This can't be true... it just can't.

SILVER JEWS calling it quits? Please dear Dog, tell me it's not true. I thought Smith and Jones were forever?

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2008 was an interesting musical, and personal, year for me. I listened to a lot of indie rock, electronica and went to a shit-ton of shows (one of which was the best I've ever seen, thanks Of Montreal).

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It has now been 2.5 years since I moved out of Seattle for the Golden State. I've slowly drifted out of the NW music culture, so sometimes I wonder if I know what to say on TIG these days.

Combine that with the fact that I was so distracted from music for a lot of 2008, this year's "best of" lists were especially difficult. Heck, I don't even think I can make a Best of NW music list this year, not because there was insufficient music, but because I just missed so many of those important-but-not-well-known releases that make these lists. I did enjoy Fleet Foxes, Common Market, Colin Meloy live, Malkmus and the like, but really, that isn't a "Best of the NW" list but rather a list of albums I liked that happened to be from the NW.

That being said, I did get a last minute music revival for the year. Maybe it was the election being over (and the good guys winning), maybe it was finally getting a faculty position after many years of trying (lets just say Erik will be moving east in 2009), maybe 2008 just didn't mesh with me musically. Who knows? However, there was a lot of great music anyway, and here are my top 20 (for your praise or fist shaking). Feel free to read the full commentary. 

 

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at Neumo's

His raspy baritone was the perfect wrangler to the loose lo-fi ramble of the music.

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Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea might actually be the most straight-forward pop record that Berman and company have ever recorded.

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Ain'tcha heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews.

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Silver Jews exist in a dimension trapped somewhere between Wilco-land and Pavementopia and what we end up with is an album that has equal parts a post-punk rock sound and Americana twang.

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