Best of 2008 (part 2): Top 40 tracks

A selection of some of the best singles and album tracks released in the first half of the year:

1. The step and the walk - THE DUKE SPIRIT
2. Swords of truth - THESE NEW PURITANS
3. Courtship dating - CRYSTAL CASTLES
4. To fix the gash in your head - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
5. Idle hands - THE GUTTER TWINS
6. Lie down here (& be my girl) - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
7. You bring me down - BLOOD RED SHOES
8. Cassius - FOALS
9. Cheap and cheerful - THE KILLS
10. Machine gun - PORTISHEAD
11. Time to pretend - MGMT
12. Salute your solution - THE RACONTEURS
13. Black cat - LADYTRON
14. I gotta fire - SPIRITUALIZED
15. Hang them all - TAPES 'N TAPES
16. Senior twilight stock replacer - THE FALL
17. I'm now - MUDHONEY
18. Living well is the best revenge - R.E.M.
19. Wucan - BLACK MOUNTAIN
20. I will possess your heart - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
21. Juno - TOKYO POLICE CLUB
22. A-Punk - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
23. I sent away - BLACK FRANCIS
24. Walk it off - THE BREEDERS
25. The nest - SONS AND DAUGHTERS
26. Ready for the floor - HOT CHIP
27. Paper planes - M.I.A.
28. Lovely Allen - HOLY FUCK
29. Hallelujah - THE HELIO SEQUENCE
30. Half in love with Elizabeth - MYSTERY JETS
31. It ain’t easy - ROBERT FORSTER
32. You remind me of something (the glory goes) - BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY
33. The age of the understatement - THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS
34. The witch (made to measure) - CLINIC
35. Black hole - BE YOUR OWN PET
36. Bad kids - THE BLACK LIPS
37. Stupid now - BOB MOULD
38. Windows on the world - AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB
39. New York - CAT POWER
40. The devil - PJ HARVEY

In the Killer Tracks series we have already featured three of the top 5 songs here. Now it's a good time to add the videos for the other two: "The step and the walk", one of the highlights of The Duke Spirit's excellent second album "Neptune" and "Idle hands", the grunge epic off "Saturnalia", the product of Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli's collaboration as The Gutter Twins. Now, I'm not sure what esteemed video commentators Beavis and Butthead would make of the Duke Spirit's effort but I'm sure they would have loved the explosion heavy "Idle hands"! Fire is cool!

The Duke Spirit - The step and the walk


The Gutter Twins - Idle hands