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Lists! Just can’t get enough of those 2008 lists, I’m going to post one every day until I kill myself for being the worst. Actually I think we all safely thought year-end list season was over, except that obviously it’s not over. This last one — Hype Machine’s painstakingly compiled Zeitgeist aggregate — is by necessity a late comer, pooling data from 774 music blog rankings to make one blogger-sanctioned meta-list beast. The project had its inception a few years back with Heartonastick‘s perfectly named Bloggregate, which later merged with/was subsumed by Zeitgeist: powered by Hype’s inherent ability to track what the rest of us are getting hyperbolic over. Being what it is, there aren’t many surprises (i.e. look here for hints) but the end product is well assembled, featuring a Blog Fresh Radio component (discussing results with various bloggers), links to raw data and individual source lists, and most impressively, full album streams for each of the top 50. Here it is in a glance:

50 Mates Of State – Re-Arrange Us
49 The Kills – Midnight Boom
48 Glasvegas – Glasvegas
47 Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
46 Shearwater – Rook
45 R.E.M. – Accelerate
44 Flying Lotus – Los Angeles
43 Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line
42 Sun Kil Moon – April
41 Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue
40 Beck – Modern Guilt
39 of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
38 Blitzen Trapper – Furr
37 The Gaslight Anthem – The ’59 Sound
36 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
35 Lykke Li – Youth Novels
34 Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs
33 The Black Keys – Attack & Release
32 Foals – Antidotes
31 Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
30 WHY? – Alopecia
29 Hot Chip – Made In The Dark
28 Department Of Eagles – In Ear Park
27 Beach House – Devotion
26 My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
25 Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak
24 Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
23 Kings Of Leon – Only By The Night
22 Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III
21 She & Him – Volume One
20 The Dodos – Visiter
19 No Age – Nouns
18 Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
17 Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
16 The Walkmen – You & Me
15 Coldplay – Viva La Vida
14 Girl Talk – Feed The Animals
13 Frightened Rabbit – The MIdnight Organ Fight
12 Santogold – Santogold
11 Deerhunter – Microcastle
10 The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
09 M83 – Saturdays=Youth
08 Sigur Rós – með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
07 Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours
06 Portishead – Third
05 MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
04 Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
03 Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
02 TV On The Radio – Dear Science
01 Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

And click over to Zeitgeist to play around. There’s also a list of the Top 50 tracks of 2008, but don’t click that unless you have a strong stomach for promo-cycle extending remixes.

Onward. Promise.

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Comments (41)
  1. This just shows how narrow of a scope the “music” blogs have.

  2. FINALLY!
    Mates Of State, The Kills, and Wolf Parade make a fucking list!!!!

  3. NOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo more year-end lists pleaseeeeeeeee. I beg of you!

  4. All these lists are inherently useless. You know what you like, and unless you’re low on self-esteem (somebody who needs their tastes validated by others) these lists are onanism for the groundlings.

    • rima  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

      or you know you like many of the songs on a list, and if can help you find others you haven’t heard

  5. “Bloggregate” is not a perfect name. It’s stupid. E-words like “bloggregate,” “blogument,” and, uh, “e-word” make me want to vomit all over my goddamn keyboard.

    That aside, I still like lists, and I generally like this one, though, of course, there are a half-dozen albums too high (esp Vampire Weekend — good, not top ten, the Hold Steady, of Montreal, and Girl Talk) and a number of albums too low (most outrageously Shearwater).

  6. asdf  |   Posted on Jan 9th, 2009

    Please stop.

  7. So after reading lists of all the same shit for three weeks we now have one master list of all the same shit?

    The internet eats itself yet again.

    Excuse me while I go post this on my blog now…

  8. NO FUCKING METTALLICA! God damn those cunting sons of motherfucking bitched to hell. If there’s anything redeeming about another list, it’s that Mettalica is not on this one. Plus, it’s a pretty solid list, I mean let’s be honest here.

  9. BA in VA  |   Posted on Jan 9th, 2009

    faaahh…my morning jacket behind Kanye… i will now boil hot water and then drink it.

    • anon  |   Posted on Jan 9th, 2009

      how is making tea going to express your outrage?

      • BA in VA  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

        tea????haha no buddy i meant boiling scalding hot water and pouring it down my throat at seeing kanye ranked higher than MMJ. Perhaps an over reaction?

