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

The Best Albums Of 2008 (part 1)

The first half of 2008 is over and it's time to round up our favourite albums of the year so far. I don't feel that we have a clear leader in the race for "Album of the Year" just yet, but there are three albums that I set apart at this early stage and I believe that, come December, will be very close to the top. Foals with the angsty, angular supercharged funk-punk sounds of "Antidotes" have presented us with the best debut album of 2008 so far, plus they are responsible for one of the best gigs we've seen this year. The Duke Spirit have the advantage of featuring one of my favourite singers in recent years, Liela Moss, and with the desert rock sounds of "Neptune" manage to pass the difficult second album test with flying colours. As for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, they just seem to be untouchable at the moment, going from strength to strength. The fact that Cave is lately delivering some of the best songs of his illustrious thirty-year career is just phenomenal, leading us to the suspicion that some kind of shady deal with the Lord of the Flies must be in place here. So, without further ado, the Top 30 albums of the first half of 2008 (in a somewhat particular order) are the following:

Top 30
.
Antidotes - FOALS
Neptune - THE DUKE SPIRIT
Dig, Lazarus, dig!!! - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
Consolers of the lonely - THE RACONTEURS
Midnight boom - THE KILLS
Beat pyramid - THESE NEW PURITANS
Crystal Castles - CRYSTAL CASTLES
Third - PORTISHEAD
Saturnalia - THE GUTTER TWINS
Box of secrets - BLOOD RED SHOES
Imperial wax solvent - THE FALL
Songs in A&E - SPIRITUALIZED
Narrow stairs - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
In the future - BLACK MOUNTAIN
Vampire Weekend - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
Oracular spectacular - MGMT
Elephant shell - TOKYO POLICE CLUB
Walk it off - TAPES 'N TAPES
Accelerate - R.E.M.
The lucky ones - MUDHONEY
Get awkward - BE YOUR OWN PET
Real emotional trash - STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS
Keep your eyes ahead - THE HELIO SEQUENCE
Directions to see a ghost - THE BLACK ANGELS
Jukebox - CAT POWER
This gift - SONS AND DAUGHTERS
Lie down in the light - BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY
The golden age - AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB
This is not the world - THE FUTUREHEADS
Made in the dark - HOT CHIP
.
Nick Cave, caught on camera bargaining with The Lord of the Flies (not pictured) on top of Lycabettus Hill in Athens