IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN, and so I emerge from another period of radio silence to list of my top 20 favourite songs of the year. Thanks to uni i havent listened to as much new music as I would have liked to in the last third of 2018 (Although several songs from it are still represented), so dont go into this thinking its some kind of objective overview of the year in music. Also, my criteria for a song to get on here is that it has to have either been released this year on been on an album released this year (even if it came out at the end of 2017). Lets go:
Honourable Mention: 6ix9ine - BILLY
Bear with me, bear with me, I KNOW 6ix9ine is a terrible human being, but to be fair thats pretty much the appeal of his music to begin with. Listen to 'BILLY' once and it's clear it's a terrible, awful, borderline unlistenable song, but I love it to death. The sheer absurdity of a rainbow-coloured young man with '69' tattooed on his forehead screeching primary-school bully tier lyrics with a voice of burnt gravel is the epitome of so-bad-it's-good. So for what may be the most unintentionally hilarious song of the year, 6ix9ine makes the list.
20. SOPHIE - Faceshopping
On the actually good side of things is 'Faceshopping' by Sophie, a song which, to me at least, feels like its been thrown into 2018 from the future. Complete with it's rather terrifying music video, Sophie tackles consumerism... maybe? And identity... maybe. No matter what the song is about, it sounds like a firework display going off inside a metal bin, which is good enough for me.
19. St Vincent - Fast Slow Disco
One of my favourite albums of last year was 'MASSEDUCTION' by St. Vincent. One of my least favourite songs on the album was 'Slow Disco'. For some reason - possibly just for the sake of having a slightly funny in-joke song title - the originally solemn track was twisted into a synth-pop banger. And now I like it more than nearly every other song on 'MASSEDUCTION'. Huh.
18. The Voidz - QYURRYUS
'QYURRYUS' sounds unlike I've anything I've ever heard. The guitar work sounds more like sirens and malfunctioning machines than 'music', and at least of half of Julian Casablancas' lyrics are incomprehensibly murmured or shouted in a guttaral, almost Asian-inspired way, until the song evolves into a weird Ariel Pink-esque chant, with auto-tuned ad-libs. The complete antithesis to anyone complaining about the Strokes constantly looking backwards into history for inspiration.
17. They Might Be Giants - I Left My Body
On their latest LP They Might Be Giants proclaimed that they 'Like Fun'. 'I Left My Body' follows a character who drifts out of his body and cant get back in, waiting endlessly in an unbearable purgatory. I'm not sure if They Might Be Giants like fun.
16. Jeff Rosenstock -Yr Throat
I had some trouble picking the stand-out track from 'POST-', but ultimately 'Yr Throat' is the song which holds up best almost a year after the January 1st release date of the album. It probably helps that it does sound like a Christmas song in many ways, albeit a Christmas song about crushing dread. Jeff always manages to come up with vocal melodies that stick in your brain after a single listen and refuse to leave, and 'Yr Throat' stands amongst 'Festival Song' and 'Nausea' as his best work.
15. U.S. Girls - M.A.H
Thankfully obnoxious anti-trump music was on the fade this year on the whole, but we still got one political middle-finger worth keeping thanks to U.S. Girls disco-infused, Kylie Minogue-esque jam 'Mad As Hell (M.A.H.)'. Sounding like a lost gem from the seventies yet grounded firmly in 2018, this is a great example on how to make political music that is as listenable as it is thought-provoking.
14.Mitski - Two Slow Dancers
One of two songs on this list about slow dancing, the finale of Mitski's latest LP is the rare ballad that manages to enthrall me. The music is beautiful, as is Mitski's gentle singing, but what really pulls this song together are the lyrics, which manage to escape the tediously over-wraught, melodramatic lyrics that make similar ballads fail. The arresting first line - 'Does it smell like a school gymnasium in here' is maybe my favourite lyric of the year, instantly bringing up nostalgia, sex and longing that ride out on every metaphor and pondering thought Mitski pours into the rest of the wonderfully brief runtime.
13.Beach House - Pay No Mind
The central melody of 'Pay No Mind' sounds remarkably familiar, to the point where I had to look up the chord sequence to see if I could find some earlier version, but I couldnt. Either way, 'Pay No Mind' is the most relaxing, blissful and transcendental dream-pop song of the year. The song sounds like sitting in a tiny wooden hut by a fire, watching the stars in the night sky, or something equally romantic.
12. Daughters - The Reason They Hate Me
And on the opposite end of the musical spectrum is Daughters with 'The Reason They Hate Me'. Pretty much any song from 'You Won't Get You Want' could have been here, but this late track on the album starts with a bang and just keeps getting more and more intense until the first chorus - perhaps climax is a more apprpropriate term - where the broken-machinery guitar-riff turns into a demonic printer edging out soul-stabbing shrieks. Exciting, explosive and terrifying this is the musical equivalent of a really great horror movie.
11. Janelle Monae - Make Me Feel
'Make Me Feel' is exactly the type of song that 80s Prince would have made in 2018, and that kind of 80s worship carries over to the impressive music video, one of many Monae released this year. Don't get caught thinking this is mere throwback music - Greta Van Fleet this aint - Monae updates the 'Kiss' esque elements of 'make Me Feel' with 2000s girl-group harmonies and a slight off-kilter-ness that makes everything sound somehow even more colourful and rich than even Prince could manage.
