My top albums of 2008: Honorable Mention Edition

I'm currently working through my list of top albums for the year of our Lord 2008. As, I do that, though, I did want to list some albums that I liked but didn't break into the top 30 (that's how many I was willing to go with this year) somehow. This list won't really have commentary between each album like I will have for the official list. Suffice it to say, though, that there are various reasons for these albums just falling below the list. They could been either late in coming out or in getting enough listens for me to feel comfortable ranking them. They could have been missing a certain something that I had found in the top albums. They could have had some good songs and some flat out awful ones, so I wouldn't feel comfortable giving the entire album high bidding. I would still recommend these albums, but they just don't get the same level or type of praise that my top 30 will get. They're also not really in any order, so they're not numbers 31-whatever. They're albums that, for me, are good but just under the cut off.

Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One (4^th World War)
Kaki King – Dreaming of Revenge
The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
Death Vessel – Nothing is Precious Enough For Us
Hercules and Love Affair – Hercules and Love Affair
Now, Now Every Children – Cars
Loquat – Secrets of the Sea
Hot Chip – Made in the Dark
The Ravonettes – Lust Lust Lust
R.E.M. - Accellerate
School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
Sera Cahoone - Only As the Day is Long
The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Grave
Tilly and the Wall - o
The Whigs - Mission Control
No Age - Nouns
Lykke Li - Youth Novels
Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
El Perro del Mar - From the Valley to the Stars
The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale
Beach House - Devotion
Blitzen Trapper - Furr

I know it's a lot...Apparently, I've been able to listen to a lot more albums this year than last year. Thank you Ruckus and Spiralfrog.

On an unrelated note, I do want to highly recommend an album that came out last year that I didn't get the chance to hear until this year. The band is called Fields, and their album Everything Last Winter is amazing. I feel certain that if I'd found this album last year, it might have made the top 5. There's just such luscious musical arrangement and harmony. I don't know why more people didn't put this one on their year-end lists or how I didn't hear about it until just a few months ago. It's one of those special albums where the more it grows on you, the more you realize that it fits you perfectly.