IRT Magazine

THE IRT TOP 80 OF 08

Well, it’s a work in progress that will be displayed at full mast in our Winter 2009 year-end issue, which will be posted here after New Year’s, but here is our 80 favorite albums of 2008. It might have been a bad year for the free world, but at least the music was a gas on the way down.

1. BOB DYLAN Tell-Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (Columbia-Legacy)
Dylan’s last twenty years has been some of the most robust and fulfilling in his near-half century as a recording artist, give or take a certain 1990 dog called Under The Red Sky, material of which is thankfully absent on this collection of rare and previously unreleased material from 1989’s comeback smash Oh Mercy! right on through to Modern Times. Many of these songs are stripped down to the bone, especially the Oh Mercy! Material, revealing the true beauty of the amazing songwriting Dylan was coming up with during this period, arguably on par with his 70s work. And the live material, flanked by Zimm’s amazing touring band, ranks right up there with the Royal Albert Hall and Rolling Thunder Revue volumes of the Bootleg Series in terms of its supreme documentation of Bob’s prowess onstage when he is having a good night. Not sure what it says about the state of affairs for modern music when a compilation of old, unreleased material trumps any new recording that was released in 2008. But at the same time, nothing that was released this past year can touch the majesty of Bob Dylan’s music—new, old or otherwise. –Patch Atomz

2. FENNESZ Black Sea (Touch)
The king of ambient electronica, Christian Fennesz, retains his title with another enchanting, engrossing album. Proving that ambient is about more than chillout, he builds magnificent yet delicate sonic cathedrals in which the wholes are vastly more than the sum of their parts. As usual, Fennesz mostly works alone but has guests on two tracks: Anthony Pateras contributes prepared piano to the denser, buzzing co-composition “The Colour of Three” and Rosy Parlane co-writes/performs “Glide,” which starts as quiet noise and becomes a gently clanking drone crescendo. The Eno-esque “Vacuum” is swooningly beautiful, its melody spooling out slowly over characterful glitches. This is the electronica album of 2008. - Steve Holtje

3. NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS Dig Lazarus Dig!!! (Anti-Epitaph)
After 30 years of shape-shifting theatrics and guttural gothic blues, Nick Cave unleashes the boogie out of his Bad Seeds and releases the finest album of his longtime band’s legendary career. –Ed.

4. (tie) ATLAS SOUND Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel/DEERHUNTER Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.(Kranky)
Not even two separate bands can contain the genius of this rising young star on the American rock scene. Blog on, brother Bradford. Blog on. Ed.

5. NINE INCH NAILS Ghosts I-IV/The Slip (The Null Corporation)
One was a four-disc set of haunting instrumentals sold for only five bucks, the other was given away as a completely free download. And both add up to two of Trent Reznor’s most satisfying releases since The Fragile. –Ed.

6. PAT METHENY TRIO Day Trip (Nonesuch)
Flanked by a new trio consisting of Philadelphia bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez, two of the best young lions in modern jazz, Metheny unleashed his finest trio album in ages. –Ed.

7. TV ON THE RADIO Dear Science (Interscope)
My buddy Thom said it best: Where do they get the right to put out a record this good? I love nothing more than the sight of hype-hounds chewing their own sneakers, and if given the chance I might have bet the farm that LP number three would see TVOTR vault the barracuda and inspire a groundswell of hilarious backpedaling. Well, turns out
the Emperor is dressed to the nines. With horns. Too fucking good. - Tom Whalen

8. FLEET FOXES Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop)
With the kind of heady magic of Bjork’s Vespertine, Fleet Foxes’ self-titled release has a church feel, overflowing with a big, timeless sound that evokes The Beach Boys and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. This five-piece delivers mountain gypsy soul with their fantastical arrangements and mesmerizing harmonies and changes. Hallelujah!
-Michele Zipp

9. PORTISHEAD Third (Island)
Was Portishead’s decade-in-the-making follow-up to their landmark 1997 sophomore classic worth the wait? You bet your Barrow! –Ed.

10. BLACK CROWES Warpaint (Megaforce)
The Crowes fly high once again in 2008 with what is easily their best album since Amorica. Ed.

11. VAMPIRE WEEKEND Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings)
Somewhere Peter Gabriel and Lil’ Jon are smiling at this sunny debut that brought the high life to the Lower East Side. Ed.

