The 20 Best Songs of 2008

Magazine; News



20. Titus Andronicus, "Titus Andronicus"
Indie-rock clarion call from butt-crack suburban New Jersey, with the traffic-stopping inspirational yawp: "Fuck everything / Fuuuuck me!"
19. Hercules and Love Affair, "Blind"
Sylvester takes Kurt Weill to the threepenny disco and gets mighty real.
18. Ponytail, "Celebrate the Body Electric, (It Came From an Angel)"
Punk-rock double Dutch, with all the B-girls screaming like their skulls are on fire.
Song available here.
17. Violens, "Violent Sensation Descends"
In 1966, this alternately ominous and sparkly nugget would've been the No. 50 British single of the year, after the Creation's "Making Time." It's that good.
Song available here.
16. R.E.M., "Supernatural Superserious"
Michael Stipe reaches out to humiliated summer-camp teens, and Pete Buck chimes in with his most thrilling power-chord riff ever.
15. Alphabeat, "Fascination"
Imagine if Abba's grandkids trashed High School Musical and made it even giddier.
14. Young Jeezy, feat. Jay-Z, "Put On (Remix)"
Somehow, mid-recession, Jeezy's consumerist catalog of crackspot swag transformed into a nationwide anthem of hometown hood pride. Kanye's sinister gospel production didn't hurt (nor did that punch line about her weave looking like curly fries!).
13. Grizzly Bear, "While You Wait for the Others (Live On KCRW)"
The most beautifully brittle of the 4,367 songs currently indebted to Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds.
12. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, "Buriedfed"
Like the soundtrack to an episode of Intervention directed by a passive/aggressive Sam Peckinpah. "Shit, man, I ain't even dead," says Billy the Kid to Pat Garrett as the casket passes.
11. The Knux, "Cappuccino"
A Creole stepchild of Beck's "Where It's At" and the Pharcyde's "Passin' Me By." Crackling guitar, wheezing organ, and beignets included.