these Devo-era influences and married them to what they do. Sure, there’s the David Bowie keyboard on “Better Than This,” and “Pretend That You’re Alone” is pure Talking Heads, but they somehow retained their essential Keane-ness, something Coldplay didn’t quite do. Perfect Symmetry is a minor miracle – the Keane boys dove into this new sound with both (well, all six) feet, and still retained their identity. Oh, and they wrote some of the best songs of their lives as well.

#6. Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs.

Completing the trilogy, here’s another band caught in mid-metamorphosis. I was initially disappointed with this one, since it fails to pack the cumulative punch of Plans, still Death Cab’s high water mark. These are short stories, where Plans was a novel. But what stories they are, little tales of love and loss wrapped up in glorious pop melodies. You’ll hear things here you’ve never imagined would be on a Death Cab album before, from the thumping bass mantra of “I Will Possess Your Heart” to the Krautrock beat of “Long Division,” but the heart of the album is in sublimely sad sketches like “Cath” and “Grapevine Fires.” The band has never sounded better or more diverse, and even though it’s not as devastating as Plans, it leaves its mark.

#5. Vampire Weekend.

For a while, the best debut album I heard this year. Vampire Weekend is what happens when indie kids discover Paul Simon’s Graceland – a seamless fusion of ragged pop smarts and African rhythms. It’s the one “new” sound you’ll find on this list, but it works so well because every one of these 11 songs is tightly written and unfailingly melodic. “Bryn” is a master class on shifting rhythmic beds that connect without a hitch, but you don’t notice because it’s so much fun to sing along with. Ditto “Oxford Comma” and “A-Punk,” one of the best one-two punches of the year. This album’s just a blast, and it points forward without sacrificing the lessons of the past. I’m not sure how they’re going to follow it up, but for now, this is a hell of a first shot.

#4. Brian Wilson, That Lucky Old Sun.

Is it as good as SMiLE? Of course not. But in many ways, That Lucky Old Sun is the more important album for Wilson. No longer can he rely on material he wrote when he was 26. That Lucky Old Sun is what he’s doing now. And it’s fantastic, easily the best non-SMiLE solo album he’s made. Again, Wilson decided to compose a symphonic suite, but this time, he’s looking back on his own life, reflecting on the decades of madness and inactivity that followed the original SMiLE sessions. These are the most open-hearted songs of his life, especially the killer concluding trilogy, and most especially “Midnight’s Another Day,” a stone Wilson classic. But it’s the way Wilson and his amazing band wrap all of this together into a flawless whole that makes this album so magical. It is an old-age symphony to God, to re-coin a phrase – at 66, Brian Wilson has reclaimed his place as one of the world’s best.

#3. Marillion, Happiness is the Road.

This seems like obvious advice, but you need to listen to Happiness more than once. This is the least immediate music this long-running British quintet has ever made, but give it time, and the sheer depth of emotion in these songs will reveal itself. Happiness is really two albums, which makes ranking it difficult. Essence, the first disc, is a 50-minute suite, and stands as one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the Marillion catalog. Disc two, The Hard Shoulder, is all the other songs, and as such, it’s not as successful – it rocks more, but its pleasures are more oblique. Essence would be higher on this list by itself, I think, but taken as a 110-minute whole, this album is a remarkable achievement, even from this remarkable band. All that would mean little if the music didn’t move me, but it takes me places most music rarely does. I’ve said it before, but Marillion makes head music that you feel, deeply and intimately. This is intensely emotional stuff, with one magic moment after another – even after 15 albums, Marillion can still surprise me and affect me like few other bands can.

#2. Aimee Mann, @#%&*! Smilers.

Every year Aimee Mann releases an album, I save a spot on the Top 10 List for her. She has never failed to earn it. One of the finest songwriters on the planet, Mann has outdone herself here, turning in some of her saddest and most beautiful work. The sound is different – she’s taken out the electric guitars and replaced them with synthesizers. But the songs are still as perfect, as impossible to improve, as they always are. Don’t believe me? Take any one of these 13 songs and try to make it better. Go on, try. They are traditional verse-chorus pop songs, but they are perfect verse-chorus pop songs. Mann’s world is unremittingly bleak – check out the slit-your-wrists lyrics to “31 Today” – but her melodies are sweet, and her voice sweeter. In an age where bombast and excess is often used to mask lack of talent, Aimee Mann is waging a one-woman battle for sublime, economical, emotional songwriting, and she’s doing it brilliantly.

Which brings us to the top of the heap for another year. I groused a couple of weeks ago that I would probably be alone in this pick, and since then, I was gratified to see that Billboard, Mojo and most amazingly Pitchfork jumped on board with me. (Pitchfork! I agree with Pitchfork! I owe somebody $100.) I suppose it’s not that strange a selection, but nothing else transported me quite like this album did:

#1. Fleet Foxes.

The second you press play on this thing, it envelops you. You’re greeted by a chorus of down-home harmonies, which sounds for all the world like it was recorded with one microphone in a cabin in the woods. And then the acoustic guitars start, and the harmonies come in, and for the next 39 minutes, the music wraps you up like a warm blanket.

Fleet Foxes sound both timeless and out of time. I described them once as Brian Wilson’s 18th Century English folk band, an attempt to encapsulate both their sun-dappled California harmonies and the ancient, woodsy feel that permeates every pore. I still can’t do much better than that, but words are inadequate when you’re dealing with something this authentic, this seeped in musical history. It is folk music, it is pop music, it is communal brotherhood music. These are songs that could have been performed by traveling minstrels in olden days. These are tunes you will swear you’ve known all your life, because they tap into an inborn sense of song we all carry with us.

