2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009
Every year I try to identify the songs I’ll keep listening to forever. Here are the songs that resonated with me most in 2018. You can find the extended playlist, with another 20 or so songs, right here on Spotify.
25. “Nice for What,” Drake. A New Orleans bounce confection that manages to marry Big Freedia, a Miseducation-era Lauryn Hill sample, and a healthy distrust for social media. Paying his respects to a girl who has worked for everything she’s got, Drake is at his winningest.
24. “Rank & File,” Moses Sumney. Over a sinister beat that recalls a military march, Moses Sumney excoriates the US culture of police brutality and the chillingly automatic way it seems to operate around the country. As potent as it is patient.
23. “Womp Womp,” Valee feat. Jeremih. A completely ridiculous nursery rhyme of a rap that includes Jeremih’s assertions that he is both on the come up (woo) and balled so hard that he “bagged [a girl] at the Walmart.” I can’t stop listening in spite of myself.
22. “A No No,” Mariah Carey. Late-period Mariah is more miss than hit, but “A No No” sounds like an instant addition to her greatest-hits collection. Singing sweetly over a Lil Kim beat, Mariah tells off her man in no uncertain terms. Terms that include the now immortal phrase “irregardless of what transpired,” which would have been my vote for the four words least likely to ever appear in a Mariah Carey song.
21. “Make Me Feel,” Janelle Monae. Four albums in, I can’t shake the feeling that Monae has underperformed expectations. She’s clearly a world-class talent — but at what, exactly? This year’s Dirty Computer didn’t really answer the question, but it did give us her best song to date. “Make Me Feel” might be an unabashed Prince ripoff, but it’s also a perfect showcase for Monae’s theatrical vamping.
20. “Moon River,” Frank Ocean. It feels a little early in Ocean’s career to release an album of songs from the American songbook, but with this pitch-perfect, earth-moving cover, he suggests he would move a lot of units. (See also: how to make a Frank Ocean song.)
19. “Mr. Tillman,” Father John Misty. Father John’s oppressive self-awareness pays off with this hilarious third-person account of the singer stumbling through his hotel, high as kite, convinced that his fellow guests are extras in a movie running lines. A patient manager tries to persuade him not to sleep on his mattress on the balcony, but Tillman is dismissive: “I’m living on a cloud of an island in my mind.” Sounds nice!
18. “High Five,” Sigrid. With a monster chorus behind her, Sigrid tackles the extremely niche problem of popular musicians who don’t realize that they are surrounded by sycophants. I don’t know why she would bother writing a song about this, but it goes great on a workout mix.
17. “Easy Enough,” Pinegrove. After a year in exile, Pinegrove returned this year with the quiet, careful Skylight. Like “Angelina” before it, “Easy Enough” is study in how Evan Stephens Hall builds whole worlds in miniature. In barely two minutes, Hall rattles off an improbable series of hooks — while chronicling the anxiety that occasionally keeps him bedridden. Very few bands work better at lengths this short.
16. “My! My! My!” Troye Sivan. Years & Years’ sophomore record this year was mostly a disappointment, leaving it to a former YouTuber from South Africa to deliver 2018’s greatest twink anthem. “Let’s stop running from love,” Troye sings, as if I am not sitting right here waiting for him to DM me!
15. “Me & My Dog,” boy genius. Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus teamed up this year as boygenius, a kind of haunted modern-day reincarnation of Wilson Phillips. Their EP is a glorious bummer from start to finish, but nothing on it burns with quite the intensity of this power ballad.
14. “Believe,” Amen Dunes. Like most of the songs on this year’s Freedom, “Believe” is so unassuming that it might take a couple dozen listens before you realize you’re in love. Part of it is that the looping blues riff that gives the song its power doesn’t emerge for a full two minutes; part of it is that the song more or less transforms into something completely different after another two minutes. Elliptical and mysterious.
13. “Suspirium,” Thom Yorke. The piano ballad Yorke wrote for the “Suspiria” soundtrack is one of his best solo songs ever: stately, luminous, and achingly sad. Who knows what any of it means — Yorke is an elusive lyricist — but the song’s last two words find him in an unusual place: “at peace.”
12. “Stay,” Cat Power. Chan Marshall’s, er, power to transform a song has been evident ever since she infused the Rolling Stones’ immortal “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” with animal yearning. On this year’s Wanderer, she stripped down Rihanna’s “Stay” and invested it with quiet despair, delivering one of 2018′s very best vocal performances.
11. “thank u, next,” Ariana Grande. In this wayward moment, when a pop song can seem like little more than an advertisement for a star’s Instagram account, Grande delivered a classic. Drawing from her personal life in a way guaranteed to generate maximum exposure, she smuggled in a gorgeous little lesson about grief, gratitude, and forgiveness. Everything about this song, down to the comma in the title and its lowercase punctuation, feels perfect to me.
10. “Honey,” Robyn. Robyn made us wait eight years for her follow-up to Body Talk, for which I will never forgive her. But the title track of Honey showed off the exquisite (and still underrated) craftsmanship that Robyn brings to her pop. At once ethereal and refined, pulsating and hushed, “Honey” announces Robyn’s overdue return to the club with sublime finesse.
