Doing my best to not suck

Agh! I meant to do this list about 4 days ago, but having a cold really sucks one's energy away from a chilly room and a computer screen. Much better to be on a sofa in front of a television screen and a couple of discs of Mad Men season 1.

Anyway, Dirty Jobs is on in about 2 min. so I'm going to rush through this...

**Mish's Music Faves of '08**

1. tie between The Duke Spirit-Neptune and R.E.M.-Accelerate. I pretty much base my faves off of two qualifiers. First, how much did I listen to the cd and second, did I skip over tracks. These two cd's were the most listened to and I pretty much hardly ever jumped about. I think The Duke Spirit really solidified their sound on their second album. Every song is worth checking out and I love the lead singer's Debbie Harry meets PJ Harvey-esque sound. R.E.M. released their best album in years. They sounded fresh and full of rock happiness while making me fondly recall albums like Document and Life's Rich Pageant. WOOT to my "classic rock."

2. Portishead-Third. Back, finally, with an album that gave me everything I love about the band while taking them in new and interesting directions. It was soothing to me to hear film noir again.

3. Nine Inch Nails-The Slip. Trent released two (or really 3) cd's this year. The Slip and Ghosts I-IV. Ghosts is very good (all instrumentals), but The Slip got more listens as I am always desirous of hearing Trent's voice.

4. Kaiser Chiefs-Off With Their Heads From across the pond and full of cheek and swagger. Plenty of short and nearly perfect pop rock tunes.

5. Supreme Beings of Leisure-11i The third band on the list who released an album after a multi-year absence. Dreamy dance music with an exotic feel and a great singer.

6. Sigur Ros- With a Buzz In Our Ears We Play Endlessly. That's the English version of the actual title. These Icelanders continue to amaze me with the beauty they create.

7. Elbow-The Seldom Seen Kid Follows through with the opening up of their sound that was found on the last album. Really strong songwriting and one of my fave male vocalists.

8. Keane-Perfect Symmetry This one feels like it would have been perfect as an actual record --80's influenced pop on side one and "traditional" Keane on side two.

9. The Gutter Twins--Saturnalia A combo of Greg Dulli from Afghan Whigs and Mark Lanegan from Screaming Trees...sounds like Afghan Whigs meets Screaming Trees in their 40's. Works for me.

Next time, hopefully, I'll recap Slumdog Millionaire!