Flowery hyperbole? I don’t know. When I listen to Fleet Foxes, I feel I’m experiencing something that runs deeper, something that connects to timeless mysteries. This says nothing about the actual songs, I know, but how to describe something like “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”? I could tell you it’s entirely comprised of two sparse acoustic guitars and Robin Pecknold’s lovely voice, and that its melody is haunting, stunning, chilling. I could tell you that no melody maker could come up with one as pitch-perfect as the vocal line in “He Doesn’t Know Why,” or that “Your Protector” is a somewhat spooky minor-key wonder, one that makes the best use of the mellotron since Led Zeppelin.

But this tells you nothing – you have to experience it. In the end, Fleet Foxes is merely 11 songs played by five people, then etched onto a piece of plastic. But more than anything else this year, this album sounds bigger, more important than that. I can’t explain it, I can’t contain it. Listening to this album makes me feel a part of something endless, and it makes me want to keep listening to unravel this something and understand it.

Fleet Foxes fits my criteria perfectly – these are great songs, performed very well, particularly when it comes to the vocal harmonies. They are amazing. But I feel drawn to this music for a larger reason. It moves me like nothing else I’ve heard in 2008. It is quietly powerful stuff, certain of its own importance, but the farthest thing from arrogant you could imagine. It is the discovery of the year, and the first time I have awarded a debut the top spot. And astoundingly, Fleet Foxes are getting better – their EP Sun Giant was recorded after the album, and I like it more.

I’ve been a little cryptic here, but that’s just because I haven’t yet found the words to explain just why I like this album so much. This is pure music, and I can dance about architecture all I like, but it won’t replace the experience of just hearing it. My language is inadequate, my speech incapable. Quite literally, I don’t know what to tell you. You must hear this. I have said enough. I can never say enough. This is why I listen – to feel this sense of connection with an inexplicable magic that is all around us, yet rare and fleeting. I am left suspended by the final notes, yearning for more. I wish this for you.

In seven days, Fifty Second Week. Happy holidays, everyone.

See you in line Tuesday morning… and to all a good night.

“Here’s a joke. How do you make God laugh? Make a plan.” – Eric Stoltz, Kicking and Screaming.

Hello and welcome. Plans have changed a bit. Pull up a chair, I’ll tell you all about it.

Initially, I had hoped to wow you with my final two new reviews of 2008 in this space. And they were going to be doozies, too – I was all set to share my thoughts on a pair of new live boxed sets, just in time for the holidays. First up was Marillion’s six-CD Early Stages collection, documenting five shows from the first few years of the band’s career. This thing’s a treasure trove – it contains a couple of shows that took place before the band’s first album came out, and an early version of what would become side one of 1985’s Misplaced Childhood.

After that, I was going to discuss Live at the Roxy, the eight-CD set from Phish, containing three complete shows from 1994. This one I was really excited about – the early ‘90s were the Vermont foursome’s compositional and improvisational peak, in my opinion, and this set concentrates pretty heavily on that year’s Rift, still my favorite Phish album. Over time, the band let their Grateful Dead influence come to the fore a bit much – their post-reunion shows are mainly boring affairs – but in ’94, they were still mixing the Jerry Garcia with a healthy amount of Zappa. This was a guaranteed hit with me.

But then two things intervened. Anyone who knows me can guess the first one – I just ran out of time. Looking back, I’m not sure how I expected to listen to and absorb 14 CDs of music while working my final few days before vacation, but that was the plan. And it failed miserably. I’m through four of the six Marillion discs, but only three of the Phish ones, and while I can guess that these bands didn’t suddenly start sucking during the latter shows, I haven’t heard them. So no reviews from me yet.

The second was surprising to me, though. As I’m sure you know by now, the Top 10 List column hits next week, and while the list itself has been set in stone for a while, it wasn’t until this week that I started putting my honorable mentions list together. I knew it had been a damn good year for music, but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how good it was, in the final analysis. Ordinarily, I’d have about 12 or 15 honorable mentions to hand out.

This year, I have 30.

So I figured they deserved their own column. Think of this as a teaser for next week – by process of elimination, sharp-eyed long-term readers can probably figure out just which 10 albums made the list. Tune in next week to see how you did.

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2008 was a pretty great year, as you’ll see. But like all years, it had its share of surprising disappointments. In fact, there were enough this time that I’ve given them their own section. In a year marked by artists old and new reaching deep and delivering stunning efforts, these seven simply fell down on the job.

Start with Beck, whose Modern Guilt was obviously rushed together to complete the artist’s contract with Geffen Records. At a scant 30 minutes, it hardly even qualifies as an album, and despite production by the great Danger Mouse, the grooves are limp and the songs threadbare. It’s not terrible, you understand, but after the one-two punch of Sea Change and Guero, to get two mediocre efforts in a row (this and last year’s The Information) is just unfortunate. Beck can do better than this.

Kevin Barnes took his Of Montreal project as far away from its giddy pop leanings as he’s ever gone with the mostly embarrassing Skeletal Lamping. Even Prince, this album’s most obvious influence, was never this self-indulgent. And speaking of self-indulgent, there’s the Fiery Furnaces, whose long-awaited live album, Remember, was just an unlistenable mess. Rather than document a full live show, the Furnaces cut and spliced several together – often in mid-song, repeatedly – and ended up with a landfill-sized disaster.

It’s somewhat hard for me to call Weezer’s sixth album a disappointment, since they’ve been going downhill steadily for years. But this one, affectionately called the Red Album, is the absolute nadir of their career, at least for now. Simplistic, frat-house-level songs with lyrics that sound like they were written for a junior high class project, three songs written and sung by people who are not Rivers Cuomo, and a cover picture that truly exemplifies the puerile shit you will find within. Alas, it also contains the most insanely brilliant Weezer song of all time, “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived,” so I guess this album doesn’t totally suck. But it comes awfully close.