  10. i guess i am the only one who thinks this is cool

  11. How sad is it that this is probably the highest ranking Department of Eagles has gotten on any noteworthy year-end list? Sigh.

  12. Hipster Drew  |   Posted on Jan 9th, 2009

    ummmm MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION??
    sheesh, hipsters.

  13. cpp[  |   Posted on Jan 9th, 2009

    looks about right

  14. Believe it or not, Will Ferrell made a video about this:

    http://www.truveo.com/SNL-Will-Ferrell-in-Yoga-Class/id/282377687

  15. The record to look forward to in 2009:

    The Medicine Man “Forever Brother”
    Dent Records 2009
    Download

  16. Chris  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

    Hey Amrit, Did you forget Pazz & Jop? That’s the list to end all year-end lists!

  17. i like lists… and grapes and stuff.

  18. There’s a local radio station in minneapolis called the current, that had the top 89 of 2008(89.3 is the station). It has a really good mix of all different music. It has some of the usual, but a lot of other great music that isn’t indie rock buzz bands. A lot of great hip-hop too, of course the list is lil’wayne free. It’s voted on by the listeners too, not just people picking cds. Go to the current.org to find it.

  19. sammy  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

    these lists shouldn’t be called “best music” lists. they only cover pop music. albeit the cool and hip kind. fleet foxes is good, but it didn’t make my jaw drop. there were records out there that were far far better, and they don’t get any mention because they wouldn’t appeal to MTVU crowds…

  20. HUH?  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

    ok, wait, did tokyo police club’s album come out this year?? and if so, why did it not make any of these lists???

    • Brian  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

      Tokyo Police Club arent “trendy” anymore, and pitchfork gave them a 6.6 or something, thats why you don’t see them anywhere. Once people under 20 pick your band up, and you get played in the gap and tv show soundtracks you loose all your indie rock cred sadly, despite the fact that Tokyo Police Club put out a superb album. But I do make the Case for Destroyers “Trouble in Dreams”. One of his best albums, ignored by almost everyone. It was an album that leaked late December 2008, and released early January 2009 so i guess it wasnt on everyones mind either. Hope that doesn’t happen to Andrew Bird this year.

  21. how come no one seems to love the Cold War Kids album? it was really really good!

    • astro  |   Posted on Jan 12th, 2009

      pick up robbers & cowards and you’ll have your answer.
      half of loyalty to loyalty is just plain awful, and the whole album feels entirely uninspired.

  22. Good for the The Gaslight Anthem, (though they’re somewhat a Springsteen/Tom Petty derivative, they’re great at what they set out to do) they deserve more attention.
    Anyway, I like lists. It’s an easy format to track down stuff I might have missed.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go categorize and label everything in my apartment according to value.

  23. eric  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

    brighter than creation’s dark seems a lot older than a year

  24. Brained  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

    I just can’t get enough of year end lists.

  25. there is still one more year end list that i am looking forward too…

    The triple j hottest 100, Triple j is a radio station in Australia and they claim that the hottest 100 is the largest voted music poll in the world. It comes out on Australia day (26th Jan).

    Yd

  26. grover  |   Posted on Jan 10th, 2009

    rolling my eyes once again at fleet foxes, but intrigued to see frightened rabbit at 13

    is it just my imagination or is everyone, including this site putting it into heavy rotation, giving that record some seriously delayed attention? that disc came out almost a year ago yo

  27. David Davidson  |   Posted on Jan 11th, 2009

    I will later post my Top 10 “Top 10 Lists of 2008″!

    Followed by Gary Glitter’s Top 42 Most Interesting Album Covers of 2009.

  28. steve  |   Posted on Jan 11th, 2009

    I actually LOVE year end lists. They’re so much fun as long as you don’t take them too seriously.

  29. I don’t want to see the words “best” and “of” within three words of each other for another eleven months.

  30. mikey  |   Posted on Jan 11th, 2009

    stereogum will be a shit-show come the end of this year with all the “best of 2009″ and “best of the decade” lists. i’m excited

  31. Once people under 20 pick your band up, and you get played in the gap and tv show soundtracks you loose all your indie rock cred sadly, despite the fact that Tokyo Police Club put out a superb album. But I do make the Case for Destroyers “Trouble in Dreams”. One of his best albums, ignored by almost everyone. It was an album that leaked late December 2008, and released early January 2009 so i guess it wasnt on everyones mind either. Hope that doesn’t happen to Andrew Bird this year.
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    film izle

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