#best of 2018 music

[ash5monster01]

Happy Father’s Day

[pardonmydelays]

also i need to stop being mentally insane in the tags cause my friends think i only listen to twenty one pilots because tyler joseph is hot

[nazarjoon]

just remembered this animation i made back in college and was surprised i never posted it

[jaehyun-updates]

180830 NCT Jaehyun at 2018 Soribada Best K-Music Awards‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ © banana fish do not edit, crop, or remove the watermark

[cellulardreams]

Julien Baker, boygenius by undertheradarmag Via Flickr: Thalia Hall Chicago Chicago, IL November 13th, 2018 Photo © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right. twitter | instagram

[crancisfrozier]

Top 5 Franz Ferdinand Music Videos (as voted by me)

↳#4 - Feel the Love Go

[celestial-sapphicss]

reblog and put in tags the prominent musical artists phases in your life

[hsslilly-blog]

having fun.. this looks cute.....

[to-thelakes]

IT JUST OCCURED TO ME SPOTIFY WRAPPED SEASON IS NEARLY UPON US

[spacelesscowboy]

Enjoying ur ride the cyclone(?) posting. Why does that lady’s head come off

hiiiiiii yes it's called Ride the Cyclone :) i've been listening to all the different versions of the songs all day...they r just stuck in my head i think.

speaking of heads. her head comes off bc the premise of the musical is that they all die in a freak roller coaster accident! and while the other kids die relatively intact, her body is found without a head. the musical is set in the afterlife, and she's nicknamed "Jane Doe" because no one (including her) can remember who she is. (there's other reasons too, technically, but i'm incapable of being concise so i'll leave it there) anyway, she kinda looks like a doll because she took on the head of a doll (i'm unsure if she was carrying it around with her prior to the accident, but she carries it around during the musical) in lieu of her own missing head.

anyways if u wanna watch it, here're the links to two different versions:

(the second one, "hop on the roller coaster of fate" is from 2018 i think? and is the cast most widely known, it's also my favorite version :)

the first, "ride the cyclone mccarter theatre" is from 2022 and has my favorite version of one of the characters, Ricky, who is written as a disabled character in the show, and in this version is played by a disabled actor, Yannick-Robin Eike Mirko. but that cast is considered controversial bc the rest of the cast and crew were extremely abelist. and the theater allegedly fired them for "being too disabled." so. yeah.)

[gyunikum]

I went ahead and made a Hungarian playlist of mostly recent songs for anyone who's interested. I included songs with Hungarian lyrics only.

There are 94 songs in total, mostly rock and rap (these two genres seem to dominate the Hungarian music scene) and all of their subgenres, with some odds and trinkets in between.

There is also a spotify playlist with 6 less songs.

Fun fact: many of these artists have already or will perform at Sziget Festival.

[pompomangels]

Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, boygenius by undertheradarmag Via Flickr: Thalia Hall Chicago Chicago, IL November 13th, 2018 © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right. twitter | instagram

[incandescent-ruins]

just tested the range I can sing now just out of curiosity and im a baritone now???? That's soooo wild to me im rly happy about it even though I don't rly sing in choir or anything, I might in the future and its nice to have actual reassurance that I have a male voice and its not even high male its like solidly baritone!! I used to be a (low) mezzo soprano hahahaha

[strangledeggs]

The Best Albums Of 2018

If you want to see a full review of any specific album on this list, or are wondering why a particular album did or didn’t make the top 10, or are wondering why an album you like from the year in question isn’t on this list at all, send me an ask about it and I’ll try and respond!

