Metacritic has finally finished tabulating the Top 30 Albums of 2008 and Madison's Pale Young Gentlemen landed on it at a healthy number 27. Metacritic aggregates the ranking scores of the most popular music websites and magazines in the country and after feeding in all of the reviews for Black Forest (Tra La La) the final score was 84. That puts PYG on the same level as Neil Young, Titus Andronicus, Black Milk, Teddy Thompson, Sam Phillips, and The Music Tapes. The score is just above B.B. King's 2008 release and just below The Hold Steady. It is the first time in the history of the metacritic website that a Madison band has landed on the top 30 (they've been keeping track since 2000), so our hats are off to one of our finest.

Jesse Russell

Co-Editor

Jesse was born and raised in Connecticut, began blogging in 1997, and moved to Madison in 2003. In 2005, he co-founded dane101 along with Kristian Knutson and Shane Wealti. In addition to helping nearly a dozen contributors run this website he's helped launch various events in the city including What's Your Damage?!, the MadPubQuiz of Awesomeness, the Fire Ball Masquerade, Dane101's Freakin' Halloweekend, and more.