I was laser-focused on navigating through as many albums from 2018 as physically possible. It was a willful endeavor to pour over the dozens of albums mentioned on some list or other, as well as scroll through all the playlists and musical libraries I created in the past year. For me, the end of 2018 was this whirlwind binge of music from disparate genres and corners of popular music. After the countless hours of listening intently while openly scrutinizing, tolerating, allowing myself to be absorbed, and everything else in between, my recollection of 2018 will be that it was quite a strange year- one that was dodgy as all hell.
Here are my five succinct thoughts on the year after all the new listening and backtracking to older favorites from earlier in the year:
thought one: parity in genders
Last year I talked extensively about the emergence of female artists as a dominant force in modern music. This year was still a brilliant year for many diverse female artists, yet there was slightly more balance. I’ll call 2017 the Year of Women’s Emergence in Music (or the emergence of women as preeminent artists in music) with this year being more like an encore for female musicians whereby they asked a couple blokes to come onstage and celebrate with them. Artists like Kacey Musgrave, Mitski, Robyn, Cardi B, and Ariana Grande presided over the podium in most of the critics’ lists of ‘Best Albums of the Year’, however it felt less lopsided by the end of 2018. Last year, much like 2017, was a year that needed the voice of women, especially considering the hostility still facing women in the political realm (e.g. Christine Blasey Ford and our POTUS’ attitude), as well as the cultural zeitgeist still building towards a fever pitch – where women’s equality and access to opportunity are still caught in the crossfire of American discourse. Let’s call it a 60/40 year; 60% of the great music was being created by women, 40% by men. More parity from last year, which was a resounding 70/30 year.
thought two: parity in genres
There was also talk last year regarding the dominance of R&B, Soul, and Hip-Hop on the top lists. The truth is, we are still in the midst of a decade where the most interesting and innovative music is coming, typically, from the aforementioned genres; with all the cross-breeding, mutations, and odd graftings allowing this sweeping genre of music to hold court. However, this year tended to feel more balanced when it came to the representation of genres of music at the Top. Indeed, there was more parity in the representation of genres on the critics’ lists, especially in the Top 10. Sure, R&B and Hip-Hop were still represented heavily, and I think should be represented heavily, with the amount of quality art being made in those umbrella genres, but I was pleasantly surprised by the refreshingly creative output from many artists in Electronica, Synth-Rock, Hard Rock, Indie Rock, and Folk music. There were promising releases from seasoned artists in those other genres, as well as new ones, which is quite welcome after the lopsided feel of 2017 (both in terms of R&B and Female dominance).
thought three: no clear cut “best” albums
In past years, there was at least one or two albums I immediately placed in the top spots. For example, 2017 was the year of Kendrick Lamar’s astounding DAMN. and 2016 was the year of the Knowles sisters (though I thought the clear winner of that year was Malibu by Anderson .Paak). This year, it wasn’t easy to pick a Top Five. Honestly, it was nearly impossible to pick a number one favorite, as there were a lot of great albums this year, though they all seemed bunched into a tier right behind clear victors. 2018 felt like a race without a frontrunner keeping the pace up, with all these fantastic artists bunched together in a sort of mid-pack cluster.
thought four: i’m not drinking the top 5 kool-aid this year
Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of most of the albums the music critics, blogs, and pundits were placing in the Top 5. The consensus picks of Mitski and Kacey Musgraves had some major pitfalls (again, just one man’s opinion), which ties into my third thought about there not being obvious elite albums. The problems with those two records are complementary, meaning I think Mitski’s Be The Cowboy had great songwriting and some uncannily incisive lyrics, yet had some of the most uninspired music I heard in 2018. There was this strange dichotomy where I was drawn in by her lyrics, but completely turned off by the listless guitars and dull horn sections. Conversely, I found Kacey Musgraves’ lauded album Golden Hour to be a refreshing take on the sounds of Country music, but the lyrics still mired in the same generic Country tropes we’ve been stuck with for decades (soliciting big eye rolls from me as she pines for big strong country boys riding horses). The tiresome sentiments of white country girls aren’t changing, so I didn’t find anything remarkable about her lyrics. Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer album was a smash success, and it was fairly good, but other than two or three standout tracks like “Make Me Feel” and “I Like That”, the music has lost some of the seductive sci-fi charm of her previous pioneering concept albums. And don’t get me started with Cardi B and Ariana Grande – those albums are rubbish – it was an ordeal just getting through them once.
thought five: a strange year of variety and uncertainty
Tying into, and serving as a composite of the first four thoughts, is my last thought on 2018: last year was an odd one – made of great breadth and depth of music. There was variety and more balance, but at the same time, I couldn’t make any decisive decisions about the music of the year. If I can say anything, it’s that 2018 felt like a promising year where many genres stood on the precipice of what could be new frontiers.