12. KANYE WEST 808s and Heartbreak (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)
Hip-hop’s Blood On The Tracks? Please, kid. Dylan got off easy compared to Kanye on this daring creative left-hand turn chronicling the most heart-churning breakup put on record since Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear. This here is Thom Yorke’s The Eraser for the Cristal set, only with real human emotions pulsing behind those bleeps and bloops. –Patch Atomz

13. STEPHEN MALKMUS AND THE JICKS Real Emotional Trash (Matador)
Just in time for the 10th anniversary of Pavement’s split, Malk finally unleashes a solo album that can stand tall amongst the cream of his old band’s crop. –Ed.

14. EARTH The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull (Southern Lord)
Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas soundtrack for the doom metal set. Simply amazing. –Ed.

15. BLITZEN TRAPPER Furr (Sub Pop)
Finally, a Big Pink revival we can truly believe in. –Ed.

16.. DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (New West)
Patterson Hood & company in top form. This is southern rock for the new south. –The Rock ‘n’ Roll Pimp

17. WRECKLESS ERIC AND AMY RIGBY Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby (Stiff)
One of the great labels of the new wave era made a quiet, but effective return to the world stage with the excellent, long-awaited return of one of their marquee players, Wreckless Eric who, with his lovely lady Amy Rigby by his side, steals his sound back from Yo La Tengo to create an arresting surprise of an album soaked in shimmering outsider pop. –Patch Atomz

18. JACKSON CONTI Sujinho (Mochilla)
Madlib’s long awaited Brazilian album is well worth the wait. A collaboration with Azymuth’s drummer Ivan “Mamão” Conti this is the most exciting thing Madlib has done in a minute. By far his most realized instrumental music it’s almost like he crafted a new genre with his easy listening/elevator beats. –Shawn Schank

19. BREEDERS Mountain Battles (4AD)
A successful comeback: the Deal sisters’ first album together in six years, and their best in 15. The amount of stylistic variety here is startling. –Steve Holtje

20. FLYING LOTUS Los Angeles (Warp)
If this is the future of hip hop, then I’m the future of strip solitaire. I’m not, and this probably isn’t. STILL: this record is something else, the kind of something else that defies pre-emptive historicizing. Let’s put it this way: that purgatorial state between consciousness and full on sleep, where one knows that he or she is approaching sleep and is aware of sensual prompts but unable to react to them, where the surrounding real takes on the cadence of the dream state but hasn’t yet succumbed to its associative, imaginative abandon: Los Angeles is in there somewhere, dormant by design and crackling incessantly, waiting for the other shoe to explode.- Tom Whalen

21. LIL’ WAYNE Tha Carter III (Cash Money-Universal)
OK, OK, I give. Weezy, you done out did yourself this time, pal. –The Cosby Kid

22. TORCHE Meanderthal (Hydrahead)
Stoner metal album of the year, even for people who hate the term “stoner metal”. –Rutherford B. Hayes

23. QTIP The Renaissance (Motown-Universal)
I have been writing and interviewing cats for 12 years now, and I never experienced such a brick wall than I did during my twenty awkward minutes on the phone with Q-Tip. I’ve had better conversations with autistic children than I did with a man who I thought had a lot more to say than he really did. Well, thank God the man wasn’t at a loss for words in the recording studio. The Renaissance is Tip’s finest performance on the mic since Tribe’s 1996 sleeper Beats, Rhymes and Life. Though a much better album when it was called Open (its out there, kids), this nevertheless is quality hip-hop for those of us who have grown-up with H.E.R., but just can’t really get down with those bratty-ass kids all hugged up on her leg these days.-Patch Atomz

24. RAPHAEL SAADIQ The Way I See It (Columbia)
You throw on Raphael’s auspicious debut on Columbia and he literally transports you back to Tamla 1963, and plays the style with the authenticity of a private label soul artist with a serious, serious thing for The Miracles. Then Jay-Z comes through to thrust you back into the 21st century and kills it in a way that one could only hope will be the direction he leans toward for Blueprint 3. –Grover Cleveland