Also coming awfully close is Mike Doughty, whose second full-lengther, Golden Delicious, isn’t fit to shine the shoes of his first, Haughty Melodic. Most of it sounds half-finished, limp and listless, and considering how long it takes you to get to the good stuff (“Wednesday,” “Navigating By the Stars at Night”), I wouldn’t blame you for giving up.

I suppose I’m not exactly disappointed in The Cosmos Rocks, by Queen and Paul Rodgers, because I fully expected it to be crap. And it is – unmitigated, absolute crap. But I remain disappointed in Brian May and Roger Taylor for resurrecting the Queen name and pissing all over Freddie Mercury’s grave with this thing. The fact that it’s terrible is almost beside the point. The Cosmos Rocks should never have happened.

But it’s still not my disappointment of the year. That honor goes to Ben Folds, who, with Way to Normal, released the first album of his career that’s just plain… bad. The record’s best songs (“You Don’t Know Me,” “Effington,” “Cologne”) can’t even hold a candle to the b-sides from Songs for Silverman, and its worst, like “Free Coffee” and “Bitch Went Nuts,” make me want to claw my eyes out. I understand it’s supposed to be fun, but it doesn’t have to be brain-dead too, and there’s just no excusing the stupidity of most of these songs. Particularly from an artist like Folds, who just deep-sixed his perfect record. It’s a real shame.

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Okay, enough with the bad, let’s get to the good.

There are three categories of honorable mention this year – the Also-rans, the Awesomes, and the Number Elevens. I’ll explain each as we go, but before we get to that, I want to talk about three bits of wonderful that don’t qualify for the Top 10 List. Longtime readers know the rules – only new studio albums, made up mostly of original songs, need apply. No live albums, no best-ofs.

And no covers albums, which leaves out the Seventy Sevens. Mike Roe and his band returned this year with a powerhouse collection of old gospel and blues tunes called Holy Ghost Building, and it’s terrific, but it’s almost all covers, so it doesn’t count. But that shouldn’t stop you from checking it out. Go here to pick it up.

I also have a rule that only full-length records are eligible for the list, which excludes Cassettes Won’t Listen’s EP Small-Time Machine. But with these seven songs, Jason Drake makes his name – these are melodic and memorable bits of electronic wizardry, and I’m already excited for a full record from this guy.

And finally, there’s the Alarm, and I’m still back and forth on this one. The new Alarm album, Counter Attack, is actually eight CDs – six studio EPs, one live EP, and a full-length album. The dilemma is this: seven of these eight CDs came out in 2007, but the two-and-a-half-hour collection is clearly meant to stand together as a unit. It even comes with a handy case to put all the discs in. Counter Attack is one solid piece of music, but it’s not a 2008 release, and it’s not a 2007 release either. It’s in this weird little limbo area.

Still, it’s pretty great stuff – the modern Alarm rocks a lot harder than its ‘80s counterpart, and takes much more from the Clash. The majority of these 55 tracks are excellent, and they’re packaged like old-time punk seven-inches, in DIY-looking sleeves. The CDs themselves are black and grooved like vinyl, which is too awesome for words. Mike Peters continues to deliver the goods, nearly 30 years after the Alarm first hit the scene. I highly recommend this – if you don’t want to shell out for the whole thing, the single-disc compilation Guerilla Tactics is solid through and through. Go here.

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The Also-Rans. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with any of these records, they’re just not at the top of the heap. But every one of them is worth owning.

We begin with Matthew Sweet, who returned from limbo with Sunshine Lies. His new record label, Shout Factory, called it a “psychedelic masterpiece,” and I can’t argue with that – here are classic melodic Sweet songs, recorded as oddly as he’s ever recorded anything. I would have bought this just for the title track and “Back of My Mind,” but it’s all good. Phantom Planet rocked back onto store shelves as well with Raise the Dead, the album on which they finally harnessed both their syrupy pop and abrasive rawk sides. “Dropped” was one of the coolest songs of the year.

Ray LaMontagne, that folksy wonder from Maine, released his third album, Gossip in the Grain. When he’s not giving Van Morrison a run for his money on “You Are the Best Thing,” he’s spinning gossamer beauty on “Winter Birds,” and his voice is one in a million. The original Little Folksinger, Ani Difranco, continued her string of modest yet superb records with Red Letter Year, a short jazz-folk-pop encounter that’s pure Ani.

Here’s a few oddball entries. Kanye West threw a fascinating curve ball with the chilly 808s and Heartbreak, all brittle drum machines and Auto-Tuned vocals. It’s something of a new model blues album, full of pain and regret, with some knockout songs. Metallica went in a new direction too, by actually making a good album with Death Magnetic. It’s their best since the ‘80s, and breathes renewed fire. And Kip Winger delivered a diverse collection of complex, mature pop music with From the Moon to the Sun. If you’re still not trying out Winger’s music because you remember him writhing about in leather pants in the late ‘80s, you’re doing him (and yourself) a disservice. His solo work is excellent.

Conor Oberst, the sole member of Bright Eyes, put out a ramshackle little record under his own name, and it was a hoot. Oberst finally let his hair down, zipping through barnburners like “I Don’t Want to Die (In the Hospital)” with abandon. Elbow won the Mercury Prize for their fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid, and rarely has that prize gone to a more deserving disc. Elbow plays slowly-unfolding, perfect British pop, and they’ve never done it better than they do here.

Richard Julian, a songwriter I discovered while working at Face Magazine, rebounded nicely from the somewhat bland Slow New York with a witty, sarcastic winner of an album called Sunday Morning in Saturday’s Shoes. His melodies are back on form, but more than that, Julian’s lyrics are top-notch here, whether lamenting American influence around the world in “Syndicated” or ripping his own heart out on “A Thousand Days.”

