First of all, let's shed a tear for the death of the VHS. Burbank's Distribution Video Audio, the last big videotape game in town, announced that they're done. Which means whatever they have left they're throwing out. Bye Bye old buddy.

Now to the lists.

Everyone has lists this time of year, everyone backloads their favs and the overlooked in one last attempt to shed some glory on that album, that book, that performance or that story that was out there those past 12 months. 

I say, Good for them. In times of trouble as we are going through now, we all need to learn a bit more list making to remember what's important. In times of high rated mediocrities as dominate our screens of late, we all could make a list or two or five to recall that which is exceptional.

But we all need a bargain; we all need a deal so here are five for the price of one. That's right, the Top 5 isn't just the five, it is five separate lists of acclaim and achievement, some dubious, some not, for 2008. And unlike many Best of lists, these ones are truly at the tail end of what has seemed like a very long year

You want the best? You got it! You want the worst? You got that too! You want the tunes, the walk-ons and the King of all he surveys? You are so in luck because they are all here. 

Best Albums of 2008

Check out the best albums of 2008 by clicking here. And don't forget, last minute Christmas shoppers, you can get the Pop Goes Examiner iMix right here as well - which is very intergalactic punk rock hip hop. Very. 

Best Cameos of 2008

Was that who I thought it was? It just might have been. Who were the best Cameos of 2008? Click here to find out. And Yes, Mr. Tom Cruise, Gov. Sarah Palin and Mr. Samuel L. Jackson, among surprising others - we need you back in make-up pronto! Click here to discover more and don’t blink!

Worst of 2008

Ready to hold your nose and wandering into the Pop Culture quicksand sewage? Then click here and check out the worst of the worst of the year from Twilight the movie to Britney Spears to Scott Weiland, to Starbucks and Gwyneth Paltrow

2008's Person of the Year 

Who is the Pop Culture Person of the Year? Is it Barack Obama? No actually it isn't. Obama is supernova hot but when it comes to an on going and blockbuster current hold on Pop Culture, he still has a few Tricky Dicky tripe pointers to learn from the pro. Click here to discover the Pop Culture Person of the Year, the once and future Champ.

And now, without any further ado, the all time Best of the Best of 2008. This is for those who play at NBA level, this is those who put in their 110% this year. Oh, let's drop the clichés, even in jest, this is simply the Best of Pop Culture in 2008. The best of the bestest, the top of the toppermost, as John Lennon would say - 

1. Barack Obama - Like it wasn't obvious? The man changed the world, his election took the wind out of the sails of those who wish to wage terror on America and ended one of the terribly remaining barriers in our national obsession with race. In a time of crisis after crisis, he brings hope and action. In a year of OK, the endless parade of merchandise commemorating our soon to be-44th President is treading the boards from gauche to just gross, but it will fade and the historical nature of Barack Obama's election to the Presidency will resonate for generations to come. This was the year that America reinvigorated the Dream again for itself and the world. People have said, Obama himself has said that his is a story and a success that could only happen in America. Unlike most hyperboles, it is true. True in so many ways beyond the color of his skin, but no less true in any of them. Soon he'll take the oath and then the dream of the hope and Yes We Cam will become a reality of compromises and confrontations as every Presidency must become in a great democracy. But that's to come. Right now, every time I see that HOPE poster and now TIME cover by Shepard Fairey and every time I hear a line from or a TV clip of that speech on race that Obama gave in the City of Brotherly Love, it reminds us of that other man from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. In his first inaugural, the Great Emancipator spoke of "the better angels of our nature." This year in this election, we saw them flying over us again.

Check out more of Dominic Patten’s coverage of Barack Obama, including his show stopping acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver here

2. Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew - Two of the most overused expressions in contemporary critical writing have to be either a confirmation or contradiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald's assertion that there are no second acts in American life and that something is either a car accident you can't look away from or an accident waiting to happen. And then there is this televised confessional biscuit from VH-1 I started out on this casually early in the year, an episode here, an episode there. Soon I was on the hard stuff and cruising the web looking for episodes to download. A friend got almost the whole first season and we locked up in my house for a weekend mainlining the G-level celebs, their families and their addiction issues. Crazy Town lea singer Seth Binzer, Brigitte "the ex-Mrs. Stallone" Nielsen, a very creepy Daniel Baldwin, and UFC Champ Ricco Rodriguez all bled and cried as they tried to sweat their demons out. But it was Jeff Conaway, of Taxi and Grease fame, who stole the show with his tantrums, his back pains, his Keith Richards-lit approach and his determination to crawl right back where he came from that hit the main vein. And that was Season One. 