25. JAMES BLACKSHAW Litany of Echoes (Tompkins Square)
JBs previous LP ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ was a record of unmistakable beauty. ‘Litany’ is a touch more subtle, though no less special. I listened to a lot of wordless music this year, and along with the Earth LP, ‘Litany’ drew me in with patient splendor of the held note, the recurring phrase, and the wonder of music as space. These are the kind of records that justify the REPEAT ALL function. Blackshaw just signed to Young God, where he is set to release another 12-string dream thing by springtime. Gira’s sure got an ear for soul. - Tom Whalen

26. KENNY GARRETT Sketches of MD: Live at the Iridium (Mack Avenue)
Anytime you throw Pharaoh Sanders into the mix, you’re gonna get a jam that transcends all time and space. Even as a senior citizen, Sanders can still burn with the best of them, as this exceptional sit-in jam with modern day lion Kenny Garrett at NYC’s Iridium signifies. –Grover Cleveland

27. CONOR OBERST Conor Oberst (Merge)
By recording under his own name, the artist otherwise known as Bright Eyes makes a true transcendence from boy to man on this eye-opening road trip of an album that may have been recorded in Mexico, but is as American as the Bruce Springsteen masterpiece named after Oberst’s home state. –Patch Atomz

28. MAVIS STAPLES Hope at the Hideout (Anti-Epitaph)
One of the most relevant releases of the year, and not simply because it was released on election day. This record encapsulates the roller coaster ride of ‘08 in the most perfect of ways. This is music of the highest order to feed your soul in hungry times. –Shawn Schank

29. MUDCRUTCH Mudcrutch (Warner Bros.)
Tom Petty reunites with the band he formed during his Gainsville salad days and comes forth with his best work since the She’s The One soundtrack by tapping into his unrequited love for the Grateful Dead and Gram Parsons. –Grover Cleveland

30. THE GUTTER TWINS Saturnalia (Sub Pop)
Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli combine their distinctive voices and dark songwriting for one of the best indie-rock collaborations of the year, and Joseph Arthur, Lanegan’s Queens of the Stone Age bandmate Troy Van Leeuwen, violinist Petra Haden, and Brit-hop diva Martina Topley-Bird join in.-Steve Holtje

31. SHEARWATER Rook (Matador)
With Jonathan Meiburg writing all the songs for the second album in a row, Shearwater’s move from Okkervil side project to magnificent entity in its own right is complete.
Chamber rock of quiet beauty backs Meiburg’s agile singing, including one of the most compelling falsettos in indie rock.-Steve Holtje

32. SEA AND CAKE Car Alarm (Thrill Jockey)
Nothing new, but as good as they always are. Their combination of Krautrock motorik, jazzy guitar chords, and soft-rock crooning now seems timeless. –Steve Holtje

33. FUCKED UP The Chemistry of Common Life (Matador)

34. CRYSTAL CASTLES Crystal Castles (Last Gang)

35. BEACH HOUSE Devotion (Carpark)

36. ERYKAH BADU New Amerykah (4th World War) (Motown-Universal)

37. RANDY NEWMAN Harps and Angels (Nonesuch)

38. ORCHESTRA BAOBAB Made in Dakar (Nonesuch)
Made in Dakar was released overseas in 2007, but finally appeared in the U.S. this year. The versatile Senegal-based band’s fusion of Cuban and African music still sounds fresh as the band nears the end of its fourth decade. –Steve Holtje

39. THE SOUND OF ANIMALS FIGHTING The Ocean and the Sun (Epitaph)
Like an Animal Collective for the emo-punk set, this mysterious troupe of musicians (said to include members of such groups as Finch, the RX Bandits, Chiodos and Circa Survive) eschew their Hollister gear and Green Day fixations long enough to explore the kind of influences you don’t read about in Alternative Press: Frank Zappa, John Cage and The Fugs on their exceptionally underrated label debut for Epitaph. – The Cosby Kid

40. RESTAVRANT Returns To The Tomb of Guiliano Medidici (Narnack)
Combining deep blues and hip-hop beats better than anyone since the late, great RL Burnside, this is the album that the Black Keys should have made with Dangermouse. –Chester A. Arthur

41. THE DRIFT Memory Drawings (Temporary Residence)
Oh Tortoise, why don’t you sound as good as this anymore? –William F. Taft

42. BON IVER For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar)
The beautiful, bruised heart of Justin Vernon created simple, yet complex acoustic folk. It’s like Nick Drake in that it’s music you put on when you are with the person you want to marry. Even though the songs were born out of darkness (Vernon wrote it in isolation after some major life setbacks), there is such beauty to his delicate, 70s-style falsetto vocal. -Michele Zipp

