The 50 Best Albums of 2008

11

Fleet Foxes FLEET FOXES Subpop

This remarkable debut from five scruffy Seattle guys was the prettiest album of the year, and the warmest. Singing gentle but spacey arrangements, the folky ensemble could fill up a room like the smell of fresh-baked bread. Highlight: the gorgeous, pastoral "White Winter Hymnal."

Axl Rose has not lost his appetite for disorder. Democracy could never live up to every expectation, but it is audacious and unhinged: the mass of strings, choir and Mellotron in "There Was a Time"; the Spanish guitar and blaxploitation funk of "If the World." It's hard rock without apology — which is enough.

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