BEST OF EL OCHO: THE GREATEST 10 SONGS OF 2008

10
Chasing Pavements – ADELE
Adele explained to the Sun newspaper that "Chasing Pavements" is about splitting up with her ex and having her heart broken for the first time:


"That song is about should I give up or should I just keep trying to run after you when there's nothing there?

I was only with him for four months but when I signed my record deal I had to write an album, as I hardly had any songs, so I wrote about him."She then revealed: "I couldn't write songs for ages because I found it really hard writing songs for fun or writing them because someone had invested a lot of money and time in me. I just couldn't do it.

And then I met my ex-boyfriend and it was great to begin with and then it was really sh---y. And then I wrote about ten songs in about five weeks. I love him still and I got an album out of him. I used him more than he used me. And he loves it. It's not bitter.


He loves it when the song comes on the radio. He says: 'It's about me.' And I'm like, 'It's a song about heartbreak, you fool!'"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz7vGW2_5c0




9
Mercy – DUFFY

Duffy’s debut album, Rockferry was the best selling album in the United Kingdom in 2008 and has sold over four million copies worldwide.

Mercy was #1 in 10 countries in total plus the Eurochart Hot 100. Among the territories this reached the top spot in were Germany, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE2orthS3TQ

"I'd already written the lyrics to Mercy, it was like this melodic poem in my mind, which I just had to get out, and I knew exactly what I wanted it to sound like. Steve (songwriter) was very patient. He sat at the piano and put chords underneath it and we built the song from the bottom up. It's very important that my songs start from an organic source, rather than a drum loop. You can dress it up how you like but at the end it's about the strength of the song, the melody and the words. The lyrics were about having a feeling towards someone, whether it's a romantic feeling or just some chemistry that you don't want, and you desperately want to be released from that feeling. I'm very cautious about saying what a song is about, it's my issues and baggage and when someone else listens to the song it isn't about my baggage anymore it's about their baggage. I don't want Mercy to become more about the situation that inspired it than the song. The song does the talking.”

Duffy

The tiny welsh singer was another great act that I had the chance to admire during the summer of 2008.

In this video she seems a little scared/annoyed when she found out that I was recording the show.

8
The Rip - PORTISHEAD

"The Rip" seems to represent anything seductive and annihilating-- an ocean's undertow, psychological breakdown, destructive relationship, drugs, death (R.I.P. is, after all, the final rip).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeOGs05Z2Qc&feature=related


Recognizing a kinship in sound and sentiment, Radiohead covered the ominous dirge in concert this year. But ultimately, this is pure Portishead: Who better suited than the simultaneously cool and quavering Beth Gibbons to deliver these portentous opening lines "She walks in the room/ Centered and tall/ Hesitates once more" and still manage to avoid melodrama? Or carry on so elegantly after synthetic arpeggios, in a gutting seismic shift midway through the track, devour their guitar counterparts?


In a(nother) year when many young bands thrifted decades-old material with déjà-vu results, the Bristol trip-hop vets were among the very few making music that sounded both right-now and 10-years-hence.

7
I Will Possess Your Heart - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE

A beautiful musical piece!!
This psychedelic song with its delayed vocal entry was a different style for the band.


"The single on our record is a work of fiction that was inspired by things that happened to some people close to me. It's called 'I Will Possess Your Heart,' and it's eight-and-a-half minutes long. It's five minutes of build and then a three-minute song.


The song is basically about a stalker. It's about this nice guy who wants this girl he can't have, and he believes they'll be together once she realizes how great he is-he just has to wait it out. That's the part that makes the song really creepy, the delusion of thinking that they were meant to be together. It's a really dark song."

Ben Gibbard

The video for this song won the 2008 MTV Video Music Award for Best Editing, and was also nominated for Best Cinematography.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uln8UxZz9Ys

Even when this song was never a big hit in Great Britain, I Will Possess Your Heart was named the iTunes UK song of the year 2008.

6

Black and gold - SAM SPARROW

"Black and Gold" is the lead single from Sam Sparro's eponymous first album and like Joan Osborne's One of us, Black and Gold is another song dedicated to the big chief.

The Australia born and LA-based singer and songwriter captured a moment of existential crisis.
He recalled to The Guardian February 8, 2008: "I was feeling totally lost. I was making cappuccinos when I felt I should be onstage singing. That track came from looking up to the stars and seeing myself as a tiny speck in this infinite solar-system."

Sparro also explained to MTV UK News that he didn't spend too much time writing this song:


"I wrote it in 10 minutes. It just came to me one night when I was feeling lonely and wondering if God exists. I picked up a pen and the first draft of lyrics is what is on the radio!"


The song is now in the running of a 2009 Grammy Award, nominated in the category of "Best Dance Recording", alongside Lady GaGa & Rihanna.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHuebHTD-lY

5
American Boy - ESTELLE FT. KANYE WEST

Young British singer Estelle struck gold with her first international single, which proved to be the perfect pre-summer hit.

The velveteen quality of her personable, laid-back vocals synched brilliantly with Kanye West's on-top-form cameo appearance, and the deceptive simplicity of the music with its clubby electro vibe offered an open platform for Estelle's distinctive voice to take center stage.

