I hate country music. I have always tried to stay open minded about it, but the guy in the pickup truck with the flannel shirt singing soft-rock with cheesy metaphors has always been wrong no matter how I look at it. It wasn’t until 2002 that I heard Johnny Cash and the way country music used to be.

Cash’s Folsom Prison album is totally captivating, and way different than any live album I have ever heard before. He’s in a prison, you hear the men laughing, moving chairs and clapping. It’s obviously a major highlight in their dreary prisoner lives. Everything from Johnny’s sense of humor, to the songs he plays to his banter is so welcoming. It’s hard to put into words.

Why is it on my top5?
This is also not my typical kind of music, but everyone needs change now and then. This album is very light hearted, and if I was stranded on an island I might need that.

This album always makes me remember one muggy garage sale day. I bought a collection of 600 crappy country music records for $20 to hopfully find the LP that belonged in the Folsom Prison sleeve I had found. It wasn’t there. I later bought the record for a dollar from a friend.

Every year International Mixtape Project takes a list of its users favourite albums and tracks of the year. While I’m not an active member of IMP, I wanted to share my list. One of the restrictions of this list is that it is to only include songs that were official releases and albums that came out this year, or at the end of 2007. This isn’t my list of top tracks (Kristi and I are still considering our next Most Spinnable mix)

Top Ten 2008 ALBUMS

10. Dr Dog - Fate
9. Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
8. Jim Noir – Jim Noir
7. Fujiya & Miyagi – Lightbulbs
6. Portishead - Third
5.Black Keys - Attack and Release
4. The Black Kids – Wizard of Aaahs
3. Man Man - Rabbit Habits
2. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
1. Beck - Modern Guilt

Top Ten 2008 SONGS

10. The Shout Out Louds – Impossible
9. Man Man – Mister Jung Stuffed
8. M83 – Kim and Jessie
7. Archtecture in Helsinki - Like it or not
6. Peter Bjorn and John - Inland Empire
5. Bat for Lashes - What’s a girl to do?
4. The Black Kids - I’m not going to teach your boyfriend how to dance with you
3. The National – Fake Empire
2. Mates of State – My Only Offer
1. Beck - Chemtrails

Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed
Symphonic / Prog Rock
The Moody Blues second album in 1967 was a concept album revolving around the theme of time. Being a little known band at the time it’s pretty amazing that they were able to get the London Festival Orchestra to do a large part of the music. It’s a very poetic album thematically going through a day with tracks like “Dawn is a feeling”, “Tuesday Afternoon” etc.

The album was a bomb.

Five years after its release a Seattle DJ was looking for a long track to play to allow him to go have a “smoke”. The 7:38 Nights in White Satin became an overnight success. Timing is everything.

Why is it on my top5?
While this isn’t typically my kind of music, I do think I could hear this album fairly often without getting sick of it. Over a long time I think the classical influences could push it into background music for me. It’s a very arty album with some pretty epic parts.

On a personal note I first heard this album around age seven. I thought the song was “Knights in White Satin”. I wondered why they were never reaching the end; the satin seemed a bit ridiculous.

This is the much shorter radio edit that soon followed. Music videos weren’t so great in the 70′s….