Top 45 Songs of 2018 (#45–11)
Some songs happened this year. I liked them.
45. You With a Cape, Me With a Baseball Bat- Barely Civil
Every year, I must be allowed one emo cry/scream along. This is 2018’s winner by a country mile.
44. Potage- Tricot
Math rock dudes, a quick reminder that your mathmatical rock and rolling doesn’t need to be a snarling piece of jagged guitar riffage. Nor does it need to be fluffy nothingness wrapped up in pleasantly forgettable twinkles. Instead, you could make “Potage.”
43. Straight Shot- DeVotchKa
So that new Beirut album will take some time. This globe-trekker will tide you over in the meantime.
42. Campfire- Aminé ft. Injury Reserve
I can’t decide if the song is better or the full minute discussion on the pronunciation of “rural.”
41. I Wanna Be Everybody- Hockey Dad
The ode to self and body positivity that 2018 desperately needed.
40. Choke Throat- Goon
Goon’s usually a peppy sort of garage-rock band, but this ethereal piece of psychedelic folk shows they’ve got a strong future in acid-washed Fleet Foxes nonsense.
39. Klutz- Aesop Rock
Yeah, ignore that title. “Klutz” is another display of hilarious, virtuosic raps.“Sincerely I was never on the cutting edge/ My hand was on the hilt, you’re free to build with the other end,” he grins, waving at everyone tripping over themselves to catch up.
38. Detoll- Armand Hammer
Hallucinatory raps, acid-washed beats, sounds like Wu-Tang rapping over The Caretaker’s haunted dixieland visions. As spooky as it is hard.
37. It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)- Peggy Gou
Aaaaaand suddenly it’s 1978 again. And disco, in fact, doesn’t suck.
36. Nont for Sale- Sudan Archives
Somewhere, Dilla is smiling. And Lauryn Hill is frowning she didn’t learn violin.
35. January’s End- Nigil Caenaan
Some Aphexian chilliness to welcome the winter. There’s something childish about the chiming synths and shuffling drums, like the rolled out of the Earthbound soundtrack. And, just like Earthbound, there’s a disconcerting vibe hovering in the bass.
34. J’OUVERT — BROCKHAMPTON
Hip-hop’s best boy band always had a penchant for the grimace. Though their newest, Iridescence, might have been brimming with pop jams, they indulged in their more violence impulses for one song. “J’OUVERT” stands with “JUNKEY” and “HEAT” as their toughest song, especially with local madman Joba screaming “pray for peace with a knife in my hand.”
33. T N Biscuits- slowthai
Grime, above any other hip-hop subgenre, pedals menace. Corrupted samples, rushing drums and the thick slang of streets filled with violence are the minimum. But can you make the terror triumphant? According to slowthai, there’s nothing easier. His slurring flow does follow drug dealers and lost souls, but the warped, backwards groove of “T N Biscuits” feels like a victory lap. It’s hard to tell if he’s smiling or smirking through his lyrics, but that’s just the way he wants it.
32. Distortion- Mount Eerie
When I saw Mount Eerie nearly two years ago, he was debuting A Crow Looked at Me. But the two most powerful pieces came from his yet to be released material. “Tintin in Tabiet” and “Distortion.” “Distortion,” opened by the titular fuzz from a guitar, gets molded into Phil Elverum’s constantly warping memories of his dead wife. It is otherworldly in its pain.
31 Breadwinner- Everything Everything
Alongside Algiers, Everything Everything have been the ‘10’s premiere political rock band. But their poetry always carried a semblance of romance and cinematic quality, even while describing the worst in us all. But “Breadwinner” is finally the sound of a band breaking down under sheer paranoia.
30. Over Rainbows and Rainier- Damien Jurado
It’s hard to make a simple song that sounds like a lifetime. But if anyone was going to do it, it was going to be Jurado. Dylan and The Band are furious they didn’t write this.
29. One More- Yaeji
We’re still seeing the evolution of Yaeji before our eyes. Within only a few years of her breakout, she’s molded her own instantly recognizable sound. And, currently, it seems to focus on brokenhearted dance. There’s no one better at it. Her cooing voice floats like a ghost over a glow-in-the-dark synths and clattering drums, flowing in and out of Korean and English. But, no matter the language, the message is clear: dance through those tears.
28. Sirens- Hermit and the Recluse
Ka is both a thinking man’s rapper and your rapper’s favorite rapper. After the noble Honor Killed the Samurai which connected hustling in New York to the wars of feudal Japan, Ka’s tackled an even bigger story. “Sirens” weaves his personal life with the story of the Greek myth of Orpheus, a musician searching for his lost wife, snatched to the underworld by Hades. Mythic rap in every sense.
