1) Sia - "People Have Real Problems." This Australian serves up a saving grace for this year's lackluster collection of albums. A soulful voice, meaningful lyrics, a believable image as oppose to a gimmick, and brilliant songs. The workings of a masterpeice. Just as I crowned Amy Whinehouse the year before her album actually tookoff, I crown this jewel as not only having the best album I've heard this year but the next 'big thing.'
2) Taylor Swift: Fearless...a blond, blue-eyed, amazonian starlet who makes real music. The album screams of a high school girl's diary. Yet her lyrics appeals to the mature in how she conveys. This singer songwriter proved in this album that she's more than just a country singer. As her album proclaims, she's Fearless. She exposes her life and named names. Who can forget her public battle with one of the Jonas Bros. In the lyrics and her ability to 'go there'....there lies the phenom that is the best selling female artist of 2008.
3) Neyo "Year Of The Gentleman"...more like the year of the songwriter. Simply put, this album is the clear alternative to what is lacking in male pop and rnb. He fills this void in Usher's lack of maturity...he provides a how a real man turns on a lady as a contrast to Chris Brown's silly come-ons....and he cleans up the nastiness that is filled in R Kelly's current list of filty music. Basically he's the only option when it comes to music of this genre for those over the age of 25.
4) Coldplay: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. You should know that I'm not a big fan of the group, but the album is dope.
5) Santogold: Santogold. While most are still jaming to MIA's recent single I submit you listen to Satogold instead. Not only does she have the single worthy material, unlike her brit counterpart, she has the talent to match. I like MIA, but just as in the case of Kanye West when you strip down the bull she's kicking garbage and calling it musical art. Santogold on the other had mixes culture with a unique (although not spectacular) voice, insightful lyrics and imagery that is out of this globe.
6) Erica Badu - "Ney Amerykah Part I -So far, this is the year's most certifiably batsh-- record, a labyrinthine mix of chittering beats, rattling bass and gauzy, hazy vibes, and one that jumps through time like Desmond from "Lost" — from the past to the future and back to the present — only to remind us that things have always been as messed up as they are right now. So we get somber '70s soul rolled up into harrowing postmillennial doomsday proclamations, with Badu — part priestess, part transistor radio — hovering above the din, holding the world in the palm of her hand and spinning it faster and faster on its axis. A positively vital record — probably the most important of the year — full of social commentary and smoky quests for spirituality in these troubled times, one full of hope yet also realistic enough to point out that we're probably teetering on the brink of something very bad. Also, proof that you probably don't want to spend the night alone in Badu's head."
7) TV on the Radio: Dear Science..."New Wave hooks and funky dance beats — albeit amid bleak lyrical visions, Afrobeat rhythmic arrangements and densely layered, terabyte-era production."
8) Wayne - Carter III Hey, 1 million Wayne fans can't be wrong, can they? Truth be told, III is really only part of the Weezy phenomenon, one that stretches across mixtapes and message boards and "no he didn't" proclamations and guest spots too numerous to mention, which goes a long way toward explaining just how scattershot it is. But it's also biting, bruising, hilarious and completely confounding, by far the most interesting and compelling hip-hop album released to this point, and probably the only album in history that makes Robin Thicke (who sings on the haunting post-Katrina tune "Tie My Hands
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Duffy: Rockferry
Nas: Untitled
Raphael Saadiq: The Way I See It
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