Then, flushed with some success and a lot of fame, Dr. Drew Pinsky, who needs to work on his scheduling skills I think, was back for more in late October with Season Two. This time former Guns'N'Roses drummer Steve Adler, Rodney King, 80s rock video vixen Tawny Kitaen and Gary Busey were in treatment. Some watch to see if Dr Drew could handle the flameouts. Some watch for the return of both Conaway and Binzer, two guys who treat rehab like a revolving door. Some unabashedly watch for former crack addict and therapeutic nurse Shelly Others watched this season for model Amber Smith. They didn't simply watch, as a number of my heterosexual female friends informed me because the former model is, well, a former model, but because with her hard fall from grace to near poverty and her overly addled and downright cruel mother, she stoically went through the ringer. Celebrity Rehab was the lowest and the highest, no pun intended, of the unreality of reality TV. It was organized pain and suffering and in a fame obsessed culture it was truth and consequence. And it was amazing TV as the inmates turned out, on both sides of the gates, to be running the asylum. No wonder there's a Sober House spin off debuting on January 15, 2009. Make mine a double.

3. Wall-E - It's hard to recognize greatness when you are watching animation, an art that rarely receives the respect it deserves, and being so thoroughly entertained. It is hard but with the stunningly deft and dedicated tale of the last surviving Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class robot, with a taste for musicals, that could you just couldn't see it. This is what it was like to be sitting in a theatre watching Pulp Fiction in 1994 or The Godfather in 1972 or the controversial Birth of a Nation in 1915 - you were seeing something you'd never seen before. I loved Wendy and Lucy, staring Michelle Williams, but watching Wall-E you felt the screen tremble as a something so new it remains rightfully nameless was being born. Call it a computer animated science fiction comedy romance it you want, but Pixar's Wall-E is truly what the best of cinema can be. It isn't just the great film of 2008, it is one of the greatest films ever made. 

Want more Wall-E? Check out the official site here

4. Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Sh** Gold  - After years toiling in Minneapolis' hip hop underground and earning a cult name for themselves and a place on all the best mixes, in 2008 frontman Slug and his partner and producer Ant challenged not just Eminem for the best white rapper in the world title, but everyone else for best rapper period. Since the release of 2005's You Don't Know How Much Fun We're Having, the duo have been touring like mad, talking to their fans on YouTube and sliding out EPs and download all the time. That amazingly enough was just priming the pump. Their sixth album was the one where all the skills, idiosyncrasies, experiments, melodies and introspective storytelling techniques came to fruition. Not to mention a top 5 Billboard debut. Perhaps you bought one of the only 25,000 Special Edition Deluxe versions of the album, perhaps you just downloaded it or even bought it in a store, doesn't matter once the bounce of songs like "You" and the light homeless delight of "The Waitress"  kicked in. When Life Gives You ... proved that those who say hip hop is dead just don't have the taste to listen to the right records. If you saw Atmosphere live this year, with a full band, you would have experience the fun and flavor of their karaoke set where, instead of having an opening act, they invited people onstage to sing their tunes with them. That, my friends, is all about the giving back, with wit and style.

Check out Atmosphere unplugged here.

5. Sarah Palin - What is there to say to capture the blast from Alaska that invigorated the Presidential race in 2008 and has energized the Republican Party for 2012? Umm, you didn't see here coming? Doesn't cut it anymore buddy. If you think Governor Sarah Palin, shamefully only the second woman in American history to be on a major national party ticket, is done with seeking the highest offices in the land, you couldn't skin a moose or see Russia from your house to save your life. Tina Fey mocked her too well, so well that Palin had to show up herself to show the 30 Rock star how good good is, most of the media dismissed the former Beauty Pageant contestant as Caribou Barbie, but the electoral appeal of one of America's most popular Governors was summed up wonderfully by Rush Limbaugh when the radio host said "Sarah Palin: babies, guns, Jesus. Hot damn!" She won the Senate special election in Georgia for the GOP in late November, she easily weathered the attacks from those in McCain campaign who wanted to pin the defeat on here, she dominated both the GOP Governor's conference and the meeting the Governor's had with the President-Elect. You think all that is not going to run in 2012? Let me give you some real Northern Exposure - even more, making history for the second time, she might win. 

Read more from Dominic Patten on Governor Sarah Palin's 2012 Campaign here

6. Slumdog Millionaire - It's been on everyone Best of Lists and why not? The Danny Boyle directed film about the suspiciously wise boy who appears on the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? is simply the best of Bollywood, the best Hollywood, and, among the widespread praise the film has received, a massive fresco of modern India that also functions as a riveting love story. Could Slumdog clean up at the Golden Globes as the character of Jamal Malik did in the film on Kaun Banega Crorepati? In a just world, Yes!

