SIS The Best of 2008: Top 10 Songs

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Stranded in Stereo's Best of 2008! All week long here on the blog, we'll be celebrating the best in music and movies that 2008 has had to offer. While I'll be chiming in with my lists of albums, movies and songs, I've also got a few special guests presenting their lists in their own special posts along with you fine readers who have sent in their Top 10 lists for me to share with the world as well. I'm really excited to share all of this with you like you have no idea.

That being said, shall we get down to the first unveiling of the week?

Stranded in Stereo: Top 10 Songs of 2008

This year, there were a lot of songs that made an impression on me. I remember writing back in the summer how it seemed a theme in 2008 between the albums and songs that were really making the biggest impression on me were all about being on the side of brief and concise. Albums clocking in at around 30 or so minutes with songs sometimes barely clocking in at a minute were so catchy and hook-ladened that I just could not ignore them.

That is not the case with our pick for the coveted Song of the Year. Clocking in at nearly six minutes, "Welcome to the Third World" is not just the cornerstone of a rather amazing album, but also in the career of Portland, Oregon's own The Dandy Warhols. Taking a riff that's practically lifted from Blondie's Auto American competing with the slap bass of Nile Rodgers and Chic, Courtney Taylor-Taylor tells a precautionary tale of boys and girls the likes that Damon Albarn couldn't have ever written back in 1994. Congratulations to them and the rest of our winners:

01 "Welcome to the Third World" by The Dandy Warhols / ...Earth to the Dandy Warhols...
02 "Apple+Option+Fire" by Hot Lava / Lavaology
03 "Group Transport Hall" by Women / Women
04 "Two Ways Out" by Darker My Love / 2
05 "Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit / Chunk of Change
06 "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes / Fleet Foxes
07 "Crystal Stilts" by Crystal Stilts / Crystal Stilts
08 "Teenagers" by Department of Eagles / In Ear Park
09 "Skeleton" by Abe Vigoda / Skeleton
10 "Are You Lightning?" by Nada Surf / Lucky

Like with last year, I give you the gift of Top 10 in a convenient zip file which you can download for a limited time only! Make sure you play this at least once at your New Year's parties, please.

Download: Stranded in Stereo's Top 10 Songs of 2008 [zip]