With 2009 approaching faster than Usain Bolt on ten grams of speed, I felt the time was right to create a playlist that would try and sum up our music editorial this year. However, it quickly became apparent that it was a futile task – after a few hours I could only get it down to the top 208 of 2008. I was quite happy to leave it at that, and even tried to slip its epicness past the powers that be, but I was then duly informed that 11+ hours of banging music would crash our server farm and leave a million Macs orphaned for Christmas. So I relented, and brutally slashed it down to a mix of the top 28 of 2008. Sorry. As such, you shouldn't regard this mix as a popularity contest – it's more a personal recollection of how the year has played out, from the big tunes ("Shake a Fist", "A Milli", "The Bears Are Coming"), to the guilty pleasures ("Beeper", "Falling Down"), all the way through to some of the newcomers who we've helped find an audience (Lykke Li, Hudson Mohawke, A1 Bassline, Bullion etc). I have no doubt that many of you will be wondering, even cursing aloud, as to why TV on the Radio, White Williams, Zombie Zombie, Surkin, Yo Majesty, Rustie, Atlas Sound, A Place to Bury Strangers, Sebastian Tellier, Roots Manuva, Kid Cudi, Kelly Polar, Little Boots, The Cool Kids, CSS, Flying Lotus, and Jay Reatard haven’t made the cut. I wish they were all on here too. All I can say is, buy us a bigger server farm and I’ll pony up the other 180 tracks… 

Farming matters aside, 2008 has been an insanely eclectic musical ride; from our guest edited issue by Hot Chip, to world exclusive interviews with icons like Grace Jones and Madonna, all the way through to our early reports on artists like Late of the Pier, Santogold, Danja, Hercules & Love Affair, White Denim, Lykke Li, Florence & the Machine, MGMT, Little Boots, Micachu, Chairlift, and hundreds of other amazing young musicians – it just hasn’t let up for a second. Everyone at Dazed & Confused and DazedDigital.com feels extremely proud of the coverage we’ve put together over the last twelve months for you, and we look forward to doing the same in the New Year. So, on behalf of everyone at Dazed, I hope you all have a killer Christmas. Feel free to play this instead of Slade...

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