43. MCCOY TYNER Guitars (Half Note)
The piano legend who sat in with the best of them hollers at homeboys Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette (one can only WISH a trio album between these three titans is in the cards) to host an array of talented stringsmiths, including Marc Ribot, John Scofield, Bela Fleck, Derek Trucks and Bill Frisell, for an electric, eclectic session that was one of this year’s great surprises in the jazz world. –Dr. Zizzmore

44. GARY LOURIS Vagabonds (Rykodisc)

45. DAVID BYRNE AND BRIAN ENO Everything That Will Happen Will Happen Today (self-released)

46. THE CURE 4:13 Dream (Geffen)
After spending the last 12 years crafting a trilogy of wackness with 1996’s Wild Mood Swings, 2000’s God-awful Bloodflowers and 2004’s eponymous nonsense, The Cure get back their thunder in longtime guitarist Porl Thompson and release their best album since Wish. –Grover Cleveland

47. THE NOTWIST The Devil, You and Me (Domino)
Six years after the previous Notwist album, the trio finally blesses us with another disc of mellow Krautrock electronica. This time out The Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra and other guests help make the beauty denser than before. –Steve Holtje

48. MOTORHEAD Motorizer (SPV)
AC/DC? Guns N’ Roses? Bah! There was only one hard rock dinosaur worth hyping up its return in 2008, and it’s a band who never really went away to begin with. Motorizer is the ‘Head’s best album since 1916, a pummeling powerhouse of classic death boogie that will melt Black Ice like the midday sun and make the Chinese kick Democracy in the balls as it runs back into the loving arms of their dear Chairman Mao. –William F. Taft

49. ATMOSPHERE When Life Gives You Lemons…(Rhymesayers)
You paint that shit gold, son! That is, of course, unless you write your rhymes from a golden pen like Slug does. Easily their best since God Loves Ugly. –The Cosby Kicker

50. FOALS Antidotes (Sub Pop)
Dear Sub Pop: I think there is a problem with this Foals CD that I purchased. Sometimes, in a manufacturing glitch, the wrong music is written on the intended CD. I think this was the case on Antidotes, because the music on here sounds like some kind of outtakes or B-sides collection from Gang of Four’s Solid Gold sessions. Please let me know what we can do about this matter, and I appreciate your quick response. Thank you, Patch Atomz

51. HARVEY MILK Life…The Best Game In Town (Hydrahead)
On their sixth album in sixteen years, Athens, GA’s heaviest band add Joe Preston of Earth to the mix and release their greatest album for Hydrahead, a better Melvins record than the most recent Melvins record, in fact. –Rutherford B. Hayes

52. EVANGELICALS The Evening Descends (Dead Oceans)
Consider the psych pop problem solved: those of us pining for a middle ground between the increasingly inhuman monolith that is latter-day Lips and the roving texture-craft of New Weird also-rans found a mitt full of sweet, sweet balm in ‘the Evening Descends.’ Great songs and freaky sounds need not be segregated, and the Evangelicals stack ‘um high. ‘Paperback Suicide’ and ‘Skeleton Man’ (“If someone loves you very much / You’re fucked”) are haunting, gorgeous highlights, but this chumpie is hot and bright for the full nine. - Tom Whalen

53. SQUAREPUSHER Just A Souvenir (Warp)
Jaco Pastorius, Billy Sheehan, John Entwistle, Flea, Les Claypool: if ever there was a Squarepusher release that screams out Tom Jenkinson’s rightful place on that list, it is Just A Souvenir, his most organic and entertaining album since Music Is A Rotted One Note. –Grover Cleveland

54. BILLY BRAGG Mr. Love and Justice (Anti-)
The attention given to Bragg’s political songs has often overshadowed how great his relationship depictions can be. On his most musically satisfying album in years, both the political and the interpersonal songs are full of brilliant touches. –Steve Holtje

55. WILLIE NELSON AND WYNTON MARSALIS Two Men With The Blues (Blue Note)
This album burns like a good scotch. I’ve been in a big Willie phase this year and was super -psyched when this was released. Easily the best album Willie has released this decade, and he’s put out quite a few standouts. Willie and Wynton tear through mostly jump-blues standards during this live performance from the Allen Room in NYC. Let’s hope they give it another run sometime. –Shawn Schank

