Last.fm's Best of 2008

Trolling around my last.fm page like the obsessive that I am, I couldn't help but notice that last.fm has it's own "Best of 2008" list that was generated from actual listening habits of its users instead of editorial opinion.

The song list is utterly boring since the top 10 are all Coldplay and MGMT. The album list is okay, but I found the artist list to be the most intriguing. The top 10 reads so:

1. MGMT
2. The Ting Tings
3. Sara Bareilles
4. Fleet Foxes
5. Katy Perry
   
6. The Last Shadow Puppets
7. Foals
8. Bon Iver
   
9. Does it Offend You, Yeah?
10. Santogold

It seems to be a pretty diverse list and it would have me believe that most of last.fm's users are probably European and more than likely British. I'm quite happy to see some of those names on the list (congrats MGMT, it is truly your year), and I was even happier to learn that Owen Pallett of the Arcade Fire and his own project Final Fantasy had contributed to The Last Shadow Puppets, whom I was previously unaware of.

Being that the top 10 song list was so monotonous, however, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite songs from this year (a few might actually be from 2007).

• Band of Horses - The General Specific
• Bears - Dolphins
• Death Cab for Cutie - Your New Twin Sized Bed
• Does it Offend You, Yeah? - Dawn of the Dead
• Elias and the Wizzkids - The Dance
• Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
• Friska Viljor - Arpeggio
  
• Hot Chip - Ready for the Floor
• I Was a Cub Scout - Pink Squares
• Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
• Lykke Li - Dance Dance Dance
• M83 - Kim & Jessie
• MGMT - Kids
• Miniature Tigers - Like or Like Like
• Minus the Bear - Guns & Ammo
• Noah and the Whale - 5 Years Time
• of Montreal - An Eluardian Instance
• The Spinto Band - Summer Grof
• Teitur - Catherine the Waitress
• Television Room - Coffee Houses
  
• Wild Beasts - His Grinning Skull
• Yeasayer - 2080

And that's just a few that I could think of. It's years like this that make me hopeful for music -- I couldn't think of something that's currently as heinous as nu-metal or the boy bands of the late nineties. Then again, I'm not around teenage girls and young bucks out to prove their superior testosterone levels that much anymore...

At any rate, happy listening.