What were the 80 most important musical recordings, artists, trends, events, and performances of 2008? What were the eight things this year that broke our hearts—or, at least, our ears? We're happy to announce 80 '08 (and Heartbreak), Idolator's year-end overview. The list is below the jump.
80. Andrew W.K., "McLaughlin Groove"
79. Elvis Costello puts his trust in Fall Out Boy
78. Wye Oak, "I Want for Nothing"
77. Nine Inch Nails' flood of digitally distributed music
76. TV on the Radio, "Golden Age"
75. Journey welcomes the Web 2.0 Era (and a new singer) with open arms
74. Jenny Lewis, "Acid Tongue"
73. Radiohead scores the year's strangest Top 40 hit
72. The Music Tapes at Athens Popfest, August 2008
71. Kanye, Lily, Pete, and Courtney form their own blogger nation
70. French Kicks, Swimming
69. Soundscan: down for the recount
68. Make It Stop! The Most of Ross Johnson
67. Parry Gripp, "Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn)"
66. Okay, Huggable Dust
65. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body"
64. 360 deals make heads spin
63. Daniel Amos, Darn Floor Big Bite
62. Cut Copy, In Ghost Colours
61. Solange, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams
60. The Numa Numa Dance revival
59. The Gaslight Anthem, The '59 Sound
58. '90s alt-rock memoirs
57. Larry Norman and Sonseed
56. Sheryl Crow, "Shine Over Babylon"
55. DJ Koze
54. David Cook beats David Archuleta on American Idol
53. T-Pain, Thr33 Ringz
52. Perez Hilton Vs. Sony BMG: slapfight!
51. Justin Moore's "Back That Thing Up" video
50. Optimo's mix CDs
49. Extra Golden live at the Caledonia Lounge, Athens, GA, June 2008
48. Jamey Johnson, That Lonesome Song
47. Daveigh Chase sings "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" on HBO's Big Love
46. Gnarls Barkley and the Raconteurs race each other to the record store
45. Pete Wentz tries to save the music video with FNMTV
44. R&B's breakbeat vogue
43. Jobromance!
42. Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue (Legacy Edition)
41. Miley Cyrus, "See You Again"
40. Max Martin and Dr. Luke infiltrate rock radio
39. Of Montreal get Skeletal
38. Poplife Presents Poplife Sucks
37. Alec Foege, Right of the Dial and Taylor Clark, Starbucked
36. Major labels fail to kill the single—again
35. Velvet Revolver brings the drama
34. Blake Leyh makes us listen closer to The Wire
33. Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, "Yahhh!"
32. The end of TRL
31. The old-skool rave revival
30. Ida Maria, "Oh My God"
29. Fred Schneider on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
28. CMT's Can You Duet
27. '90s reunion fever
26. Estelle makes her way across the ocean
25. John Darnielle's Master of Reality and Carl Wilson's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste
24. Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
23. Santogold, "Lights Out"
22. Summer festival glut
21. Monotonix live in Baltimore
20. James Sullivan, The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America
19. Be Your Own Pet, "Becky"
18. Kanye West's aesthetics
17. "Vinyl is back!"
16. Global reissues bonanza
15. Beyoncé, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"
14. Rickrolling rolls on
13. M.I.A., "Paper Planes"
12. Alphabeat get "wonky"
11. The year of the remix
10. R. Kelly goes to court
9. Jarvis Cocker at Pitchfork Festival, Chicago, July 2008
8. The Ron Clark Academy, "You Can Vote However You Like"
7. Portishead, Third
6. Prince at Coachella Festival, April 2008
5. Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
4. Guitar Hero / Rock Band
3. A very musical Presidential election
2. Lil Wayne: All things to all people
1. Ne-Yo, Year Of The Gentleman
HEARTBREAKS
1. Mamma Mia Misses The Essence Of ABBA (Kate Richardson)
2. The Death of Baltimore Club Music's Queen, DJ K-Swift (Al Shipley)
3. The blogosphere as the new status quo (Lucas Jensen)
4. Britney Spears on the 2008 MTV VMAs (Molly McAleer)
5. Be Your Own Pet breaks up (Mike Barthel)
6. Everyone in the music business losing their freakin' jobs (Michaelangelo Matos)
7. Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy (Maura Johnston)
8. John Rich shills for the GOP (Chuck Eddy)
Prince got added to the Coachella bill some 15 days before the desert festival was slated to kick off, a move that was simultaneously totally awesome and slightly reeking of desperation. Ticket sales for the 2008 installment of the fest had been rumored to be a bit soft (a rumor that was borne out by the tumbleweeds skipping across the Empire Polo Field during Jack Johnson's Friday-closing set), and apparently Prince commanded a lot of cash to help goose the Saturday-night till. "So what?" you might ask. "He's Prince. He's worth it." I wholeheartedly agree, but at the same time, I can't help but wonder if his set—which included a cover of Radiohead's "Creep" that made Thom Yorke a bit snitty—broke the festival (and maybe even the US festival circuit) in a way, kind of like his precipitation-inducing Super Bowl halftime show of 2007.
