Ye Olde Hit Parade: Constructive Summer

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

2008: The Hold Steady - Constructive Summer

It was an eventful year, that's for damn sure. The financial markets collapsed in the fall, leading to an economic recession that would last for a few years. The U.S. elected its first black president in Barack Obama. There were a lot of political scandals involving a variety of individuals, including former New York governor Elliot Spitzer, Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, former Senator and current presidential candidate John Edwards and former Alaska senator Ted Stevens. Oh, and OJ Simpson finally went to jail, although not for those murders in 1994.

Things were good to start the year off. My company was doing well, got bought by a new investment firm and we all got nice bonuses. I ran the New Jersey Marathon in May and set a new personal best with a time of 3 hours, 43 minutes. We vacationed again on the Joisey Shore. Things got a little ugly at work after the stock market crashed and there were several rounds of layoffs. I survived, but it was a sign of things to come for the next few years. In November, I ran the Philadelphia Marathon and had hopes of breaking 3:40, but a chest cold and some brutally cold weather combined to slow me down a bit. I ended up doing it in 3:52, which wasn't bad.

It was another indie rock-heavy year for me. I was looking at the list of Billboard's top 100 singles of the year and I was unfamiliar with a lot of them. But I was listening to a lot of great new music, primarily via my eMusic subscription that allowed me to download a certain number of MP3s per month. I occasionally bought a CD, but for the most part, it was MP3s. Among my favorites were Black Mountain, Sloan, King Khan and the Shrines, the Gutter Twins (Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan), Ladyhawk, Drive-By Truckers, the Raveonettes, TV On the Radio and Johnny Foreigner.

Concerts included: Black Mountain/Bon Iver, Drive-By Truckers, Gutter Twins (twice), Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Mission of Burma, Iron Maiden, Sloan, Pearl Jam/Ted Leo, The Feelies and Eagles of Death Metal.


My song of the year was by a band that had continually released great music in the '00s: The Hold Steady. Their album Stay Positive came out in July and I listened to that thing all summer. I can remember doing speed work on the track at Village Middle School in Marblehead at lunchtime, sweating like a sumbitch while listening to this album. "Constructive Summer" is a rollicking riff rocker that opens the album, with singer Craig Finn simultaneously harking back to summertime drinking with his friends and looking ahead to do something bigger. While, of course, raising a toast to Saint Joe Strummer. As one should.

Honorable mentions: The Hold Steady - "Constructive Summer"; King Khan and the Shrines - "Torture"; Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - "Baltimore"; Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - "Cold Son"; The Gutter Twins - "Idle Hands"; The Gutter Twins - "Front Street"; TV On the Radio - "Dancing Choose"; The Dirtbombs - "Wreck My Flow"; Black Mountain - "Stormy High"; Black Mountain - "Evil Ways"; Sloan - "Believe in Me"; Sloan - "Witch's Wand"; Ladyhawk - "I Can't Always Hear What You're Saying"; Ladyhawk - "Corpse Paint"; The Raconteurs - "Salute Your Solution"; Drive-By Truckers - "That Man I Shot": Eagles of Death Metal - "Anything 'Cept the Truth"; The Raveonettes - "Dead Sound"; Frightened Rabbit - "Head Rolls Off"; Dead Meadow - "What Needs Must Be"; Jay Reatard - "Always Wanting More"; The Kills - "U.R.A. Fever"; Destroyer - "Foam Hands"; R.E.M. - "Supernatural Superserious"; Tapes 'n Tapes - "Hang Them All"; The Black Angels - "Science Killer"; Foxboro Hot Tubs - "Mother Mary"; Santogold - "L.E.S. Artistes"; Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - "Come On Over (Turn Me On)"; Johnny Foreigner - "Eyes Wide Terrified"; Beck - "Chemtrails"; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!"; Night Marchers - "I Wanna Deadbeat You"; Black Francis - "The Seus"; The Breeders - "Bang On"