Here are the Observer’s top albums of 2008. It’s an eclectic list and includes everthing from Kanye West, Malian folk music, Kings of Leon abd Elbow. It also includes MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular which was played in every house party, club and festival I went to in 2008. In fact I can’t listen to Kids without feeling tired and drunk and a little unsteady.

The Yamaha Tenori-On Music Constructor is such a funky looking device, it’s no wonder that Little Boots (who is feted to be the next best thing) uses one. But she’s not the only one. There is a Japanese band appropriately called The Tenorions whose whole raison d’être is playing the digital music creator.

The Japanese are always about a 100 years ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to technology so it makes sense that they already have a dedicated Tenori-on groups whilst we just have Little Boots experimenting in her bedroom.

But take my word for it, here are The Tenorions, bizarrely, performing on The Paul O Grady show. Their cover of Hello Dolly is simply amazing as is Paul O’Grady’s baseball cap.

Sonic State

Britney’s been in the UK this weekend, performing Womanizer on X Factor on Saturday. The performance was pretty lacklustre as she mimed along and just went through the motions with the dance routine. It wasn’t as bad as her 2007 VMA performance where she was listlessly stomped round the stage, like a confused lion in a cage. Having someone of Britney’s calibre on ITV on a Saturday is astounding, so I can forgive the below-par performance.

If the songs on Circus are anywhere near the quality of Womanizer this album is sure to be of a high quality. The whole concept behind the album also seems to be highly polished with Britney playing the part of the circus ringleader with a top hat and hot pants. Hot pants aren’t the typical ringleader attire but it’s Britney so she’s allowed. Although Blackout, Britney’s last album was impressive all the drama that surrounded her at that time overshadowed it. Now she has cleaned up her act, all the focus is going to be on her as an arist not just as tabloid fodder.

The title of Guns N’ Roses final album was startlingly prescient. The impossible dream of Chinese Democracy was almost as impossible as believing this album could ever actually be released. It has taken 14 years for it finally to be released since the band started working on it in 1994.

To paraphrase the old adage you wait ages for a Gun N’ Roses album then 3 comes along at once. Chinese Democracy is the start of a triology of album that will be completed in 2012. 3 albums in 3 years, slightly more productive than 1 in 14.

Aptly titled Circus, is Britney’s sixth album after the much neglected Black Out which contained Piece of Me a complex post-modern pop song that unpicked the nature of modern celebrity in under 3 minutes. Interesting fact, Britney was offered the grossly successful Umbrella to sing before Rihanna. Rumour goes the production team rung her up and offered it to her but she was too drunk, high, whatever to return the call so they gave it to the tiny Barbadian. It probably wouldn’t have been such a hit with Britney’s slurred vocals and irregular dancing.

That rumour goes to show how far Britney has come in the last 2 years. She is once again releasing best-selling singles and pulling off amazingly choreographed dance routines. Remember the VMAs where she listlessly stomped around the stage to general dismay. Womanizer the standout track from Circus is like old Britney, the Britney from Toxic days. There is a similar synthy, dance-pop feeling to both songs, both videos even include naked Britneys. In Toxic her modesty covered (barely) by lots of diamantes, in Womanizer she is as bare as God intended rolling round a sauna.

1st of December is the day when Circus is released and teenage girls the world over can start practising their made-up dance routines and singing along to  the innapropriate adult-themed lyrics.

“You get a sample, loop it, ask somebody to shout “throw your hands up in the sky” over the top and that’s 80 per cent of it right there”.

Kanye West certainly seems to be bored with hip-hop as a genre, which goes a long way to explaining the radical departure with ‘808s and Heartbreak,’ his fourth studio album. Eschewing the grandiose orchestral soundscapes and conscious lyrics that catapaulted him to superstar status on ‘Graduation’, Kanye sees himself as able to transcend rap entirely, creating a new musical style he has branded “Pop Art” in the process.

This is the inner turmoil common to producers-turned-performers. Coming into the industry from a perspective of creating good music first causes their creativity to run amok once they are making it on their own terms. Does this result in better music, or just more self-indulgent?

With Kanye, this new aural style manifests itself as harsh, imposing drum loops (created on an 808 analogue synthesiser) drenched in pop overtones, with verbal dexterity placed to one side to turn his hand to crooning with the aid of Autotune.

Despite making both Cher and T-Pain (ask your daughter) millionaires overnight, vocal enhancements via this device has led to derision in the music industry at large, as formerly hardcore rappers attempt to warble melodic choruses with varying degrees of awfulness.

With this album due for release in late November, there is no rapping, save for two guest verses courtesy of Lil’ Wayne and Young Jeezy. All of the rest is digitally tuned and distorted to perfection.

As a hip-hop artist who convinced the world to become interested in rap music, Kanye West is probably the only person who can take vocal remodelling, 80s retro grooves and a unique taste in clothes and bring it straight into 2008.

With 808s & Heartbreak we will discover whether it is a remix too far, or if he convinces everyone to move to a new beat once again.