The only things I can say with certainty are British artists continue to represent by making some of the most innovative and daring new music, as well as some of the greatest reformations of past idyllic sounds. R&B is still celebrating a sort of supremacy in the world of music (along with Rap/Hip-Hop) as well as remaining the primarily influencer of pop culture this decade. In fact, R&B is reforming itself much like Rock n’ Roll did during its heyday: by generating more underground and “indie” facets, hence really promising new “grassroots” artists like Orion Sun, April + Vista, Radiant Children, and Vansire– all emerging as subculture to the larger mainstream R&B. Many of these lo-fi R&B artists, many active with brilliant music in 2018, will be featured in a future 2019 mix (and post) called “Tunnelgazing”. On the other side of the sphere, there seemed to be a rebirth of quality Folk and Rock in 2018; a hint of what could be a larger rebirth of a form of music desperately needing new trailblazing sounds as well as artists to ride on the vanguard.
The music of 2018 made me extremely excited for 2019. We’ll see if this nascent year continues with the trends of the last, or becomes a springboard to something greater. Will 2019 be like the last- with great variety but a nebulous/non-definitive direction? Or will we see big albums of commercial and critical success retroactively marking 2018 as a harbinger of an impressive 2019, in which all genres, genders, and preeminent countries of popular music capitalize on the momentum, producing clear-cut frontrunner albums destined for placement on the “Best Of” lists of 2019. The future is blurry in my crystal ball, so I’ll step from my fortune teller’s chair and go back into my “music lounge” to celebrate the favorites from 2018.
20. Parquet Courts – Wide Awake!
MAY 2018 (13 TRACKS, 38:37)
Parquet Courts go about things in a workmanlike manner few bands can boast. And what I love about this band is you would never expect them to boast. They’re straight shooting no frills Alt-Punk Rock – at times appearing to be the only name in Rock N’ Roll I can rely on to deliver every time. They continue to grow with every album, becoming more willing to integrate new sounds while never abandoning the razor-sharp lyricism and hard driving sound that have come to define them. Light Up Gold (2012) is still one of my favorite albums of this decade (also flirts with Top 5 in Rock), Sunbathing Animal was one of my favorites of 2014, and Wide Awake! perpetuates the fandom. Once you see this band live you get the entire, very necessary picture of Parquet Courts; they always deliver with grit and grind without ever appearing conceited or flashy (making the music video above a little ironic). “Wide Awake”, the title-track, is one of the best of 2018, and gives us a taste of the kind of exploration they are capable. The album integrates Funk, Disco, Caribbean music, and other disparate genres in the same bold yet facile way a band like The Clash did nearly 40 years ago.
Another good one from Wide Awake! “Almost Had To Start A Fight / In And Out Of Patience”
19. FOXWARREN – FOXWARREN
NOVEMBER 2018 (10 TRACKS, 35:46)
I have to credit Robin Hilton with NPR Music for lauding this band to the point I gave the album a whirl. Foxwarren is a compelling story, one most have not heard, which isn’t too hard to fathom when you consider they come from a smattering of small towns in Canada. The ringleader of this Indie Folk band is Andy Schauf, a great solo artist in his own right, who brings his brand of soul-searching melancholy to Foxwarren – a band comprised of many of his childhood friends and family. The music naturally feels like the big sparse tundra of Manitoba it comes from. The sound is expansive, withdrawn, and pensive all at once. One of my favorite qualities of this album is the tautness of composition from beginning to end. There is a thoughtfulness behind the cohesion and flow of the album that is becoming increasingly rare. The mood is singular, with flashes of effervescent guitars peppered in to what is usually solemn Folk strummings and echoing vocals. This is a quality resembling bands I use to love like Blitzen Trapper, Sea Wolf, and Blind Pilot. I’m glad to have found this gorgeous soundscape of an album – a hidden gem really.