And finally, there is Chinese Democracy. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Axl Rose’s 15-years-in-the-making epic deserves an honorable mention. It’s massive, over-worked and a smidge under-written, but it’s grand rock and roll, the kind nobody makes anymore. I have no idea what kind of album Rose envisioned when he started this process, but the finished Chinese Democracy is more of a Queen album than the Queen album this year, and a marvel of ambitious record-making. We’ll probably never hear another new album like it.

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The Awesomes. These are mostly albums that have shown up on various drafts of the Top 10 List throughout the year. You can’t go wrong with any of them.

We begin with the year’s first great record, Distortion, by the Magnetic Fields. I’ve been a Stephin Merritt fan for a long time, but with this album, he may have outdone himself. Here are 13 perfect little pop nuggets, recorded like the Jesus and Mary Chain just nipped out of the studio for a moment without resetting their dials. Listen through the noise and you’ll hear brilliant, witty gems like “Too Drunk to Dream” and “The Nun’s Litany” alongside genuine heartbreakers like “I’ll Dream Alone.”

The Black Crowes returned from exile with Warpaint, but it ain’t the balls-out rock record you’re expecting. It’s mostly slow burners and bluesy excursions, but the brothers Robinson sound as good as they ever have. Portishead also returned from an astoundingly long absence, and their third one, cleverly titled Third, is a baffling, off-kilter thing that demands repeated listens. And, thankfully, rewards them.

R.E.M. recaptured their old fire with Accelerate, their finest album in years. It’s loud, it’s sharp, and it goes by like a bullet train. Even the spate of slow songs in the middle doesn’t drag the record down, and closer “I’m Gonna DJ” may be the most fun this band has ever had in two minutes. Nada Surf defied expectations as well – if all you expect of them is “Popular.” With Lucky, they continued a streak of very good jangly pop records.

The best music is often completely unexpected, as is the case with Pretty. Odd., the beautifully Beatlesque second album from Panic at the Disco. You may laugh, but don’t judge this until you’ve heard it – these boys turned out some fantastic songs here, and sweetened them with all the accoutrements of classic pop. Also completely unexpected, for me anyway, was Shearwater’s Rook, a hushed and glorious suite of songs I picked up on a recommendation. And I’m glad I did – “On the Death of the Waters” is one of the most chilling songs I’ve heard in a while, and the rest of this lovely record follows suit.

Counting Crows put out their best album ever with Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, in many ways two EPs in one. The loud half is the most raucous material Adam Duritz and his band have ever written, and the quiet half is stripped-down, bare and beautiful. Duritz sings his little heart out on piano number “On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago,” possibly the most heart-wrenching song in his catalog – worth the price by itself.

The Levellers got angry again, and came up with their strongest work in years, Letters From the Underground. These 11 songs burn past you like a pissed-off comet, striking its target with unerring accuracy, and yes, the fiddle is back at center stage, keeping pace with the furious guitars. And Tod Ashley returned from his sojourn in the Middle East with an amazing new Firewater album called The Golden Hour. Ashley assembled this travelogue from performances recorded with native musicians in four countries over two years, and the result is a fiery melting pot of awesome.

Which brings us to Randy Newman, and his splendid Harps and Angels. Last time Newman put out an album, I was 26 and living in Portland, Maine. I’ve changed dramatically in the past eight years, but Newman’s exactly the same – cranky, sarcastic and brilliant. This new album is just as good as anything he’s done, and gems like “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country” and the title track rank among Newman’s best. If you thought he only wrote Disney soundtrack songs, think again, and buy Harps and Angels.

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And finally, The Number Elevens. These are albums that caused me physical pain to exclude from the Top 10 List. Even now, I’m back and forth on a few of them, and any of these could slip onto the list without any effort at all.

Sigur Ros are a band demystified after their revealing documentary Heima, and they sound like it on Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endelaust, the most organically gorgeous album this Icelandic outfit has made. The otherworldly sound of their prior discs is here, but scrubbed clean – acoustic pianos and guitars reign here, and Jonsi Birgisson’s high, quivering voice is often unadorned. The last few songs are minimal, sparkling clouds, culminating in “All Alright,” the first Sigur Ros song in English. The whole thing is as welcoming and warm as a summer day.

Robert Smith, God bless him, has led The Cure through some rough patches in the past decade and a half, but with 4:13 Dream, all is forgiven. Here is the band I loved in high school – the dark pop songs, the chiming guitars, and Smith’s still-remarkable voice. Cure fans lost in the wilderness, it’s safe to come back home. And even better, this is the pop record – the so-called “dark” album is still to come in 2009. If it’s half as good as 4:13 Dream, I will be ecstatic.

Dr. Tony Shore, of ObviousPop, got me into Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears, and I of course resisted for a while because of the name. But Flight of the Knife is a stunner, chock full of dazzling musical inventiveness, with new head-spinning melodies every few seconds. It’s a pop record for sure, but labyrinthine pop songs like “Venus Ambassador” and “Imitation of the Sky” are rare beasts indeed. This was Tony Shore’s big score with me this year – he always has at least one. So thanks, Doc.

Matt Hales, also known as Aqualung, wrote the prettiest song I heard all year. It’s called “Arrivals,” and it’s the final track on his fourth album, Words and Music. In contrast to last year’s studio wonder Memory Man, this album is practically naked – virtually every sound is organic and acoustic. Much of this disc is so beautiful it hurts, and even though it’s a mix of new and old tunes (and one Paul Simon cover), it further cements Hales as one of the best of the current crop of British songwriters. You have to hear “Arrivals” – it will melt your heart. The rest is pretty terrific too.

And finally, an album that hung on to the Top 10 List longer than any other – Joe Jackson’s Rain. This was the year Jackson showed his acolyte Ben Folds just how it’s done. Rain is entirely piano, bass, drums and vocals, and it showcases 10 of the finest songs of Jackson’s late career. For a while, it seemed like Jackson had lost his way, abandoning his gift for the perfect pop song, but with this delightful record – equal parts social criticism and soulful crooning – he cemented his comeback. Songwriters like Joe Jackson are rare indeed, and it’s so good to have him back.

