sacrebleu! le musique!

Oh, sweet Best Of lists. I could write you all day long. Fortunately, I'm in the early stages and am still writing pretty standard fare, such as my favorite music of the year. But give me a few more days and I'll probably start posting about "Best Kittens of 2008" (my money's on Loki and Little Sid Vicious) and "Last Year in Mustaches." That's why I brought my friend Kate on to guest blog some of her picks (in sassy italics). She'll keep me on task.

Favorite Songs of 2008
Santogold "Lights Out"
Solange "Sandcastle Disco"
Annie "I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me"
Hercules and Love Affair "Blind"
T.I. featuring Rihanna "Live Your Life"
M.I.A. "Paper Planes"
The Ting Tings "That's Not My Name"
Beyoncé "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"
My Morning Jacket "Evil Urges"
The Hold Steady "Stay Positive"
Britney Spears "Break the Ice"
Conor Oberst "Sausalito"
Goldfrapp "A&E"

Kate's Favorite Songs of 2008
Glasvegas "Geraldine"
Rihanna "Please Don't Stop the Music"
Sun Kil Moon "Lost Verses"
Beyoncé "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"
Amanda Palmer "Leeds United"
Los Campesinos"Death to Los Campesinos!"
Laura Marling "Ghosts"
Jesse McCartney "Leavin"
Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You"
Mystery Jets "Young Love"
Robyn "Be Mine!"
Britney Spears "Break the Ice"
Juliana Hatfield "The Fact Remains"
Lykke Li "Breaking It Up"

Best Concert of the Year

My Morning Jacket at the Orpheum: A set so long that they didn't even have an opening act. Thank God for My Morning Jacket. It didn't matter that our seats were in the very back and that the credit card machine broke at the bar and they didn't have an ATM, leaving us beer-less for most of the show. What did matter is that they played for two and a half hours, Jim James ran around the stage in his cape like a crazy person, and every song sounded even better live than it does on their albums. Glorious.

Most Disappointing Concert of The Year

Oasis at the Target Center: It's a good thing Kate and I drank a bottle of champagne in the parking garage before this show. Attending this concert 100% sober would've led to some serious crabbiness. Liam didn't do anything particularly crazy. Noel seemed much shorter in person. The psychedelic background video made me feel a little carsick. They rushed through "Wonderwall." And they didn't even play "Live Forever." Really, Oasis? I think it's great that you have a new album that is decent enough not to be a complete embarrassment (we'll call it Definitely, Passable). But let's not kid ourselves. That audience was there for songs from What's the Story, Morning Glory? and Definitely, Maybe. Plus? Shortest. Set. Ever. LAME.

Kate: Oh, not just that whole bottle of champagne, my dear. I believe we also had two Mich Golden Lights each. And STILL, it blew. I get that musicians are frequently snotty and diva-esque, and certainly Oasis are in a class of their own on this particular front. And yes, there are many legitimate reasons to refuse to play a particular song in concert. Alejandro Escovedo (who happens to be Sheila E's uncle, btw), for instance, stopped playing the song "Castanets," after he found out it was apparently a favorite of George W. And I sorta get if, say, Mandy Moore decides that she's probably not gonna throw "Candy" on the set list when she's supporting an album that contains a Joan Armatrading cover. But hey, Oasis: YOU ARE FUCKING OASIS. Your sound has not changed perceptibly in a decade, and, what, are you planning some kind of image overhaul in the near future? I didn't think so. And, even though "Live Forever" is the song that spurred me, at the age of 13, to exchange a duplicate copy of Belly's underwhelming King for Definitely, Maybe, I really could have handled its absence had it not been for the positively abysmal double (or was it quadruple?) time version of "Wonderwall." Really, if they had given me a good performance of it, I wouldn't have minded if Liam and Noel sat down for tea together and talked about what a great bloke that Damon Albarn is for the rest of the show. Also, Noel: No one puts Minnesota in the corner!

Wait, Alejandro Escovedo is Sheila E's uncle? My favorite recent Oasis tidbit is that Noel Gallagher wanted Daniel Craig to play him in a potential Oasis biopic. Daniel Craig responded that he plays the guitar too well to convincingly play Noel.

Musicians I'm Hoping to See Less of in 2009

Katy Perry: I mean this literally and figuratively. I want her career to disappear into thin air, and I also want the girl to put on some goddamn pants. Vargas girls are great. But Katy Perry, you are no Vargas girl. Stop doppelganging Zooey Deschanel. Stop encouraging girls to make out in bars cause guys think it's hot. And stop pretending that you didn't release this album. The internet remembers.

Scarlett Johansson: Not only is this album of Tom Waits covers crap, it's the most shameless vanity project I've heard of in a long time. More of a vanity project than Russell Crowe's band. And that weird Garth Brooks album that he recorded under a different name. And Terrence Howard's music career. I hope you're happy ScarJo. You have ruined Ryan Reynolds for me!

Vampire Weekend: I used to throw a fit about having to look at their smarmy mugs on that Spin cover everytime I went over to A Tiny Machine/Beth's old place. (It was on top of a stack of magazines for an embarassingly long time. And everytime she saw it she'd yell "I'm so sick of having to look at that guy's stupid sweater!" It is a pretty stupid sweater.) However, I concede that "A Punk" is a great song. Additionally, there is the fact that pretty much all of their videos were directed by Richard Ayoade, whom I love. So, does it piss me off more that they became more cool on the coattails of his (severely underappreciated) coolness, or that they were somehow cool enough in and of themselves to get him to direct their videos in the first place? And yes, I am aware that this seems somewhat hypocritical given my own professed liking for pretty much every song on my best of 2008 list (especially Black Kids, who are very, very, very annoying...Might I interest you in Kate Nash's cover of the song, however? It's what turned me back on to it), but as Tracy Morgan says, "Deal with it, Cate Blanchett!"

Also, Adam Levine. What is he even still doing around? He's still around? Was Maroon 5 ever a real band, or did they just exist to piss me off? To piss the two of us off, exclusively. And I'd like for Rihanna to start dating Ne-Yo as God intended, so that would mean Chris Brown needs to disappear for a bit too. I would be absolutely fine with Chris Brown disappearing. He won some award the other day. It made me weep for our taste as a nation. Be Your Own Pet seem pretty annoying too, but I could be jumping to conclusions. I think they're pretty annoying, but not as annoying as Black Kids. And that's saying something.