I need to put some honorable mentions on here at the top because there is a lot of stuff from this year that I only very recently listened to and it’s possible that I will come back to this list later and think I totally messed it up. so here we go!
shad - a short story about a war
sophie - OIL OF EVERY PERSON’S UN-INSIDES
terror pigeon! - yucksongs 2! haley makes the cover! 2015-2017
I’m confident that the top 5 wouldn’t change but any of these could maybe have been 6-10. but I’ve only listened to them once each so idk! sorry!
10. go hibiki - at home in the dark world
it’s been some years since I sat down and listened to a new emo album and found myself hooked by it at all. I still have tons of love for my old favorites but the genre doesn’t really grab me like it used to now that I’m not a total sadboy! at home in the dark world is the first time in a while that I’ve found myself listening to an emo album over and over again. great energy, fun lyrics, and man I love this guy’s voice. ”I’m growing horns”
man... this group really pisses me off. everything about them is like it was designed in a lab to irritate me. the name of the group, pronounced “dots”, I guess, the name of this album, which, I don’t know. their debut single which was 73 minutes long and almost entirely harsh noise. but god damn is their music good to my ears. shoegaze and J-pop go so well together, it’s a wonder it took so long for someone to combine the two. just an incredibly pleasant listen from beginning to end. ”nee”
8. jukebox the ghost - off to the races
I was a little worried about this band after their last two albums! just a little! 2012′s “safe travels” was ehhh and 2014′s “jukebox the ghost” was their poppiest release yet (but still pretty damn good), and I was starting to wonder if we would ever get more of that good, bright, catchy piano rock. but here it is! the boys are back! absolutely their best work since “everything under the sun”. ”colorful”
7. kero kero bonito - time ‘n’ place
from the first ten seconds of this album, it’s clear that kkb have gone outside of their comfort zone here. drums? guitar?? in MY kero kero bonito??? it’s a really interesting sound, because this is very much a kero kero bonito album at its core. the only difference is that instead of bleeps and bloops, it’s heavily distorted, noisy guitar. there are a lot of different sounds on here, but sarah midori perry’s vocals hold the whole thing together really nicely. ”outside”
6. janelle monae - dirty computer
her first non-metropolis album since “the audition” in 2003! and, dare I say, her best yet? as so many of her albums do, unfortunately, this one has its share of bloat, but at a much shorter runtime I think the entire thing comes together into a much more tight, cohesive experience. the highs here are as good as any of her best and the lows are still pretty good, because janelle monae rules. ”make me feel”
5. minna no kodomo-chan - kabe no nai sekai
how? how did this happen? how is this in my top 5? what? seriously? jesus. at the beginning of this year, this duo put out their debut EP, the bluntly-titled “okitara shindetai”, or “I wish I were dead when I wake up”. I listened to it once and I said, great! I get it! the first song is a cutesy J-pop song and everything after that is metal. BABYMETAL did that funny meme, and now you’re trying to do it! it was fine. the EP was fine. I didn’t want to write them off immediately, because it was a hell of a lot better than BABYMETAL, but the whole thing felt sloppy and cheap and not in a good way. so I was very surprised four months later when they released their debut album, half of which was new recordings of all the songs from the EP, and it absolutely rules. the instruments are heavier, the vocals are cleaner, the production is fantastic in general, and everything comes together perfectly. where BABYMETAL felt like they were flipping back and forth between J-pop and metal for comic effect, minna no kodomo-chan have blended the two together seamlessly, and it... works? and I love it? and this is my number 5 album for 2018? and I’m pissed. ”nakunaru watashi”
4. daphne & celeste - daphne & celeste save the world
in 2011, weirdo glitchpop artist max tundra did what anyone would do, and reached out to late 90s/early 00s teen pop group daphne & celeste (you know, that song U.G.L.Y.) and offered to produce a comeback album for them. okay, sure! they put out a song in 2015, and it completely flew under my radar until the full album came out this year. my god, what a combo. their voices are such a perfect match for max tundra’s glitchy bubblegum pop production and vice versa. there’s a real feeling here of daphne and celeste being seriously psyched to be singing together for the first time in almost 20 years, and it makes the whole thing so much fun to listen to. this album was a really pleasant surprise for me and I can’t recommend it enough. ”BB”