18. JEREMIH & TY DOLLAR $IGN – MIH-TY
OCTOBER 2018 (11 TRACKS, 35:06)
These guys get around…..I mean in the music circles. You see both Jeremih and Ty Dollar $ign featured on dozens of tracks from other high profile R&B artists every year. Keeping that in mind, it’s actually a small wonder this album hadn’t come sooner. I still think Jeremih is the most interesting voice in modern R&B, up against Bryson Tiller, one of my favorite R&B / Hip-Hop crossover artists. Jeremih’s voice is the epitome of late-night Soul, glittering with the reverb sparkle of a city skyline bouncing off of Lake Michigan. He is a proud Chicago son who decided to make an entire collab album with Ty Dollar, and the end result is everything you could’ve asked for. They feed off of one another’s strengths elegantly, and transition seamlessly between one another within songs as well as across the bounding tracks. It feels as if this album was meant to be played while cruising Lake Shore Drive with Jeremih, or Santa Monica with Ty Dollar. Either way, it works on several levels regardless of the geography. And “The Light” might be my favorite track of 2018, for being effortlessly smooth and sexy. You might swerve into oncoming traffic if you let these uh……swervy…… rhythms take hold.
“The Light”
17. BAS – MILKY WAY
AUGUST 2018 (14 TRACKS, 39:43)
I needed my DJ-Producer fix this year, and Bas delivered. In the past I had albums from folks like Kaytranada to keep me sated with that intoxicating formula of infectious beats, brilliant song segues, and feature spots from emerging R&B and Hip-Hop artists. I was pretty surprised not to see this album mentioned more often in the discussion this year, but I guess it will fly under the radar, perhaps interminably. I have a lot of respect for Bas just for his knack at album composition – he thinks in terms of LPs and respecting the craft of making an album. The conscientiousness involved in trying to create an album of the perfect length, with strong transitions throughout, is worth recognition. This is a fun record with some fantastic guest spots from the likes of Ari Lennox (look out for her), Correy C (a relative unknown, but talented MC), J. Cole, and A$AP Ferg. The best part is the rhythm and cadence of the record, defined both by the lengthier tracks as well as the interludes and soundbytes collected (to quite humorous effect) from movies like White Men Can’t Jump and A Bronx Tale. This is an album worth putting on from beginning to end, but I’ll just place a couple nuggets below.
“Purge”
“Front Desk”
16. KALI UCHIS – ISOLATION
APRIL 2018 (15 TRACKS, 46:30)
“Feel Like A Fool”, toward the end of a long-running, triumphant album from Kali Uchis.
There’s a part of me just realizing I love the track “Feel Like A Fool” (above) because it’s a bit reminiscent of Amy Winehouse. However, the great thing about Kali Uchis is the diverse nature of her tastes. You read about the album Isolation and you hear at least a half dozen different genres tossed around, from Bossa Nova, Reggaeton, Neo-Soul, to Funk. She is a lady chameleon capable of writing Pop songs without any of the terrible Pop music behind it. Really, she’s a tastemaster when it comes to the music itself, and also a clever songwriter in the sense she can pass innocuous and wholesome lyrical content through the morphing style (as well as with that sultry smokestack voice). The Columbian-American takes everything from her heritage, mixes with artistic savvy, and produces music that can be called both topical and timeless. “After the Storm” is the perfect distillation of these ideas; she takes positive messaging and gives it an uncanny style while also bringing both a living legend in Funk (Bootsy Collins) and a modern Rap iconoclast (Tyler the Creator) together for what is a great mashup.
