Meet John "JB" Bigham, AKA The Soul of John Black. And hold the Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding comparisons.

I haven't really followed the Norwegian music scene. From a distance, it appears to be split equally between doom metal bands in Viking gear and bookish, sensitive wimps like Kings of Convenience, who mash Simon and Garfunkel impressions with electronica blips and beeps.
 
So a Norwegian band called I Was a King didn't really inspire much confidence. Yeah, well, we were all once kings, Olaf. I myself used to dress up as Sigurd the Nearsighted, and slew several dragons menacing central Ohio. Then I started third grade.
 
I was fully expecting guys with food in their beards and rotting teeth who growled songs about nuclear warheads and Armageddon. What I got was fifteen short tunes high on the bubblegum content and the guitar distortion, a sort of psychedelic Archies. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. Unlike fellow Scandinavians Dungen, who employ a similar sonic palette, I Was a King features songs with genuine hooks. And unlike Apples in Stereo and Teenage Fanclub, with whom they share a similar love of fuzzed-out power pop, there is some truly gonzo guitar work here to satisfy the biggest Hendrix fan. Grading on the curve (I’m assuming that English is not their native language), there are fourteen very fine originals here, all of them immensely hummable, all of them reminiscent of the days when The Electric Prunes and The Strawberry Alarm Clock were ruling the radio airwaves. Most surprising of all is the sole cover, “Hard Luck and Bad News,” by the granddaddy of Christian Rock, Larry Norman.

The Van Morrison live experience is a confounding thing. He can be totally mesmerizing (see It’s Too Late to Stop Now, from 1974). He can be professionally competent (see Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast, from 1984). And he can be petulantly inaccessible (see One Night in San Francisco, from 1994, where he turns over many of the vocal duties to his backup singers). What he is on Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl is simply great.

As former bandmate and friend Dave Alvin points out in his liner notes, Chris Gaffney was a man who didn’t care much for boundaries or borders. Torn between his love of the classic country songs of George Jones and Merle Haggard and the pleading soul music of Otis Redding, Chris and his band The Hacienda Brothers simply split the difference. And that facile description doesn’t even begin to account for his love of accordion-driven norteño polkas or AC/DC balls-to-the-wall rock ‘n roll. Music programmers and record labels had no idea what to do with him. And so he lived in virtual obscurity, touring with Alvin from time to time, recording a handful of absolutely great but ignored solo albums and with his songwriting partner Dave Gonzales as part of The Hacienda Brothers, playing west coast dive bars on the weekends, and writing a couple hundred of the best songs you’ve never heard.

The musical capital of the world?  It's not even close in my mind.

Glasvegas, who are Glasgow natives (see Camera Obscura, The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, Lloyd Cole, Teenage Fanclub, Belle and Sebastian, Paolo Nutini, Amy MacDonald, Mogwai, Franz Ferdinand and a host of others who have considerably brightened the musical landscape over the past ten years), have released a very, very fine self-titled debut album.

NME has dubbed them "the best new band in Britain," which is usually a sure sign of the Hype Machine in Overdrive. But this time they could be right. This is a surprisingly bracing combination of Jesus and Mary Chain guitar buzz, Proclaimers vocal bluster (complete with sometimes almost impenetrable Scots brogue), and, incredibly, impossibly, romantic '50s doo-wop. I like it a lot. The subject matter -- aimless violence, ennui, football yobs, endless pints, chasing skirts -- might be the best rock 'n roll portrait of disaffected youth since those early Clash albums. Best of all is the unnerving "Stabbed," in which lead singer James Alan matter-of-factly proclaims, "I'm gonna get stabbed/The Baltic fleeto are up my arse/No cavalry could ever save me" to the accompaniment of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Stunning.

Unless you're a music geek, you're probably unfamiliar with these artists. And that's too bad. They deserved better. All of them made music that recalled more famous artists/bands. And all of them made music that was the equal of the more celebrated popsters.

The usual disclaimers apply.

 

Disclaimer #1:  No, I haven’t heard all 8,000 albums released this year. I’ve heard somewhere between 600 and 700 of them, which makes me at least 93% likely to be wrong. But hey, this isn’t math class, and I make no claims to objectivity. These albums are my favorites from 2008. You might think that the one you’ve heard that I haven’t heard is the best album of 2008. And you might be right.

 

Disclaimer #2:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just get it out of your system now and be done with it. I am deliberately trying to be obscure. Who the hell has even heard of these people? I am a sell-out who includes ridiculously well-known artists such as Bob Dylan on his list. Who the hell actually believes that Bob Dylan could make the best album of the year when he’s, like, 87 years old? So go ahead and vent, then read Disclaimer #1 again.

 

Disclaimer #3 - “Biggest Disappointments” does not translate to “Worst Albums of 2008.” Don’t go there. “Biggest Disappointments” means “I like these folks, but they didn’t come up with their strongest material this year.” Yes, Britney Spears and Nickelback released new albums in 2008. Yes, on some lists they might qualify for Worst Album of 2008.

 

Disclaimer #4:  Factoring in cultural relevance, innovation, and aesthetic impact, I eventually throw up my hands in despair and use the only objective measure I know to evaluate music. I figure that if I play it a lot, I probably like it. These are the albums that have spent the most time in the CD player and blasting over the iPod earbuds this year.

I tend to go in for really arcane Christmas music like Bruce Cockburn covering a 17th century Huron Indian carol or The Fleshtones doing up the holiday garage-rock style. But my wife and daughters like the traditional schlock, including Johnny Mathis singing "It's a Marshmallow World in December," perhaps the most revolting holiday recording ever. So we've (okay, I've) had to compromise, which is exactly what I've done the past few years. Faced with familial revolt and the prospect of decorating the Christmas tree by myself, something had to give.

Here are some suggestions on what does not (and does) work that may come in handy in the near future.

It is fitting that you can't find an Internet photo of Craig Fuller from his glory days with Pure Prairie League. Back in the day (and we're talking the early '70s here) he had hair down to the middle of his back, and he was writing songs that pretty much defined what came to be known as Country Rock (yes, before there was alt-country, y'allternative, and Americana, there was just Country Rock). For what it's worth, it's hard to find his old music these days, too. And now he looks like the guy who sold you life insurance last month. It's okay. Some of us remember.