#14 -- Best Songs of 2008

Fools by The Dodo's


According to everything I read about the Dodo's I wouldn't like them. But I heard this song on the Tripwire's podcast a few months ago and fell for it in the "I don't really like her but man she knows how to move her hips" kind of way.

The song doesn't come at you, rather it's there, but the drum beat is so damn intriguing that you're pulled in by it all. A cross between a fast moving locomotive and a horse, the beat never lets up even when the song is peppered with random guitar bursts and weird background vocals that seem to be more shouting than anything else.

But I come back to those drums every time I hear this song. "Fools" sounds much bigger than it actually is. And in 2008, this is a good thing. We believe that things are going to change, it won't be a 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss' situation. Rather, this is a year where we collectively decided as a country, as a society, that we wanted to be naive and to check or cynicism at the door. We wanted choose to believe, we decided that things were going to be different, even if they barely will be.

Does this song sum up 2008? Far from it, but it's the little song that could. It keeps chugging along with that enchanting beat, and solid guitar sounding like something that is much more complex than it really is. And let's face it, politically at least, 2008 was sort of like that.