Top Ten Albums of 2018 (me)

Always fun to run back through the year and remember some good music times.  Right?  I have listened to like a million albums in 2018.  Unfortunately, Spotify doesn’t list individual albums, but it did claim that I listened to 8,943 different songs on Spotify in 2018.  If you figure that the average album has like 12 songs on it, that would be 745 albums.  That is a ridiculous number, I’d guess it is lower than that for full albums, more like 300.  And not all of those were brand new.  Anyhoo, its time to run back through all of the albums released this year to see what I liked the most.  Honestly, I need to work this up as I go through the year, making notes of what is good all year long.  Ah well, lessons learned (and likely ignored).

A lot of the big releases in 2018 just plain sucked.  Camila Cabello and new Fall Out Boy?  Blerg.  Wait, there was a new They Might Be Giants?  Migos sucked. Jack White’s new one was weak.  Cardi B was OK.  THERE IS A NEW STRYPER ALBUM CALLED GOD DAMN EVIL!!!!!!!!  Oh, that new Arctic Monkeys.  Easily my biggest disappointment record of the year.  Shawn Mendes was surprisingly good.  Father John Misty, Kanye West, Nas, The Carters, Drake, Eminem, Florence & the Machine, Lenny Kravitz, Travis Scott, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Death Cab – loads of albums that weren’t up to snuff but should have been exciting.  The Struts was only OK.  A Perfect Circle’s album was horrible.

And I haven't really gotten to some albums as well.  I tried to at least give a quick speed run through any of the recently released new stuff (like Muse, Ice Cube, Mumford, Smashing Pumpkins) just to see if they automatically knocked my socks off and needed immediate extra listening.  So, there very well could be some stuff that sneaks through my cracks. It happens every year - a handful of great albums I listened to in 2018 were actually released in 2017, so they can’t get on this important and exclusive list.  If that Charly Bliss album had been released in 2018, it might top my list – love that disc.  Same with INHEAVEN, and Diet Cig.  Oh, and The Sherlocks.  Why do I only find these albums after the year is done!

Brandi Carlisle was great.  Car Seat Headrest was good.  Superorganism rules.  I liked David Byrne’s new one and Logic’s early 2018 release.  Oooh, I need to go back and listen to the Kasey Musgraves album more.  I love that disc.  Unknown Mortal Orchestra was a good one.  Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer was solid.  Leon Bridges.  Courtney Barnett.  Parquet Courts.  Chvches.  Pusha T.  Panic! At the Disco.  White Denim.  I liked the new Paul Simon, but it was all old songs, so I don’t think that can count.  BROCKHAMPTON.  Logic again.  Greta Van Fleet.  

Wait, the Wikipedia list of all 2018 albums doesn’t even mention two of my recent favorites – The Beths or Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever!  This list is BS!  Or Snail Mail!  F this Wikipedia BS.  Others that I loved this year that weren't listed by Wikipedia – Ruston Kelly, The Record Company, The Wombats, Shame, Manchester Orchestra, Lord Huron, Soccer Mommy.  Starcrawler.  The Decemberists.  The Vaccines.  Caitlyn Smith.  Khruangbin.  Smoke DZA was a good rap album in a year of pretty weak ones. White Denim.

Very weird thing – the world of music is so hopelessly fractured now, that this list is just plain all over the place.  At least half of the artists on this list are total nobodies that, if I mentioned them to five random people at my work, they'd probably only know Ice Cube.  Where are the massive blockbusters that are actually good?  I have purposefully avoided looking at other top ten lists at the end of this year, so I don't get an influence on my own list, but I'm super curious to see if there are consensus picks this year.  Doesn't feel like there will be.

1.  Kasey Musgraves - Golden Hour.  

I heard "Slow Burn" again on the radio the other day and felt like I needed to melt.  You know I love Beck, and so combining Musgraves' voice with a purely note-for-note Beck sound gives it to me coming and going.  And then the rest of the album bounces around to weird disco-funk, straight country, and longing indie love songs that could melt the Grinch's heart.  Love it.  Going to see her in March and am very much looking forward to it.