15. MATTHEW DOC DUNN – LIGHTBOURNE
AUGUST 2018 (10 TRACKS, 39:05)
“Mind of My Lover”, more uptempo number from Lightbourne
Matthew “Doc” Dunn is an enigmatic Canadian artist shrouded in a mystery well-deserved. He’s been known either to play solo on stage in disorienting acoustic sets or perform in the complete opposite condition – with at least a dozen other musicians in his psychedelic ensemble The Transcendental Rodeo. He also, rather surprisingly, collaborated in the production of the phenomenal 2018 release by U.S. Girls, In A Poem Unlimited. I can’t make sense of this man’s career, but I think I can make sense of the appeal. This is one of the stunning Psych-Folk albums that gets all up inside your bones and refuses to leave. His lyrics will haunt, his vocals will haunt, and the whole mystery surrounding his persona will haunt. The first half of the album leaves you in a kind of gauzy daze of Folk-Country revelry, sounding like a forgotten artist of the 70’s you’d fall in love with due to it’s rarefied sound and “hidden gem” inclinations. Indeed, this record feels like a basement bin discovery at the record store you attach greater importance to just because of its air of secrecy. But when I hear a song like “Simple One”, with its megalithic optics and the sweeping epicness akin to Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos”, you start to see this guy as a true master in the ranks of Singer-Songwriters.
“Simple One”
14. HOP ALONG – BARK YOUR HEAD OFF, DOG
APRIL 2018 (9 TRACKS, 40:09)
I was saving this spot for an artist like Snail Mail or Neko Case, but once I heard the album by this Philly-based band, I knew this was the winner of Indie Rock darling. The amount of inflection Frances Quinlan displays in her singing is astounding, and the nature of the music seems to parallel the unpredictable charm of her vocals. I could’ve gone with a great album like Lush (again, Snail Mail) in this spot, but this one just had so much more texture and ability to shift in other directions. At a certain point, probably after listening to Tirzah’s Devotion and Robyn’s Honey, I started to crave music that was more eclectic and less homogenous. The problem with Snail Mail is I started to tune out after a few tracks, the songs seeming to bleed together without differentiation. The same could be said with Tirzah and her basic bedroom beats. Once I heard the variegated sounds of Bark Your Head Off, Dog, I realized it’s just the kind of Female-driven record (and Rock n Roll at that) needed in 2018. After making music for more than a decade, from early in her teen years, it appears Miss Quinlan is hitting her stride.
And also this track:
13. SABA – CARE FOR ME
APRIL 2018 (10 TRACKS, 41:35)
The first time I heard the interlude between “Busy” and “Sirens” on the first track (starts around the 3:30 mark in the album track, 1:00 in the music video for “Sirens” above), I had goosebumps. This album has the indescribable quality of feeling like a new genre of Hip-Hop (easily tagged “Bedroom Hop). The lyrics are very personal, and the beats have this late night intimacy perfectly suited to listening sessions with your feet up, staring at the patterns of drywall on your ceiling. Saba hails from the West Side of Chicago, a violent part of the City with a hard edge and unforgiving nature. It’s a small wonder a thought-provoking and cerebral artist like Saba, with a penchant for earnest textures and Jazzy moods, was able to break out of this area. It’s a testament to his talent and wunderkind ability, which was on full display with the promising first release in 2016, Bucket List Project. Care for Me displays a maturity and reckless individualism that will probably pay dividends for Saba in the future. I am eagerly awaiting what he will do next.
“Smile”
12. sIr – november
JANUARY 2018 (11 TRACKS, 32:40)
Sir Darryl Farris (SiR) is a producer with immaculate tendencies. His beats are flawless and his techniques nearly antiseptic in nature. He’s an under-praised artist from Inglewood, CA who commands respect from those “in the know” yet doesn’t hold recognition from a larger following. I’ll chalk that up to the Jazz tendencies of his R&B, but that’s precisely the reason I love the music. Out of all the modern R&B artists making music in 2018, his sound blended the most Jazz and downtempo Soul – with incredible success. The sound, the mood, that artwork close-up of the iris and pupil, all conveys a level of pristine beauty and attention to detail we should commend SiR for evincing. November, much like Milky Way, is one of the unsung gems of 2018 I will come back to again and again in the future. The casual elegance and sumptuous visuals (like in the music videos) is memorable. Listening to this album in a good lounge chair with a tumbler of whiskey and the right amount of accent lighting is nearing the sublime.