27. If The Car Beside You Moves Ahead- James Blake
James Blake only had the slightest human veneer. We all knew he was a robot under all that falsetto. And he succumbs to the matrix on “If the Car Beside You Moves Ahead,” chopping and screwing his voice until it sounds utterly alien. It’s not going to be played in any club on this planet, but, somewhere, there’s a much sadder solar system banging this until their sun goes supernova.
26. Real Nega- JPEGMAFIA
Coming off like the most unhinged version of Childish Gambino possible, JPEGMAFIA had quite the break through this year and started it by being completely uncompromising. Sampling his weirdo hero Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Peggy gets down to business, throwing down a brutal drumline and promising to “beat ‘em like Rhythm Roulette.”
25. Your Dog- Soccer Mommy
Like every ’90s alt-rock breakup anthem — from the other side. Liz Phair and the Indigo Girls had to battle through mournful ballads from Pavement and Archers of Loaf, but Sophie Allison is here to set down some rules for the new wave of indie rock. “I don’t want to be your baby girl/ your little pet/ your fucking dog” she sings with gorgeous venom. She’s got no collar, she’s free thank you very much.
24. Mother Maybe- Kadhja Bonet
The greatest funk jam the ’70s never produced, and one of the finest vocal performances in recent memory, “Mother Maybe” is every one of Kadhja Bonet’s considerable talents wrapped into a fine pop package. She plays each instrument from the chiming drums, spidery guitars and thumping bass. But the main attraction is that voice. It’s got the supple flexibility to make both rock purists and Broadway true believers swoon. By the end of “Mother Maybe”’s run, her pipes have ascended to a truly ridiculous height that seems impossible without an autotune crutch. But believe it, it’s all Bonet.
23. Counting Sheep- Shakey Graves
Fine southern gentleman Alejandro Rose-Garcia infects all his best songs with a sense of forlorn spookiness. Whether it’s run-ins with prostitutes, drunk driving through Georgia or evoking Indian spirits, there’s always a ghost hovering in his creaking guitar. But what happens when he lets it warp a love song? Well you end up with his loveliest cut to date, the creeping and coveting “Counting Sheep.” Over spinnerette guitars, Shakey Graves coos his “sweet dream” to sleep from miles away convinced “somewhere, somehow, you’ll feel it too.” Like a sequel to Grizzly Bear’s “Three Rings,” the ethereal combines with the desperate to create something as pretty as it is unsettling.
22. I’ll Be Your Ladder- Devon Welsh
“I’ll Be Your Mirror,” 50 years on, is still one of the sweetest, purest sentiments in rock’n’roll. And sweet, pure sentiments is what Devon Welsh lives off of. The former Majical Cloudz singer one-ups Nico by not just reflecting the subject of “I’ll Be Your Ladder” but promising to be a, well, ladder. A step to ascension beyond anxiety and the daily humdrum. And damn if he doesn’t sound like he’s ready to cast us all into the clouds, with a beaming smile.
21. 9/10- Jeff Rosenstock
So after a full album of political rage, smoking anxiety and useless energy, how’s the burnout feeling Mr. Rosenstock? “Every night you go to bed you wake up just a little more in pain.” Aw Christ Jeff.
20. Euphorium (Back To The Light)- Phonte
Our usual view of lightspeed rappidy-rap comes from furious bars, diss tracks and general feelings of rage. Not so on “Euphorium,” the closer from Phonte’s No News is Good News. He looks back on his mistakes as a young man over a bottle-clacking beat and a soulful opening. It’s as uplifting as it is breathtaking — from the actual breath control.
19. Unmade- Thom Yorke
I haven’t seen Suspiria, the new one or the old film, but that becomes a testament to how stunning “Unmade” is, context not needed. The Radiohead frontman was hired to score the remake and ended up casually making his best solo work in over a decade. Yorke’s always had a penchant for piano ballads (“Sail to the Moon,” “Videotape,” “Glass Eyes”) and “Unmade” stands with the best of them, as beautiful as it is disconcerting. Clips of lyrics “swear there’s nothing/ back again” seem like a lullaby through those heavenly pipes. Proof that under every great scare is a bedrock of sadness.
18. SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK- Joji
What a heel turn this was. After years of being Youtube’s resident goblin, George Miller got out of the troll business and started making R&B slowjams. It seemed like a prank when Joji first began producing, but there’s no joke that sounds this good. Aaron Pfenning’s woozy beat is just the right mix of euphoric, drunken and brokenhearted, a well laced and familiar cocktail to anyone nursing some toxic nostalgia. “You should be with him/ I can’t compete” goes the chorus, with Joji nearly screaming his defeat. And it takes a certain depressed genius to make the year’s biggest drop an absolute heartbreaker.
