The first album I ever truly loved was Pretty. Odd. by Panic at the Disco (their exclamation point was briefly removed from their name during this period of their artistic exploration.) Before Pretty. Odd., my family shared all of our ~250 downloaded songs on one giant playlist, and I would listen to them on shuffle, unconcerned by the dissonance between my dad’s Billy Joel, my mom’s 80s one-hit wonders, my guitar teacher’s grungy 90s alt rock, and my Eminem greatest hits album. But then at one fateful debate tournament, I overheard a man named Thomas Thomas claiming that Pretty. Odd. was the next Sergeant Pepper’s and the band was from Las Vegas — and I’m still not sure if it was the monotony of waiting for the next round or the possibility of riding a local wave of greatness to international fame, but whatever I heard was enough to convince me to take the plunge and spend $11.99 of my iTunes gift card money (my grandmother’s go-to holiday gift in that bygone era) to download the album.

Pretty. Odd. was the first time I understood the possibilities of an album, as separate from a collection of songs. How an album can completely enrapture you, tear you from whatever mundane activity is occupying your hands or mind and introduce you to a new and unfamiliar landscape. How it can knock you down in a euphoric dizziness, leaving you unable, at first, to find your footing in this strange, distorted world, but optimistic that when you do, you will have found a new home. And how even when you know others have built homes in it too, the way you know that their home and your home will be different somehow, both deeply relatable and yet wondrously untranslatable.

(Side note: I was briefly planning on writing a good deal about Pretty. Odd. and asserting that we should all proudly embrace even our most embarrassing of musical loves, but then I walked to the bathroom in my coffee shop, walking out of the range my bluetooth earphones could handle, accidentally disconnecting them from my laptop, and so while I was in the bathroom blissfully unaware, my computer blasted Panic at the Disco at full volume to a roomful of unsuspecting coffeeshop patrons. And now I am so humiliated that I couldn’t possibly write a good case for unabashedly loving those albums that transported us, regardless of their retrospective quality.)

Anyway, after Pretty. Odd., I understood the possibilities of an album, of the ways it can make you feel, and I wanted to experience these beautiful moments as often as I could. And so I asked my most musical friend, Chad, to show me as much music as he could, and we spent endless nights looking at and listening to different websites’ Best Albums lists to try to figure out what I even liked, the directions in which to search. And as I started to find my own taste and my own loves and better understand the history from which different albums emerged, I continued looking forward to each new year’s Best Of lists, not because of the attempts to objectively rate albums’ quality, but because often the best way to find your own moment of musical revelation, was through the recommendation of someone who had already been seized by it.

In 2013, I grew tired of listening to a wonderful album and forgetting about it a few months later — so I began a spreadsheet to record albums that I had listened to and took some brief notes about each on it. The project has grown a little bit each year since — this year I listened to 360 albums and over 180 of them more than twice (in this year’s version of the rules, I was only allowed to enter an album onto the top 50 ranking if I had relistened) to make this year’s list. I make no claims that any of the albums on this list are objectively the best — this list is purely my personal list of favorites for the year. I understand that listing the best musical albums of the year can be orthogonal to the ways in which it is a medium that, at its best, is incomparable. But I also deeply cherish the way in which this personal, arbitrary, and unimportant list has become a creature with its own gravity, one that compels me to listen to a long and wide array of albums, often recommended to me by people I dearly love, and how each beautiful album can be such a wonderful bridge on which to connect with someone.

Below are my Top 50 Albums of 2018. I tried to prioritize albums that I had really connected with this year, but a few of these are aspirational — recent finds that I hope to take with me into the New Year. Sometimes an album ranks highly because it is deeply sentimental and an album I have listened to compulsively, others place highly because the album is technically masterful and, while I’m not constantly drawn back to it, I am grateful for the experience which it gave me. I’ve tried to include descriptions of why these albums connected with me or snippets from reviews of the albums. I’ve also included a song from each album that I think will give you a good introduction and embedded links so that you can listen to the songs and find the albums. If one of these albums captures you, like it did me, I hope to talk about it with you someday. Let me know what I might have missed.

And, here’s a Spotify playlist with one song from each of my favorite albums:

50. Future Me Hates Me — The Beths

Best listened to driving, on fast walks, or at the beginning of a journey.

49. Alone at Last — Tasha

From Tasha’s bandcamp:

“These songs are bed songs,” Tasha says of Alone at Last. “Songs about the place that one might go when they finally need to be away from whatever it is that might be causing them stress or anxiety or sadness or fear.” In the world she conjures within the album, there’s plenty of room to forge your own home where you can rejuvenate and heal — where you don’t have to be a superhero and you don’t have to save the world all by yourself, where nothing is expected of you except that you just be. It’s the kind of album you can curl into after a hot summer day in the city: a powerful talisman in a demanding world, and a reminder that kindness toward the self can help unlock the way to a world a little more livable than this one.

Best listened to tucked in bed on a cold day.

48. Blood Type — Cautious Clay

Sung in a beautiful falsetto with backup singers belting haunting harmonies, over glowing synths and a driving bass.

Best listened to in the shower before an exciting day or when you’re trying to convince yourself that going out will be fun.

47. Historian — Lucy Dacus

Soft guitar, beautiful stories, a unique and powerful voice, and often builds to irresistible jams.

Best listened to during early evening wind downs and when looking for assurance.

