Sunday, January 11, 2009

There's A Lady Who's Sure All That Glitters Is Gold

I wanted to do a Best of 2008 list, but the truth is, I hate ranking things. If you know me or you read the blog regularly, you already know what the favorites are. Hopefully you've related to a post, been put on to an artist, or gotten something out of The Labyrinth from time to time. That's the goal anyway. So, rankings aside, here's a little summary of what Lacezilla repped, closed her eyes for, nodded with, and danced wildly to in '08...

SERIOUS IPOD BURN:

N*E*R*D, Seeing Sounds

Freindly Fires, Friendly Fires

Raheem Devaughn, Love Behind The Melody

MGMT, Oracular Spectacular

Kings of Leon, Only By The Night

Duffy, Rockferry

Wale, The Mixtape About Nothing

Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple

Kate Nash, Made of Bricks

Kid Cudi, A Kid Named Cudi: The Mixtape

Jasmine Sullivan, Fearless

Cold War Kids, Loyalty To Loyalty

Lykke Li, Youth Novels

Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak

(These albums can get played all the way through and have multiple songs that should also be included in the list below.)

PLAYED LOUDLY, ON REPEAT:
(Songs decoded below... click to listen!)

Sam Sparro "Black and Gold"
Chris Brown "Fallen Angel"
Hercules and Love Affair "Blind"
Thriving Ivory "Angels On The Moon"
Justin Nozuka "After Tonight"
Leona Lewis "Bleeding Love"
Flobots "Handlebars"


MOST FUN TO PHOTOGRAPH:
Wale and Blu @ SOBs

(LINK to post)

Santogold @ Highline 
(LINK to post)

Lykke Li and Friendly Fires @ Bowery
(LINK to Lykke Li post)

(LINK to Friendly Fires post)

And don't forget Lykke's enchanting cover of Wendy Rene's "After Laughter":

N*E*R*D @ Madison Square Garden
(LINK to post)

Matisyahu (with Brett Dennen) @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg
(Post coming soon!)


VIDEOS THAT LINGERED IN MY MIND:
InnerPartySystem "Dont Stop" WATCH
Kanye West "Flashing Lights" WATCH
MGMT "Time To Pretend" WATCH
Gnarls Barkley "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" WATCH
Hot Chip "Ready For The Floor" WATCH BELOW:



Although the scope of The Labyrinth has substantially widened over the past year, I'm sure to have missed a few albums/songs/artists/shows/videos along the way. I can't listen to everything. If you think I missed something, please please please enlighten me :) And as for 2009, I'm interested to see what transpires with the careers of Lady Gaga, Kid Cudi, Janelle Monae, The Script, and Eminem.