My 2008 List (The Songs)

Editor's note: So I lied. I had intended that this post would be the last in my series of "2008 List" posts. But when I was starting to put together my remaining posts and lists, my song list was the one that I was most interested in drafting. As a result, it's the one that's done and ready to go. And, because I'm as impatient a person as I've ever known, I'm just gonna go ahead and post it. So there.

As I said when I started this "Best Of" process, this has been a weird year for me musically.  For a lot of reasons, I didn't have an opportunity to form relationships with as many albums as I normally do.

Thankfully, though, I did, have a chance to find a number of songs through the course of the year that came to define 2008 for me.  And, as music is wont to do, for better or for worse, many of them are forever connected to certain people that I interacted with throughout the year.

Anyway, I'm only posting links to 12 of my top 13 songs here, though, because the 13th song (#7, to be specific) is a GnR tune, and I don't really want to get sued, arrested, or in any way delay Axl from releasing more new music down the road.

Oh, and although I hadn't intended to, I went ahead and ranked these songs in some semblance of the order of how much I liked them, listened to them, or came to identify 2008 with them. I reserve the right to change this order at any time, or to deny ever having ordered them in the first place.

1. Grand Archives, "Torn Blue Foam Couch"
2. The National, "Santa Clara"
3. Hey Rosetta!, "Handshake the Gangster"
4. Frightened Rabbit, "Head Rolls Off"
5. Bon Iver, "re: Stacks"
6. The Rural Alberta Advantage, "Don't Haunt This Place"

7. Guns N' Roses, "Catcher in the Rye" [no song linked]
8. Hey Rosetta!, "There's An Arc"
9. The Hold Steady, "Slapped Actress"
10. Birdmonster, "Born To Be Your Man"
11. Okkervil River, "Lost Coastlines"
12. The Secret Life of Sofia, "Fifty Fourteeners"
13. Human Highway, "The Sound"