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I can’t believe how many words that took. Next week, more words! Come back here in seven days for the 2008 Top 10 List.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So we’re only two weeks away from my Top 10 List, but I thought I would pre-empt any criticism right now by telling you that TV on the Radio’s Dear Science does not appear anywhere on it.

It doesn’t even get an honorable mention.

I suppose I’m destined to run into this at least once a year, but the wild acclaim for this album is simply beyond me. I mean, far be it from me to call this record terrible – it’s not – but it’s far, far from the best of the year. It’s fun and all, but there aren’t very many revelatory (or even complete) songs here. But with the end-of-the-year praise it’s getting, you’d think these guys had just made this decade’s Revolver. (Or even this decade’s OK Computer.)

TVoTR’s last album, Return to Cookie Mountain, received similar acclaim, but this time, it’s deafening. Rolling Stone, Spin and the Onion AV Club have already selected Dear Science as the best album of 2008, and I’ll bet you $100 Pitchfork follows suit. I know I sound like everyone’s cranky, uncool dad when I say things like this, but I just don’t get it. I have no particular problems with Dear Science, but I don’t think I’m hearing what everyone else is hearing here.

Of course, as you’ll see in two weeks, I’m an old-fashioned melody guy, and my top picks are by artists who found new ways to burrow into organic, blossoming pop music. As much as I like “Dancing Choose” and “Golden Age,” TV on the Radio didn’t give me anything that moved me, that altered the way I see the world. My top five picks – two new bands, and three old favorites – all did. Whether you hear what I hear in them, I couldn’t say. But if the reaction to Dear Science is any indication, I’m going to be all alone in my top selections this year, once again horribly out of step with the zeitgeist.

Sigh.

* * * * *

Okay, let’s talk about Darn Floor – Big Bite, my pick for the most welcome reissue of the year.

Every long-running artist has an album like Darn Floor. It’s the Labor of Love that Nobody Bought, the album said artist poured his heart and soul into, only to release it to near-total indifference. In Terry Taylor’s case, that indifference was even more dispiriting – as an artist marketed to Christian outlets only in the ‘80s, Taylor managed to alienate even the tiny fraction of the music-buying audience who even knew his name.

It’s only in subsequent years, as the long-out-of-print album grew near-legendary among Taylor’s fans, that Darn Floor came in for a reappraisal. For the hardcore, it’s always been a favorite, the album on which everything Taylor and his band, Daniel Amos, had been reaching for since the late ‘70s fully came together. It was a record that could only have been made at that time, by these people, under those circumstances, and for me, it stands as a high water mark in an already remarkable career.

It is my favorite Daniel Amos album, and for years I’ve only had two options if I wanted to listen to it – I could dig out my old cassette copy, or I could spin a poorly-burned CD an old girlfriend made for me eight years ago. My other option, I suppose, would be to pay the exorbitant prices a CD copy of Darn Floor fetches on eBay, and I’ve been tempted now and again. But thankfully, Taylor and Arena Rock Recording Company have finally put together a gorgeous reissue package, complete with an hour-long bonus disc of rare stuff.

Why do I like this album so much? To talk about that, I have to take you back to 1987, and into a dark and forgotten corner of the music industry.

When I say “Christian music,” I know what you think I mean. You think I mean processed Nashville pop, with a relegated “Jesus per minute” quota and slick, squeaky-clean marketing image. You think I mean sanitized worship music geared more towards “increasing the flock” than making any kind of artistic statement. And for the most part, you’re right. But suffering in their own ghetto off to the side of the already tiny Christian music industry, there have always been real, serious, brilliant artists looking to explore faith, rather than just present a cardboard cutout of it.

Terry Taylor has always been one of the best of these. He’s a living example of the fact that religious faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, no matter what Bill Maher might tell you. What Maher’s sneering documentary Religulous missed is that faith, for thoughtful and reflective people, is a constant struggle. It’s a common assumption that faithful people are blind to the horrors of the world, or the logical inconsistencies of their beliefs, and I think this is a deeply flawed misconception. And Taylor proves my point.

Here’s a guy who knows and sings about the awful realities of life. He knows and enumerates all the reasons faith doesn’t make sense, and then tells you why he believes anyway. He’s full of doubt, but understands that these doubts don’t negate faith, they strengthen it. His is a complex, poetic worldview, and his music is similarly complicated and difficult, particularly in an industry that has consistently pumped out interchangeable cheerleaders for a simplistic “God is good” message.

And yet, for most of his career, Taylor worked within that industry. At first, he had no choice – Daniel Amos began in the late ‘70s as a sometimes whimsical country-rock Jesus band, like the Christian Eagles. The first album is almost unrecognizable as the work of Terry Taylor, honestly, and no mainstream label would have touched it. But from there, Taylor’s gone on to make some astonishing works of art, aimed at an audience that will probably never hear them. He’s labored to change a machine that has never appreciated the nuances he brings to his art.

In 1981, Daniel Amos began its most ambitious project, a four-album concept narrative called The Alarma Chronicles. Their label, Frontline, hated it – musically, Taylor had embraced new wave head on, making clattering, dissonant guitar-pop with the best of them, and lyrically, he’d embarked on a multi-year examination of just how awful the world is. It was dark stuff, with no easy answers and no pat Christian solutions. Jesus was mentioned just once in the first three albums, practically drowned out in an ocean of shady preachers, celebrity culture and greed, greed, greed. (It was the ‘80s, and where were our rocket packs? Seriously.)

