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2005 is my gold standard for a phenomenal year in music. All subsequent years are judged against a Top 20 which includes the mind-blowing debut LPs from Wolf Parade, The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Capes, Bloc Party and Art Brut and breakout records from The National, The Decemberists, of Montreal, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Spoon and Okkervil River. Sadly, 2008 did not fare well against the field. Albums hyped by many failed to click with me. Anticipated albums fell short of expectations. I did discover many new artists who released solid, enjoyable records, but as of now, none really approach my "modern classic" classification. As with all lists of this sort, I must remind you that fluidity is the name of the game here. Songs and albums will inevitably move up and down and into (but rarely out of) my Top lists in 2009 and onward. New favorites will be discovered and old favorites will be revisited. Who will be a diamond in the rough? Only time will tell.

High Fidelity always inspires me to think about the best Side One, Track Ones every year. While none of these rank near "White Light, White Heat" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ("Oh no, Rob, that's not obvious enough...") they each helped bolster their respective album's cause a bit more in the scoring.

• For Your Love, Marching Band
• Ghosts Under Rocks, Ra Ra Riot
• Gobbledigook Sigur Ros
• Block of Ice, Thee Oh Sees
• Ill Love, Pete and The Pirates
• Parachute, Shugo Tokumaru
• Northwestern Girls, Say Hi
• New Beginnings, Love is All
• Ways to Make it Through the Wall, Los Campesinos!
• The Arm, Islands
• See These Bones, Nada Surf
• Three-way, The Magnetic Fields

• Five Step, Radiohead vs. Dave Brubeck
  
  Thanks to Girl Talk, mashups are still all the rage with the kids. Here's my favorite from 2008.
• No Lucifer, British Sea Power
  
  Do You Like Rock Music? had a certain rock-opera quality to it and I enjoyed this movement's sweeping strings and rather intense lyrical tone.
• Lights Out, Santogold
  
  I liked this song way before it was started shilling for crappy lime beer.
• Fools, The Dodos
  
  This song is made by its fantastic percussion sections. I swear they're singing "Foals, foals..." though.
• Time to Pretend, MGMT
  
  This song shouldn't be on here due to the small technicality that is was originally released FOUR years ago. But, I'm a sucker for the synth/organ fill.
• Manatee, Nerf Herder
  
  Here's an entry that will ding my indie cred. If you like sophomoric lyrics, bouncy organ riffs and shouts that spell out the name of the song, this one's for you too.
• The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending the Night In, Thee Oh Sees
  
  On an album full of prototypical garage-y sounding songs, this eponymous one stands out. You get your fair share of distorted guitars and harmonized lyrics and I can't get enough of the wailing "Ohhhhhhhh".
• Walcott, Vampire Weekend
  
  You hear a lot about a certain five or six songs from VW's debut album, and this is not one of them. I'm drawn to the pounding piano/steel drum fills and quirky drum lines.
• For Your Love, Marching Band
  
  Let's just call 2008 the Year of the Song Containing Steel Drums. The instrument makes another appearance here in a great, driving chorus that suddenly drops after a pleasant, melodic opening. For a song released in 2008, 1995 is mentioned an unusual number of times.
• Mr. Understanding, Pete and The Pirates
  
  I sense an homage to classic British Invasion rock here. There's the classic construction of A-B-A verses, with the second A verse being delivered with more feeling. This leads you to believe the song is building to something bigger, but then it ends because there's only so much space on the A-side of a 45. Lots of great na-na-na-na-nas too.
• Hummingbird, Born Ruffians
  
  Perhaps the most frenetic song on the list, "Hummingbird" wins the award for most prolific use of the phrases "Uh oh" and "Oh no".
• No Sunlight, Death Cab for Cutie
  
  This song is depressing as hell. Ben Gibbard, former optimist, has sustained years of angst and woe and this has crushed his youthful embrace of sunlight! I declare that no song with such a downer depiction of a life story should be put to such an upbeat music score. This just in: No one who is engaged to Zooey Deschanel should be making depressing songs.
• The Nun's Litany, The Magnetic Fields
  
