A & E

There's always some old-timer complaining in the corner about how much better music was back in the day, that something has been lost over the years. Today, I finally feel like that guy.

But really, objectively, it's not much different than it ever was. It's like "Saturday Night Live" -- you only really remember the good stuff, like the Tina Fey/Sarah Palin thing. No, music is just about the same as it ever was. You just got older and probably weren't paying as much attention.

With that in mind, 2008 was still kind of awful. It was a nervous, paranoid election year with economic gloom swiftly sinking into everything like grape juice spilled on a favorite pair of pants.

But for the music industry, the economic meltdown started years ago, with illegal file-sharing -- and a generation being born to whom the concept of paying for music is antiquated at best.

Now, the panic has mostly subsided. It simply means that it's harder to make money making music, which is a bad thing. But it's forced bands to work harder to get their music to the public, with a renewed emphasis on touring -- clearly a good thing.

Anyway, here's the best I can do making sense out this peculiar year, 2008:

Most Unexpected Pop Breakthrough/Song of the Year: MIA's "Paper Planes." This Sri Lankan-born British rapper's global garage ghetto funk captures the Zeitgeist of the past three years like nobody else. Whether you buy her "Third World democracy" revolutionary chic/schtick or not, MIA has a way of irreverently appropriating new sounds from semi-hidden subcultures worldwide, and making them her own. The hook for "Paper Planes," with its sampled gunshots and cash registers, was simply everywhere in '08. The album "Kaya" came out in 2007, but after appearing in the trailer for "Pineapple Express" (and the upcoming "Slumdog Millionaire"), "Paper Planes" landed in the pop charts.

Best Album: "Dear Science" by TV on the Radio. The bandwagon already might be full, but the two singers of this Brooklyn band have roots in Pittsburgh, so I can unreservedly recommend this euphoric, haunted rock/soul masterpiece.

Runner-up: "Ghost Rock" by Nomo. It's wild that a bunch of white dudes from Michigan could whip up such a storm of scorching Afrobeat, soul jazz horns, futuristic funk and frenzied percussion. And despite not having vocals, somehow it's catchier than just about everything.

Worst Trend in Music: The slow, lingering death of MTV and VH1 -- which, believe it or not, once had something to do with music -- now infected with bottom-feeding Reality TV D-listers and celebrity trash. It didn't start this year, of course, but has clearly passed the point of no return.

Best Trend in Music: The resurgence of vinyl records. Of course, they never actually left. LPs have remained the relatively low-cost format-of-choice for fans of everything from hardcore punk to jazz. But it's hip-hop's continued vinyl fetish, and its related impact on DJ/dance culture, that has kept the format relevant and selling better than it has in years.

Most Appreciated Comeback: "Third" by Portishead. Not the game-changer that "Dummy" was in 1994, which gave birth to entire genres of music. But the Bristol, England-based band steered clear of the signature noirish trip-hop they created, opening up a whole new set of ways to sound bleak, brooding, sinister and cinematic.

Least Appreciated Comeback: "Chinese Democracy" by Guns 'N' Roses. Axl Rose spent 17 years on this?

Comeback Waiting to Happen: Smiths? Pogues? Talking Heads? We can dream, can't we?

Biggest Nosedive: Amy Winehouse. From the new soul icon to punchline, to "I hope she makes it to 2009" in the span of a year. "Back to Black" still rules, though.

Theme Song for the New Economy: "Whatever You Like" by Weird Al Yankovic. Takes rapper TI's ode to materialism to its logical recession-era conclusion. Favorite lines: "You like Top Ramen, need Top Ramen/Got a cupboard full of 'em, I'll keep 'em coming/You want it, I got it, go get it, just heat it/Dump the flavor packet on it and eat it./Pork and beans and Minute Rice/And we can play Cribbage all night/And baby you can have whatever you like (if you like)."

Most Baffling Transformation: Kanye West. OK, say you're the top young producer/rapper in the game -- giving you the freedom to do anything you want. So why choose to make an album, "808 & Heartbreak" doing the one thing you can't do -- sing? Still, through the magic of Autotune, West's one-note wonder has been transformed into a lovelorn robot, a retro-futuristic synthesis of Al Green and Kraftwerk. But his stellar songwriting and miles-ahead production elevate this concept album about a still-raw recent breakup with his fiance. Plus, West is busy at work on another album, so he gets a pass on this one.

Guilty Pleasure: Anything by Rihanna, but especially the venomous slow-burn kiss-off to a deserving ex, "Take a Bow." Deadly.

Best Music Biopic: "Metalocalypse," on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. A cartoon about the biggest death metal band in the world that spawned a real (sort of) band, instead of the reverse.

2008 Mix-tape/disc/playlist Essentials: "Electric Feel," MGMT; "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa," Vampire Weekend; "Furr," Blitzen Trapper; "Take a Bow," Rihanna.

Best Quiet Album: "Carried to Dust" by Calexico. Introspective, reflective, luminous -- this Tucson-based duo crafts seamless soundtracks to imaginary spaghetti Westerns, using bleak high-desert balladry, bright blasts of mariachi, sinuous Southwestern jazz, steel guitar waltzes, and many, many secretive cross-border meanderings. Works at any volume.

Best Heavy Album: "Twilight of the Thunder God" by Amon Amarth. Swedish Viking Metal! Skull-crushing, innards-rattling apocalyptic heaviness kept afloat in a raging sea by rapid-fire finger-picking and stout-hearted, semi-tuneful songwriting. Surprisingly cinematic, it somehow feels right when face-melting thrash gives way to orchestral acoustic strings.

Best Live Show: David Byrne at Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland. Byrne and company seemed blown away by the crowd's reaction -- from the crazy middle-aged guys down in front losing their minds, to the heavyset dude in the balcony doing the robot, while wearing a way-too-short sexy nurse Halloween costume. From the joyous interpretive dancers, to the ridiculously adept backing band, to the new songs from this year's collaboration with Brian Eno, to the Talking Heads classics, this was one for the ages.

Runner-up: This summer's crucial rallying of the metal tribes -- Judas Priest, Heaven and Hell, Motorhead and Testament at the Post-Gazette Pavilion.

Favorite Local Release: "Feed the Animals" by Girl Talk. Too many choices -- still, I'll go with Pittsburgh's own planet-spanning, copyright-slayer/laptop rocker. Let the backlash begin!

Five For the Time Capsule Marked "2008": "Dear Science," TV on the Radio; "Feed the Animals," Girl Talk; "Ghost Rock," Nomo; "Fleet Foxes," Fleet Foxes; "Welcome to Mali" Amadou & Mariam.

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