It's that time of year when everyone starts filling pages with end of year lists and music websites and blogs are piling into the “best of ‘08” argument with particular aplomb.

The team at the AV Club, an always-reliable pop culture barometer, opted for TV on the Radio’s Dear Science as the year’s best album. Many others have called it the same way. If “the best of 2008” was a Tour de France style race, the Brooklyn experimentalists would be out in front of the peloton wearing the yellow jersey, with Bon Iver, fifth in the AV Club’s list, not far behind.

However a minor row has broken out among the more pedantically inclinded folks in the comments sections of various sites (it can get real exciting), about whether Bon Iver’s album was released in 2007 or 2008. It all depends on your point of view - the album, For Emma Forever Ago, was self-released by Justin Vernon, the man behind the moniker, last year, then re-released in the US in February by Jagjaguwar records, and then released in the UK and Europe in May.

The AV Club also canvassed various celebrities (of a left-of-the-dial variety) on their 2008 favourites. But in true democracy -of-the-interweb fashion, they also asked "Zodiac Motherfucker", one of the regular users of their comments section to contribute. In keeping with the standardised style of all crazed commenters, Mr Motherfucker wrote his entire screed in BLOCK CAPITALS.

Sensing a theme, comedian Aziz Ansari opted for TV on the Radio saying, “This album is fantastic, and I've also been told statistically that this choice will lead to the least amount of threats on my life in blog-post comment threads.”

Meanwhile, music site Pitchfork is going all out with extensive end-of -year lists, culminating with naming their album of the year tomorrow. Already they have anointed Hercules and Love Affair's "Blind" as the song of the year...


Most enjoyable though is their “20 Worst Album Covers of 2008”, with records by Elbow, Santogold and James Taylor among the ignoble chosen few. Each cover is given a pithy description with Dido’s astronaut based album cover pegged thusly, “In space no one can hear you yawn.” Quite.