10. The 1975 - Love it if We Made It
I don't particularly consider myself to be a fan of the 1975 but they manage to consistently release a few incredible singles every album cycle. Last time it was 'Love Me' and 'The Sound' , but I think they've out-done themselves this time with 'Love it if We Made It', which is surely their best song yet. Matt Healy shouts the lyrics so passionately you cant help but pay attention to what he's saying - and what he's saying is pretty amazing, the lyrics taking the form of a 'We didn't Start the Fire' or 'It's The End Of The World As We Know It' stream of consciousness of relevant news topics. This makes the song sound absolutely massive, as if the entire world as it is is encapsulated in a chaotic four minute pop song. Best of all is the ultimately hopeful sentiment that we've been lacking in so much pop music for the past few years, as Healy sings 'Modernity has failed us - but I'd love it if we made it.'
9.Kanye West - Ghost town
Whatever KanyeWest does, says or changes his name to, I don't really care as long as he keeps dropping songs as musically varied, unique and ultimately powerful as 'Ghost Town'. Every one of the many guests that pop up here in just a few short minutes add immensley to the song, from Kid Cudi's heartfelt chorus to 070 SHAKE's euphoric outro of the song whcih builds up, collapses and builds again bigger over and over until only that unforgettable melody is lodged in your head.
8.Death Grips - Black Paint
This is the song that grew on me the most over 2018. On my first few listens I could barely get a grip on any kind of melody or instrument within the super-dense mix of 'Black Paint', but upon further listens (Especially when turned up loud), this is one of the most forceful and exciting as well as by far one of the heaviest songs Death Grips have ever produced. The chorus of 'BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM' is as fun to scream along to as anything you could want from MC Ride and the bass is so thicc it practically sounds like the sonic equivalent of... well, black paint.
7.Kero Kero Bonito - Only Acting
Surely my biggest musical surprise of 2018 was 'Only Acting'. It starts off with a hollow, industrial beat and immediately it's clear something is... off. 'Bonito generation' was a joyful, cute and child-like album, and on 'Only Acting' KKB grew up big time, taking influences from contemporaries like Jeff Rosenstock and of all people, Death Grips to make a catchy but wonderfully dark meditation on social media and identity, complete with a key change that (On the album) is sharply interrupted by distorted interference.
6.MGMT - When You Die
It's almost a year to the day of me writing this that this completely whacked out psychadelic jam was sprung on to the world by musical pranksters MGMT. Complete with proabably my favourite music video of the year, the individual elements of 'When You Die' are so bizarre that when they come together its impossible to know whether you should laugh or be terrified. With only a single extended chorus, the main hook of the song funtions as 'GO FUCK YOURSELF', which pretty much exemplifies this idea. If your gonna do LSD at least do yourself the favour of listening to this while you trip out.
5.Anna Von HaussWolf - The Mysterious Vanishing Of Electra
It's rare for a song to genuinely unnerve me, but 'the Mysterious Vanishing Of Electra', with it's crushing repeating riff and razor-edge vocals manages to be unsettling and thrilling on every repeated listen. After three minutes of tense build-up the real climax of the song bursts unexpectedly just when you think the coast is clear. Inspired by recent Swans albums it may be, but Anna Von Hausswolff manages to channel Michael Gira's cackle into a more theatrical and dramatic as well as arguably more accessible piece of sound.
4.joji - Slow Dancing in the Dark
The other huge musical surprise for me this year was just how much I adored this song by Joji. Every other song the man's made has been mediocre at best, but Jesus Christ this song just hits me. The nocturnal, underwater soundscape constructed in the production manages to sound cutting edge - this is totally what pop music will sound like in several years time - and Joji finally flexes his lyrical and vocal muscles. The climactic shout of the songs title in the chorus is maybe the most cathartic I've heard all year and the hopeless-romantic lyrics manage to sum up Joji's entire appeal in the most mature and original way yet. Hopefully Joji will sound more like this in the future and less like 'Test Drive'.
3.Haru Nemuri - sekaiwotorikaeshiteokure
Sometimes you hear a song from a scene you've never explored that makes you wonder what you've been missing out on all this time. This song (I'm not gonna try to write that name any more times than I have to) by Haru Nemei is a perfect example of this. Sounding just enough like Western rock music to draw me in, the vocoded backing vocals, explosive choruses, key changes and over-lapping melodies combine to make a song that I may not understand but I completely adore - especially when it breaks into a hugely impressive rap verse of all things in it's bridge. It sounds like the world ending, in Japanese.
2.Car Seat Headrest - Nervous Young Inhumans
Yes, there are proabably better songs on 'Twin Fantasy'. 'Beach Life-In-Death', 'Famous Prophets (Stars)' and 'Bodies' and 'Sober To Death' etc, etc. But for some reason this is the song I've been coming back to all year. Maybe it's the Killers-esque synth line, maybe it's just how the now-audible lyrics are some of the best on the album, maybe it's the way Will Toledo sings 'You'll get what you want and you will get what you deserve', or maybe its just that since its basically the shortest proper song on the album it's the one I feel like I can never hear enough times.
1.Kids See ghosts - Reborn
For the third year in a row I've had trouble naming my 'song of the year' - once again there hasn't been one specific song that felt so much better than everything else that I could immediately place it at the top. But there has to be a winner, and 'Reborn' is deserving as you can get. Innovative, unique, relaxing and ultimately transcendental, this track (along with 'Cudi Montage') feels destined to save thousands of lives purely through the catharsis and hope contained within it. That's not even to mention just how beautifully cathartic it is to see two of the music industries most publicly troubled individuals - Kanye West and Kid Cudi - come together to spread a message of hope, and one that sounds damn good at that. Keep movin' forward.
