Best Albums of 2018
This year’s list is a little more timely, brought to you by the Great American Shutdown of 2019. And boy, I have some thoughts. But that’s not for this post. All I’ll say is: elect incompetent people, get stupid results.
Every year is a good year for music if you cast the net wide enough. I always feel like I don’t after I read Aquarium Drunkard’s annual review (it’s amazing how broad they get), but I always feel a little validated if a couple of my picks end up on theirs (Amen Dunes, Damien Jurado, Ryley Walker, Parquet Courts, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Wye Oak, John Prine). They always have a few that I need to go back and reconsider a little more (Richard Swift, Khruangbin, Mountain Man, The Advisory Circle, Michael Nau and the Mighty Thread, Bonny Doon, Nap Eyes), some I should have known about but missed (Kurt Vile, Yo La Tengo, Big Red Machine), and a whole bunch of other stuff I would have never otherwise known about. What a treasure of a website.
Other good top lists were ones from American Songwriter, The Bitter Southerner, Paste, and The Alternative. For stuff you really won’t hear of anywhere else, check out The Quietus and GoldFlakePaint.
As always, every album has a Spotify link in the title. I picked 4 songs off each album to have an even 100-song playlist for you to shuffle through. Key tracks are all gathered in a playlist, here. Hit shuffle and enjoy the year that was.
Key tracks: “Blue Rose,” “Miki Dora,” “Believe,” “L.A.”
Andrew Bryant // Ain’t It Like the Cosmos
Key tracks: “Robert Downey Jr.’s Scars,” “I Am Not My Father’s Son,” “The Price Was Right,” “Bittersweet”
Phil Cook // People Are My Drug
Key Tracks: “Steampowered Blues,” “Miles Away,” “Another Mother’s Son,” “Life”
The Dead Tongues // Unsung Passage
Key Tracks: “Won’t Be Long,” “Ebb and Flow,” “Pale November Dew,” “Thunder and Crash”
Father John Misty // God’s Favorite Customer
Key Tracks: “Hangout at the Gallows,” “Mr. Tillman,” “Date Night,” “Please Don’t Die”
Key Tracks: “Slapstick,” “Lich Prince,” “Gameshark,” “Bastardizer”
Key Tracks: “To Be,” “Lost in a Dream,” “Everthing Apart,” “Sunset Canyon”
Scott Hirsch // Lost Time Behind the Moon
Key Tracks: “When You Were Old (El Dorado),” “Rose’s Song,” “No No,” “Evening’s Wooden Drum”
Hop Along // Bark Your Head Off, Dog
Key tracks: “How Simple,” “Somewhere a Judge,” “One That Suits Me,” “Prior Things”
Damien Jurado // The Horizon Just Laughed
Key tracks: “Allocate,” “Percy Faith,” “The Last Great Washington State,” “Florence-Jean”
Key tracks: “Ancient Names (Part I),” “The Balancer’s Eye,” “Moonbeam,” “Vide Noir”
Key tracks: “Dark Oscillations,” “Joy,” “I Don’t Want Children,” “Black Willow”
Key tracks: “High Desert,” “Inverness,” “Simple Scenes,” “The Rail”
Kacey Musgraves // Golden Hour
Key tracks: “Slow Burn,” “Oh, What a World,” “Space Cowboy,” “High Horse”
The Nude Party // The Nude Party
Key tracks: “Water On Mars,” “Chevrolet Van,” “Records,” “Wild Coyote”
Key tracks: “Violence,” “Before the Water Gets Too High,” “Wide Awake,” “Tenderness”
John Prine // The Tree of Forgiveness
Key tracks: “Knockin’ on Your Screen Door,” “Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone),” “Lonesome Friends of Science,” “When I Get to Heaven”
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever // Hope Downs
Key tracks: “An Air Conditioned Man,” “Talking Straight,” “Bellarine,” “Exclusive Grave”
St. Paul & The Broken Bones // Young Sick Camellia
Key tracks: “Convex,” “Apollo,” “Mr. Invisible,” “LivWithoutU”
Key tracks: “Pristine,” “Heat Wave,” “Full Control,” “Anytime”
Key tracks: “Discotheque,” “Young,” “Johnson City,” “I’ve Been”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra // Sex & Food
Key tracks: “Ministry of Alienation,” “Hunnybee,” “American Guilt,” “Everyone Acts Crazy Nowadays”
Ryley Walker // Deafman Glance
Key tracks: “22 Days,” “Can’t Ask Why,” “Telluride Speed,” “Spoil with the Rest”
Key tracks: “Lake Erie,” “Yolk in the Fur,” “There is a Ledger,” “John Mosby Hollow Drive”
Wye Oak // The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs
Key tracks: “The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs,” “It Was Not Natural,” “Symmetry,” “You of All People”