What were the 80 most important musical recordings, artists, trends, events, and performances of 2008? What were the eight things this year that broke our hearts—or, at least, our ears? We’re happy to announce 80 ‘08 (and Heartbreak), Idolator’s year-end overview. The list is below the jump. MORE »
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80 '08 (And heartbreak)
No. 2: Lil Wayne Is All Things To All People
What didn’t Lil Wayne do this year? Well, he didn’t run for president, but that’s about all. He played guitar (badly). He launched a champagne brand, because when we think of Lil Wayne imbibing something, it’s champagne. (Additionally, many Americans listen to Wayne’s music while they drink champagne, too.) OK, he had some E as well. (And he got arrested again, that time with guns.) He got remixed a bunch of times. He didn’t die. His “Daddy” gave him a million dollars in cash. The American people gave him a million record sales. He inspired one of the best music essays anyone wrote all year. He kept showing up in Blender. He moonlighted on other people’s records. And he made the absolute knock-’em-dead single of 2008—which, depending on who you ask, is either “Lollipop” or, if they’re me, is “A Milli.” MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
No. 3: A Very Musical Presidential Election, Presented By VHS Or Beta
I contributed a few blurbs to Spin’s October feature “Strange Bedfellows,” which detailed the odd nexus where rock music and politics convene. One entry was about the first copyright-snubbing cut-up artist Dickie Goodman and his 1973 assemblage “Soul President Number One.” In it, the first “soul” president is elected, quotes Barry White and the Temptations, and appoints Superfly to head of the FBI. Here’s Dickie’s skewed take on the 1980 presidential campaign: MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
Heartbreak No. 8: John Rich Shills For The Republican Party
Here are Big & Rich, in 2004, on what still might wind up the best album any human beings make in the ‘00s: “People getting’ mad on CNN/Who’s right, Democrats or Republicans?/I don’t care who’s right or wrong/I know a way we can all get along.” Well, the getting along didn’t last long, did it? MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
No. 4: “Guitar Hero” And “Rock Band” Prove That Anyone Can Play (Plastic) Guitar
They may not save the music industry, but this year rhythm games opened up new possibilities for how people interact with music. As game designer Jesse Fuchs has pointed out, Harmonix (which originally developed Guitar Hero, and created Rock Band) put out far more inventive games earlier. But since the GH/RB model has proven to be a hit, it appeared that we were stuck with a simple six-button interface that didn’t allow players to fiddle with the music itself awfully much. MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
No. 5: Erykah Badu, “New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)”
As Idolator vets may remember, my mother has been a hardcore R&B fanatic through every format change, from the days of worn Philly International vinyl to the CD-Rs of mod urban radio hits that she now forces me to provide like a soul-slinging street dealer. At heart she’s a classicist, but she’s also an Erykah Badu fan, one who enjoys the odd, slo-mo stoner funk of Worldwide Underground as much as the comfy, terra cognita qualities of Baduizm. For me, my mom’s thumbs-up for New Amerykah cemented Badu’s near-singular status as a boundary-buster you can still spin for your history-minded elders—and underlined how rare such figures are in any 21st-century pop genre. MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
No. 6: Prince Thinks You’re So Very Special
Prince got added to the Coachella bill some 15 days before the desert festival was slated to kick off, a move that was simultaneously totally awesome and slightly reeking of desperation. Ticket sales for the 2008 installment of the fest had been rumored to be a bit soft (a rumor that was borne out by the tumbleweeds skipping across the Empire Polo Field during Jack Johnson’s Friday-closing set), and apparently Prince commanded a lot of cash to help goose the Saturday-night till. “So what?” you might ask. “He’s Prince. He’s worth it.” I wholeheartedly agree, but at the same time, I can’t help but wonder if his set—which included a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” that made Thom Yorke a bit snitty—broke the festival (and maybe even the US festival circuit) in a way, kind of like his precipitation-inducing Super Bowl halftime show of 2007. MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
No. 1: Ne-Yo, “Year Of The Gentleman”
The title piqued my interest. Well, I figured, he’s going ahead and making it explicit: “grown and sexy,” that restrained-allure masterwork of recent phrasemaking, and the title of the 2005 album by Babyface (to whom we’ll return), would be the outright theme of Ne-Yo’s third album. I figured I’d like it. He’d been a great singles guy but I never got all the way into the first two albums, but maybe I would with this one. I hadn’t thought much about “Closer” either way, but my hunch demanded I buy the album day of release. I played it five times and wrote an enthusiastic review while still not convinced I’d heard all there was to hear. Then I really started listening. MORE »
80 '08 (And heartbreak)
No. 11: The Year Of The Remix
Remixes have been a constant since the late ’70s. Artists have been holding remix contests since at least 1983, when Tommy Boy advertised for a prize to the chancer(s) who best recast G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid’s “Play That Beat, Mr. DJ” and inadvertently birthed unto the world Double Dee & Steinski, the latter of whose What Does It All Mean? overview was released this year to great (and deserved) acclaim. R&B and hip-hop and disco and indie rock and house and techno and dub and mainstream pop with its different mixes for different formats and even country (what’s Up!, Shania Twain): all not only utilize the remix, each genre has its own set of rules for it. And between NIN and Radiohead’s fan-made deconstructions grabbing headlines and cut-up disco ruling clubland, not to mention the usual fusillade of hip-hop mixtape posse cuts, dance producers trading tweaks as normal, and—fuck it—Girl Talk, 2008 is a Year of the Remix if any has been. MORE »
the biz
Heartbreak No. 6: Everyone In The Music Business Losing Their Freakin’ Jobs
The never-ending slough both the people who deal with music directly (making it, releasing it, booking it) and those of us who cover it for a living have been dealing with is made even worse by the simple fact no one likes admitting: we’ve seen this coming. For years. And those of us who are starting to feel the pinch—not to mention my many peers and colleagues who’ve lost their jobs outright in recent months—are to some degree kicking ourselves for not, you know, getting out of the business earlier. I can speak only for myself when I say that I haven’t because I still like doing it better than anything else in the world, and that I’ve been lucky enough to keep going with it for a while, but I have no idea what’s around the corner, and neither does almost everyone else I know. MORE »
