Back to 2008 (Re-Ranking the Best of Lists) • Page 4

Agony & Irony should definitely be on there!

 

LAX pretty much right behind the documentary for me

 

2008 was a great year. Gaslight Anthem, Polar Bear Club and Broadway Calls were all great discoveries for me freshman year of college.

 

Man, these write ups have been making me feel weird. Each year has brought me back to music I haven’t really listened to in a while. Sometimes when I start listening to music from the last I forget how much nostalgia is going to come with it.

2008 was a weird year for me. Recently married, first kid was born, chemo treatments and eventual remission of cancer. But man it’s been a roller coaster of emotions after going back through some of these albums. So I thank you for them because they are actually therapeutic and making me go through memories both good and bad which is something I actively try to avoid.

Now as far as my rankings go for that year I have a 1a and 1b and then the rest after that don’t really fall in any particular order.

1a. Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux

I remember when this came out and how split fans were on it. I absolutely loved it when it was released and man my friends irl didn’t agree. But you can get your bottom dollar it’s every single one of their favorite fall out boy albums now.

Coffees for Closers was one of the only songs my friends really like off of it and it was always our drunken night anthem and I’d be lying if I said we didn’t still play that song on full blast when we get together to this day (however rare that may be). Back then it had a whole different meaning than it does to us now. The four of us hanging around the countertop in my old apartment, making “shot bets” while playing super smash brothers with this song blasting in the background. Nothing beats it.

1b. Jacks Mannequin - The Glass Passenger

Man, I don’t even know where to start with this album. It literally can out a few months after I finished my last round of chemo. I still can’t listen to “Caves” without ugly crying.

Being completely being vulnerable here, but I feel safe to be open, but this album had a pretty heavy rotation while I would sit out in my car in my front yard, having some drinks and crying (suffering from undiagnosed PTSD) so I wouldn’t wake up my wife and newborn up.

It helped me get through some pretty dark times.

2. Cute Is What We AIM For - Rotation

3. 3OH!3 - Want

* I know this group is pretty universally hated here and I think I still like this album so much because of nostalgia. Literally discovered them at warped tour, where I missed Jack’s Mannequin because we had left my town really early in the morning and a car full of drunk people wrecked right in front of us at like 4 in the morning and we had to stop and take care of them. They were literally ejected and one of them was pinned under the car. One of the craziest experiences of my life.

So we got there and I missed jacks mannequin, so were on our way to watch mayday parade but literally walked past them and just got sucked into how fun the show was.

Also, even though I missed jacks mannequin I did get to meet Andrew McMahon and got him to sign the appointment card I had in my wallet with the date my doctors declared me in remission.

4. Kid Cudi - A Kid Named Cudi

5. The Killers - Day and Age

6. Senses Fail - Life is Not a Waiting Room

7. The Cab - Whisper War

8. Alkaline Trio - Agony and Irony

9. Hit the Lights - Skip School, Start Fights

10. Kanye West - 808’s and Heartbreaks

11. Thieves and Villains - Movement

12. Forgive Durden - Razias Shadow

13. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

14. Cinematic Sunrise - A Coloring Storybook and Long Playing Record

* I know it’s an ep but man I listen to this thing to this day

Thanks again, this has been a fun little write up project and I look forward to next weeks.

 

The 3oh!3 album bangs

 

Welp, I know what I will be doing tonight after everyone is asleep.

2003-2019 top 20 song playlists is gonna be a lot of fun to make. (Picked these years because 2003 was when I really made my step into all types of music and not just radio rock Or music my parents listened to)

 

Have fun! I’m going to keep sharing mine as we go through these posts. I think I went back to ‘99 or so.

 

Those first two CC albums were wonderful

 

When did the mansions cds come out?

 

Give it a spin, I'm interested in what you would think after such a long time off.

 

Their most recent two are also pretty solid. But yeah, they're one of those bands that peaked early.

 

my original 2008, haven't revisited the list since then. A lot of my top 10 would stay pretty similar, but I think 11-20 would have a LOT of shifting around, and plenty other albums would sneak in now

1. Jack's Mannequin - The Glass Passenger
2. Good Old War - Only Way To Be Alone
3. Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground - Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground
4. The Matches - A Band In Hope
5. Jason Mraz - We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things
6. Copeland - You Are My Sunshine
7. Anathallo - Canopy Glow
8. Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd
9. Foxy Shazam - Introducing
10. The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath
11. Alkaline Trio - Agony & Irony
12. Anberlin - New Surrender
13. The Audition - Champion
14. Girl Talk - Feed The Animals
15. Weezer - Weezer
16. Gym Class Heroes - The Quilt
17. Forgive Durden - Razia's Shadow
18. Portugal. The Man - Censored Colors
19. Jet Lag Gemini - Fire The Cannons
20. Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst

 

Another year I don’t have a ton of music from. I was in my first year of high school and just starting to seek out new music, a lot of which ended up being the neon stuff. Even at the time I remember finding it pretty hit or miss in terms of the catchy factor, and most of it hasn’t held up in the years since.