46. Transangelic Exodus — Ezra Furman

Furman describes this album as, “almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir. A personal companion for a paranoid road trip. A queer outlaw saga.” It’s a rock-opera concept-album at its best, sounding like David Bowie meets Bruce Springsteen meets Angel Olsen meets that riotous indie rock opener you didn’t expect to be better than the main act. The album tells the story of Furman falling in love with an angel — but the authoritarian government under which they live is persecuting angels — and so the new couple takes to the run to escape and assert their right to be who they are and love how they’d like.

Best listened to when you have an hour to get sucked into a story.

45. Wide Awake! — Parquet Courts

Thirty eight minutes of near perfect agressive, punky indie rock. Punch guitars, heavy drums, and lyrics that are often shouted at you. It’s righteously angry, just the right amount of political, and often deeply funny. This kind of music isn’t usually my thing, but this album is an absolute gem — one that you can’t help but find room for.

Best listened to when looking for ways to channel your anger about late capitalism or when you want to dance violently.

44. Platinum Fire — Arin Ray

Fourteen silky R&B tracks, with fourteen potential favorites. When he was 16, he successfully auditioned for the X Factor with an original song and the adorable confidence of an awkward teenager who is starting to recognize he’ll become an intoxicatingly attractive man.

When he didn’t find any traction in the industry after his X Factor run, he cut his teeth writing for Chris Brown, John Legend, Rick Ross, and Nicki Minaj, while reworking his own sound until it was presentable. It’s a fantastic jam of an album that’s quality from start to finish. I feel like somehow you can feel his dimples through the speakers.

Best listened to when trying to set a mood or when cooking a saucy dinner.

43. Being Human in Public EP — Jessie Reyez

Being Human in Public is confident, powerful, sexy, and defiant. Reyez demonstrates an impressive range over seven diverse tracks, with the consistent thread being the way her voice can pierce through any backing to grab your attention. Here’s a nice clip from Stereogum’s review of her EP:

She trills and whispers and shouts and spirals across the triumphal hip-hop production “Saint Nobody,” showing off the scope of her skill set in a way that matches the song’s autobiographical ambitions. She delivers a similar tour de force on “Apple Juice,” a retro slow dance updated for the present with 808s and a lush string arrangement. She conjures Coco vibes on the all-Spanish guitar ballad “Sola.” She crackles with electricity on the colorfully bouncy “Fuck Being Friends” and the hard-hitting mini-epic “Dear Yessie,” veering between rapping and singing like a driver burning across lanes with no regard for the speed limit. She convincingly coos sweet nothings at duet partner JRM on the warm, comfortable “Imported.” And on her “Body Count” remix, she welcomes Kehlani and Normani to celebrate their personal agency with a reggae-inflected bop. Their rallying cry? “I dodge dick on the daily!”

Best listened to in a car with friends who know all the words.

42. Some Rap Songs — Earl Sweatshirt

An album I’m still getting to know.

Best listened to while waiting on tarmacs or in long rides on public transportation.

41. Improvisations on an Apricot — Aqueduct Ensemble

Ethereal, gentle, and subtly challenging, Improvisations on an Apricot, will transfix you in a dazing daydream in which you float outside your body and through your window to take a nice stroll around your neighborhood.

From Piano and Coffee’s review of the album:

There is a sense in this album that everything is part of a bigger whole, each song almost forming a different corner or focal point of the larger canvas. Indeed, there is a great sense of painterly quality to the way this music flows, and the colours and textures are layered. This ECM style jazz album comes rebooted with a few modern touches of synth licks and stylistic choices. The feeling of spontaneity from the improvised elements, combined with the deliberate consideration behind creative choices in combining ideas makes for a listening experience that feels like a Super 8 Film flashback to a childhood summer vacation.

Best listened to while trying to nap after a hard day or when unwinding in a candlelit room.

40. Kiss Yr Frenemies — Illuminati Hotties

From Uproxx’s review and interview of Illuminati Hotties:

Given her background, it’s not a surprise that Kiss Yr Frenemies manages to sound lush and commercial while still retaining a patina of outsider cool. But Tudzin’s sharpness as a lyricist is unique for someone who is typically consumed with the minutia of constructing soundscapes. On the album, Tudzin’s funny asides amid the millennial misadventures depicted in her songs are just as captivating as the music. In the supremely catchy “Shape Of My Hands,” Tudzin seemingly writes the obituary for a relationship right as it is about to begin. “While you were online shopping / you said you need a better mattress / I said I’m not staying long enough to see that.” Later, on “Paying Off The Happiness,” she tosses off a timely anthem about perpetual debt. “I could probably use a fourth job,” she sings drolly, right before a huge chorus hits.

Best listened to when you’re looking for something spunky and new.

39. Everything is Recorded by Richard Russell — Everything is Recorded

In 2013, the legendary producer and head of record label, XL, Richard Russell was paralyzed from an auto-immune disease. As he began his recovery, a friend of his from Portishead sent him a pocket synth he could play at the hospital while he rehabbed. The small instrument reportedly ushered in a new phase in Richard Russell’s career, in which he began playing a number of different instruments and became an artist in addition to a producer. On his debut album, Everything is Recorded, Russell makes the beats and plays synths, guitar, bass, and the pocket synth. Rather than sing, he invites talented collaborators to be his voice, including Sampha, Syd, and Ibeyi. The compilation album also features Kamasi Washington, Peter Gabriel, Owen Pallett, Brian Eno, and a slew of other talented performers.