It all led up to the final volume, 1986’s Fearful Symmetry, and even Taylor will tell you he stuck the landing a little bit. He’d set himself up with an unenviable task – three albums describing the world’s problems, one describing the solution – and I’m sure it weighed on him. How does one articulate God, without being cheesy and simplistic? To be fair, he gave it a great try – Symmetry is full of poetic observations cribbed from some of the best minds in history, and the music, while dated-sounding, is some of the most complex the band had yet written.

Still, the goal of Fearful Symmetry was to put God into words, and on that score, Taylor didn’t come up trumps. You can tell it was quite the learning experience, though – the entire next Daniel Amos album would be about how God is indescribable, beyond mortal ken. It’s about how we try and try to sum him up, but, as in the case of Fearful Symmetry, always fall woefully short. It’s about admitting that we don’t understand, and we won’t understand, and trying, as a thinking person, to live with that and accept it. Some theologians have written entire theses on this topic, trying to make sense of the idea that God will never make sense.

Terry Taylor? He wrote Darn Floor – Big Bite.

Yes, I know the title is odd, but it makes sense. There’s this gorilla named Koko, who lives in captivity in California, and she has learned more than a thousand words in American Sign Language. And one day, there was a massive earthquake that rumbled through Koko’s cage, and she expressed it the only way she knew how – by signing the words “darn floor big bite.” Taylor being Taylor, he saw this as the perfect metaphor for man’s attempts to describe God. We use primitive language, and we don’t even come close to getting it right.

The whole album is full of imagery like that. Take “Strange Animals,” the album’s mission statement, on which Taylor uses the animal kingdom to explain why we act the way we do towards one another: “I want to hold you, but it’s not clear, just what’s your intention if I get too near, I feel the danger but I cannot leave, will you tear open the heart on my sleeve?” “Earth Household” imagines us as caretakers, the world as a single home, and its characters struggling to get out, to “go to the other unknowable side.”

“Pictures of the Gone World” is brilliantly foreboding, its protagonists sharing photographs of a world that no longer exists. They are meant to be Adam and Eve, saying to each other, “We could lose this world too.” The album’s centerpiece, “The Unattainable Earth,” is at track nine, near the end. In it, Taylor brings all the threads together – “Language is weak, but I keep on speaking,” he says, before wondering, “Should you really reveal anything when I just misunderstand it?” The denouement, “The Shape of Air,” is Taylor’s last word (well, here, at least) on the futility and beauty of trying to reflect God in art. “Describe the voice from heaven, and paint the grace you’re given, it’s the shape of air…”

I’m giving the impression that Darn Floor is a scholarly document, but that’s because I haven’t talked about the music yet. It was on this album that Taylor, guitarist Greg Flesch, bassist Tim Chandler and drummer Ed McTaggart cohered as a unit. The music on Darn Floor is spacious, jagged, energetic, and unfailingly melodic. It occasionally sounds like it was recorded in 1987, which it was, but of all Daniel Amos’ ‘80s works, this one holds up the best, because it sticks to the three basic rock instruments and lets them breathe.

There are only a handful of bass players in the world as good as Tim Chandler, and on Darn Floor, you can really hear how terrific he is. On the album’s opener, a snide retort to puritanical Christian attitudes called “Return of the Beat Menace,” Chandler is as reserved as he’s ever been, laying down bedrock-solid accents. But jump ahead to the almost jazzy arrangement of “Pictures of the Gone World,” and you’ll hear a dissonant master at work. Chandler gets away with incredibly bizarre bass parts in otherwise simple songs – man, just listen to what he plays during the chorus – but they work.

Then there’s Greg Flesch, who doesn’t as much play the guitar on this album as conduct it. You will very rarely hear a strum or a simple chord from Flesch – he complements Chandler’s improvisations with his own dissonant lines. Often, neither one is playing what you’d think of as “the song,” but with Ed McTaggart’s rock-solid drumming, they hold it together, and Taylor’s vocals are always to the point, tempering his bandmates’ flights of fancy.

Darn Floor covers a lot of ground in its 10 tracks, 36 minutes. There are the straight pop songs, like “Strange Animals” and “The Unattainable Earth,” but then there is the groove-laden powerhouse of the title track, which sees Chandler providing the foundation for Flesch’s towers of sound. “Safety Net” is built around a merciless electronic drum beat and an odd 7/4 time signature, but it rocks like a house on fire, Taylor’s vocals sounding ragged and worn by the end. “Half Light, Epoch and Phase” gives Flesch a chance to whip out his surf guitar chops over a constantly shifting backdrop, and “Earth Household” is strikingly beautiful, its circular bass line leading into the perfect chorus.

And then there is “Divine Instant,” which, thanks to the reissue, sounds like a completely different song to me now. I never quite figured out that the lyrics are about sex, which Taylor sees as another way of touching the divine. Now that I know that, thanks to Taylor’s new liner notes, I can hear that the music was trying to tell me that all along. It’s so funny – the whole vibe is almost porn-tastic. Even the way Flesch bends his strings here sounds salacious. I don’t know how I didn’t hear it before. “Divine Instant” is a really good song to begin with, but now I just crack up every time it plays. “Time standing still…”

Darn Floor – Big Bite is the most beautifully odd record Daniel Amos ever made. Even now, after two decades, it remains one of the most insightful examinations of faith, doubt and the inability of language (both spoken and played) to encapsulate either one. It also remains a challenging, incredibly rewarding work of musical art by four men at the top of their game.

So why have you never heard it? Beats me. This record stands shoulder to shoulder with its ‘80s contemporaries, and towers over most of them. The only reason for its obscurity is that it was produced within, and released strictly to, a part of the music industry that doesn’t look for, nurture or support thoughtful art. You can shout about Jesus from the rooftops in this part of the industry, but if you sit down and carefully examine your thoughts about and relationship with him, without overtly mentioning his name in the lyrics, then you will be shunned. You’ll be “not Christian enough” for the Christian marketing machine and “too Christian” to have your records sold anywhere else – even in the days when U2 ruled the world.