17. Freebird II- Parquet Courts
Before their shattered break-up record Human Performance, sadness wasn’t a word easily associated with Parquet Courts. And before “Freebird II” “maturity” also couldn’t be attached. But as the cool down after the grief-stricken heartbreak, “Freebird II” is one of the best and healthiest moving on meditations ever made.
Frontman Andrew Savage was open about “Freebird II”’s inspiration coming from a tumultuous childhood home that informed his ideas on freedom and the type of man he wanted to be. “I’ve learned how not to miss the age of tenderness/ That I am so lucky to have seen once,” he yelps over a bluesy, Stones indebted groove. “When I think about you I see a person who hasn’t existed for a long time” he sings, admitting he might be in the same boat, constantly reshaping himself. Pretty grand ideals for the dorks who made “Stoned and Starving.” But that’s what’s inspirational about it.
16. Honey- Salute
Loving, yet weary to the bone. Dance music in 2018 seemed to have a penchant for uplifting, if not worn out, ballroom burners and no one made it quite like Salute, who delivered the gleeful “Honey” with a touch of levity. Over lava lamp synths, he creates a disco-drama with enough tension to cheer Donna Summers and more gracious piano chords than a Sunday service knows what to do with. It was an elegant yet elegiac banger.
15. Space Cowboy- Kacey Musgraves
It’s a bad pun. We can all agree on that right? “You can have your space…cowboy” is a dad-worthy turn of phrase that any number of ‘70s country cheese balls would have leapt to use. But this is Kacey Musgraves we’re talking about. Her ability to mix the grit with the glam and a fresh pinch of camp is unparalleled. The disco meets Waylon Jennings covering Sufjan Stevens shtick she perfected for Golden Hour was polished to a blinding gleam on “Space Cowboy.”
14. Geyser- Mitski
In a career already full of breathtaking moments, the opening few seconds of “Geyser;” that degraded church organ, fuzzed out samples and Mitski’s heavenly voice claiming “You’re my number one…” might still take the crown. And from there it sprawls out into a Lorde worthy chorus that begs for an amphitheater to fill and assures her ambitions. Mitski is marrying the outsized, naked emotional math of chart-topping numbers with her own delectably weird twist.
The chorus on “Geyser” could have been spread out over a half hour without tiring, but she futzes with it and warps those ringing guitar lines, never letting any of the bubbling mess settle into anything coherent. The sexual tension evolving from subtext to just — well text (“Turning down the hands/That beckon me to come/Though I’m a geyser/Feel it bubbling from below”) is matched in that stunning pile of sounds, all clambering each other like a billion possibilities taunting and tempting all at once. But if anyone could indulge in it all, it would be Mitski.
13. Meadow Song- S. Carey
Last summer, I lived through a rash of forest fires in central Montana. There’s a strange beauty to that sort of desolation; sunsets that seem to catch the sky ablaze, clouds swirling with unnatural colors, trees turned to blackened ghosts. My partner at the time came out to see me and we spent a day at Buffalo Jump plateau. It was one of the clearer days, but haze still marred the boundaries of our vision when we reached the top. I admired the gorgeous scene, she said it was disconcerting. I asked her why and she explained that the unbroken view into miles of plains and prairie grass seemed like it was about to swallow her. Beautiful, yes, but so grand it started to shake her. I don’t think I understood her until I heard “Meadow Song.”
12. House of Woodcock- Jonny Greenwood
Though I didn’t love Phantom Thread, from a sheer aesthetic quality it might be the prettiest damn movie I’ve ever seen. There was a richness and opulence to every shot, the interior decor and lovingly crafted shots of sleek cars and sleeker fashion all faded in with a warm, velvet feel. And, somehow, the man behind “Paranoid Android” matched that hedonism in the score.
That’s maybe a bit unfair, as Jonny Greenwood has found more than a niche for himself in soundtracks. But the Radiohead guitarist often dabbled in the same sort of unwieldy and eerie sounds his band played with before Phantom Thread, but “House of Woodcock” (hilarious title aside) is plush incarnate. The swirling arrangement comes from a far off era of dixieland and late impressionist works hovering in the background. But the end product is all Jonny.
11. 3:33- Sylvan LaCue
It takes a brave, perhaps foolish, man to take a beat from another artist and attempt to absolutely bury them on it. But young shaman Sylvan LaCue did it with grace, taking a flamenco-flavored groove from Bas and J. Cole and warped it into a summer time classic and positivity jam that’s the sonic equivalent of ice cream. “I think I made it” you only think it? “3:33” says you’re already here LaCue.