  There are at least four other songs from Distortion that I could put here, but I choose this one solely for the way the last line is delivered. Beautiful song.
• Old Man, Friska Viljor
  
  This song is a late arrival to the list. I don't know the ages of the band members, but they sure do know how to write a song about love and telling old people to screw off that is cover-to-cover youthful exuberance (with horns).
I hate to admit it, but thus far I have made only one 2008 Mix CD. But that one has a lot of mileage on it. I've never made a mix that had what I considered perfect flow through a group of songs. These last seven songs would have all made the list on their own merits, but when they are listened to in the order presented here and leading a disc, they somehow become even better.
Lolita, Throw Me the Statue

Cue the drum machine. Cue xylophone. Cue handclaps. And... GO! This song's mixed instrumentation creates a playful, rollicking kick-off for the mix. It's straight-forward and simple and there's nothing epic about it. It leaves that duty for...
I Feel Better, Frightened Rabbit

This is *not* the last song Frightened Rabbit-guy-who-sounds-like-Adam-Duritz! The song starts off with urgent guitar riffs that escalate to the incredibly powerful musical fill piece between the verses. The energy built up here maintains to the end of the last echoes of the final guitar chord making for a truly powerful song. Let's keep up the energy with...
Freejazz, Envelopes

Well, it's a different kind of energy. Whereas "I Feel Better" has an intense, emotionally draining energy, "Freejazz" recharges you with happy, life-force enhancing energy. And no, it's not lost on me that a song called "I Feel Better" does not necessarily make you feel better. "Freejazz" is led by incredibly perky (if sometimes inscrutable (and sometimes purposefully so)) lyrics. This song is a slice of Swedish sunshine. The last few lines of the song score my "23 Seconds That Are Sure to Perk You Up" Award for the year. Onto...
Who's in Your Dreams, Strawberry Whiplash

For a song that doesn't have much substance - it only has about four lines of lyrics repeated over and over and nondescript musical content - this song sure is catchy. It's here that we divert from our straight-up indie programming and delve into one of this year's "it" genres with...
Galaxy of the Lost, Lightspeed Champion

Alt-folk came at us from several different directions in 2008. Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper and Shearwater gave us large doses of pastoral rock (thanks for the term, Stacia!). Bon Iver and Jenny Lewis offered more traditional folk offerings. Then there was Lightspeed Champion, a.k.a. Devonte Hynes, a former member of the spastic dance-punk band Test Icicles. "Galaxy" isn't exactly folk, but it and the rest of the album certainly has strong folksy and country overtones (making the alt-folk moniker rather apropos). I absolutely love the transitions between the verses and the chorus. The song DEMANDS to be played LOUD. After you've finished blasting your ears with this gem, take a breath and recover with...
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?, She & Him

Zooey and M. contribute to our mini-tour of alt-folk with this more traditional, straight-up tune. Some might go as far to label this as bubblegum-folk, but I think that's a bit extreme. Thematically and musically their music, and especially this song, may lean a bit sweet but I don't get the feeling that they were setting out to make saccharine music. Instead, at its core is simplicity and honesty. This is an "easy" song. It doesn't need or want to challenge you. It just wants to make you feel good, and it accomplishes that goal with ease. Time to round out the mix. The end of "Galaxy" and the opening plinks of "Why?" are going to be forever linked together in my mind, as will the last strains of "Why?" and the opening slide of...
The Business, These United States

Concensus seems to categorize These United States as garage folk, and I would say that is appropriate. My favorite song from 2008 pokes a bit of fun the working world and those who toil in it. The narrative is easy to pick up on. Awkwardly professional boy ("I've got a glorified leather lunch box") likes girl. Awkwardly professional boy ("I gotta tie barely matchin' my suit") goes to work for "some man" to maintain relationship with said girl ("I'm in business, and honey, don't you want me now?"). Awkwardly professional boy finds work quite hard ("All these order comin' down from above..."), but it's all "goin' to be worth it for a little bit of love." It's the same message found in most music ever created - I love you and here's how I can prove it. The song features rolling, thumpy bass and percussion, some flashes of muted horns, and is full of general feel-goodery.