Blender's 1001 Downloads: The 33 Best Albums of 2008

25. Santogold, Santogold
Santi White’s career path as a punk singer, record exec and songwriter for Ashlee Simpson all combine in Santogold. A black Brooklyn hipster who loves ’80s music and warbles like an art student schtupping a lemur, White is often compared to her pal M.I.A., which undersells her originality. This debut hopscotches from R&B to indie rock like a Friday-night bar crawl in Awesometown; all she needs is her own Pineapple Express trailer to set her off.
Download “Lights Out,” “L.E.S. Artistes,” “You’ll Find a Way (Switch and Sinden Remix)”

26. Usher, Here I Stand
Huh? Usher, whose great topic has been sweet, sweet infidelity, devotes an LP to … monogamy? Newly married, he approached Here I Stand as a wedding gift (he sang the title track to Mrs. Usher on their big day). But matrimony doesn’t have to end kinkiness. He bangs his lady in public on “Love in This Club,” then plays the girl in a naughty role swap on “Trading Places.” With the agonized “Moving Mountains,” his accomplishment is even greater—he makes relationship trouble as enthralling as a one-night stand.
Download “Trading Places,” “Moving Mountains,” “Love in This Club”

27. Mariah Carey, E=MC2
Mimi went to R. Kelly School! Here she is, videotaping sex on “Touch My Body”; hankering for a key in her ignition on “I’m That Chick”; cribbing a Da Nang hooker’s catchphrase on “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time”—goodbye butterfly, hello freak. And that’s only part of her grooming: She’s shorn her lines of melismatic paroxysms, favoring clipped, bouncy phrasing and staccato, minimal beats. It’s her sleekest, sultriest record yet.
Download “Migrate,” “Touch My Body,” “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time”

28. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Real Emotional Trash
On his fourth and finest solo CD, the one-time slacker prince of ’90s indie rock unleashes the flat-out guitar album he’s been promising since the demise of Pavement. Malkmus evidently wasn’t being ironic about the magnitude of his love for obscure Swedish psychedelic bands—this album should come with a lava lamp and a skull bong. He delivers the breezy ballads that have become his specialty, but the show-stoppers are guitar raves “Elmo Delmo” and “Baltimore,” which ramble on into freak-jam territory without any hint of virtuosity to spoil the laughs.
Download “Dragonfly Pie,” “Elmo Delmo,” “Baltimore”

29. Raphael Saadiq, The Way I See It
You could spring for the 10-CD Motown Collection or volume 10 of The Complete Motown Singles, both issued this year, both big enough to crush a muskrat. But R&B singer Raphael Saadiq has lovingly distilled Motown into a finger-snapping disc that breeds the sweetness of Smokey Robinson with the bounce of the Supremes. “C’mon Stevie,” Saadiq calls and Stevie Wonder plays his breezy harmonica. Everything should be that easy.
Download “100 Yard Dash,” “Sure Hope You Mean It,” “Calling”