11. MAC MILLER – SWIMMING
AUGUST 2018 (13 TRACKS, 58:33)
It’s a little eerie that Mac Miller’s final album before his unfortunate passing feels like the most perfect swan song from a brilliant yet troubled artist. I came to Mac Miller’s music when he released The Divine Feminine, a masterpiece of a conceptual album, displaying finesse and a rare sense of both delicacy and honesty in the realm of Soul/Hip-Hop. I still can’t move past the power of tracks like “Soulmate” from that album. What I discovered after going through the rest of Mac’s catalogue is his ability to mix crowd-pleasing Hip-Hop with overarching concepts belonging to a cohesive album. GO:OD AM is another example of a sweeping album with bigger themes. Swimming is subdued and tragic, nostalgic and present, brimming with light one second and brutally sad the next. Staying on the idea of haunting – this is an album that really sticks with me for being a prescient farewell. Mac Miller seems to be accepting so many facts of his life, unfurling his fight with demons in every song. I’m disappointed it didn’t have a more prominent position in the critics’ “Best Of” lists this year. Maybe they didn’t hear the same thing, but even before his passing I felt the creeping sense he was seeking closure in the form of one big swan song, which is this album.
“Small Worlds”
and “Wings”
10. THE INTERNET – HIVE MIND
JULY 2018 (13 TRACKS, 57:49)
I am so glad this group exists. For me, they filled the void left by The Roots. By the same token, they are a venerated band of musicians that make odes to the great heritage of music from the past while also expounding upon it to make new innovative sounds. Another element they share with The Roots is the ability to create a studio sound with their bona fide skills as musicians. The Roots leveraged their abilities as session musicians up to a point, but The Internet are proving they can take it one step further. Many of the tracks on Hive Mind are downtempo ballads showcasing Syd’s otherworldly vocals, but that doesn’t change the fact this is a Supergroup emboldened by their individual successes as much as their group dynamic. Steve Lacy and Matt Martians have proven to be very good solo artists, and Syd has been even more successful in her solo ventures. This might be my favorite modern band, and this monster of an album only continues this persuasion.
“It Gets Better (With Time)”
09. LORD HURON – VIDE NOIR
APRIL 2018 (12 TRACKS, 48:55)
This album might not be high enough on the list, because every time I listen to it I become more smitten. A song like “Wait By the River” will stick with you for a long time with its epic and timeless quality. With a hushed radiance, the strange formality of it will leave you mesmerized. Vide Noir feels like like a glowing remnant of the early 90s TV show Twin Peaks; it has the same glamour extracted from a dark majesty. More importantly, I finally have an Indie Rock album I really love from 2018. Often I get the feeling pioneering Rock albums are harder to come by, but this one takes all the great elements from their past albums Strange Trails and Past Dreams and adds a certain cinematic quality (also some similarities to My Morning Jacket’s Circuital). The album switches from harder Rock to lounge-style croon and everything in between. Every track is great, and I become attached to a new song with every listen – the sign of a great album.
“Vide Noir”
08. IDLES – JOY AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE
AUGUST 2018 (12 TRACKS, 42:14)
When I first heard the lyrics “I’m like Stone Cold Steve Austin, I put homophobes in coffins”, off of the opening track “Colossus”, I knew I was about to listen to something different. Rarely do I listen so intently to the lyrics the first go around, but I was all ears from those first few stanzas of teetering anarchy and brazen contrarianism. There isn’t much to say other than this is an album that rebrands what a Hard Rock / Metal band can be. Most importantly, it changes the way the songs can be written. It flips machismo, bravado, and the basics of masculinity on their backside and pounds them into submission. Quite honestly, I just needed some good old fashioned Rock n’ Roll to melt my face off, and this did the trick. What I wasn’t prepared for was the nuance in the songwriting, the unique attitude- taking the perverse and sarcastic to a different place. IDLES burst onto the scene in 2017 with Brutalism, an album of “Brutal Rock” in which no punches were pulled and everything was left on the table. This album from 2018 proves we need to be on high alert with these boys from Bristol, England.