Best listened to when in the mood for a curated playlist or when you are taking advantage of somebody’s quality speakers.

38. Argonauta — Aisha Burns

Truncated from her stunning and touching accompanying statement to Argonauta, (read the whole thing here):

“Argonauta is the child of a strange chasm in my life, the space where both unfathomable, debilitating loss and new love and hope reside. In an attempt to process this romantic love, the loss of my mother who lived her life as my confidant and dearest friend, and the hope of someday gaining acceptance of life’s ever-shifting cycles, these songs emerged. I had to write this record to give voice to the depression, anxiety and uncertainty I endured while grieving. Talk of depression and grief in our society is so run from, so eschewed, that they might as well be nameless states. When asked how I was doing, I felt no space to say, “Oh, me? I’m completely devastated and also in love.” I did not have the courage to speak of depression. I could not fully admit it to even to those closest to me. And so I wrote to relieve the pressure in my own soul, but also in hopes that someone out there in the throes of dark days might gain solace in knowing that fair weather can rise again.”

Best listened to on stormy mornings or when your grief feels unbearably personal and you need to know you’re not alone, but can’t stand the thought of interacting with another human.

37. Magic Gone — Petal

From Stereogum’s review of Magic Gone:

Lotz [Petal] makes grand, fuzzy, tuneful indie rock, singing frankly and unsparingly about internal conflicts. She’s not exactly a lyrics-first artist; you could develop a serious attachment to her music without ever really digging deep into what she’s singing about. You could, if you wanted, seize on her voice — clear and plainspoken and communicative, capable of broadcasting bittersweet longing just in the way she leaps up an octave on a chorus. You could lean into the hooks, which are sharp and crunchy and confident, or the dynamics of her albums, which move from catchy pop-punk jams to exposed-nerve piano ballads. But if you did that, you’d be missing out. As a writer, Lotz is precise and open-hearted, and she makes you feel what she feels…

Lotz has split the 10-song Magic Gone into two LP sides: one written when her life was falling apart, one written while she was in treatment. That makes it a raw document of a raw time, even though the songs themselves are, on a simple aesthetic level, uniformly gorgeous.

Best listened to on walks through parks on crisp days or when you’re morose and can’t figure out why.

36. Apologies in Advance — Sylvan Lacue

Apologies in Advance’s structure mirrors AA’s 12-step recovery program and, in homage to The Miseducation of Ms. Lauryn Hill, is scaffolded by skits of young adults discussing their struggles with mental health, friendship, and career ambitions. In between the skits, Lacue raps about his journey to accept himself, battle his inner demons, and actualize as his best self. Lacue’s message is sharply honed, his flow is precise, and his beats are piano-driven, relaxed, and beautiful. He describes the album as “a therapeutic album that allows you to face yourself so you can hear yourself.”

Best listened to after hard, but necessary, life changes or in that interim between realizing you need therapy and actually making moves to go to a therapist.

35. Lady Lady — Masego

Masego refers to his musical style as “TrapHouseJazz”, because of its synthesis of traditional jazz instrumentation, trap beats, and the swing of house. Masego sings, plays cello, trumpet, drums, guitar, piano, and his particular specialty, the saxophone (both alto and tenor.) You can enjoy this album in the way that it makes you want to dance along with it, regardless of where you are, or by focusing on the many different musical strands that weave together on each song to create the rich tapestry of sound you are experiencing. It is impressive in its mood, its groove, and its instrumentation. Finishing out the album, is the now ubiquitous “Tadow” (feat. FKG), but as a testament to the rest of the release, it feels unnecessary to the integrity of the rest of the release, and like a sweet cherry on top of a stellar and unified LP.

Best listened to when trying to get into a groove with a project you’re working on or before a night of dancing.

34. Father EP — August 08

From August 08’s bandcamp:

In his magnum opus, Father, AUGUST 08 resurrects buried emotions and suppressed memories into eight, powerful songs. The debut project, which is set to release early 2018, is a vivid and honest portrayal of his life after age 11, when his father walked out on him and his family. AUGUST 08 navigates through the perspective of himself, his mother, and his father to find solitude in the end… Under the pop umbrella, AUGUST 08 describes his music as “crying on the dance floor.”

Best listened to on a night when you’re unexpectedly alone.

33. How Many Times Have You Driven By — Hana Vu

How Many Times Have You Driven By is exquisite bedroom pop, replete with surfy rhythmic guitars, sharp riffs, rolling drums, and a powerful, smoky voice that pulls it all together. The album is 17-year old, Hana Vu’s, debut release, but it is an impressive collection for an artist of any age. Her voice and the melodic complexity of her songs would never give away her youth, making the feat all the more impressive.

Best listened to on sunny afternoons in parks or when driving to the beach.

32. All Melody — Nils Frahm

Nils Frahm composes modern, experimental classical music on a variety of keys instruments. He reminds me of Phillip Glass mixed with Jamie XX. His work is dynamic, challenging, all-encompassing, and gorgeous.

Best listened to while curled up with a book or as you are falling asleep.

31. Lost & Found — Jorja Smith

Jorja’s voice is among the most powerful and impressive voices of our generation. She can drive through a note or flutter over an arrangement. She can rap, sing, scat, harmonize, and perform virtually any other feat asked of a vocal performer. Her songs are lush, textured, and beautifully arranged and on them she sings powerfully about a range of experiences, including inequality, injustice, and love, in all its different forms. At times the album can feel like it is bloated with a few filler songs, but the songs that connect are so wonderfully enrapturing that you’ll quickly forget about any such moments in favor of appreciating this singular talent.