2. BROCKHAMPTON - iridescence.   

Weird that my top rap album is a super weird, non-traditional one like this, but whatever.  The heart loves what it loves, amiright?  My most listened-to artist of the year, and I saw them play three different shows, so it makes complete sense that I want this one at the top of my list.  This album gives you two sides - aggressive, pure rap but also tender, confessional feelings in song and rap together.  These guys are wild.

3. The Beths – Future Me Hates Me.  

I get it, I'm just stuck in the Buzz Bin of the 90's, unable to launch out into the modern musical landscape and content to cuddle up in the comfortable fuzz of my coming-of-age music.  Yeah, so?  This stuff is highly entertaining.  "Happy Unhappy," "Uptown Girl," "Future Me Hates Me," "Whatever," the songs are all great pop rock pleasures.  I want to listen to the album again right now.

4. Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel.  

Although this one was not as good as her first album, I still think the songwriting is amazing and the guitarwork is good.  "Nameless Faceless" has bothered me for a while, the general message of ladies avoiding getting murdered if they walk at night (while guys are bummed about getting made fun of online).  But there are good grooves and excellent lyrics all over here.

5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Sex & Food.

Psych rock thrashing on some tunes, bouncing, poppy funk on others, these guys rock and roll.  While it missed the mark on my wife, I loved their show this summer and have been jamming this album pretty religiously - two tracks were in my five most listened-to Spotify songs for the year.

6. Superorganism - Superorganism.

Hilariously freaky and weird, infinitely groovy and fun, this album is like none other that I've heard this year.  Delicious.  PRAAAWWWWWWNNNNNN.

7. Chvches - Love is Dead.

Just fired this album up again, and I'm immediately caught up in it again. Its amazing, really, because I want very little to do with pure electronic music or pop, and yet this would be categorized as both and I love it.  Every song feels like a declaration that I need to make to everyone I know while standing on the roof of a building and holding my fist in the sky.  Their show at ACL was amazing.

8. Snail Mail – Lush.

Hey, man, I'm surprised as you about this one, but the more I listened to this album, the more I wanted to hear it again.  I'm apparently becoming a sucker for lady-fronted-indie-guitar bands.  "And I hope whoever it is holds their breath around you, 'cause I know I did."  Sunny but longing at the same time, and with some grand guitar fireworks.  Give it to me.  Its like a female Car Seat Headrest, and I dig it.

9. Manchester Orchestra - A Black Mile to the Surface.

Two bands with Orchestra in their name, in the same year?  Weird.  This one was definitely helped by their excellent ACL show, where I gained a new appreciation for just how hard their music is, and how great their lyrics fit in those rocked spaces.  Like a Band of Horses who can shred when necessary.

10.   Ice Cube - Everythangs Corrupt.

I know, homer pick.  But here's the thing, he's got some great beats, including a sweet bump on "That New Funkadelic" and a trap nod on "Don't Bring Me No Bag," and then tight lyrics on topical subjects, like "Arrest the President," "Everythangs Corrupt," "Good Cop, Bad Cop," or "Chase Down the Bully," which starts with audio of those shitheads in Charlottesville chanting anti-Semetic garbage.  It's not his best album ever - don't get me wrong, there is some filler in here that probably could have been left out or improved if Dre was still around cutting some beats - but it's better than 99% of the rap that came out in 2018.  And I'm a self-avowed sucker for Cube.

I had originally had the Soccer Mommy album (Clean) in there at number 10, but I listened to it some more, and while I really liked a few of the songs, it wasn't as strong as a whole.  Then I moved Starcrawler's album in there because it kind of rules - like the Breeders playing classic rock - but it wasn't as strong as Cube. I also thought long and hard about both Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Pusha T.   

Interesting observation here - six of the ten bands on this list have female lead singers.  And if Soccer Mommy or Starcrawler had elbowed their way in there over OShea, it would have been 7 of 10.  What is up with that?  A switch in my preferences, or a movement afoot in rock music in general?  I don't know, but its still kinda weird!

Now I need to go read some others Top Ten lists and see if I get some new good music from them!