Albums:
1. Sloan - Never Hear The End Of It
2. Wye Oak - If Children
3. UGK - Underground Kingz
4. Prodigy - Return Of The Mac
5. Scarface – Made
6. Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings
7. T-Pain – Epiphany
8. Paramore - Riot!
9. Avec - Lines
10. Say Anything - In Defense Of The Genre
11. The-Dream - Love/Hate
12. Amerie - Because I Love It
13. Ted Leo - Living With The Living
14. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
15. Rich Boy - Rich Boy
16. Jarvis Cocker – Jarvis
17. The National - Boxer
18. J-Roddy Walston and the Business - Hail Mega Boys
19. Parts & Labor - Mapmaker
20. Mario - Go!
21. Freeway - Free At Last
22. Darkroom Productions - Hamsterdam Vol. 2 - Stash to da Strip
23. Styles P. - Super Gangster (Extraordinary Gentleman)
24. The Gaslight Anthem - Sink Or Swim
25. Blaq Starr - The King Of Roq

Since we're coming to the end of a decade at the end of this year, and inevitably there's going to be a lot of big lists coming when that does happen, I thought I'd get a jump on that, by going backwards year by year and really re-evaluating what I liked each year, and re-doing my albums and singles lists. Of course, '08 just happened so I can't really update that yet, but we've already got a little bit of distance from 2007 that I can start looking at that with a different perspective, even if it's not a hugely different perspective. One of the main differences is that in these lists I'm including Baltimore stuff, whereas at the end of the year I usually do best-of lists for local music that are kind of separate from everything else. With a little hindsight, though, I feel like it's easier to place that stuff in a larger pantheon, especially since '07 had some really memorable releases by people from Baltimore, like Wye Oak and Dan Deacon. And there's a few albums I heard well after the year was over that I like now: Amerie, The-Dream, Robert Plant/Allison Krauss, The National, etc. But really '07 and '08 were the first years that I really felt like I heard just about every album I wanted to hear at the time, and so I don't know if I'll ever have a lot to catch up on. For a couple years before that, I heard about as many albums, but a lot of them were crappy things I only checked out to have something to review but never thought would be good. And before that, I was too broke and/or busy to hear a lot of stuff, and will have a lot more to catch up on as this series of posts continues.

Singles:
1. Beyonce - "Get Me Bodied"
2. Mary J. Blige - "Just Fine"
3. Rihanna - "Don't Stop The Music"
4. DJ Khaled f/ Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Birdman and Lil Wayne - "We Taking Over"
5. Finger Eleven - "Paralyzer"
6. R. Kelly featuring T.I. and T-Pain - "I'm A Flirt (Remix)"
7. UGK featuring Outkast - "Int'l Players Anthem"
8. Fantasia - "When I See U"
9. Kanye West f/ Dwele - "Flashing Lights"
10. Paramore - "Misery Business"
11. Maroon 5 - "Makes Me Wonder"
12. Diddy f/ Keyshia Cole - "Last Night"
13. Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
14. 50 Cent - "I Get Money"
15. Foo Fighters - "The Pretender"
16. Matchbox Twenty - "How Far We've Come"
17. Swizz Beatz - "It's Me, Bitches"
18. Linkin Park - "Bleed It Out"
19. Playaz Circle featuring Lil Wayne - "Duffle Bag Boy"
20. Kanye West f/ T-Pain - "Good Life"
21. R. Kelly f/ Usher - "Same Girl"
22. Keyshia Cole featuring Missy Elliott and Lil Kim - "Let It Go"
23. Kelly Rowland featuring Eve - "Like This"
24. Cassidy f/ Swizz Beatz - "Drink N My 2 Step"
25. Fergie - "Clumsy"
26. Crime Mob - "Circles"
27. The-Dream - "Shawty Is Da Shit"
28. Foxx f/ Lil Boosie and Webbie - "Wipe Me Down (Remix)"
29. Chris Brown f/ T-Pain - "Kiss Kiss"
30. Swizz Beatz - "Money In The Bank"
31. My Chemical Romance - "Teenagers"
32. Fergie f/ Ludacris - "Glamorous"
33. Foo Fighters - "Long Road To Ruin"
34. Nickelback - "Rock Star"
35. Eddie Vedder f/ Corin Tucker - "Hard Sun"
36. Birdman f/ Lil Wayne - "Pop Bottles"
37. Justin Timberlake - "Until The End Of Time"
38. Eve - "Tambourine"
39. Nelly Furtado - "All Good Things (Come To An End)"
40. Katharine McPhee - "Love Story"
41. Justin Timberlake - "What Goes Around...Comes Around"
42. Young Jeezy f/ R. Kelly - "Go Getta"
43. The Fixxers - "Can U Werk Wit Dat?"
44. Fall Out Boy - "I'm Like a Lawyer With the Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)"
45. Keyshia Cole f/ Amina - "Shoulda Let You Go"
46. Muse - "Starlight"
47. John Legend - "Another Again"
48. Three 6 Mafia f/ Chamillionaire - "Doe Boy Fresh"
49. Bow Wow f/ T Pain and Johnta Austin - "Outta My System"
50. Kanye West, Rakim, Nas and KRS One - "Classic"

There's not a lot of substantial change here -- "Rehab" and "Shawty Is Da Shit" are the only song I didn't include in the original list but eventually gave into the appeal of -- but I did rejigger the order quite a bit. The top 4 are all things that were much lower in the list that I ultimately felt won me over more in 2008, particularly "Don't Stop The Music" and "Just Fine." A lot of top 10 stuff sank way down, and sometimes I feel bad that some of the minor hits that I put high up on my singles list one year drop off when I hear them way less than the bigger hits later, but it is what it is.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 at 11:51 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.