3. manatsu nagahara - GREAT HUNGRY
it’s kind of hard for me to believe I had never heard of manatsu nagahara before this year. with the amount of time I’ve now listened to "GREAT HUNGRY”, her previous EP “biology”, and a couple EPs from her band sebastian X, I feel like I’ve been a fan of hers for years. she has absolutely skyrocketed to the upper levels of my list of favorite vocalists of all time. there’s always such a sense of joy in her vocals, and same goes for her backing band the SUPER GOOD BAND. listening to this album makes me feel the way I think imagine dragons is supposed to make you feel. a real fist-clencher of an album! hopefully that makes sense! it’s hard to pick the one song from this album to post at the end of this little blurb, but I think it’s gotta be the closer, SUPER GOOD. which is unfortunate because I can only find a live video of it, but also fortunate because the video owns! I love the way this whole song feels like it’s breathing with you, rising and falling and getting louder and quieter and faster and slower until that huge ending. my god. (the video is long but I’m only linking it for the first song don’t worry) ”SUPER GOOD”
2. seiko oomori - KUSOKAWA PARTY
here’s how I usually describe this album: you know janelle monae. you know she does a lot of different stuff, from funk to soul to R&B to art pop, maybe an occasional dip into hip hop. but for all the variety, you never really feel caught off guard by anything she does. it’s all more or less in one sort of circle of genres, and nothing ever really comes out of left field. “KUSOKAWA PARTY” is like if janelle monae said, “hey everyone, new album ‘dirty computer’ coming out this year!” and put out a couple singles, make me feel, django jane, pynk. okay, cool! this is a janelle monae album! and then you listen to the whole thing when it comes out and it’s mostly power metal. because “KUSOKAWA PARTY” is mostly power metal. almost an inverse of her earlier album “zettai shoujo” which kicks off with a couple of electropop singles before diving into a whole lot of minimalist acoustic folk, “KUSOKAWA PARTY” begins with a more standard seiko power ballad then immediately launches into 21 minutes of fast, bewildering power metal and heavy, dirty electropop, before spitting you right back out into a soft acoustic song right out of her early discography, and ends with a pair of synthpop songs which feel almost like siblings of each other, the gentle, minimalist watashimi and the big, grand closer kimoikawa. this album is so weird. I didn’t know what to think of it on the first listen and I don’t know what to think of it on the fifteenth listen, but I know I’ve never heard anything like it and if it weren’t for this next album it would easily be my favorite release of 2018. with such a wide range of sounds on here it’s tough to pick one song to represent the album, but the opener rules so here it is. “shinigami”
1. haru nemuri - haru to shura
man, this album. how do you even describe this sound? it’s like... emo japanese hip hop over fuzzy ethereal synths, with some heavy, noisy rock music mixed in for good measure. haru nemuri is going places, I swear. I listened to this a couple days after it came out in april, and I thought it was pretty good! and then I didn’t think about it for four months. and then I came back to it a few months later, and it completely blew me away, and it has continued to blow me away ever since. everything here, from the songs to the little interludes to the super weird remixes at the end, is perfect. I can skip to basically any point in any of these songs and get chills instantly. the best song on this album imo is actually two songs, one of the short instrumental interludes leading into the song nineteen, but nineteen isn’t on youtube so you’re getting my close second. I know I’m following up that giant thing about my #2 with not a whole lot about my #1, but please understand I am a massive seiko stan and I could talk about her forever. the fact that this is above seiko? that’s huge! you just gotta listen to this, okay? (haru nemuri please come to seattle) “yume o miyou”
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