7. Roku Netflix box - So often, the promise of technology seems to outpace the performance of the machines. I know what I want my phone, my laptop, my fridge, my car, my this, my that to do, why can't it? Or why is it so hard to get it to do it right even when it can do it? Then there are devices shoot the opening salvo of the revolution. The iPod was one. The Blackberry was another. Currently costing $99 plus a Netflix subscription, the Roku Netflix box is another. You set it up, it connects to your Wi-Fi and within minutes you have access to over 12,000 streaming movies and TV shows for as often and as long as you like. One day when future generations wondered when we stopped renting or buying DVDs, when we stopped having to line up at overpriced and smelly theaters to see movies on opening night and we took true consumer control of our entertainment choices, they will know it was the day the Roku Netflix box showed up. Turns out that the revolution will be televised.

8. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City - Earlier this year, I got in a lot of trouble with some by proclaiming the Great American Novel dead. I stand by what I said to Albany's Metroland (You can read the whole article by clicking here) not simply about the death of the Great American Novel and the forthcoming death of the Great American Movie but also how the fourth game in Rockstar Games' amoral, uncompromising and irresolvable Grand Theft Auto series is truly the Great American Video Game. This is the New York City where only a great rain could wash all the scum off the street and then only for a few hours. Walk, wander, drive and destroy the streets of Liberty City with the newly arrived Niko Bellic and live the Great American Dream or at least the highly creatively constructed underbelly of it.

9. Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World - No flourish, no vampires, no magic making bespectacled children, no great men of history, just the story of a stray cat found in the returned books bin and the town of Spencer Iowa that came to love him for almost 20 years. The book is by Vicki Myron, with Bret Witter, the librarian who found the yet unnamed Dewey, who eventually got his moniker from the Dewey Decimal System, and professionally adopted him. Unlike Marley & Me, this book is not actually that uplifting, it's actually quite sad as the tribulations both Dewey and the town go through reveal, but it is about love. The love of a pet. The love of friends and family. The love of a community. All you need is Love, the Beatles once sang. Dewey purred the same tune and as you stay up late reading his saga you will too.

10. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War - the Great American Novel may be dead, but the Great American story isn't. In that narrative, few episodes in the nation's history pull back the covers so well as the Civil War. It's an era fought over, recreated, actualized and analysised by historians, politicians and enthusiasts almost as much as the great battles of the war themselves. Almost, but not quite. Because that is history and the war was a cause, a political movement - keeping the Union together -that became a moral one – with the emancipation of the slaves and Reconstruction. Like all wars, and more than any in American history, there was death, stinking piles of endless death. Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering sees the 620,000 dead soldiers bodies and the millions more broken and maimed in body and soul by the war in those piles and the character in the corpses whose blood soaks the battlefields. In our age of war and terror, these voices speak to us with a resonance we do well to listen to.

And some very honorable mentions - 

Sons Of Anarchy - In cable and network TV's relentless search for the next Sopranos, the fictional Charming, California's Sam Crow certainly gets the motor running. FX's biker gang and family Hamlet-based drama has the betrayal, the bitterness, and all the other stuff that breaks bones, sheds tears and keeps you watching week after week. Just like Tony's New Jersey crime family, the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original captures the entire spectrum of the modern American family in a Shakespearean cloak, plus they have some fine tattoos.  Season One is over, let Season Two begin before we get too far down the road.

Erykah Badu - Never easily catorgorized, never much for playing by the rules, and, with the release this past February of New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), never to be underestimated or under appreciated, Ms. Badu is exactly what can make music exciting. One step on her journey is most people's final destination and as she displayed in her recordings and on tour this year, Erykah Badu is putting one foot in front of the other all the time.

Man on Wire - It shouldn't work, the film or the plan. But it does. This documentary about Philippe Petit, a wire walking obsessive Frenchman, and his band of studiously prepared misfits takes you over 30 years back in time and, in some ways, to another world. The film centers around Petit, who, the day before Richard Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974, walked out 1,350 feet above the streets of New York City and began to travel across a wire from one tower of the World Trade Center to the next. That is the journey and the destination, but getting there and reaching it, results, in the hands of director James Marsh and amazing archival footage, an absolutely magic movie. A testament to both the power of a dream and the backdrop of a New York now gone tragically now gone.

That’s it folks.    Soon, it will be 2009. It will have to be quite the year to outdo 2008 - it just might!