Cathedrals

I was happy to hear Joan Osborne’s take on Jump Little Children’s “Cathedrals” on a recent Paste sampler. Makes for a nice conversation partner to her “What If God Was One of Us.” And makes me want to be in a cathedral.

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So last year

I’m calling it.

Unlike many purported “best of 2008” lists, I actually wait until all the music that is going to be released in 2008 has been. And maybe a few that really tried to get in under the wire. I then subject every note of every song to an empirical study to determine which albums were, scientifically proven, the best. I will now present you with the facts that resulted from my study.

My 10 and 1/2 2008 personal favorites, at whim, in barely relevant order:

10 and 1/2) Ida, My Fair, My Dark (EP)
10) Ben Sollee, Learning to Bend
9) Mates of State, Bring It Back
8. Andy Gullahorn, Reinventing the Wheel
7) DoDos, Visiter
6) Tokyo Police Club, Elephant Shell
5) Blitzen Trapper, Furr
4) David Karsten Daniels, Fear of Flying (also here)
3) The Whigs, Mission Control
2) The Low Anthem, O My God, Charlie Darwin
1) Sun Kil Moon, April

Stuff I really loved, new to my library, 366 days old or more:

Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way that I Love You
Bowerbirds, Hymns for a Dark Horse
Big Mama Thornton with Muddy Water’s Blues Band
Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It In People
Teddy Thompson, Separate Ways
Margot and the Nuclear So-and-Sos, The Dust of Retreat
Van Morrison, Astral Weeks/ Van Morrison, his Band, and the Street Choir

I think you can check out a playlist of my 2008 faves here, on iLike. But I’m just trying it out for the first time.

And here’s The Low Anthem. They might make it to #1 after a few more listens.

“To Ohio”

“The Horizon Is a Beltway”

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Be of Good Cheer

I’m a little slow these days. Had to post this video. These guys will be at the Canyon Club on Thursday night.

Also check out this great unrecorded gem live in a library with Jacob Parnell, from the olden days, when they were The Pretty Good Cheer.

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Sweet and low

I can’t get enough of the strings under N”K”C’s vocals on this.

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Otis

Today was Otis Redding’s last with us, 1967.

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If you didn’t do it for God, who would you do it for?

The Commitments was on the other day. I like this scene.

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Joe Tex, “I Believe I’m Gonna Make It”

I meant to squeeze this in for Veterans Day, but didn’t make it.

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So Stories

I heard “Red Rain” on KTXT one night soon after So was released. I knew a little Peter Gabriel before then, but I loved that aural space. Eno and Lanois would follow the next year with The Joshua Tree‘s big landscapes, but So was something comprehensive to me; there was something inside the bass and percussion of that music that you could get in and walk around. Gabriel filled that space with a rich blend of sounds and artists and melodies that were more sculpted than scripted.

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Not “Smoke on the”

New Waterdeep album on pre-order. Last year’s Heart Attack Time Machine topped my best of 2007. Brandon Groves will be back on drums, and that’s a very good thing.

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4 Eva

I had to be 15 years older than Van Morrison was when he recorded Astral Weeks before it caught me, but it quickly became a seminal record to me. Morrison is performing the full album in my neighborhood soon, and I won’t be there, but I’d like to be, even as a late-comer.

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