MOG

Been awhile since I posted, but I've lurked and commented often.  As many of you know, last year Dale collected our mid-year favorites.  This year, it's being done by SA:  http://mog.com/SA/blog_post/169238.

 

I have a love/hate relationship with these aggregations.  Lots of interesting choices get lost to the tallying, and what ends up happening seems like a list that's populated with over-hyped indie darlings you can read about anywhere and everywhere.  What I really like is seeing people's individual lists, but I hate to limit things to street dates.  That just seems to feed into the industry side of the music business, whose death throwes most of us are enjoying being spectators to.  Plus, there's always stuff from the previous year that I didn't get into until this year.  Some of which I dearly love.  But there's gotta be some kind of rules, or we'd never whittle contenders down to a list.  I also noticed that my mid-year list from last year was drastically different from my end-of-the-year list.  But I can't help it.  I've got to list, and so do you.

 

 

My grudgingly narrowed (and ordered) list is made of these:

 

1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

2. The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

3. Murder By Death - Red of Tooth and Claw

 

4. Russian Circles - Station

5. Byzantine - Oblivion Beckons

6. Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

7. Made Out Of Babies - The Ruiner

8. Scott Matthew - Scott Matthew

9. Torche - Meanderthal

10. Man Man - Rabbit Habits

 

 

I pick things based mostly on what really moved me to keep listening to the album even though there was so much more in which I'm interested.  Here are the near list-makers:

 

The Black Keys - Attack and Release

The Company Band - Sign Here, Here and Here

The Devil and the Sea - Heart Vs. Spine

Firewater - The Golden Hour

Meshuggah - Obzen

Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

 

 

Other albums of note for me this year are:

 

Arsis - We Are the Nightmare

The Black Crowes - Warpaint

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

Hate Eternal - Fury and Flames

Isobell Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt

M83 - Saturdays = Youth

The Mars Volta - Bedlam in Goliath

Mike Patton - A Perfect Place

Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV and The Slip

Opeth - Watershed

Origin - Antithesis

Portishead - Third

Protest the Hero - Fortress

The Raconteurs - Consoler of the Lonely

The Roots - Rising Down

Saviours - Into Abaddon

Scott Kelly - The Wake

Soul Embraced - Dead Alive

Spiritualized - Songs in A & E

Steve Von Till - A Grave is a Grim Horse

Taint - Secrets and Lies

Testament - The Formation of Damnation

This Will Destroy You - This Will Destroy You

Thrice - The Alchemy Index vols. 3 & 4 Air and Earth

Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw

Transistor Transistor - Ruined Lives

Withered - Folie Circulaire

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Zodiak - Sermons

 

 

Here's some stuff from last year that I've really been digging this year (here's my post from last year: http://mog.com/River_Lethe/blog_post/133114):

 

Balboa and Rosetta split - Project Mercury

Black Cobra - Feather and Stone

Black Mountain - In the Future

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Buried at Sea - Ghost

Deathspell Omega - Fas--Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum

Dodheimsgard - Supervillain Outcast

Feist - The Reminder

The Hours - Narcissus Road

Killwhitneydead - Nothing Less, Nothing More

Light Pupil Dilate - Snake Wine

Mum - Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy

The Ocean - Precambrian

Orange Goblin - Healing Through Fire

Rosetta - Wake/Lift

Skeletonwitch - Beyond the Permafrost

St. Vincent - Marry Me

The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza - Danza II: The Electric Boogaloo

Trap Them - Seance Prime

We Are Wolves - Total Magique

Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters

Yael Naim - Yael Naim

Yeasayer - All Our Cymbals

 

And how goes the boycott, you might ask?  I have not caved.  The only new purchases I have made this year (yes, all year) are the Deluxe Editions of Nine Inch Nails "Ghosts I-IV" and Sigur Ros "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust".  And when I say "new", I mean factory sealed new product like you'd buy in a brick and mortar retailer.  I've been to shows and bought merch and things directly from the groups, but I have not purchased anything else new from anything that came out on a major label.  When in doubt, I buy used.  In order to reward the artists whose albums I love this year, those will be purchased brand new and direct from the artist or label.  So, RIAA and major labels, if you're reading this, take a look at the list above to see how much revenue you lost from me this year alone.  I really urge others to do this as well; help drive the nails in their coffins people!  We love music, but we will not submit to aggressive and overbearing business tactics.

 

Now if we could only find a way to do this to the oil companies. . .

Posted on 06/27/2008