Top 5 of 2008 | #1 for 2009

The end of one year and the start of another naturally generates different kinds of countdowns and Top lists. I’ve been going back and forth on what i deem to be my Top 5 albums of 2008.  A lot of music and many factors to consider, how does one decide? In the end, I made my list below including my choice song and lyric.  My comments are further down.

#5 | This is Our God – Hillsong
Choice Song: Stronger

“It is written, Christ is risen…”

#4 | Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt – Augustana
Choice Song: Hey Now

“It’s quiet in the streets now, but it’s screaming in your head.”

#3 | Leavingtaking – Peter Bradley Adams
Choice Song: The Longer I Run

“If I wander ’til I die, may I know whose hand I’m in.”

#2 | Viva La Vida – Coldplay
Choice Song: Strawberry Swing

“People moving all the time in a perfect straight line. Don’t you want to curve away?”

#1 | Three Flights From Alto Nido – Greg Laswell
Choice Song: I’d Be Lying

“Won’t you let me give you a hand? I have an extra I’m not using.”

More Than an Honorable Mention
Fall, Winter – Jon Foreman
Choice Song: The Cure for the Pain

“It would be a lie to run away.”

Okay, some comments for each album.  #5, Hillsong continues an incredible streak of live albums.  Even in the midst of the unfortuneate news of guest artist, Mike Guglielmucci, Hillsong produces not only another album but another great resource for the Church to connect with God.  Their excellence in musicianship commands respect and Brooke Fraser delivers the strongest lyrics in “Desert Song.”

#4, I listened to this Augustana album so much that i made the CD cover my Facebook profile picture for a while.

#3, I discovered Peter Bradley Adams on accident in 2008 and good thing at that!  The lyrics meld so well with the melodies on this album.  Adams sang me to sleep a lot last year.

#2, This album converted me to a Coldplay fan.  I was browsing through HMV a week before the release of Viva La Vida and i hear this ultra rhythmic song on the speakers.  I literally stop mid-step and stand in the middle of the store trying to figure out what song it is.  The voice sounds a lot like Chris Martin?  I ask the HMV employee what is playing and she says it’s the new Coldplay album that comes out the next week.  Then and there i decide i would buy the new album.  Mucho tres good.  Btw, the song that was playing was “Lovers in Japan.”

#1, I love Greg Laswell.  And this album through and through.  He has this magic about him as illogical as that sounds.  Maybe it’s his calm voice that sounds so unique and yet totally isn’t't at the same time (unique voices in my book are the likes of Robbie Seay and Caleb Followill).  Maybe it’s his look, which i take as confident but laid back (as a true west-coaster would be).  Or, it’s his success without needing to be in the limelight.  Or, maybe it’s none of the above but simply because he’s pleasantly easy on the eyes. *Wink =p

Honorable Mention. Jon Foreman is brilliant and the only reason why he didn’t make the Top 5 was because I didn’t listen to this EP as much as I did the others to warrant any of the 5 to get bumped down.  Where does Jon Foreman come up with his lyrics? I’d like to be in his brain for a day.

So, I look forward to new music in 2009.  And even though we’re barely one week in, i’m pretty sure i already know what will be Album #1 for 2009…

U2′s new album comes out on March 3rd!!!!!!!!! It’s called No Line on the Horizon and it was supposed to be released for late 2008.  But can you believe that U2 said they weren’t done writing for the album even though they already had 50-60 songs for it?!  These boys never stop.  I mean, what other band out there can tour the same album for 2 years?  March 3rd, come sooner!

Reading | Watching | Listening

READING: C.S. LEWIS

I recently finished reading C.S. Lewis’ Surprised By Joy – an autobiography of his early years while eventually addressing his conversion from atheism to theism and from theism to Christianity. From cover to cover is the backdrop of schooling and academia… and I must say, smart people are fascinating. He’s clearly so well read and versed… if anyone could fit into my ultimate British professor stereotype, it’s definitely him. Personally speaking, besides the first few chapters and the last few chapters i found his writing quite dry for my liking even though it reads so naturally. And i think he recognizes this too… right off the bat he concedes that his account is “suffocatingly subjective.” But writing that, amongst some other great parenthetical thoughts and one-liners makes him a funny man, too. The ultimate British professor, plus funny.

If you’re not up for the whole book, I strongly suggest at least reading the last two chapters where he finally talks about his conversion in more detail. I found it so interesting how he intensely wrestled with the concept of God… and yet, how the whole God thing kept encroaching on his life academically and intellectually, circumstantially and socially.

There are quite a few parts i’d love to quote but i’ll just finish off with two (both from the second to last chapter).

“For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion.”

“Whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.”

WATCHING: DEDICATION

If you want to watch how Dysfunction falls in love, then this movie is for you. It takes some extreme and overt characters of dysfunction and somehow draws out from their case universal themes that we can identify with. There’s subtle (or, not so subtle) hilarity at times but it can move bit slow – kind of Garden State-esque. It’s not your typical romantic movie plot but still takes a stab at it from a bit of a different angle. Minus the annoying opening scene and the already-done method of wooing Mandy with a telescope (a la A Walk to Remember), I liked it and will probably watch it again at some point.

Confession: I like Mandy Moore. I just do. Not that I think she’s an incredible actress or anything but i always find myself rooting for her character. Well then.

LISTENING: GREG LASWELL

From the first bar of Greg Laswell‘s song, “How the Day Sounds” I was already hooked. Such a sucker for piano-driven melodies. And then a few seconds later, enter Greg’s voice.. so soothing. Low but not too low. And he does a great sultry cover of Cindy Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Not your typical cover song but it’s won me over. After the first listen-through of his MySpace, i bought two of his albums.

Free download of one of the songs off his new album, it’s a good one.

And how did i hear about Greg Laswell you ask? Well duh, through a Google search of Mandy Moore and the subsequent landing onto her Wiki page noting that Mandy and Greg had previously dated. And also, a pleasant surprise to find Greg Laswell has been part of The Hotel Cafe tour before.