It was a good year for music. Not a great year perhaps, no year zero, no breaking point for any new wave of X or next generation of Y, no real breeding ground for scenes or styles or trends or fashions that might or may just come to define the next few years of our existence, but still: a good year for music. There wasn't a month that went by without at least one record of note, and sometimes, indeed, we were veritably spoiled for choice.

But as we stand at the end of the year, snow falling on the cold ground like ash fluttering upon the very close of civilisation itself, we can look back to see which record has loomed largest over our lives these past few months. And what do we find?

Fleext Foxes, warming and soothing and almost intolerbaly nice, Bon Iver much the same. Crystal Castles and their thrilling glitch-pop, mining golden-era computer games for a soundtrack to future parties - just a shame the album was at least 15 minutes too long with too much sad-static filler. Los Campesinos! and not one but two fantasic albums, so charming and of their time that they may not last into the new year. Conor Oberst, Sigur Ros and TV On The Radio all turning in great work, but all made slightly disappointing, if only by their own high standards.

For me, there are only two albums that stood to be album of the year, and both hit hard this summer. One was Johnny Foreigner's stunning debut, a piece of squawk-rock perfection that I've already pondered on at length (if you're interested, see here). This was the noise of a band capable of great things: here's hoping we see a lot more of them soon.

But album of the year could only be one thing in the end. It missed out on my summer round-up only because it was still gestating at the time (despite the fact it had been out of XL Recordings since January) - the kind of earworm that was taking its time to grow, building up its reserve and burrowing in deep, ready for the long haul. At first it sounded limp and affected, given props by NME in customary fashion but destined to be one of those also-rans that you never hear so much about.

But it grew, and kept growing, and began to build up some sort of awesome, awful momentum. One minute Vampire Weekend (for it is they) were a cult-concern, four preppy East Coast Ivy League scholars obsessed with African rhythms, Peter Gabriel, and polo shirts: collars UP, if you please.

Then all a sudden, BANG, out of the traps and on the tracks, attacking the charts and hitting the festival circuit in fighting form, sweeping the stands, cutting a wake of clean cut goodness wherever their flip-flop clad feet fell. The tunes - Oh, the tunes, Oxford Comma, Walcott, I Stand Corrected - became something more, something so much more, something glorious and grand and somehow important. The playful lyrics, imbued with both brainy-smart touches (at last, a band with intellect AND swing) and a strange kinda Judaeo-Wasp emotional flourish were fantastic, but it was the melodies themselves, charming and eleoquent and local and international, that really took a hold. Diced up guitars, trippsy drums, even the odd classical-embellishment - they all added up to become more than the sum of their parts.

Added to this the physical album itself with its meaningless/meaningful cover, and it's timeless design, and it flew, over days and weeks and months, into classic territory. We'll be listening to it next year. We'll be listening to it in ten years. Like the Strokes' Is This It or the Libertines' Up The Bracket, this was a debut that will stand the test of time and come out the other side laughing.

Oh, and did you know that when singer Ezra Koenig did work experience at the Oxford English Dictionary, he managed to get "Mash-up" included?

Isn't that neat?

Posted In Features, Dec 11 2008. Words - Josh