07. YVES TUMOR – SAFE IN THE HANDS OF LOVE
SEPTEMBER 2018 (10 TRACKS, 41:57)
Make some quick judgements based on the album artwork and the unflattering alias (could you come up with a more ill-suited name for your alter ego?), and you are bound to start in the wrong direction. I shunned this album for months based on the appearances alone, figuring it was either “Horror Rock” or Death Metal or the soundtrack to an Occult ritual. Then I heard the first 30 seconds of “Faith in Nothing Except in Salvation”, with those choppy horns and the glamour build, and knew that I had made the wrong assumptions. Indeed, Sean Bowie is determined to defy every expectation. The music slithers between genres like the album has split-personality, but every genre represented on the album is done well. Atmospheric Electronica tends to pervade most of the album, yet then you get little unexpected treats like “Noid”, which feels straight off a Gorillaz record or “All the Love We Have Now” and it’s grungy Chemical Brothers beats stilted into a darker 80’s Synth ballad. You would expect Yves Tumor to be from England, with the vocal stylings reminiscent of many British artists, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised his background is not what I expected. He’s originally from Tennessee, and now lives in Europe. Don’t try to peg this one – just let the unpredictable experience that is this album go take you somewhere.
06. KHRUANGBIN – CON TODO EL MUNDO
JANUARY 2018 (10 TRACKS, 42:30)
In the video below, where Khruangbin play in Seattle’s KEXP Studio, Mark Speer tries to explain that every member of this power trio are multi-instrumentalists and could pick a different instrument (like Speer on the drums) and could play the parts interchangeably. That’s just plain ridiculous, because Mark Speer is one of the greatest guitarists of this Century and can do things with the instrument few others can do. I had to find an extended clip of this group playing live for two primary reasons: 1) You have to see the band to understand the sweet style – the interplay of sexy bassist Laura Lee (even the alliterative name is seductive) and Speer (both rocking bangs) – to truly appreciate why Khruangbin sell-out every venue they play. 2) They shred live. Simply kinetic performances where the power trio feed off of one another in a preternatural way.
Hailing from my hometown of Houston, Texas, Khruangbin don’t place on a lot of “Best Of” Lists this year. Most likely due to the referential form their music takes, but probably the instrumental form of the music as well. Frankly, I couldn’t care less if they are referential and borrow from all different sorts of World music to make their own sound – Con Todo El Mundo is simply a gorgeous album. You hear Middle Eastern influences, Funk, the Hip-Hop tendencies of their stoic drummer DJ Johnson Jr., Latin groove, and so many other disparate forms of music in what is a perfectly blended amalgam, which in the end, comes out the other end as uniquely their own.
05. LET’S EAT GRANDMA – I’M ALL EARS
JUNE 2018 (11 TRACKS, 51:27)
Much like my aversion to Yves Tumor (simply by the band name, imaging, and artwork), I thought to myself, “Let’s Eat Grandma…..well that sounds stupid”. Then, just like with Yves Tumor, I listened to the music and changed my mind. My first foray into their music was actually the 2016 debut I, Gemini, which is a bold experiment in Bedroom Pop. However, unlike Sean Bowie, I could get a little better read on what the music would be like as well as the chemistry between the two artists, starting with a look at the prismatic and wispy cover art (above). Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth are British, and they are childhood friends that look exactly alike, and probably do everything together. You take them as a singular force and as an Avant-Pop duo, and you come to celebrate them as furthering the efforts of contemporaries like Grimes and Sophie. Even if I embrace the music of other artists like Lord Huron and Khruangbin with more zeal, and in most instances would pick listening to those albums before I listened to I’m All Ears, I had to put this album in the Top 5 for the artistic statement it is. As an album, it is a complete and powerful vision. I love how the record used the classic formula of album construction: starting with a perfect introductory “lift-off” track like “Whitewater” and ending in an extended, sweeping track like “Donnie Darko”. There are no fillers- every track perfectly placed within the album – with a great cadence and unified proclamation on the modern art of Bedroom Pop and Synth DIY Sludge. It can be grating, it can be saccharine, it can be gaudy, but it is always interesting.
04. DJ KOZE – KNOCK KNOCK
MAY 2018 (16 TRACKS, 78:29)
Knock Knock barely fits onto a compact disc. It’s a monster of an album, so replete with material I would have flipped out if it had come packaged as a Double LP. Clocking in at 78 minutes and 29 seconds, I was overwhelmed the first time I listened. DJ Koze has always been regarded as an eccentric German genius, an elder-statesman of House and Dance music, but rarely concerned with making broad statements through the album format. It would appear he decided this would be his big artistic statement – a megalithic entry into the pantheon of Electronic albums. When you listen to an album like Knock Knock back-to-back with an Electronic producer/musician like Jon Hopkins (who is equally revered), you start to understand what this genre can be on both ends of the spectrum. Whereas Singularity celebrates a uniform sound that coalesces into a singular sound, Knock Knock celebrates how eclectically the canvas can be painted. For me, I wanted more variety and less homogeneity in 2018 (and Singularity sounded the exact same as Immunity, again, just one man’s opinion). DJ Koze delivered with an album that drifted into so many directions for such a long time, I had the same mental fatigue one would get playing the Oregon Trail. It was a long and wild adventure, one where I felt I learned something and was inspired by sights and sounds.