56. METALLICA Death Magnetic (Warner Bros.)
Five years after angering the metal world with the blunt, atonal aggression of St. Anger, Metallica return with an old school-flavored classic that hearkens back to their 80’s thrash roots. -Dylan Fagan

57. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELSTIN Pershing (Polyvinyl)
With Medvedev and Putin trying to kick it Cold War style with the United States once again, I think there are quite a few somebodies who still love Boris Yelstin, and wish that wonderful old drunk was with us on this earth to bring a little levity to the situation. However, we are lucky enough to still have the band named after our love for him to provide us with a worthy distraction. –Grover Cleveland

58. LIONEL LOUEKE Karibu (Blue Note)/FRANCISCO MELA Cirio (Half Note)
Combining the styles of Grant Green and King Sunny Ade, this West African guitarist comes into his own in the jazz major leagues on his stunning Blue Note debut, which features a backing group consisting of such legendary players as Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, as well as Cuban drum luminary Francisco Mela’s smokin’ September 2007 live set at the Blue Note in NYC in a group that also features Pat Metheny/Brad Mehldau bassist Larry Grenadier and Brooklyn’s finest Jason Moran on piano. –William F. Taft

59. SNOOP DOGG Ego Trippin’ (Geffen)
Big Snoop Dogg’s show on E blows all those other celebrity family reality deals out of the water. That one episode with David Beckham is one of the funniest things I saw on TV all year, next to Andy Samberg’s “Jizz In My Pants” video on SNL, or maybe even a super-preggers Amy Poehler tear up the mic for Sarah Palin. And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for Cool Cal to come out with his most satisfying joint in years.
–Patch Atomz

60. R.E.M. Accelerate (Warner Bros.)
It’s been awhile since a new R.E.M. album caused much stir, and this was no exception, but nonetheless it was their best in a decade or more. –Steve Holtje

61. JOE JACKSON Rain (Rykodisc)
¾ of the Look Sharp! band glide through immaculately orchestrated piano trio pop that goes as a reminder to all you Ben Folds-loving nancy boys who the king of this shit really is. –Patch Atomz

62. GROUPER Dragging a Dead Dear Up a Hill (Type)
This one took me (more like cradled, actually) by surprise. The folk music on ‘Dragging’ occupies a space where the word ‘gauzy’ shifts from a pejorative to an imperative. Seriously: you could catch flies in this shit. There’s ample fodder for aimless, half-remembered hum-alongs on here, and though the exact words and pitch perfect melodies are difficult to parse from the bulk of submerged sonics, this seems to be the point. One audible line, from standout ‘Heavy Water,’ says it all, tongue as far from the cheek as possible: “I’d rather be sleeping.” - Tom Whalen

63. VALET Naked Acid (Kranky)
In a year in which I was conspicuously absent from the sphere of live music, one moment sticks out like a stinky pinkie: It was just getting to be spring and I was camped out to catch a Kranky heavyweight double bill at Vassar (Atlas Sound and White Rainbow) that turned out to be missing half of its equipment (thanks to a broke down van that was still in D.C.) when I was enraptured by the opening performance of Honey Owens (aka Valet,) whose gorgeous swamp blues seemed made to be laid bare. Later, Bradford Cox (you know, the Deerhunter guy,) insisted that if I only buy one piece of plastic on the merch table, it should be Naked Acid, an endorsement that moved Owens, leaning timidly against the wall behind us, to blush and scowl simultaneously. Cox was right on: Deerhunter is this years superstar Krank-ster, but Naked Acid is the one that has been scratched into my ribs, the one I keep coming back to. - Tom Whalen

64. HOWLIN RAIN Magnificent Fiend (American)
I am a firm believer that the Faces reunited because they saw that Ethan Miller and his Comets On Fire side gig created a transcending AOR album on par with the finest moments of A Nod Is As Good As A Wink (To A Blind Horse). –Grover Cleveland

65. AARON PARKS Invisible Cinema (Blue Note)
As influenced by Madlib as he is Keith Jarrett, pianist Aaron Parks crafts one of the more quixotic debuts on Blue Note since the late Freddie Hubbard’s Open Sesame. – Ed.

