My favorite album of 2008

This time of year begins everyone's chiming in to say what their favorite album of the year is. Unfortunately, generally I am pretty slow on the draw as far as getting albums and will wait to find them used and therefore I rarely feel I can hold an opinion on the subject. HOWEVER...that's also usually because there wasn't a clear winner for me, and this year is different.

This year Lisa Hannigan, best known as the female vocalist on Damien Rice's albums, released her first solo album. I had been waiting for it for years. Most people who like Rice's work wondered why such a talent as Hannigan was simply a backing vocalist for someone else. Her album, Sea Sew, was released only in the UK though. This drove me nuts, despite knowing it would eventually be released in the U.S. (the release date for the US is scheduled for January 20th), but knowing it was out there, and having heard some of the tracks on her MySpace made me a bit desperate. I had to order the over-priced import. The album is everything I hoped it would be. It's sweet and quiet, and there's a touch of the Lisa Hannigan silliness at times too.

You can hear the beautiful closing ballad of the album in this YouTube video that has footage of Lisa and her crew in the studio making the album: