Every year I keep a running tally of the albums and songs I like, in order to better compile my inevitable year-end lists for polls like the Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop. (Do you remember all that great shit that came out in January and February? I doubt it. Best to be a responsible music nerd and write that shit down.) And every year around early December, I have to scramble to narrow down the dozens of potential winners to a sleek 10 in each category. I know, woe is me.

I seriously don’t understand these people who say they have to struggle to think of 10 releases they liked in a given year. Either they’re not paying attention, overcome with apathy, or have unbearably high standards. I mean, really? With tens of thousands of releases issued in any annum, you can’t find 10 that meet your exacting aesthetics? Huh.

Anyway, I spent much of the Snowmageddon weekend working on my top 10s for Pazz & Jop and was having a helluva time deciding what to include (because [cough] so much is at stake, one mustn’t be hasty with one’s selections). See, I’m not one of those critics who’ll just cut, paste, and rearrange Pitchfork’s favorites; I wasn’t really feeling that whole Vampire Foxes on the Radio(head) hivemindgroupthink. (I never do, for better or worse, no matter which year's consensus reality it is.)

While scanning my notebook for the things I liked in 2008, it occurred to me that although many high-quality new releases wafted through my headspace this year, I ultimately felt more strongly about reissues of old LPs (e.g., Rodriguez’s Cold Fact, David Axelrod’s Seriously Deep, Bernard Bonnier’s Casse-tête, Gal Costa’s Gal, Gas’ Nah Und Fern boxed set, Terry Riley’s The Last Camel in Paris, Yoshi Wada’s Off the Wall) and compilations that gathered esoteric music from far-flung lands (Obsession, African Scream Contest, all those Nigerian collections from Soundway, anything with Sublime Frequencies’ name stamped on it; and I’ve also heard great things about Victrola Favorites, a shellac-to-bytes excavation of 78s by Seattle’s Climax Golden Twins), and Steinski’s two-disc retrospective What Does It All Mean?

What does it all mean, indeed. Either I’m succumbing to a nostalgia for things I’ve never heard or new music isn’t as exciting as old music is to my ears these days. Or maybe it’s a combination of those things.

For years, I’ve prided myself on championing innovative new artists (and I still do); I used to hate those pundits and grouches who would complain about music nowadays not being as good as the music back in their day. But now, to a slight degree, I find myself more often siding with the curmudgeons who treasure the sounds of bygone decades. That being said, I’m just as enamored of Burial’s Untrue and Ricardo Villalobos’ Vasco as I am of the deluxe reissue of Otis Redding’s Otis Blue and LTM’s new edition of 23 Skidoo’s Seven Songs. But it is somewhat troubling to start deriving more pleasure from the past than from the present. (Again, woe is me.)

Another surprising development of 2008 (for me, anyway) was the resurgence of interesting rock releases. For several years, my year-end lists have leaned more heavily on electronic music than on rock, but this year I found myself enjoying several artists striving to redefine rock’s parameters—or at least send tremors through ye olde genre’s structural foundations and tweak its DNA. Said artists include Dominique Leone, High Places, Pit Er Pat, Fuck Buttons, Human Bell, Valet, Thank You, Power Douglas, Growing, Shit and Shine, Grampall Jookabox, the Present, the Chap, Eric Copeland (of Black Dice), Zomes, and Skeletons. Even established vets like the Howling Hex and No-Neck Blues Band went off on rewarding tangents.

I’ll tell you what kind of crazy year 2008 has been: My two favorite records were a reissue of a 1971 LP cut by Bill Cosby (uh-huh) and some LA session-cat friends and a compendium of mad ’70s funk rock from Hungary titled Well Hung: Funk-Rock Eruptions from Beneath Communist Hungary — Volume 1, curated by the British crate-digger Andy Votel.

Cosby’s Badfoot Brown & the Bunions Bradford Funeral & Marching Band really is a revelation. Here’s a snippet of a review I published in another alt weekly: “This is jazz-funk fusion with an explosive sense of purpose. It's powerful and intense enough to make one forgive Cosby for his misguidedly sweeping condemnations of hip-hop—and those dubious sweaters.” (In fact, the Dusty Groove label—which released Cosby’s album—was responsible for loads of great reissues in 2008. Its quality control has been amazing.)

As for the latter, know that anything with Andy Votel’s name on it is pure archival gold. If he suggests that, say, around four decades ago, a little communist nation produced 20 tracks of devastating brilliance, you should take his word for it. If you’re looking for fat, juicy breaks for your next hiphop joints, Well Hung will supply you generously. Who knew Hungarians were so damned funky? But beyond the world-class slaps, these groups also crafted some amazingly catchy melodies that seem simultaneously familiar and exotic, like a bunch of Iron Curtain Os Mutanteses. It’s as if these Hungarians are serving you hamburgers, but instead of cow flesh sizzling between the buns, it’s yak meat.

Well Hung sounded fantastic driving around the streets of Detroit during my last trip home, and I think, if you’ll allow some presumptuousness, that that city’s late, great hiphop producer J Dilla would be bumping it, too, were he still alive.

Anyway, once I finalize my top 10s, I’ll share them with you. Perhaps you can do the same.

Now dig this track off Well Hung.

Meteor & Demjen Ferenc- “Kivanj te is nekem szep, jo ejszakat”

And this 3-minute excerpt from Bill Cosby’s “Martin’s Funeral.”