Last year I purchased 251 albums from eMusic and maybe another 50 or more from Amazon MP3 so by that count I was buying some 25 a month or nearly 1 a day.  That is one hell of a habit but what makes it harder is sifting through all those and tally the ones that hooked me because, while I’m and obsessive list maker it is always far in arrears.

My first step is to figure out what from those 300 or so purchases was released in 2008 and then of that group which of that set are not re-releases–it is usually that latter part where I give up.  In my first pass I’m left with 1399 tracks and no real way to parse that into albums with Amarok except maybe counting but I don’t have that many fingers and toes.  Thankfully, I set Amarok up to use MySQL as it’s engine so with a quick query, and a little clean up for the freebies, I have 120 albums* to work through.

Now, my more purest readers and friends might exclaim, “Not all of these albums are actually 2008 releases! Cull! Cull!”  While I agree with that in principle I really am an individual governed by sloth and am truly unmotivated to verify the true release date of each album.  Either way it is going to take me a long while to whittle things down to a Top 10.

This is my playlist…

1. 2562–Aerial
2. 3 Na Massa–3 Na Massa
3. Al Kent Presents The Million Dollar Orchestra–Better Days
4. Ananda Project–Night Blossom
5. Aphex Twin–Classics
6. Aziza Brahim–Mi Canto
7. Baby Charles–Baby Charles
8. Basia Bulat–Oh, My Darling
9. Black Taj–Beyonder
10. BLK JKS–Mystery EP
11. Bombay Dub Orchestra–3 Cities
12. Booka Shade–The Sun & The Neon Light
13. Calexico–Carried To Dust
14. Carl Craig–Sessions
15. Cheb i Sabbah–Devotion
16. Chin Chin–Chin Chin
17. Coldplay–Viva La Vida Or Death And All
18. Cordero–De Donde Eres
19. Curtis Macomber–Asia: Sonata for Violin & Piano, Piano Trio
20. Dan Zanes and Friends–¡Nueva York!
21. Deastro–Keeper’s
22. Debashish Bhattacharya–Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide-Guitar Odyssey
23. Dengue Fever–Venus on Earth
24. Derrick May–Innovator
25. DJ /rupture–Uproot
26. Dub Trio–Another Sound Is Dying
27. Duffy–Rockferry
28. Elbow–The Seldom Seen Kid
29. El Guincho–Alegranza
30. Eliot Lipp–The Outside
31. Esperanza Spalding–Esperanza
32. Etran Finatawa–Desert Crossroads
33. Fall Out Boy–Folie à Deux
34. Fanatix–This Thing of Ours
35. Faraquet–Anthology 1997-98
36. Fenin–Been Through
37. Firewater–The Golden Hour
38. Gang Gang Dance–Saint Dymphna
39. Ghislain Poirier–No Ground Under
40. Gnarls Barkley–The Odd Couple
41. Grouper–Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
42. Grupo Fantasma–Sonidos Gold
43. Guillermo Klein–Filtros
44. Hauschka–Ferndorf
45. Headlights–Some Racing, Some Stopping
46. Health–Disco (V3)
47. Hector Zazou & Swara–In The House Of Mirrors
48. Hot Chip–Made In The Dark
49. Huun-Huur-Tu–Mother Earth! Father Sky!
50. Jack Peñate–Matinée
51. James Blackshaw–The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb
52. James Blackshaw–White Goddess
53. James Hardway–L.A. Instrumental
54. J-Boogie’s Dubtronic Science–Soul Vibrations
55. J*Davey–The Beauty In Distortion / The Land Of The Lost
56. J-Live–Then What Happened
57. Josh Martinez–World Famous Sex Buffet
58. Joy Division–The Best Of
59. Juno Reactor–Gods & Monsters
60. Kasai Allstars–In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into A Swimming Fish And A
61. Kaya Project–…& So It Goes
62. Kayhan Kalhor–Silent City
63. Kraak & Smaak–Plastic People
64. La Sonora de Lucho Macedo–Gozalo – Bugalu Tropical Volume 2
65. La Sonora de Lucho Macedo–¡Gózalo! Vol. 1 – Bugalú Tropical
66. Lau Nau–Nukkuu
67. Les Voix Baroques–Canticum Canticorum
68. Louie Vega–House Masters: Louie Vega
69. Luomo–Convivial
70. Lyrics Born–Everywhere At Once
71. Marco Benevento–Invisible Baby
72. Markus Schulz–Markus Schulz – Amsterdam 08
73. Melody Gardot–Worrisome Heart
74. Michael Nyman–8 Lust Songs: I Sonetti Lussuriosi
75. Michael Nyman–Mozart 252
76. Mike Ladd–Nostalgialator
77. Minus The Bear–Acoustics
78. Moby–Last Night
79. Natacha Atlas–Ana Hina
80. Natural Self feat. Andreya Triana–The Art Of Vibration
81. N.E.R.D.–Seeing Sounds [Explicit]
82. Niyaz–Nine Heavens
83. Nomo–Ghost Rock
84. Plantlife–Time Traveller
85. Plants and Animals–Parc Avenue
86. Portishead–Third
87. Q-Tip–The Renaissance
88. Quantic Presents…Flowering Inferno–Death Of The Revolution
89. Quiet Village–Silent Movie
90. Raashan Ahmad–The Push
91. Rainbow Arabia–The Basta
92. Ratatat–LP3
93. Rebirth Brass Band–25th Anniversary
94. Richard Swift–Ground Trouble Jaw
95. Santogold–Santogold
96. Scott Reynolds–Adventure Boy
97. Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80–Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80
98. Siah & Yeshua dapoED–The Visualz Anthology
99. Stanton Moore–Emphasis! (On Parenthesis)
100. Studio–Yearbook 2
101. Thao–We Brave Bee Stings and All
102. The Big Sleep–Sleep Forever
103. The Black Ghosts–The Black Ghosts
104. The Cat Empire–So Many Nights
105. The Gaslight Anthem–The ’59 Sound
106. The Herbaliser–Same As It Never Was
107. The High Decibels–The High Decibels
108. The Hold Steady–Stay Positive
109. The Matthew Herbert Big Band–There’s Me And There’s You
110. The Postmarks–By The Numbers
111. The Saturday Knights–Mingle
112. The Vandermark 5–Beat Reader
113. Thievery Corporation–Radio Retaliation
114. TM Juke And The Jack Baker Trio–Boto And The Second Liners
115. Vampire Weekend–Vampire Weekend
116. Vibesquad–Dawn Patrol
117. Yusef Lateef–Yusef Lateef
118. Zomby–Where Were U in ’92?
119. Zuco 103–After The Carnival

Time to turn up the speakers for the next 107 hours or so…

*edit–Found a straggler and culled it.

**edit–Culled Coptic Light because it was released in 2005 and my copy had the date encoded wrong.