Folie a Deux has aged really well, I actually like it a lot more than I did in 2008. Same with Pretty. Odd., which I didn’t get at all back then. Never managed to get into that Lydia album after trying a bunch of times. Even aside from Jonathan Cook being a terrible person, I never liked the FTSK album at all despite that being the exact kind of music I was into at the time.

1. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
2. Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux
3. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
4. Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak
5. Panic! at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.
6. Valencia - We All Need a Reason to Believe
7. Underoath - Lost in the Sound of Separation
8. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
9. Jack’s Mannequin - The Glass Passenger
10. Copeland - You Are My Sunshine

 

Interestingly I don’t think the top of my list changed all that much since then. Although I probably would have had agony and irony in the top two and I rarely listen to that album if I’m listening to Alkaline Trio now. The top is really difficult, the 59 sound is hard to place it’s incredible and was a total game changer but it’s not my favorite gaslight album. Conor oberst might have been number one for me in 2008, I’m surprised to see that album absent from largely this entire thread. Anyway I think this would be my top 5 now:

1. Death Cab - Narrow Stairs
2. Gaslight Anthem - 59 Sound
3. Bon Iver - For Emma
4. Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
5. Kanye or the Killers - both albums have some incredible songs but aren’t consistently great

 

What an amazing year. I was still reading AlternativNews (French webzine) but suddenly realized they were getting most of their news from Absolutepunk. I then made the jump by joining the place as a member in November 2008. I don't think I was actively posting at the time, as my English skills were close to nil, but I would at least read the reviews and start clicking on random front page news, hoping to find my future favorite acts. Fun times.

Protest The Hero remains my #1. Fortress isn't only one of my favorite metal releases ever, it also had such a huge influence on me musically speaking. It came out a few months before I got my first (and still only) electric guitar. I still can't play half of that stuff 12 years later, like I have no idea how they managed to write and record that stuff at such a young age.

Then the rest of my list would crossover with a lot of what was posted in this thread. One album that I have seen no mention of, and that I expect to be the only one to highlight it, is From First To Last's self-titled. Weirdly, it's still the only album by that band I revisit. It helps that it's more alternative than sceney so I don't think it has aged as bad as some of the stuff from that time.

I also remember becoming a full blown Underoath stan in Spring, and anticipating Lost In The Sound Of Separation so much I had to listen to the previous albums every single day. Remember when snippets leaked a month and a half before the release date? They were mashuped with full songs from Solid State's rooster.

Norma Jean's album got a lot of plays but I'm not sure it would be on my list now. Funeral For A Friend's one was a letdown. Appeal To Reason was also in rotation, and sadly, it reminds me that I haven't truly connected to a Rise Against album since.

I don't recall being in the loop when it comes to ap.net friendly new releases, so my memory is a bit blurry about other 2008 albums I was spinning that year. I was mainly taking the time to explore bands from the scene (Saosin, The Chariot, Hopesfall, Chasing Victory, Story Of The Year, Thursday...) or blasting metal-ish bands. 2009 is when I would finally be up to date with the site I guess.

I seriously need to get back to The Reign Of Kindo. I vividly recall the moment, which perhaps happened later in 2009, I played that October's Storm live performance for the first time. What a band and what an album.

edit: Discovered a few years later, but that Does It Offend You, Yeah? album would be on my reranking list. I just recalled loving those The Subways, Beat Union, and The Automatic albums a lot too.

 

Listened to Girl Talk a lot during lockdown. Feed The Animals is still his best but All Day is a lot better than I remember.

I never liked 59 Sound at the time so I think that would have climbed highest on a retrospective list but Midnight Organ Fight is the best album of the year by a country mile. I'm from Glasgow and the album just is a moment in time for me. It was a turn to loving my own accent in song and a really special special time. That song was brining me in to the reality that Scott sang about with such sarcastic romantic hardship.

I have tattoos of Illuminate and for 'Poke' off of Organ Fight so they would need to be my top two.

Underoath, Jack's Mannequin, The Audition, Valencia, Kanye all would be included off top of my head. Folie is my favourite FOB album so definitely that too.

 

This was the year I started posting at AbsolutePunk and visited daily, was huge impact on the bands and artists I knew about and listened to

I'll just mention a few things I don't think have been on any lists yet

Thursday/Envy- Split
Armor For Sleep- The Way Out Is Broken EP
The Years Gone By - Forever comes Too Soon
The Academy Is - Fast Times
Bayside - Shudder
Driver Side Impact - Lion
Attack! Attack! (the UK band not crab core)
Anthony Green- Avalon
Balance and Composure - I Just Want To Be Pure EP
Man Overboard - Hung Up On Nothing EP
Number One Gun - The North Pole Project
The Classic Crime - The Silver Cord
You, Me & Everyone We Know - So Young, So Insane EP
Fireworks - Adventure, Nostalgia and Robbery EP
United Nations -S/T
Useless I.D. - The Lost Broken Bones

 

This will be super unpopular, but I also loved Simple Plan’s self-titles that came out this year.