It’s a strange little trap, and Terry Taylor’s been in it for roughly 30 years. In that time, he’s created a legacy many songwriters would kill for, and he’s still at it. Last year’s The Midget, the Speck and the Molecule, under the Swirling Eddies moniker, was extraordinary, and he continues to write one great song after another with the Lost Dogs. And he keeps struggling with his faith and his doubt, always with the honesty that marks a true artist. Darn Floor – Big Bite may be my favorite, but it’s just the tallest spire, and the whole building is worth exploring.

Arena Rock’s reissue, by the way, is beautiful, and the bonus disc is great too. You get some instrumental cuts that really show off Chandler and Flesch, a few live bursts (including an awesome rendition of “Safety Net”), and a 22-minute interview with Taylor that puts the whole thing in perspective. I highly recommend it. Get it here.

Next week, a couple of live box sets to mark year’s end.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

We still have a few more weeks to shuffle through, but musically speaking, the year is over.

Oh, sure, there are a couple more interesting releases scheduled, but nothing that will change the geography of the year. There are some live records, a few covers projects (especially Mark Kozelek’s The Finally LP, which I’m looking forward to), some third-rate rap projects, but nothing of much note. My top 10 list is done, including a mammoth selection of honorable mentions. I do believe I’ve heard the best stuff I’m going to hear this year, and I’m already looking ahead to 2009.

Just last week, I wasn’t so sure. It felt like 2008 was getting ready for one last surge, a tidal wave of potential excellence that could change the game. I spent more than $100 on music last Tuesday, and sadly, none of it rose to the challenge. There was one clear (and somewhat unexpected) winner, but I had to navigate a forest of mediocrity to get to it. And now I’m going to replicate that experience for you by saving my favorite until the end.

Yeah, I’m a bastard.

But seriously, given the career resurgence he’s had lately, wouldn’t you expect Paul McCartney to come up with some last-minute gem to rewrite 2008? His last two solo albums, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard and Memory Almost Full, were his strongest in many years, leading me to actually anticipate new McCartney product in a way I haven’t since… well, not in my lifetime, honestly. It didn’t even faze me that he was resurrecting his old Fireman moniker, which he used to release two interminably boring lite-techno projects in the ‘90s. This one, he promised, was different – a real pop album, crafted with his fellow Fireman, Youth.

Give him credit for truth in advertising. Electric Arguments is nothing like the other two Fireman discs, and I wonder why, exactly, he thought bringing back the name was a good idea. This is a collection of ditties, little pop-rock constructions with only a few splashes of electronica. Sadly, though, there’s none of the melodic invention and actual songwriting skill of McCartney’s last couple of efforts either, which drives the point home – this isn’t a Paul McCartney album, even though it sometimes sounds like one.

I do sometimes wonder just how deep this identity crisis goes. Does Paul McCartney sometimes forget that he’s Paul McCartney, one of the world’s best living songwriters? I mean, anyone can have an off month or two, but he doesn’t have to make us listen to them, does he? It’s endemic of McCartney’s solo catalog – the gems sit right alongside the tossed-off crap, given equal weight. And sometimes, as here, the crap far outweighs the good stuff. The man just needs some quality control – if he’d released only half as much music in the last 30 years, keeping only the songs that make use of his prodigious gifts, he’d have a nearly flawless solo career behind him.

But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he puts out albums like Electric Arguments. There are a couple of interesting songs here, like the dreamlike “Traveling Light,” but so much of this was clearly written and recorded very quickly. Acoustic ditties like “Two Magpies” and “Light from Your Lighthouse” make their slight melodies work for them, but endless dirges like “Lifelong Passion” just… don’t. “Sing the Changes” starts out like a driving powerhouse, but you soon realize McCartney just hasn’t written anything beyond the main riff, and it doesn’t even deserve its 3:42.

The back half of the album nearly saves it. Here is where Youth takes center stage, crafting near-instrumental soundscapes. The best of these, “Universal Here, Everlasting Now,” floats through several sections, including one with an actual dance beat, before ending in a flourish of piano. Closer “Don’t Stop Running” returns to the tossed-off dirge formula of the earlier tracks, but for some reason, this one works better, with its layered webs of guitar. It’s a downbeat conclusion, nearly ruined by the three minutes of noise tacked on at the end.

But nothing here needed someone like Paul McCartney to create. I know what you’re thinking – can’t the man do what he wants to do? Hasn’t he earned that?

And sure, if he wants to hang out with Youth for a few days and jam out some half-finished songs just for fun, who am I to begrudge him? But this album costs just as much as Chaos and Creation at your local record store, and they’re not even in the same ballpark. It’s his right to make an album like this (and like Driving Rain, and Off the Ground, and Pipes of Peace, and on and on), but the more of these he makes, the less the name Paul McCartney really means to the world of music. And that’s a shame.

You certainly can’t accuse Scott Weiland of not working hard on his second solo album. Happy in Galoshes is a 20-track, 90-minute behemoth spread across two discs, and it explores just as many different styles as his first one, 12-Bar Blues. In fact, listening to this thing, it’s like the sleazy-sezy-cool of Velvet Revolver never happened – this is a full-on ‘90s pop-rock record, sounding often enough like the sequel to Shangri-La-Dee-Da, Weiland’s final album with Stone Temple Pilots.

And like that album, I just don’t remember much of Galoshes 10 minutes after it’s finished playing. I can tell you some impressions, though. The main one is this: Weiland couldn’t want to be David Bowie any more if he tried. The Thin White Duke is all over this thing, especially in Weiland’s vocal style. Some of Galoshes qualifies as glam rock, and while Weiland hasn’t invented a fictional identity for himself and based a stage show around it quite yet, you could draw a straight line between Bowie’s ‘70s stuff and this. (Hell, the man even covers “Fame,” just to drive the point home.)

