Friday, November 28, 2008

Conversation Fodder: PASTE's "Best Of 2008"

Just in time for the US American Thanksgiving, Paste magazine delivers its Best Of 2008 issue. I believe I'll be letting my subscription lapse, but this yearly ish is worth picking up, if only to inform my heated debates with younger nephews at the extended-family dinner table.

Last year Paste proclaimed Boxer by The National to be the album of the year. Prior to that, I was too deep in retro-yearning to notice The National. I downloaded the album from eMusic, and was happy for the experience. We shall see what I make of She & Him when my downloads refresh in another week.

More anon.

5 comments:

Dave Schipper said...

I let my Paste subscription lapse too. Frankly I was only finding 10% of the music that I would listen to more than once. What happened to a good lyric, a melody that maintained itself through a song.

I should watch the complaining I did find some good artists out of it, and it put a nice article in one issue on Pierce Pettis, my favorite songwriter.

Dave

Rob in Victoria said...

Well, The Hold Steady is too far down the list for starters...

Whisky Prajer said...

DZ - I was all set to write a post titled "Lyrics Wanted" or somesuch. But then RJW mentioned The Hold Steady and I had to reconsider. In any case, I found that Paste magazine was getting lighter and lighter -- in physical weight as well as in genuine content -- so it will be going by the wayside. Unlike, say, Stop Smiling, which has yet to send me a dud issue.

DarkoV said...

Kathleen Edwards' album at a pitiful #44?
No "los Campesinos"?

And, what the flagrante? "I, Flathead" nowhere to be seen?

What kind of screwed up mag is Paste?
Fleet Foxes at #6? That about clinches their choices for relevancy and projections of a band's long life.

Whisky Prajer said...

No Los Campesinos seems like a glitch, but the absence of Ry Cooder's disc is an oversight of ridiculous proportions. I'm wondering if the kids in the hall weren't cut out of the Nonesuch goodies loop.