Watch that before the Web Sheriff swoops in, then look at the latest version of the fake Coachella poster that goes around every year, and ask yourself, "How can any of those acts top that?" Never mind that I haven't even gotten to his backup singer's wrenching cover of Sarah McLachlan's ASPCA-boosting "Angel" that caused a baseball-cap-wearing dude behind me to say "Yo, I'm kinda tearing up, man." Or the fact that he kept the party going past curfew because he could (well, also because his fee was big enough that it could pay the fines levied by the local law enforcement). Or that he brought out Sheila E. and Morris Day, again, just because he could. Seriously, how do you top that? In a year that was full of personal disappointment and heartache, Prince's last-hurrah-styled party was one of the few things that I could say was singularly great about 2008, and brought me a level of joy that will help me at least look back on something from this year fondly.
Creep live @ Coachella 2008 [Dailymotion]
80 '08 (and heartbreak)
While watching Jarvis Cocker command the crowd at Chicago's Union Park this summer, I knew I was watching an old pro at work, and I was glad. I'd already seen plenty of young bands—the Dodos, Fleet Foxes—strum and harmonize their way into indie-rock hearts with maximum earnestness. All fine and dandy, but I felt like they lacked gravitas. They didn't own the big stages; they just rented them for a while. Despite some early troubles, Public Enemy had that weight, that importance about them during their Friday-night set; Jarvis had it tenfold. The minute he snaked his way onto the stage, right at sunset on that Saturday of this year's Pitchfork Music Festival, he held everyone in his sway, despite not playing a single Pulp song.
"Running the World"
Jarvis emotes with his entire willowy body, which flails around like a bundle of wires, twitches with each phrase. And he's still a fabulous singer; he knows his material inside and out, how each phrase can be contorted for maximum effect. After seeing Jarvis (as well as fellow old pros Dinosaur Jr. and Spiritualized), n00b bands like Vampire Weekend came off looking like they barely knew their own songs.
Everything he did was charming. Between songs, he read facts about Chicago that'd he'd printed off Wikipedia. He writhed around on the ground, Marty McFly-style. He took off his sportcoat only using his shoulders, to the delight of my female companions. He made Tim Harrington's admittedly hilarious antics the next day seem rather dopey by comparison. I appreciate youthful energy and enthusiasm as much as the next guy, but watching Jarvis, I realized that as I get older, I appreciate the old pros more than ever.
Running the World [YouTube]
Jarvis Cocker [MySpace]
80 '08 (and heartbreak)
[Pic: Getty]
A glut of festivals rode the 2000s' bubble all the way to various parks and open spaces in America this summer, with new ones seemingly taking up every weekend between May and September and somehow attracting enough paying customers to not get canceled in advance, despite bills that boasted the same headliners week-in and week-out (hello, Jack Johnson!) and sorta-high ticket prices that were only ginned up by absurd "VIP" add-ons like air-conditioned cabanas and picnic tables away from the riff raff. On the one hand, it may be true that the festival setup, in which as many as 100 bands can be smushed onto one lineup and served up alongside tasty fried treats and sponsored booths, is the only way for people to feel like they actually got something of a handle on the ever-sprawling music scene of today. But on the other hand, could the sheer number of opportunities to drop three bills and distractedly catch a song or two by some blogged-about buzz band before heading along to the next tent result in anything but fatigue on the part of concertgoers, resulting in a less-than-optimal experience all around? (Although I guess that could also be the best way to get a handle, etc.)
Of course, there were other signs aside from the sheer glut that the "lots of festivals" model that worked so well in the UK all this time wasn't exactly going to be a smash hit over here. Coachella—one of the top-tier fests, alongside Bonnaroo—decided to go way left-field with booking headliners, snagging Prince and Roger Waters alongside Jack Johnson. (Guess whose headlining set was the worst-attended?) Bonnaroo decided to get Kanye, a decision that resulted in lots of anger both offine and on; the Tennessee fest also lined up Metallica, a move that shook up the jam-band fans who are that festival's bread and butter. With the exception of Kanye, the key for sticking out in the crowd of larger festivals seemed to hinge on getting acts with legacies that stretched back to the '90s, or even earlier; boutique fests like Pitchfork's annual shindig and the My Bloody Valentine-curated All Tomorrow's Parties took a similar tack, albeit with artists that were a bit cultier. What happens when the well of bands that enough people have heard about to allow a big production to break even runs dry remains to be seen.
As does whether or not 2008's full dance card will be a blip, or a sign of things to come. The 2009 installment of the Vineland Festival—a New Jersey extravaganza that had its plug pulled this year as well—was canceled in July, and even those festivals that are still around have already started rearranging the chairs: Bonnaroo and the twangy Coachella sibling festival Stagecoach are but two festivals that have informed potential visitors that they can buy tickets on lay-away, in case their credit cards were swallowed whole by the credit crunch.
Apparently reeling from lousy ticket sales for last year's Glastonbury Festival—which had Jay-Z and Kings Of Leon as headliners—the organizers of the muddy British weekend have reportedly snagged Blur, Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen for the top of the 2009 fest's lineup. You have to wonder if the people in charge of booking the festival wanted to get Blur & Oasis to share a bill, if not a steel cage, for a big blowout battle of the bands that would set the nostalgia phasers of most of the Brits in the crowd to total effing freakout, but then had to "settle" for Neil and Bruce instead. [The Sun]