Best listened to when cooking dinner or when nobody else is around to hear you try to belt along with Jorja and fail miserably.

30. Lamp Lit Prose — The Dirty Projectors

Dave Longstreth, lead singer and writer of the Dirty Projectors, is a virtuosic musician and composer. His works are always melodically complex, harmonically intricate, and technically difficult. I don’t think he prefers or is at all interested in the easy route to achieving any sound. His guitar work alone is stunning and it is worth listening to any Dirty Projectors’ album with an ear out simply for what he can accomplish on his primary instrument.

It is nice to hear The Dirty Projectors return to an enjoyable and interesting album after their abysmal self-title release last year. Longstreth and fellow member of Dirty Projectors, Amber Coffman, split up a few years ago, and their 2017 release saw Longstreth abandon his bandmates to make a nasty and spiteful break-up album filled with male self-loathing and unimpressive takes. For Lamp Lit Prose, Longstreth has reunited his band (sans Coffman) and their collective arrangements remind us of why this band has been so exciting and for so long. I don’t know another band that can so impressively mix such complicated arrangements into delectable pop songs.

Lamp Lit Prose is a solid album with some truly stunning harmonic moments. As a big Dirty Projectors fan, it is exciting and rewarding seeing the band return to their form. Now that they have recovered their core sound, I look forward to seeing the ways in which Longstreth pushes and expands their sound in the years ahead.

Best listened to while playing board games or on quality headphones with the intention of getting lost in their arrangements.

29. Blood — Rhye

Soft, smooth, intimate. Rhye’s second album builds on their excellent debut, Woman, with a thicker and warmer sound that feels more mature and fleshed out. Rhye’s distinctive falsetto ties together each track and lulls you into a wistful daze.

Best listened to while day dreaming or when waking up from a nap.

28. FM! — Vince Staples

A quick, fun throwaway of an album that’s meant to feel like flipping through the radio on a summer day. It switches beats, moods, and features, at a headwhipping pace and finishes just as you’re coming to appreciate what a gift of an album it is. It’s a testament to Vince Staples and his talent as a performer and curator that a quick project he threw together for fun could be so engaging and thrilling.

Best listened to when crewing in a car.

27. Negro Swan — Blood Orange

Dev Hynes, lead singer and writer of Blood Orange,has an incredible ear for melody and talent for writing hooks. He has written for Solange, FKA Twigs, Sky Ferreira, and a number of other pop artists, for whom his arrangements are catchy, dancy, and vocal forward. He wrote the entirety of Solange’s 2012 EP, True, which is among my all-time favorite releases (don’t @ me). But his own work is much more reserved, burying his vocals under layers of music and spoken word and sounds he likes to collect as he takes walks around his city. I like and appreciate this dichotomy between the pure pop he is capable of creating and the more difficult and layered pop that is his preferred mode of communication. On Negro Swan, Blood Orange continues his evolution as an artist, with a beautiful and complex release that requires multiple listens and a good deal of patience. But if you invest in the album, you will discover more and more of these little intimate moments that give you the chills and help you appreciate what a talent Hynes is.

Describing Negro Swan, Hynes says:

My newest album is an exploration into my own and many types of black depression, an honest look at the corners of black existence, and the ongoing anxieties of queer/people of color. A reach back into childhood and modern traumas, and the things we do to get through it all. The underlying thread through each piece on the album is the idea of hope, and the lights we can try to turn on within ourselves with a hopefully positive outcome of helping others out of their darkness.

Best listened to on headphones when you know you won’t run into a single person you know.

26. abysskiss — Adrianne Lenker

The songs on abysskiss are sparse and haunting. Often, the songs are composed of just two guitars and Adrianne Lenker’s unique and piercing voice. It is a beautiful example of the power a stripped down album can have, of the ways just a voice and an instrument can make you feel.

Best listened to while staring out windows while holding a warm cup of tea or as background music while you’re reading.

25. Con Todo El Mundo — Khruangbin

An absolute jam of an album. It is instrumental and meandering, leaping over genres and styles, but always being pulled back together by this trio of talented musicians. Once you catch their groove you won’t want to turn them off.

From Clash’s excellent review of Con Todo El Mundo:

But what about music that’s so all-encompassing, so unifying, that it sounds as if every nation, creed and culture had been rolled up together and sprinkled into one hefty joint? Music that looks beyond its borders and attempts to vibe with the collective entirety of the human race at once? As their name suggests, this is exactly what Khruangbin (‘aeroplane’ in Thai) attempt to do every time they pick up their instruments. So successful was this approach on debut album ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’, that it catapulted the trio to sold out tours around the globe, including an absolutely show-stealing performance on Glastonbury’s West Holt stage last year… On this whistle-stop tour Khruangbin take on such diverse styles as Iranian Pop (on the spindly guitars of lead single ‘Maria También’), Cuban Soul (on the smooth-as-silk ‘August 10’) and classic East Coast hip-hop (on the Questlove-indebted ‘Shades Of Man’).

Best listened to while getting dressed or on purposeful walks from one place to another.

