KDHX Top 50 Albums of 2008

Photo by Sara Finke

It’s no small task tracking album spins at 88.1 FM. The variety of the programming means KDHX might air 300 different songs on any given day. But this year, we’ve crunched the numbers and come up with a list of the Top 50 Albums of 2008, as spun on your community radio station in Saint Louis. What was the Number 1 album of the year? Click read more to find out!

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Posted by | January 19, 2009 | Music | Comment 

Favorite Compilations Of 2008

There have been a number of top 10 favorite releases for 2008 posted by KDHX DJs. I thought I’d try something different and share some of my favorite compilations that were put out in 2008. I’m only scratching the surface here but that’s the nature of Top 10 lists, anyway. Or, in this case, a Top 7 list. Suffice it to say that I think any one of these compilations yield an overabundance of musical gems.

1. Take Me to the River: A Southern Soul Story 1961-1977 – Kent UK

If there is a better introduction and retrospective to southern soul than this 3-CD compilation, I sure haven’t heard it. Southern soul classics mixed with rarities and accompanied with a 72-page hardcover booklet. It’s done by the folks at Kent UK so it’s a given that the sound and packaging is topnotch.

2. Oxford American 10th Anniversary Southern Music CDs – Oxford American

Every year, Oxford American magazine puts out an issue devoted to southern music. The latest issue (with Jerry Lee Lewis on the cover) is their 10th anniversary and comes with two CDs of music tangentially related to southern music. These CDs include a myriad of different artists and musical genres from recordings spanning over seventy years. So much wonderful music on here and quite a bit from artists I have never heard before. Then when you factor in the magazine, itself, with music writing by the likes of writers such as Peter Guralnick, what are you waiting for? Available at fine booksellers near you.

3. The Wire: And All the Pieces Matter — Five Years of Music from The Wire – Nonesuch

This compilation perfectly intersperses music tracks with dialogue from five years of the finest television series ever made. This compilation manages to capture the essence of the show which is not an easy task. Artists ranging from Jesse Winchester, Tom Waits, & The Pogues to DJ Technics, Lafayette Gilchrist, & Blind Boys of Alabama are sequenced in a way where it all makes sense. Most of the snippets of dialogue included, however, are not likely to be FCC-approved anytime, soon.

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Posted by | January 10, 2009 | Music | 1 Comment 

Emotional Rescue’s Highly Subjective List of the 20 Musical Things Worth Loving in 2008

Although web guru/fellow DJ/stern taskmaster Roy Kasten finally nagged me into providing a standard top album list for 2008, I still needed to compile a more complete, annotated list that included individual songs (and then some) in addition to whole albums. I’m not sure if David Cantwell would consider this a list with argument, but I do hope it could be considered more than randomness and arbitrary subjectivity.

There is a four way tie for the number one position, but then things are listed somewhat by whim.

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Posted by | December 22, 2008 | Music, News | Comment 

60 Records To Make Your Life Better This Year

I posted this list over at the Lockwood and Summit blog with a slightly different introduction. This coming Friday on Sound Salvation (7 am to 10 am), I’ll be counting down the albums which meant the most to me in 2008, but I’ll be doing them in alphabetical order. Oh, sure, I could create a hierarchy, but really, what does it mean that I thought Sonny Rollins was slightly better than AC/DC, or was it the other way around?

The important thing to take away from all this is we’re living in a pretty darn good time to enjoy music. I list 60 albums here that dug into my memory banks, and gave me plenty of enjoyment. I am equally sure that I missed an equivalent number of excellent albums in genres I barely perused – contemporary country, rap, r’n'b, pop, world music. I make no claims to completion, but I do know that the following 60 albums were all terrific. See the list after the jump.

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Posted by | December 21, 2008 | Music | Comment