9. “Break-Thru,” Dirty Projectors. Bitte Orca was my favorite record of 2010, and ever since I have hoped that Dave Longstreth would return to the sonically adventurous pop he made in that era. This year’s Lamp-Lit Prose very much feels like a sequel to that record, down to the intentionally similar cover art. And if it can’t quite match Bitte Orca on the whole, it comes close on the marvelously off-kilter “Break-Thru.” A glittery, skittering guitar line shines amid a sea of distorted feedback, harmonica notes, and Longstreth’s giddy ode to a new girlfriend. Stillness is no longer the move.
8. “Look of Love,” Hop Along. No indie record brought me as much contentment this year as Hop Along’s Bark Your Head Off, Dog, which took a jumble of minor chords and wounded howls and transmuted them into supremely catchy folk-rock. Nowhere is that more the case than on the reedy harmonies of “Look of Love,” in which Frances Quinlan reminisces about her childhood as the music around her expands and contracts. A song that remains unpredictable no matter how many times I listen to it.
7. “Pitch or Honey,” Neko Case. According to Spotify, there’s no song I listened to more this year than the final track on this year’s Hell-On. It’s a song about songwriting in which Case considers her work from a distance — before it all cracks open two and a half minutes in, and becomes a kind of glorious alt-country affirmation. “The only thing that makes me smile is to remember / That I'm beloved of the wild,” she sings at the end. Case finds refuge in nature; I find it in her voice.
6. “Future Me Hates Me,” the Beths. A lavish, unapologetic throwback to 90s alternative rock reminiscent of my favorite song of last year, Charly Bliss’ “Glitter.” “Future Me Hates Me” sounds like Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell fronting Belly; in reality it’s a four-piece led by Kiwi songwriter Elizabeth Stokes. The song uses one of my absolute favorite pop-song tracks: spinning up an original second chorus that plays in counterpoint to the original chorus at the end of the song. Those final ooh-ooh-oohs will have anybody singing along.
5. “Before You Called Me Baby,” Caitlyn Smith. An old-fashioned country barn burner that — and I mean this as a compliment! — sounds like an American Idol audition song. It’s also an incredible vehicle for Caitlyn Smith, who builds patiently to the climax and then promptly sings the lights out.
4. “Duck Duck Goose,” CupcakKe. Not since Run the Jewels’ shock-rap masterpiece “Love Again (Akinyele Back”) have I fallen so head over heels with something so unrepentantly vulgar. Chicago rapper CupcakKe has more metaphors for sex and the human anatomy that seems possible, and she uses every last one of them on “Duck Duck Goose.” The song is so funny that it might take you a while to realize how inventive CupcakKe is. Mini-hooks and refrains that a lesser artist might save for another track or 10 are introduced and immediately discarded; it’s as if someone has told CupcakKe that this is the first and only song she will ever be allowed to record. The cumulative effect is irresistible.
3. “Fast Slow Disco,” St. Vincent. Annie Clark is so enamored with her song “Slow Disco” that she has recorded it at least three times: once as a ballad, on last year’s MASSEDUCTION; once as a piano song, on this year’s remix record MassEducation; and then here. “Fast Slow Disco” is maybe St. Vincent’s first true club anthem, and it’s bolstered by some incredible backing vocals by an artist whose identity I have tried and failed to learn all year. (Unless maybe it’s Clark herself? Listen for the soulful, heavily distorted voice singing something like “Don’t it beat a slow dance to death.”) Anyway, the whole thing was Taylor Swift’s idea! Thanks, Taylor.
2. “Sober to Death,” Car Seat Headrest. Like everything Will Toledo does, “Sober to Death” is sharply self-aware, beautifully gay, and a little bit too long. This year’s Twin Fantasy is a re-recording of an album that Toledo, now 25, first released when he was 19. “Sober to Death” is its aching centerpiece — a fragmented portrait of a troubled relationship going off the rails. The 2018 version takes what was essentially a scrappy demo and elevates it fully into the broken anthem it was meant to be. Its roller-coaster of a chorus — “hold onto the ghost of my body / You know that good lives make bad stories / You can text me when punching mattresses gets old” — is my favorite of the year.
1. “Pristine,” Snail Mail. 17-year-old Lindsey Jordan has broken up with her girlfriend, and she’s more or less convinced that she will never love again. No song I heard this year grew on me more — burrowed further under my skin — than “Pristine,” in which Jordan moves from quiet self-pity to anguished bargaining with her ex. Sometimes I listen to this song and I want to hug Jordan and tell her that everything will be OK; other times I become 17 again and shout out the chorus along with her. There is so much to love here — the precocious guitar work; the outrageous sincerity of the bridge; the way she finishes the whole thing by snarling “I’ll still love you the same.” During a year in which everything seemed to be hurtling to some sort of untimely end, “Pristine” offered me regular reassurance that beautiful and strange new things were still just beginning.
jacobvanloon
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
izzy806
2087
prguitarman
areudirty
origamiaround