66. LUCINDA WILLIAMS Little Honey (Lost Highway)
Lucinda’s Ragged Glory. All electric guitars and twangy attitude, this Honey is anything but sweet, cumulating in Williams’ toughest album yet. –The Cosby Kicker

67. HIGH PLACES High Places (Thrill Jockey)
Another male/female Brooklyn electro-rock duo, but this one’s a little more musically adventurous than the norm. –Steve Holtje

68. KIERAN HEBDEN/STEVE REID NYC (Domino)
Sounding less free-improv and more Krautrock, this gets Hebden back to his strengths and keeps the unstoppable impetus of Reid’s drumming, making it arguably their most successful collaboration, certainly their best duo work. (Also check out Reid’s 2008 CD Daxaar, with not only Hebden but also Senegalese musicians.) –Steve Holtje

69. AUTECHRE Quaristice (Warp)
One of the most challengingly abstract/avant electronic duos around, Autechre here gives us a wildly varied 73-minute disc ranging from beatless ambience to harsh noise, yet always musical and stimulatingly engrossing in its exploration of timbres and time. –Steve Holtje

70. SAM PHILLIPS Don’t Do Anything (Nonesuch)
Phillips could sing anything with that voice and it would sound great, but singing her probing, edgy lyrics makes it even better. Now that her music has the same edginess, she is better than ever. –Steve Holtje

71. THE RACONTEURS Consolers of the Lonely (Third Man-Warner Bros.)
Jack White and co.’s little Boo-yah move releasing their sophomore effort on the sly by announcing its existence only a few days before its scheduled street date may have cost them some units. But wait ten years and see how the greasy, grassy storybook blooze rock that exists on Consolers inspires a generation of kids on a Guitar Hero comedown to pick up the real McCoy with more conviction than Dragonforce could ever muster. –Grover Cleveland

72. STEVE WINWOOD Nine Lives (Columbia)
Picking up on the heat of his 2003 solo return to form About Time, Winwood debuts on Columbia Records with yet another organic, jam-heavy set of songs that rank right up there with his finest Traffic and Blind Faith material. “Back In The High Life” this certainly is not. –Rutherford B. Hayes

73. CHARLES LLOYD QUARTET Rabo de Nube (ECM)
In celebration of his 70th year on this planet, Charles Lloyd puts together a monster of a quartet, which includes Jason Moran on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass and Eric Harland on drums and delivers his first live quartet album, this burning set recorded in Basel, Switzerland back in 2007. –Ed.

74. RY COODER I, Flathead (Nonesuch)
Cooder completes his California trilogy with a return to what he does best, playing guitar and singing. You will dig this if, like us here at IRT, you think Cooder’s best albums were recorded in his pre-soundrack/Cuban period. –Shawn Schank

75. M83 Saturdays=Youth (Mute)
My favorite electro-pop album of the year. Very ’80s retro, which has been a big trend for years but I never get tired of it. –Steve Holtje

76. PICA BEATS Beating Back The Claws of the Cold (Hardly Art)
I knew a kid who was considered PICA, which in psychological terms means that he liked to eat inedible things, like soap and plants. The irresistible harmonies of the Pica Beats on their amazing debut album are so delicious, they make me wanna eat the CD. That’s a good thing. –William F. Taft

77. DEER TICK War Elephant (Partisan)
Next to Radiohead’s In Rainbows, this Nuevo slice of John Wesley Harding-esque folk is the best album to come out twice in two years. Let’s just hope the new joint they are recording at my boy Jason’s studio up there in Pine Bush, NY is as good as this Elephant of an album. –Patch Atomz

78. THE BUG London Zoo (Ninja Tune)
Techno Animal Kevin Martin puts his best foot forward by plunging into England’s robust dubstep scene and emerging with the most poignant, politically charged reggae album since Peter Tosh’s No Nuclear War. –Rutherford B. Hayes

79. SHE AND HIM Vol. One (Merge)
A wonderful girl-group throwback, though M. Ward barely holds a candle to Zooey’s Elf co-star Will Ferrell as a singing partner. –Patch Atomz

80. VIVIAN GIRLS Vivian Girls (In The Red)
See Cover Story in next issue! –Ed.

From the NY Times:

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Lionel’s replica subway trains look like the R-27 cars that went into service in 1960, including the checkered floors and “kale green” paint job.

