Music Blogs

As 2008 draws to a close, it's probably about time to reflect on the albums that have given Famethrowa and Yahoo! Music a buzz this year, either of elation or electrocution. The last 12 months has seen the emergence of some special new talents - Bon Iver, Duffy, Fleet Foxes, Glasvegas, MGMT, White Denim - while a host of big hitters - Madonna, Coldplay, Nick Cave, Britney Spears, Portishead, Oasis - returned with new records. Perhaps most amazingly, however, Guns N' Roses actually finished and released "Chinese Democracy". So below is our bite-sized guide, including full reviews, to the 20 albums that mattered in 2008.

Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago"

"Arguably, no album in recent years has so powerfully evoked such a distinct sense of time and place. Isolation and the feel of an artist utterly alone with his work and thoughts course through every track..."

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!"

"As he sings on ‘Jesus Of The Moon': ‘People often talk about being scared of change / But for me, I'm more afraid of things staying the same.' There is slim chance of that..."

Coldplay "Viva La Vida"

"What's remarkable about their fourth album is how unshowy and straightforward it is, particularly given the involvement of Brian Eno, a man who probably tries to turn paying for groceries into an epoch-shaking collaboration..."

Duffy "Rockferry"

"Comparisons with Amy Winehouse's second album are inevitable: neo-soul chanteuse Duffy also demonstrates precocious vocal chops, her alluringly husky tones suggesting a 55-year-old black divorcee from Memphis..."

Elbow "The Seldom Seen Kid"

"After dipping their toes into political waters with 2004's 'Cast Of Thousands', they return to the personal here. It's a(nother) huge-hearted, soft-pawed, gentle giant of an album..."

Fleet Foxes "Fleet Foxes"

"Emanating from Seattle, this precociously talented band look set to put America's former grunge capital back on the musical map, a mere 14 years since Kurt Cobain blew its reputation to kingdom come..."

Goldfrapp "Seventh Tree"

"Taps into a very English spirit of eccentricity, taking the mellow floatiness of their earliest work and imbuing it with a dash of Hammer horror and the aroma of country meadows..."

Glasvegas "Glasvegas"

"A gut punch of a debut, and one that makes you believe they are one of those rare, rare bands who might just have that perfect record in them..."

Guns N' Roses "Chinese Democracy"

"The countless studios, mixing-downs and hired producer hands that have touched these recordings in the last however long have resulted in one of the worst-sounding albums of the 21st century..."

Lykke Li "Youth Novels"

"Still only 22 (!), she has constructed one of 2008's most ambitiously grandiose statements. Madonna can shuffle off to her Live Nation millions, a new pop saviour has been found..."

MGMT "Oracular Spectacular"

"Meets their lofty promise. The overall feel is that of a band making music joyfully uprooted from any temporal reference points, which is clearly welcome..."

Madonna "Hard Candy"

"Her best record since ‘Ray Of Light'. We live in a Madonna world. And as long as she keeps releasing albums as vivid, relevant, distinctive and modern as this, we will for some time yet..."

Oasis "Dig Out Your Soul"

"A noisy front-end with more firepower than ‘Saving Private Ryan''s opening sequence, from ‘The Turning''s tumultuous chorus that's like being bitch-slapped by a brontosaurus to seismic first single ‘The Shock Of The Lightning'..."

Portishead "Third"

"It's all grimly genuine; a damaged, f*cked up sister to the studio polish of fellow Bristolian Alison Goldfrapp's ‘Seventh Tree'..."

Britney Spears "Circus"

"Picking up on the nervy, hard-edged pop of "Blackout", but featuring a Spears who seems twice as engaged, 'Circus' is as flamboyantly artificial, peculiar and entertaining as its title suggests..."

TV On The Radio "Dear Science"

"It's hard not to detect a newfound sense of Zen serenity when the track's opening gambit is an instruction to 'Laugh in the face of death'..."

Vampire Weekend "Vampire Weekend"

"The (Afro)beat, it seems, goes on. That Vampire Weekend appear as loving caretakers, rather than colonisers - or even castrators - of the sound shows the scale of their talent..."

Lil Wayne "Tha Carter III"

"If this is the kind of stuff critics believe deserves five star reviews and comparisons to Nas and Biggie, it can only be because nobody is really listening to hip hop anymore..."

Wild Beasts "Limbo, Panto"

"They are not concerned with being of the modern, or being of the renaissance, being baggy pantsed or tight pantsed, or being in a scene or being in a place..."

White Denim "Workout Holiday"

"It's thrilling to hear raw rock music with such an acute understanding of production dynamics, constantly falling apart to come back together with sweet resolution..."