24. At Weddings — Tomberlin

From Sarah Beth Tomberlin’s website:

On her deeply moving debut album At Weddings, Sarah Beth Tomberlin writes with the clarity and wisdom of an artist well beyond her years. Immeasurable space circulates within the album’s ten songs, which set Tomberlin’s searching voice against lush backdrops of piano and guitar. Like Julien Baker and Sufjan Stevens, she has a knack for transforming the personal into parable. Like Grouper, she has a feel for the transcendent within the ordinary.

The album is beautiful and haunting, sparse in wonderful ways. Best listened to while falling asleep or reading good fiction.

23. Make Way for Love — Marlon Williams

The first thing that strikes you about Marlon Williams is his deep and affecting vibrato. The songs on Make Way for Love are rich and beautifully arranged, featuring a swinging bass, clanging guitars, and swelling strings to round out the songs. But what made me fall in love with this album, is its sentiment and vulnerability. Williams wrote this album in the wake of his breakup with his long-term girlfriend and even as he reflects on heartbreak and failed relationships he never loses his trust that ultimately, love is the answer to all important questions. “Make Way for Love” is a request and a commandment, instructions for how to live meaningfully once again, even in the wake of devastating heartbreak.

Best listened to when you want to lament about your heartbreak but without giving up on love altogether.

22. Devotion — Tirzah

Devotion is wonderfully sparse, yet somehow doesn’t feel that way until you take the time to notice it. The songs feature Tirzah’s wonderfully rich, smoky and reverb-heavy voice front and center over a glowing synth and a simple but driving drum loop. The outcome forms one of the most interesting R&B releases of the year and an album that feels dense and simple all at once.

Best listened to while stuck in traffic or while waiting on a tarmac.

21. Hundreds of Days — Mary Lattimore

For a brief period this year I lived in a home with a wonderful backyard that featured a small, peaceful pond under a glorious tree. When the breeze would shift, the tree would shed hundreds of minuscule brown leaves that would gracefully flit throughout the backyard and to the ground or into the pond. The effect always reminded me of watching snow fall, except this tree’s shedding would occur in the middle of a beautiful San Francisco summer day. To me, listening to Hundreds of Days, feels like watching these leaves flutter to the ground, while reading a great book, and relaxing to the sound of a babbling pond on a gorgeous day. The music is primarily harp-driven with keys, strings, and acoustic percussion to round out the arrangements. It is my favorite instrumental album of the year and I can find peace within three minutes of putting it on.

Best listened to while brewing fresh tea, reading poetry, or meditating.

20. DiCaprio 2 — J.I.D.

J.I.D.’s DiCaprio 2 is his major label debut, recorded with passion and a purpose to ensure he registers on your radar. I’m still getting to know the album, but his voice is unique, his flow is versatile, starting out the record at breakneck speeds and easing into softer sung raps toward the latter half of the album. In a comprehensive review of the album on DJBooth, J.I.D’s manager explains why the album is named after Leonardo DiCaprio:

I think for J.I.D, the Oscar, so to speak, was him getting his deal. It was the moment of recognition. Now, we can fully showcase why he got it. I need to show you why people are placing me in a particular space even though it’s early. The DiCaprio theme is really an ode in the biggest way. It’s really… You don’t know what movie DiCaprio is going to be in. What you expect is a performance at the end of the day. That’s kind of the mantra we went with for this project: let’s give them a bunch of different movies. But in these movies the performances are high-level. These are movies that deserve to be rewarded.

Best listened to when trying to hype yourself up or when you are experiencing unadulterated joy.

19. Golden Hour — Kacey Musgraves

Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour is a masterpiece. From beginning to end, each song and verse adds to the feeling of a halcyon day, the kind you get proactively sad about, knowing that the wonderful happiness you are experiencing is fragile and might slip away at a moment’s notice, leaving you to try to reconstruct whatever first brought you to your bliss. Golden Hour is an album written by a masterful songwriter celebrating their love and happiness while not shying away from the anxiety that can accompany such blessings.

Golden Hour is also a prescient reminder of the limitations of genre. I normally shy away from country music both because of stylistic taste and stubborn ideological biases. But Musgraves’ music is lovely and charming and filling in the ways all truly great albums are. On Golden Hour, she writes psychedelic country jams, neo-disco, and pure pop, all influenced by a broad range of musicians, but always rooted in her love for country. For more about the album and Musgraves, check out The Fader’s excellent piece.

Best listened to on summer days or at small dinners with attendees whose musical tastes are unknown.

18. Be the Cowboy — Mitski

For Be the Cowboy, Mitski explains she felt tired of being described as emotionally raw and of being placed on a pedestal as the woman who is destined to save indie rock from white blandness. She has long felt that her music is far more calculating and precise than some of her fans who praise her for her authenticity would like to believe. On Be the Cowboy, she attempts to break from these molds by experimenting with narrative and fiction, writing from different characters points of views to see what they might feel like. Most notably, on “Me and My Husband,” Mitski writes from the perspective of a woman who stands by her husband despite his misdeeds and finds her strength in her and her husband’s relationship. It is neither criticism nor approval, but rather a curious writer trying to channel a feeling she imagined into a powerful arrangement. And this might be the most striking element of Be the Cowboy, how it showcases a musical and compositional genius, who writes and composes from various perspectives, all unified by themes of “icy, repressed women, starting to unravel.” The songs most often take the form of power pop ballads and every layer feels precise and necessary. They are large and encompassing and almost always provide a cathartic rock experience.