Subway car No. 8026 stopped, and the public-address system announced, a little too clearly: “Sheepshead Bay. This is a northbound Brighton local. Next stop, Kings Highway.”

“This was my line,” said Thomas C. Nuzzo, who was driving the train. “I can name all the stops.”

But No. 8026 was nowhere near where he grew up in Brooklyn. It had been circling a track inside Grand Central Terminal — a model railroad track, that is. No. 8026 and the three drab-green cars it was pulling are the first New York City subway cars ever built by Lionel, which has made model electric railroad trains for more than 100 years.

Of course, in the 21st century, electric trains have wireless controls. Mr. Nuzzo, Lionel’s events manager, pushed a button on the device in his hand. The doors snapped shut, and the train sped off.

Mr. Nuzzo said the four cars look like the R-27 cars that went into service in 1960, down to the checkered floors inside. Outside, they match the original color — ”kale green,” he said. (Most R-27 cars were painted red in the late 1970s and early ’80s; they were retired from the fleet in the 1990s.)

The signs identify the train as a QB. Mr. Nuzzo said the QB went over the Manhattan Bridge; the QT was routed through a tunnel under the East River. Mr. Nuzzo, 57, remembers it well. “It was the line my mom used to take me to Macy’s on,” he said.

Lionel announced more than two years ago that it was venturing into official New York replicas under a licensing agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Lionel’s president, Jerry Calabrese, said the project fell behind schedule after Lionel decided to copy the QB cars. (They stopped close to where Lionel’s showroom was, on East 26th Street, until the company moved to Michigan in 1969.)

“I felt it was important to go back to our roots on the East Coast, the city in particular,” said Mr. Calabrese, who moved Lionel’s executive offices to Manhattan two years ago. During its years in Michigan, he said, Lionel had “redirected its vision of trains in a broader national sense instead of a more local metro sense.”

He said the move “re-established our geographic interest, and that’s why we did the subway.”

But he also said that he was emotionally involved in the subway car project, and that figured in the delay: “The more we decided to make it better and better, the longer it took.”

No. 8026 works with Lionel’s latest operating system, which is more elaborate than the one that powers another new Lionel model, a replica of a Metro-North commuter rail car. The system on No. 8026 is so authentic that it mimics the noises that subway trains make. Lionel sent a sound engineer to record noise in Brooklyn subway tunnels and on modern subways. That noise is played back as the four-car train makes its rounds.

So how real is the little QB? Mr. Calabrese answered by telling a story: On Lionel’s version of Amtrak’s Acela, the doors, brakes and pantographs — which connect the train to electrical wires overhead — break down at about the same rate as on the real thing.

He said that not long ago, he was a passenger on an Acela train that had to pull over because a pantograph had broken. “I offered to send in some of our people to help,” he said. The Amtrak crew members, however, “weren’t in a joking mood.”

He said the real R-27 cars had long and largely trouble-free lives. Lionel is selling the four-car set for $699.99 at stores like the Transit Museum’s Gallery Annex in Grand Central, where the annual Grand Central holiday train show opens on Monday. It will run through Jan. 19.

“To me, it’s a masterpiece,” Mr. Nuzzo said. “I took it to Milwaukee, and a guy says, ‘It’s cute.’ I says, ‘That’s all you can say about it, cute?’ The doors open, and we got a New York person announcing the stops. Maybe I’m biased, but that’s an achievement.”

Bruce Springsteen Unveils New Album

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

As expected, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s new album, “Working on a Dream,” will arrive Jan. 27 via Columbia. Excerpts from the title track debuted during NBC’s NFL halftime show last night (Nov. 16).

The album includes 12 new songs plus the bonus tracks “The Wrestler” (from the Mickey Rourke-starring film of the same name) and “A Night With the Jersey Devil” (which Springsteen gave away free online on Halloween).

As with 2007’s “Magic,” Springsteen worked with producer Brendan O’Brien on basic tracks and brought in the E Street Band as needed during tour breaks. “All the songs were written quickly — we usually used one of our first few takes,” he says.

Springsteen and company will return to live duty Feb. 1 as part of the Super Bowl XLIII halftime show in Tampa, Fla.

• Video: Bruce Springsteen: A Night With the Jersey Devil [from the forthcoming Working on a Dream LP]