I was not a fan of winter quarter. No sir. But plenty of great music came out and made the sub-zero temperatures slightly more tolerable. As we welcome Spring Break and the first day of spring (shame it’s cold outside), I wanted to just touch on a few random musical notes this fine blog didn’t have time to discuss over the past three months. See you in the sun!

Great Albums from 2008 we Didn’t Review

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, We Brave Bee Stings and All

Virginia-born artist Thao Nguyen doesn’t really advance indie-folk rock as much as she and her band just do it really well. We Brave Bee Stings and All finds newcomer Nguyen crafting excellent folk-pop tunes loaded with twangy guitars, handclaps and innocent lyrics finding Thao singing about ice cream, swimming pools and, of course, love. No release I’ve heard so far in this young year has caught me as catchy and enjoyable as this album, only Beach House’s excellent second effort managing to get more play in my iTunes. One of the brightest young artists to emerge this year, and one of my favorite albums of 2008. Plus, one of the few musicians to have a song featured in this website’s beloved cooking show What’s Cooking Wildcats?

No Kids, Come Into My House

Trying to pin Canadian trio No Kids into a specific genre seems near impossible, given their debut Come Into My House plays around with indie-pop, barbershop quartet, electro-funk and even some Hot Chipish R&B. Somehow, the group wears all these musical masks with confidence, and nail most of their experiments over the course of this playful and lovely record.

The Mountain Goats, Heretic Pride

The theme developing in the musical world in 2008 seems to be youth, as most of the great albums hitting stores so far this year have come from very young groups (Beach House, Atlas Sound, Times New Viking) or newcomers (the two above, plus Vampire Weekend). Thank goodness elderstatesmen The Mountain Goats dropped this awesome album upon the world to remind us the geezers of the musical world could still make excellent music. If you know anything about The Mountain Goats, you know what to expect on this album: story-centric songs loaded with great details, nasally vocals and bizarre references to H.P. Lovecraft. Plus, there is a song about a lake monster. Pretty sweet.

Most Overrated Album of this Young Year

The Magnetic Fields, Distortion

Critics loved this album for its fuzzed out Jesus and Mary Chain vibe (see the title), but I thought the heavy distortion took away from the group’s usually excellent sense of melody. There are good tracks (and one great song about getting plastered), but nothing remarkable.

Cool Trend: The In Rainbows Effect

Looks like Radiohead spurred some sort of revolution, even if it is still small. But three very prominent artists turned to inspiration from In Rainbow’s release strategy so far this year. Nine Inch Nails released an out-of-nowhere collection of 36 instrumentals as a download, with a price tag of only five dollars (though for five more, you could get more stuff), while indie-mainstreamers The Raconteurs announced that their second LP, Consolers of the Lonely, will come out this Tuesday. Oh, and they hadn’t mentioned anything before that. So sneaky, Jack White and Brendan Benson. Finally, those crazy guys in Gnarls Barkley moved up the release of their second album The Odd Couple from early April to this past Tuesday, announcing the new release date….that day. Tragically, Borders and Barnes & Nobles didn’t have it, but cool nonetheless even if I do have to wait a week.

Northwestern Concert Scene In Retrospect

A&O Productions cleaned up huge this quarter. Girl Talk drummed up tons of hype, leading to tickets selling out super fast, and the show itself didn’t disapoint, a sweaty collision of Top 40 rap and more obscure backing material. I haven’t seen NU kids dance that hard before. And then A&O lapped themselves, beating out Girl Talk-mania with Flight of the Conchords, the popular folk parody duo who have a show on HBO. Though I’m not a big fan of these guys,(Ween is like, a billion times better than these two, though “Business Time” rocks), people went ape for tickets, prompting quite a bit of debate about whether it’s fair to let people buy so many tickets with a single Wildcard. Plus, people laughed. Good showing A&O. Now, lets just make sure Dillo Day doesn’t suck, and this will have been a magical year.

Videos I Can’t Stop Watching For Unknown Reasons

Webbie – “Independent”

The song itself, though saddled with a boring beat, comes off as some sort of bizarre female-empowerment song, about wanting a girl who is….well, he spells it out for you. Basically, Webbie’s a male gold digger. The video though….who thought of this plot? Some girl daydreams in school about being a paramedic, but her dream-self slowly becomes more powerful, as she becomes president and appears on currency. Lots of weird moments in this video, my favorite being the headline “First Female African American President Elected,” a pleasant reminder race and gender will still matter in the strange, strange near future (sorry Barrack, Trill TV said so). Plus, Webbie looks like the guy from Norbit.

Soulja Boy – “YAHHHH”

Maybe it’s the creepy, poorly designed claymation Soulja thing flying around the video. Maybe it’s the “sproing” sound effect usually reserved for boners when Soulja Boy looks out his door. Or maybe it’s the fact Soulja Boy yells at Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears and freakin’ Dog the Bounty Hunter. Somehow, I can’t stop watching this….this “music video” even though I am slightly opposed to a song encouraging kids to start screaming like Bill Cosby when somebody wants to do the heinous crime of…talking to you. Seriously, who thinks of this? Big ups to the final part about the report card, though, especially Soulja Boy telling me he made “straight A’s,” though his slight grin afterwards proves that his boast is as big a lie as saying “Crank That” will still be popular in three months.