Best listened to on walks and subways or when you feel like dancing alone in your room.

17. Slow Buzz — Remember Sports

Sometimes there isn’t a ton of context to add to why an album is fantastic, other than it simply is. Slow Buzz, is one of those albums that simply rocks. Call it powerpop or pop-punk, it takes off from the first song and delivers high energy fuzzy jams throughout. Lead singer Carmen Perry’s voice is charming and unique and floats unaltered over the rest of the band’s distorted blurs, punctuating the most emotional moments on the album. They’re the kind of band you discover at a college bar and follow until all the members end up doing their own thing. Until then, there’s Slow Buzz, and the joy that accompanies it.

Best listened to when driving or when you feel like walking while jamming out.

16. Just for Us — Francis and the Lights

More stripped down and vulnerable than we normally find him, Just for Us, is brief and beautiful, filled with self-doubt and alternating between electropop and downbeat piano ballads. I make no claims for its objective greatness, but simply find joy in the album each time I listen to it.

Best listened to between getting out of bed and leaving for work or in a brief return home between two sets of plans.

15. Prom Queen EP — Beach Bunny

This short and punchy EP reminds me why I love indie rock. The lyrics are witty and resonate deeply. The music has an upbeat surf-rock vibe, with guitars and lead vocals falling over one another in rhythmic pulses. The riffs are precise and cutting and perfect. And over it all, lead singer, Lili Trifilio, belts snippets from her high school diary, finding the perfect balance between confidence, exasperation, heartbreak, and occasionally, righteous anger. It’s one fault is that it only possesses four perfect and lovely songs and one interlude before it ends. It’s my favorite introduction to a new band in years and makes me excited to keep checking back in on them until they release a proper debut.

Best listened to when in the mood for air drumming/guitar or when you want to experience the joy of young people making something pure.

14. Room 25 — Noname

Noname is a phenomenal and intimate artist, whose work features beautiful, intricate rhyme schemes, a sensual and conversational flow, and beautiful live music backing. Her songs are funny and quirky and let you in on wonderfully weird little moments or insecurities. For whatever reason, I don’t feel like I can do this album and this artist justice here, but this album is wonderful and if you’re interested in an in-depth profile, you should read this piece by The Fader.

Best listened to after returning home from a party or when desiring company on a walk.

13. Forth Wanderers — Forth Wanderers

Forth Wanderers’ songs begin with a beautiful and commanding guitar riff that joins forces with the other bandmates to create full, fuzzy landscapes over which lead singer, Ava Trilling, can drape her affecting lyrics and lovely deadpan vocals. The band was formed in high school, but the band members all attend different colleges now. Their process for writing songs bleeds into the composition of their music: lead guitarist, Ben Guterl, will record a demo based on a riff and email it to Trilling, who listens to it on repeat for days until lyrics come to her mind. Though it’s their third release, the band chose to self-title the album because they feel it is the first album through which they are ready to introduce themselves to the world. The result is a sparkling and incisive indie rock album with ten perfect tracks.

Best listened to while taking brisk walks or while eating snacks before an evening project.

12. El Mal Querer — Rosalía

This is probably the grandest, most unique, and most ambitious release of the year. No other album has sounded so distinct, so large, so beautiful. It is a fully immersive experience that will leave you changed and counting down the seconds until you can return to it once again.

From Remezcla’s feature on Rosalía:

El mal querer, Rosalía’s second album, delivers a concise yet emotionally harrowing experience that both transcends and serves to elevate the genre. The album overflows with the potential to enthrall audiences, while expertly sidestepping any perception of novelty its folkloric foundation may invite.

El mal querer is a self-described concept album about a doomed relationship, based on the 13th century work Flamenca, often thought to be the first modern novel. Each song serves as a chapter, gently advancing the narrative, as the album swims in a carefully understated current of electronic whispers. While it often submerges itself deeper into the folkloric leanings, the album never fully anchors to its flamenco roots.

One can get lost in this record, and be pulled back to sanity by its brief moments of unmitigated bliss. And at a succinct 30-minutes, it’s the ideal length for easy digestion. Any longer, and the album might succumb to the weight of its own power.

Best listened to when you’re ready to be transfixed for a half hour.

11. Heaven’s Only Wishful EP — MorMor

MorMor’s debut EP, Heaven’s Only Wishful EP, is a masterpiece of bedroom pop. MorMor, a 26-year-old Toronto native, wrote, recorded, and produced the entire EP, including the different instruments and vocal tracks on the record. The songs are simple but entirely delectable, played over simple drum tracks with irresistibly sweet hooks and a beautiful and raspy falsetto that ties it all together.

Best listened to in showers or while dancing with a partner.

10. Clean — Soccer Mommy

I held off on listening to this album for a while because I was too emotionally raw to handle it when it first came out — I would start crying a few tracks in and would have to turn the album off in favor of anything else. Clean is a beautiful, sad, and haunting record that deals with heartbreak and the uncertainties of growing up. Sophie Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, is just 20-years-old, but delivered one of the most enjoyable and lyrically dense albums of the year. The arrangements are clean and center her voice and lyrics, which transform the album into an emotional experience.

Best listened to when you’re feeling ready to cry about your last heartbreak.