The Top 10

Room 25 by Noname

Invasion Of Privacy by Cardi B

A Laughing Death In Meatspace by Tropical Fuck Storm

Wide Awake! by Parquet Courts

Whack World by Tierra Whack

Superorganism by Superorganism

Transangelic Exodus by Ezra Furman

Be The Cowboy by Mitski

Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides by SOPHIE

Três by Thiago Nassif

The Rest

Care For Me by Saba

Conexão EP by Amber Mark

DAYTONA by Pusha T

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae

Ephorize by CupcakKe

Foreign Ororo by Riton + Kah-Lo

Guatemaya by Doctor Nativo

Hive Mind by The Internet

I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life by tUnE-yArDs

Interstate Gospels by The Pistol Annies

Queen by Nicki Minaj

Quite A Life by Lyrics Born

Record by Tracey Thorn

Snares Like A Haircut by No Age

Streams Of Thought Vol. 1 by Black Thought

Tantabara by Tal National

Temet by Imarhan

The Terror End Of Beauty by Harriet Tubman

DROGAS WAVE by Lupe Fiasco

There’s A Riot Going On by Yo La Tengo

Things Have Changed by Bettye LaVette

Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz

Twin Fantasy by Car Seat Headrest

Un Autre Blanc by Salif Keita

What A Time To Be Alive by Superchunk

What Happens When I Try To Relax by Open Mike Eagle

Your Queen Is A Reptile by Sons Of Kemet

Coming off of a previous year I described as lackluster, this is more like it. 38 albums in total, but more importantly, I had a particularly difficult time picking the top 10 for this year. The top 3-4 proved especially difficult – I was pretty certain after a while that Noname’s “Room 25”, perhaps the peak of what one can accomplish with the “personal is political” mantra, was going to take the top spot, but was I prepared to admit that Cardi B’s pop triumph “Invasion Of Privacy” was better than Parquet Courts’ best album yet? And so, apparently, was Tropical Fuck Storm’s unrelenting “A Laughing Death In Meatspace”? It hurt me to rank some of these things the way I did, but because of this, I’m fairly confident that you could pull any of the top 10 albums at random and have a great time regardless. Just make sure to watch the videos for Tierra Whack’s album, too, since they’re a whole work of art in themselves (it’s 15 minutes of your life for one of the most creative hip-hop visual spectacles of the century so far, come on, just do it).

What’s more, typing out the rest of the list made me realize what an awesome year this was simply by how many I realized I was sad to have to leave out of the top 10. Let me tell you, in any number of weaker years (like the last, or perhaps the next one, as you’ll see), contributions by Speedy Ortiz, Superchunk, Open Mike Eagle, Harriet Tubman, No Age, The Pistol Annies, Saba, Amber Mark and more would have made it into that upper tier. It’s a true testament to the strength of this year’s releases that they didn’t; I would strongly recommend checking out much of the second-tier list as well if you’re looking for the outstanding accomplishments in hip-hop, country, indie rock, desert rock and believe it or not, avant-garde jazz (Sons Of Kemet deserve a shout-out here, too, for their unique brass band approach).

One strange quirk I’ve noticed about this year is that it features several artists who seem either to have peaked here, releasing a lesser follow-up in the next few years, or who have yet to release a follow-up at all. Parquet Courts, No Age, Noname, Nicki Minaj, Pusha T, The Internet, Cardi B, Tierra Whack, Mitski, Superorganism and sadly even Tropical Fuck Storm and the aforementioned Sons Of Kemet all fall into these categories to varying extents. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong in some way on at least a few of those soon, but even if they don’t bounce back, many of those artists can rest easy knowing they’ve created at least one masterpiece, which is more than most can say.

Speaking specifically to a few trends I noticed from the previous year, I will acknowledge that “mainstream��-leaning pop remains under-represented here, though I think this may just be my general bias as a critic to ignore most of it or even to recognize that the stuff that makes it on to my radar as interesting enough to write about is still too inconsistent to make a year-end list in terms of quality. Then again, I put Cardi B, breakout pop-star of the year, at #2, so you can’t complain too much there. Second, I should clarify that while I said in the previous year’s essay that I was ready to re-listen to Mount Eerie’s follow-up grieving-process album “Now Only”, I ultimately felt that it couldn’t hold its own against the other albums I selected for this year’s list. Which, again, is just an indication of how good 2018 was; nothing against “Now Only”, it’s still a very good album and you should listen to it if you...enjoyed(?) “A Crow Looked At Me”.

Finally, I’m glad to see a bit more music from outside the “western” pop sphere sneaking onto this year’s list as well. Thiago Nassif’s Tom Zé-like “Três” made the very end of the top 10, but you’ll find Guatemala’s Doctor Nativo, Nigeria’s Kah-Lo, Niger’s Tal National, Algeria’s Imarhan and Mali’s Salif Keita elsewhere on the list, each of which is worth checking out and each of which brings their own unique sound to the table. And on a sadder note, it’s still hard for me to believe SOPHIE is no longer with us after releasing such a final masterwork as “Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides”. We truly lost a once-in-a-generation talent with her.

[jaehyun-updates]

180830 NCT Jaehyun at 2018 Soribada Best K-Music Awards‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ © chocolate do not edit, crop, or remove the watermark

[supercantaloupe]

broadways really not doing a great job of convincing me that it's not in the toilet as i see half a dozen shows announce closing within a month and the shit that's opening next is like. fucking. bad cinderella and here lies love