Friday, December 12, 2008

PUT THE NEEDLE ON IT!: Tauwan's Top Albums of 2008




14/Hercules & Love Affair/Hercules & Love Affair

If you know me well enough (or hang around me long enough), then you’ve probably heard me utter the words, “man I need to go out and just dance one of these nights” at some time or other. And no I’m not talking about traveling over yonder to some hip, fashionable club where the music is current and damn near on point, yet staring, talking and standing in people’s way is all the rage, NO. I’m talking working up a Black Sweat, can’t stop, won’t stop, all in, down for the cause, one nation under a groove, DANCEFEST 2008(!). This is how I get down (to quote the great poet laureate Jay-Z, ahem, “n***a ask about me”), just like Andrew, Antony, Nomi, and Kim Ann, collectively known on wax as Hercules & Love Affair. [Club] Kid tested, and DFA approved, Hercules & Love Affair get up on the good foot the old fashioned way, with a little heart, a little soul, and a whole lot of sweat laced passion. Taking a cue from dance and disco music of days past, Andrew Butler and company take it straight to the dancefloor, crafting an album steeped in the basics –throbbing beats, soaring melodies, infectious vocals and chants- that plays like the perfect sweat inducing, body inhabiting DJ set, with songs bleeding into each other seamlessly, as if the quick pauses between tracks are non-existent. Funky when necessary, melancholy where appropriate, Hercules & Love Affair just wanna make you sweat, get up on the good foot, make your love come down, and maybe, just maybe, dance with somebody right here, right now, on this here dancefloor. It’s where you should be, and when this album is playing, where you belong. You’d be a fool to think otherwise.
KEY TRACKS: Hercules Theme/You Belong/Blind

  • 15/MGMT/Oracular Spectacular


  • 16/The Kills/Midnight Boom


  • 17/Madonna/Hard Candy


  • 18/Lil Wayne/Tha Carter III


  • 19/Ashlee Simpson/Bittersweet World


  • 20/Santogold/Santogold


  • 21/The Roots/Rising Down


  • 22/Kidz in the Hall/The In Crowd


  • 23/Panic at the Disco/Pretty.Odd.


  • 24/Deerhunter/Microcastle AND Why?/Alopecia


  • 25/Kings of Leon/Only By the Night
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