As promised. I've been very out of the loop, albums-wise. Last year, most of my free listening time (meaning when I wasn't listening for the purpose of writing a piece) was taken up by albums; now it's taken up by singles-etc. I really have gotten into writing It's a Hit in a big way; in a sense, I spend far more time listening to stuff for it than I do anything else, and as a result I've been really lax about playing new albums. (A handful of well-regarded titles from earlier this year are still in their shrinkwrap, including Vampire Weekend.) But the ones I like I like a lot. Twenty is a pretty good number for a half-year, even if by some lights I'm cheating to do it: I did considered not including any RA Podcasts or Daytrotter Sessions (technically EPs but like the American-not-British charts anything with four songs or more on my albums lists), but I've gotten too much pleasure from a handful to do that. I think it's also notable that the Tracks list doesn't contain anything from seven of these albums, even though they're plainly excerptable. That will be rectified in the second-half-of-year tally, but still: I can't think of a more bipolar year in terms of my own listening, where albums and singles/tracks don't really meet up too much. Strange.

ALBUMS (first half of 2008)
1. Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Vol. 1: Fourth World War (Universal Motown)
2. Portishead, Third (Mercury)
3. Hercules and Love Affair (DFA/Mute)
4. Flying Lotus, Los Angeles (Warp)
5. Etran Finatawa, Desert Crossroads (Riverboat)
6. Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80 (Disorient)
7. Spoon, Daytrotter Session (Daytrotter)
8. Noze, Songs on the Rocks (Get Physical)
9. Girl Talk, Feed the Animals (Illegal Art)
10. Ellen Allien, Boogybytes Vol. 04 (Bpitch Control)
11. Todd Barry, From Heaven (Comedy Central)
12. Kalabrese, RA Podcast 89 (Resident Advisor)
13. Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis, Two Men with the Blues (Blue Note)
14. Quiet Village, Silent Movie (K7)
15. Four Tet, RA Podcast 102 (Resident Advisor)
16. Blood on the Wall, Liferz (The Social Registry)
17. Tokyo Police Club, Elephant Shell (Saddle Creek)
18. Fuse Presents Adam Beyer (N.E.W.S.)
19. Orchestra Baobab, Made in Dakar (World Circuit)
20. Alex Moulton, Exodus (Expansion Team)

Just under the cut: The Teenagers, Reality Check (Merok)
Need to listen to more: Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (New West); Robert Hood, Fabric 39 (Fabric)