Refreshingly playful and uplifting, "American Boy" is an unpretentious and breezy party track that hit the right notes on both sides of the pond.

Estelle has admitted that when she was dancing with Kanye West in the song's video, all she could think about was whether she'd cleaned her ears. She told RealMusic Blog: "He was looking right in my ear and I was worried he'd go and tell his mates that I had dirty ears. I mean, what if I had one piece of errant wax… But I didn't ask him - I just went away with my obsession, told my friends and they laughed at me."

http://www.mtv.com/videos/estelle/212118/american-boy.jhtml

4
A-Punk - VAMPIRE WEEKEND

"We had a riff that sounded like a Punk song, but we played it on the high notes to make it sound more interesting."

Singer Ezra Koenig

This was the #1 song of the first half of 2008.
"A-Punk" has a "spunky drive, pogo-inducing rhythm, and subtle but hugely effective sonic accents". Perhaps not the best song from their debut album due to it being "a little too uptempo to let their disarmingly clever melodies breathe", but stated "for the flute-aping synths and bottled-sunshine guitars alone you need this in your life."

The song's "cool organ breeze and a shifting drum beat save the day", preventing "too much snark from being slung at their New York Times featured, digitally distributed exclusively by Other Music, Columbia University, golden boy asses."


Do believe the hype! A Punk is one of the most memorable songs of 2008!!


3
Paper Planes - M.I.A.

Kala is one of my favorite albums of 2007 and 3 songs from that cd were included in the Top 100 songs of that year. Even when most of the critics include this song in their lists of Best of 07', I never include Paper Planes in my countdown because I knew that the song were about to be huge in 2008.


I had so much faith on this awesome song...


One of my biggest surprises of 2008 was when I heard Paper Planes on the radio. The song began to achieve commercial success in June 2008 after appearing in the film trailer and TV spot for Pineapple Express.


"Paper Planes" was written and produced by M.I.A., her favorite DJ Diplo and producer Switch .Its main riff is sampled from the song "Straight to Hell" by The Clash and the chorus lyrics are borrowed from Rump Shaker by Wreckx-N-Effect.
Remember the All I wanna do is zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom song?


Recorded near my frenemy Naomi's house in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, this tune includes kids from Brixton singing on the chorus.


In an interview in late August 2008, Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam described the song as being a satire "about people driving taxicabs all day and living in a shitty apartment and 'appearing' really threatening to society. But not being so.


Because, by the time you’ve finished working a 20-hour shift, you’re so tired you [just] want to get home to the family".


She added that she felt listeners could choose how to interpret the gunshots and cash register ringing in the song's chorus.


"People could say, 'Oh my God, this song is so violent,' but at the same time, there was a war in Iraq. I felt like certain people made so much money from selling ammunition and military weapons and stuff, and killed a million people, and it wasn't even an issue that was raised..."


M.I.A. (like me) has also expressed surprise at the song's wide commercial success, telling Rolling Stone in October 2008 "I always took pride in being a little underground — it really is a very unlikely record to cross over."


On December 3, 2008, the song was nominated for the Record of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.


I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you beautiful M.I.A.!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sei-eEjy4g

2
Viva La Vida - COLDPLAY

The runner up song of 2008 is the most popular song used by Apple for their TV ads. It is also the most succesful song for the british band when VIVA LA VIDA became the first #1 song of the band in both sides of the atlantic and in more than 25 countries during last summer.

It is the first song by a British group to reach number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 since "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls in 1997.

Somehow in 2008, Viva la Vida felt like the song that everybody wanted to write.


Coldplay were briefly accused of plagiarism of "The Songs I Didn't Write" by American alternative band Creaky Boards, for the melody of "Viva la Vida".


Creaky Boards' band member Andrew Hoepfner claimed that Martin had heard them playing the song at a live show in October 2007.


The band released a video clip, in which it compares sections of both songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUhFLiw6h6s


Coldplay denied the claim; band spokesman Murray Chambers said Martin was working in AIR Studios in London at that time, having checked the singer's diary.


In addition, Coldplay had recorded a demo version of "Viva la Vida" in March 2007, long before Creaky Boards performed it live in October of the same year. Creaky Boards later retracted the accusations and speculated that both songs may have been inspired by the video game The Legend of Zelda.

In December 2008, American guitarist Joe Satriani filed a copyright infringement suit against Coldplay at the Los Angeles federal court.


The suit claims that "Viva la Vida" incorporates "substantial original portions" of his instrumental track "If I Could Fly" from his 2004 album Is There Love in Space?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLE5t1cl7sw


The band has denied the allegation, saying the similarities were completely coincidential.


Here's a question for you Mr. Joe Satriani?


Do you think that Chris Martin and company had time to listen to your records and steal your riffs while they were having an amazing creative session with the great Brian Eno while recording Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends?

What a perfect time to allege plagierism to one of your tunes and sue them after they got grammy nominations for Song, Record and Album of the Year something that you haven't achieved in your more than 20 years of music career.

I know for sure that Saint Peter won't call your name after this your tricky and sneaky move.

I'm with you guys!!!

Coming up, THE BIG CHEESE OF 2008!!