The You Wildin' Top Sixty Songs of 2008: 57-55

57)Surkin- White Knight Two
Surkin will likely be on a few more of these lists in 2009, much closer to the top. He is on the up and up, and with clean electro-house like this, it is not hard to see why. Great timing and tension and release, and good use of a vocal sample combine with a wide range of retro synths. If I only had one phrase I could use to describe White Knight Two, it would be "overwhelmingly sexy disco from another galaxy far away but strikingly similar to ours, in a time far off in the future, which borrowed a lot of culture from 1977." yeah.

56) Adele- Crazy for You
I was shocked when I finished this list and had two Adele tracks on it. But, fuck can she sing... like nobody's business. Crazy for You is simple, soft, and breathtakingly beautiful.

55) Johnson and Johnson- Hold on John
After some convincing by Strats, I gave Blu and his go to producer Mainframe (the two collectively go by the name Johnson and Johnson) another listen. And I found this gem. A lot of us grew up on conscious rap, and this is very close to a perfect, introspective conscious hip hop song. The beat is def sample heavy, but I think that doing anything other than looping John Lennon's original would have been less appropriate. Besides, the instrumental is an ideal compliment to Blu's smooth voice, and smart, concise lyrics. A bit cheesy, but who cares?
Here is the link. Johnson & Jonson - Hold on John If anyone knows how to put a Hypem player on a blog, holler at me.