9. Daytona — Pusha T

From HotNewHipHop’s review of Daytona:

DAYTONA’s hooks are sparse and to the point. There’s no ostensible single, yet each track catches a groove that deserves to be experienced at every BBQ this summer. The soul and funk samples fit together like abstract, minimalist puzzles, with the engrossing rapping serving as a much needed adhesive that pulls it all together. This is Kanye in his most truest sense; this is the Kanye that’s a fan of the rapper he’s serving beats to, first and foremost. Whether it be a Jay-Z, a Common, or a Pusha T — Ye creates these compositions as if he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the given rapper’s most piercing moments. Combine this with Pusha’s need for integrity and you get first true post-4:44album of our time.

Best listened to at barbecues or when you want to listen to Kanye’s genius while pretending you are actually boycotting his music.

8. I Need to Start a Garden — Haley Heynderickx

One of the most gorgeous albums of the year. Haley plays wonderful finger-picked guitar arrangements and sings with force and vibrato over her creations, sometimes flittering up to a lovely falsetto. The album is soft and precious and builds to a decisive moment in the seventh song when Haley finally breaks her cool to shout, “I need to start a garden!”, expressing her desire to return to the natural in a world that often tries hard to keep us separated from it. On that note, the album rings of wood and metal strings, eschewing electric instruments in favor of acoustic ones.

Best listened to on Sunday mornings when your roommates are all out of the house or when watching raindrops fall down windows.

7. Mt. Joy — Mt. Joy

Mt. Joy is a joyous little Americana album that caught me completely by surprise. On first listen, I felt resistant to the twang of the music and the swaggering confidence of the lead singer. But I kept finding myself drawn back, and with each listen I grew to love this album more. The songs build in just the right way, with acoustic-electric guitars leading the way before a meandering bass and energetic drums join the fray. The lead singer prances over the songs, demonstrating an impressive vocal range and providing a number of moments that make you stop what you’re doing to appreciate what’s in front of you.

Best listened to in backyards or parks on sunny days.

6. The Horizon Just Laughed — Damien Jurado

Damien Jurado is a veteran singer-songwriter, having honed his craft and his medium for the last 23 years. The Horizon Just Laughed, is his thirteenth album, and his mastery shines throughout. The songs are soft and gentle and tell wondrous, meandering tales that are just slightly other-worldly. The effect is that you follow him along, thinking that you understand, until a small detail reminds you that the normal rules don’t apply here, in these songs. The tracks are simple, composed of an acoustic guitar, light drums, some swelling synths, and cooing harmonies, but they are full and warm, and give me the feeling that I’ve walked into a beautiful summer cabin that’s been unoccupied for several months and I’m opening the dusty blinds to let in the warm sunshine for the first time this season. For a reason I cannot place, the songs also remind me of driving through New Mexico or Northern Arizona, watching the desert landscape slowly change shape around me, cactuses slowly turning into mesas and back again, as I sit mysteriously still, allowing it all to whir by my periphery.

Best listened to on wistful mornings or with a warm cup of coffee wrapped in a blanket you love.

5. Care for Me — Saba

On Care for Me, Saba channels his grief over the death of his cousin, John Walt, into ten cathartic and beautiful tracks. On the album, Saba discusses his struggle with depression, whether Walt-related or more general, and his attempts to stay grounded and present in an industry that would use him up and a country that views him as dispensable. His songs are narratively dense and paint vivid pictures without sacrificing tonal quality, you can tune in and experience a heartbreaking tale or tune out and simply enjoy the music. His flow is tactical and sharp, and he raps over live music, which creates an intimate and warm listening experience.

Serving as the penultimate track, “Prom/King” is the clear showstopper on the album, split into a two-part tale about Saba’s cousin and best friend, Walt. In part one, Prom, Saba details how he and Walt became close, during the lead up to their high school proms, and in part two, King, Saba narrates the events leading up to Walt’s death. The song is seven-and-a-half minutes long, but it’s impossible to notice time moving as you’re sucked into the story he’s telling. In part one, his flow is slow and whimsical, and in part two, he accelerates, and allows his anger, frustration, and sadness to surge through him. As the track fades out, Saba samples a track from Walt himself, who sings “Just another day in the ghetto / oh the streets bring sorrow / can’t get up to date with the schedule / I just hope I make it to tomorrow.” And as the music fades out, we’re left with Walt’s voice pleading again and again, “I just hope I make it to tomorrow” as his voice hauntingly flips between left and right speakers.

Reportedly, “Prom / King” was originally the final track of the album, but Saba didn’t want to leave his listeners devastated, and so he rounds out the emotional journey of the album with “Heaven All Around Me”, a light track about hope and God, to ease the listener out, and to remind them that even through the cruel slog that life can be, we are all blessed to be here, to feel, to see, and to listen.

Best listened to on long drives alone or on long-distance airplanes.

4. Stereo EP — Omar Apollo

Stereo, is a beautiful and bold introduction to 21-Year-Old, Omar Apollo. Omar, the child of two first-generation Mexican immigrants, taught himself how to play guitar at his family’s church and watching Youtube covers of Camp Rock. Over the last couple years, he decided to get more serious about his music and began recording a number of demos in his attic in Hobart, Indiana, all while working at the local Guitar Center. One of his singles caught on, and soon he decided to package his favorite songs and sounds into a debut EP to introduce himself to the world. The result is a beautiful, diverse, and deeply engaging EP that shuffles between R&B jams, bedroom pop, and latin infused indie rock. For more information about Omar Apollo, read this fantastic profile from Remezcla.