But I have to give him credit for that, and for the stylistic diversity to be found here. When Stone Temple Pilots first burst onto the scene in 1992, they were the first major non-Seattle band to ape the Seattle sound. Core, their many-times-platinum debut, is still an island in Weiland’s catalog – it’s the only one that sounds like early ‘90s radio. (Okay, the second STP album had hints of it too, but by Tiny Music, they’d excised that entirely, going for more textured pop-rock.)

Unfortunately, while everything on Happy in Galoshes is decent, none of it is extraordinary, and after an hour and a half of it, you’re just suffocated by the mediocrity. I’ve heard it twice now in its entirety, and damned if I can even hum “Blind Confusion,” or “The Man I Didn’t Know,” or virtually any other song here. The only one that really sticks in the memory is “Beautiful Day,” more for its phenomenal production than its melody. The rest? Pleasant while it’s playing, utterly forgettable five minutes later.

Galsohes creaks to a close with the jaunty “Arch Angel,” but then Weiland drags himself across the finish line with a lengthy rendition of the ‘70s hymn “Be Not Afraid.” (This is the “special secret song” the packaging promises.) I guess we’re supposed to be taken with the idea that Weiland, whose struggles with drugs and the law are constant tabloid fodder, is singing this old song of faith, but the result is just boring and painful.

Given its length and breadth, it’s tempting to consider Happy in Galoshes Weiland’s defining musical statement. But it’s mostly devoid of personality, and drowned in sub-par melodies – he’s definitely done better than this. After listening to this twice, I’m more likely to reach for a Velvet Revolver album, or even an STP disc, than Weiland’s opus again. The man just needs good collaborators to spark off of – without Slash, Duff, Izzy, or the DeLeo brothers, his music is much less interesting than it should be.

Which leaves the big winner of the week, and if I had to lay odds walking into the record store on Tuesday, I wouldn’t have guessed it. But 808s and Heartbreak, the new Kanye West album, is surprisingly good.

I shouldn’t have been too shocked, though. A couple of years ago, I gave West’s second album, Late Registration, very high marks – it was the hip-hop Sgt. Pepper, a collaboration with Jon Brion that set West’s rhymes to a mix of organic and electronic instruments I’ve never heard on a rap album before. His follow-up, last year’s Graduation, was a step down, but its synth beds and out-of-the-ordinary beats were still pretty cool. But this… 808s and Heartbreak is totally out of left field, and establishes West as one of the most interesting new artists in his particular scene.

It’s no secret Mr. West has had a bad year. In addition to watching a long-term relationship evaporate, he lost his mother, Donda, after complications from cosmetic surgery. He’s clearly in a dark and lonely place, and his album is moody, chilling and bleak. It also contains virtually no rapping, save for a couple of guest spots. Instead, West confined himself to the distinctive tones of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, and sang every song through an Auto-Tune vocoder.

The Auto-Tune has come a long way since the days of Cher’s godawful “Believe,” but it’s still an acquired taste. I can only take so much of T-Pain’s work, and often, the Auto-Tune is used to mask the fact that its user just can’t sing. But here, it works beautifully. West, quite frankly, can’t sing very well, but the fragility in his limited voice comes through, even with the vocoder on full blast. And I’ve never heard it used on songs like these before.

Take the first single, “Love Lockdown.” At its heart, this is a blues song, a pain-filled lament. But it’s a new kind of blues – the bass is a constant thump, the tribal drums provide shading instead of a beat, and the piano is surprisingly sparse. The center of the song is West’s lonely robot voice, and it works brilliantly. It’s the most unlikely pop hit of the year. It’s followed directly by “Paranoid,” a song that could have been taken right out of Prince’s 1982 setlist. It is the album’s most upbeat number, and it sounds like nothing else out there right now.

The album’s first half is shrouded in darkness, West moving from one tale of lost love to another – it’s like the synth-pop Blood on the Tracks. The record opens with its bleakest number, the six-minute “Say You Will.” Over a simple tonal beat and a bed of shuddering synths, West pulls out his first spine-tingling melody, and though he keeps this one going a bit too long, it sets the mood. “Welcome to Heartbreak” is a minor-key march about the difference between success and happiness, and “Heartless” (the poppiest thing in the first half) flirts with rap while exploring loneliness.

The first five tracks are a flawless statement of purpose, and once they’re out of the way, West lightens things up a notch. The aforementioned “Paranoid” leads into the almost-fun “Robocop,” but before long “Street Lights” has brought back the tribal drums and the dark mood. A highlight of the album, “Street Lights” is like nothing else I have heard this year – a pitch-black dirge with some heavenly backing vocals. The rest of 808s is bleak and slow and stark. The album ends with “Coldest Winter,” a song dedicated to West’s mother, and a tacked-on, six-minute stream-of-consciousness live recording that sounds somehow colder and farther away than anything else here.

Once again, West has surprised me by making an album I can’t classify. I suppose this is pop music, but it’s oceans away from the club-ready pop music West has made in the past. This is a daring release – I haven’t heard anything this musically adventurous and simultaneously emotionally haunted from a major, top-selling artist in a long time. I doubt this is a new musical direction for West. More likely, this album was therapy, a way to channel his feelings of loss and loneliness into his art. And it is art. 808s and Heartbreak is a striking, instantly memorable album from a man who is turning out to be a singular artist, a standout in his field. I can’t wait to hear where he goes next.

As for 2008, well, it’s not going anywhere next. I have four columns left to write – one about a reissue, one about a couple of live box sets, and then a top 10 list and Fifty Second Week. And then we’re into Year Nine, ready or not.

Next week, Darn Floor – Big Bite. Never heard of it? You will.

See you in line Tuesday morning.