03. Jid – DICAPRIO 2
NOVEMBER 2018 (14 TRACKS, 50:09)
I had to put JID’s album Dicaprio 2 high on the list for many of the same reasons I put DJ Koze’s album towards the top: this is an album made of eclectic sounds, moods, senses of humor, and flex/non-flex attitudes. JID showcases his speed and dexterity in tracks like “Off Deez”, proving he belongs in the same camp as his Southern Rap brethren. However, what I really appreciated was his ability to dial it down into groove-based, Jazz-inflected treats like “Workin Out”. As an album, this is a complete work of art. I always gravitate towards Rap artists who do more with the music itself, instead of focusing on posturing over drum machine beats, gunshots, and sirens. JID, much like one of my other favorite Rappers Schoolboy Q, brings a great knack for composition and musical style that sets him apart from most others. Dicaprio 2 moves through music containing Jazz or Trap or Dub or even Reggaeton with relative ease. JID moves from quick flows and smoother drawn out flows with the same kind of ease, and can switch back and forth on a dime. He’s put in the work to earn the respect, often being compared to legends like Lil Wayne and Kendrick Lamar, and even though I can’t say I was blown away by the lyrics within the stylings, I was all about the style.
“Skrawberries”. The rhyme with Stephon Marbury is pretty sick.
02. YOUNG FATHERS – COCOA SUGAR
MARCH 2018 (12 TRACKS, 36:45)
Young Fathers come with big themes and ambitious messaging. I appreciate the songwriting and the social statements as much as the next person, yet it still comes secondary to the primary reason I am becoming a big fan of this Scottish trio. You see, I’m a big fan of TV on the Radio, and have always embraced their brand of industrialized Art Rock / Post Punk. TV on the Radio came galloping onto the scene with an equally abrasive and flowing work of Rock in the early 2000s, and now we are seeing this style again. In twelve taut tracks, Young Fathers delivers power and complexity through a two-pronged attack. The first prong is the intricacy of the music, and the layers of vocals woven in and out of the Industrial Punk rhythm. The second prong is the raw energy contained within the ambitious music and words. Sometimes you can just feel the drive and intent coming right at you with the propulsion of the sound, and for me I couldn’t ignore this quality in this music. You take Blood Orange and TV on the Radio and mix them in a cauldron with the fierceness of a political rally and you get the album Cocoa Sugar.
My favorite track off the album, “Wow”.
01. U.S. GIRLS – IN A POEM UNLIMITED
FEBRUARY 2018 (11 TRACKS, 37:46)
“Rosebud”
The very first sentence of Apple Music’s description of Mitski’s 2018 album Be The Cowboy describes how Iggy Pop praises the young woman (Mitski) for her peerless ability as a songwriter. That is certainly true, but as I mentioned at the top of the post, it shouldn’t be everything. The difference between a street poet and a musician is the sound that accompanies those words. Mitski doesn’t have compelling music surrounding her innovative lyricism, but Meghan Remy does. The American-Canadian musician and her personal Art Pop project U.S. Girls has been chugging along for a decade now and it seems has reached a pinnacle of bold musicality and songwriting. The genius was just clicking on all cylinders for In A Poem Unlimited. But this genius feels like it could come off the rails at any second – the mania in the music combined with her off-kilter vocal style forges an uncanny form of toxic energy that feels hardly sustainable. As I said, this was a tough year to pick a number one, and it had been a while since listening to this album (which I had listened to several times early in the year), but once I played it again, I was reminded of how perfect it had all come together. The controlled chaos was channeled into a brilliant, cohesive album; one that has elevated songwriting, yet also has the music joining that equation – which is just as important in this man’s opinion.
“Incidental Boogie”
