Vikings & Beekeepers

Like I said last week, there’s a big dumb year-end list on the way, but first, let’s vent a bit.

While there were heaps of terrific, possibly classic albums released this past year, the truth is, very few of them are perfect. To quote David St. Hubbins: “It’s a fine line between stupid and clever.” Sometimes artists, even great ones, make a misstep on the brilliant/terrible line. This year there were plenty of artists who put out wonderful, fascinating, risky albums, but many of those artists also showed that they were not infallible on those same terrific albums. So here it is:

10 Terrible Songs From 2008’s Great Albums (in order):

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Well, it’s 2009 and every possible Best of ’08 list has been written, printed and criticized, except for over here at Vikings & Beekeepers, where I’m still trying to summarize the last three months of music. Oh, but what a three months it was. The last three months may have had less really, really great albums, but it had the most regular great albums (which means a lot less padding for 6-10) and hey, finally some halfway decent hip hop albums (although, as it turns out, TI’s Paper Trail was a Sept. 30 release, so I guess I won’t be writing on that one until the best of 08)! Even if I seem to snub some albums here (apologies to Deerhunter), assume you will see them for my year-end list. My final year-end list will come shortly, if you care. I’m doing my damndest to catch up on all the music that I missed in the first half of the year.

Anyway, here’s what kicked my ass as we inched closer to the holiday season.

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