Best listened to over late night drinks with a friend or romantic interest.

3. Whack World — Tierra Whack

Whack World is composed of fifteen tracks in fifteen minutes, each clocking in at exactly 60 seconds. Each song grooves in a different way and completely draws you in, before changing to a new vibe just as you’re getting comfortable. Throughout, Tierra Whack demonstrates her dexterity, masterfully rapping in a variety of styles and variations over each new beat, teasing you with her tremendous potential. Reportedly, Tierra Whack released this album in this format because she didn’t want to ask people who had never heard of her to listen to an hour of new material, preferring to let us know who she is and what she’s capable of, so when she introduces full-length material we’ll be ready to give her our attention. The album is accompanied by a fifteen-minute visual album that manages to enhance and make more fun an already perfect album. It’s the most innovative and unique release I’ve listened to this year, and has me waiting desperately for anything else she’ll release to us in the coming years.

Best listened to anytime, anywhere you have fifteen minutes to experience joy and wonder.

2. Lush — Snail Mail

There’s something beautiful and wonderfully audacious about albums with intro tracks — how they warn you that you are entering a new world, one played by their rules, and that you better pay attention, that this isn’t the time for casually listening. On Lush, Snail Mail’s debut album, the listener is immediately carried away into the warm cavern of 19-Year-Old lead singer and songwriter Lindsey Jordan’s musical imagination. The music reverbs gently, with soft guitar strums that will build on occasion into cathartic bursts of energy, and the drums welcome in crashing symbols often, helping to surround you in this cocoon of music. The riffs are clean and lovely and at key notes, the distortion on the guitar will be stripped away to reveal a clean, vibrating note to punctuate the emotion. And finally, Jordan’s lyrics cut deep, seizing on tiny moments of intimacy and examining them for the feelings they produce. On “Heat Wave” she sings about the oppressive weight of heartbreak, “I’m so tired of moving on / spending every weekend so far gone / heat wave nothing to do / woke up in my clothes having dreamt of you,” and on “Pristine” about the longings for lost love, “If you do find someone better / I’ll still see you in everything / for always, tomorrow and all the time” and later “Don’t you like me for me / is there any better feeling than coming clean.” This album is a perfect debut album, perfect breakup album, perfect indie rock album, it is lovely and beautiful and precious and rocks and is an absolute gift.

Best listened to when you’re too sad to get out of bed or find yourself clutching for someone who’s not there.

1. The Woods — Raury

After a hard day, I put on The Woods, and went on a walk through the woods of Golden Gate Park. Within minutes, a man approached me and asked me to take off my earphones because he wanted to chat. He asked me what I was thinking about, I looked distant. And so I told him about having lost my job, and feeling anxious about starting something new. He immediately responded by saying I should spend the day losing myself in the woods, he pointed to the trees above me and said, “the woods are happy today, you picked the best day to lose yourself amongst the trees.” And then he quoted Genesis, “I am walking through the Garden in the cool of the day” before reassuring me that we can rarely see where our paths our leading but they take strange turns and deliver us to wherever it is that we were meant to be. And as I left my brief encounter feeling inspired, I returned to Raury’s The Woods, and marveled at the magnificent spirit this album holds, how whatever energy he channeled into this beautiful album could have somehow drawn to me a man who wanted to speak only about the woods and hope, and to remind me that through love and the natural world, we will all find our way.

This album feels like entering an enchanted forest, it is laced with undulating vocals, wood flutes, synths, guitars, and tambourines. It flits between different genres with confidence and ease. There are folk harmonies, rhythmic jams, acoustic ballads, bumping hip-hop tracks, and psychedelic rock solos. The album scoffs at the idea of urgency, taking its time to lead you around the myriad paths that Raury is choosing to walk. And there are so many little hidden gems, reasons to relisten, to delve into the opening tracks or the closing tracks or the ones that fall through the cracks in the middle.

Raury was signed to a label at a young age, but felt constrained by the person they were trying to turn him into, and after he realized the label didn’t see him as a potential star, he politely let them know that he was leaving to chart his own direction. After leaving, he retreated into the woods, in an attempt to reconnect with the natural world, to understand his role in it, to relearn how to grow and cultivate and appreciate organic food, and to search for ways to be less reliant on the capitalist system. When he emerged, he wrote The Woods, and released it for free on Soundcloud. He spent the year touring the country, putting on free shows in different region’s woods and living out of the back of his van with his dog.

Throughout the album, we bounce between Raury’s dichotomous priorities: absolute freedom and pure love. He wants to roam the world, travel, learn, listen, and love. But sometimes those loves can disrupt his focus on freedom, drawing him in, making him want to build something sturdy and long and lovely. And he fails often as he oscillates between these two poles, sometimes regretting his own freelove, his propensity to cheat, his need to wander, and other times he thinks about the emptiness of the loves he finds on the road, and of how different they feel from the one he left behind. In addition to this central tension, there are songs about finding freedom and purpose in the natural world, he sings, “The forest is my home / I’m safer in the trees” and “I’m no different than the setting sun or the new moon.” When he describes his life purpose, he talks about creating a community of seekers, musicians, and healers who can love together and build with each other without needing to rely on capitalist systems, and it all starts with music, with allowing yourself to coincide with the rhythm of the universe, if only for a moment.

Best listened to on walks through the woods or when you’re too high to make conversation and want to be transported to a new, mystical world.