Oh, glad we cleared that up. I say (as do several others) it is a great album. Who cares? Nobody. But what’s offensive is the utter disregard for the artistry involved in anything that’s not guitar-bass-drums. The inanity of the idea that using technical reproduction to produce music is somehow suspect should be self-evident to anyone even slightly acquainted with the history of twentieth-century music. And rock records are made without technology?

We all just love to fan our over-informed feathers for each other, never realizing that NO ONE outside of our snot-nosed tunnel vision view GIVES A SHIT. Even if you’re respectable like Paste.

I gave Fergie one of my Top Ten album slots last year. That probably means I have no right to even be writing about music in the first place.

I’m throwing Metro Station on my list this year along with The Breeders, Lil’ Wayne, and that wretched Girl Talk no one seems to want to give credit to. Why? Because their record did what it was supposed to do, and did it really well.

MS are like the Beach Boys with coke and hairspray and Myspace. And I love them because of it.

I’d agree with “unperson” about Meshuggah, Opeth, Gojira and the Sword among the best metal albums of ’08, and would begrudgingly reconize Metallica, save for the god-awful production. When talking metal 2008, though, you can’t ignore great albums by Ihsahn or King’s X, and the Burzum anthology was pretty sweet, too.

There are things I want to say, but I don’t know if they will be to you.

@Dan Gibson: I like that one MGMT song. Kids? Can’t help it.

The fact that, years later, System of a Down was named #1 by SPIN over anything is a bigger problem to me.

@DocStrange: That Against Me! pick was wild.

Also, yes, Bandwagonesque was a good record with a classic single (“What You Do To Me”), but #1 over all the albums released in what was a landmark year for music? unforgivable. As I said before, SPIN pulled it again by naming Against Me!’s New Wave not a bad record, but #1? or even in the Top 50? and over Radiohead and LCD Soundsystem?

That being said, I haven’t personally listened to _Night Ripper_ in a while, and _Feed The Animals_ entertains me less and less as time goes on. As essentially a form of mixtape heavily dependent on recent sample sources, I find that, like most mixtapes, the shine wears off pretty fast. I liked this year’s Reggae Gold comp a lot too, but I doubt it would make my top ten list.

Also, this whole music thing is supposed to be fun, remember? Lighten up.

Et tu, Paste? You were the last good music magazine left and now you do stuff like this (SPIN did stuff in recent years like firing Chuck Klosterman and naming Against Me!’s last album the best of 2007 over far better records – They did the same thing in 1991, but at least Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub was good)