2008: Top 25 Albums

First posted 1/8/2021.

Dave’s Music Database: Top Albums of 2008

Based on a combination of year-end lists and overall status in Dave’s Music Database, these are the top 25 albums of 2008: Taylor Swift Fearless Lady Gaga The Fame Coldplay Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends Kings of Leon Only by the Night Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend Portishead Third Lil Wayne Tha Carter III Beyoncé I Am…Sasha Fierce Adele 19 Jack Johnson Sleep Through the Static TV on the Radio Dear Science Duffy Rockferry Metallica Death Magnetic MGMT Oracular Spectacular Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus (composers) Mamma Mia! soundtrack Erykah Badu New Amerykah Pt. 1: 4th World War T.I. Paper Trail Shery Crow Detours R.E.M. Accelerate John Mellencamp Life, Death, Love and Freedom Elbow The Seldom Seen Kid Kanye West 808’s & Heartbreak Nickelback Dark Horse Resources and Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: “Other Year-End Album Awards”

Beyoncé hit #1 with “Single Ladies”

Last updated 1/29/2021.

Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) Beyoncé

Writer(s): Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Terius "The-Dream" Nash, Thaddis Harrell, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (see lyrics here) Released: October 12, 2008 First Charted: October 25, 2008 Peak: 14 US, 13 RR, 16 A40, 112 RB, 7 UK, 2 CN, 5 AU (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 5.0 US, 0.6 UK, 7.7 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.5 radio, 765.0 video, -- streaming

Awards: (Click on award for more details).

About the Song: With “Single Ladies” Beyoncé gave the world “a dance craze that requires little more than the deployment of jazz hands with a wrist twist.” NPR’09 It helped that the song was accompanied by a “stunning, iconic black and white video” AB’00 which featured Beyoncé and two other dancers. It was famously lampooned on Saturday Night Live by Justin Timberlake and launched more than a few parodies on YouTube. Rapper Kanye West thought it so worthy of attention that he infamously interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video at the Video Music Awards to tell the world so. With a message “as complicated as half a decade of psychotherapy,” TM the song captured the persona of Beyoncé as a woman “who won’t settle for less than the best.” TM She “sounds like a total pro: contained, on-message,” NPR’09 as she issues “her definitive statement for ladies stuck in limbo with a dude who can’t commit.” RS’09 Musically, “Single Ladies” “encapsulates the lessons pop songs have picked up from hip-hop: that a great beat and a great voice can carry a lot of weight, that a slightly sour sound (the little electronic swoop that keeps tugging at the song’s fringe) can make everything else sweeter, that looping your audience into a hook is a great idea.” TM The song also established The-Dream and Tricky Stewart as “the premier pop songwriters and producers of the late 2000s” NPR’09 and even let Beyoncé “stake a claim to the title Queen of Pop,” NPR’09 even if the likes of Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry were waiting in line to swipe it from her. Resources and Related Links: Beyoncé’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry ID Idolator.com (11/23/09) NPR’s Songs of the Decade from Boy Bands to “Single Ladies”. By Becky Bain. RS’09 Rolling Stone (12/9/09). “Songs of the Decade” (12/9/09). TM Time magazine (10/24/2011). “All Time 100 Songs”