2018 Albums of the Year [Introduction & 50-21]

The only other time I have done a countdown for my favorite non-rap albums of the year was in 2017. In that year, I still slotted rap albums into the countdown, taking the spots of albums from other genres. This year I decided to separate them completely. I wanted to acknowledge the many great albums that came out outside of rap music. Even though I call these ‘albums of the year,’ that does not necessarily mean every album in this list is better than every album in my Rap Up. I just wanted even more room to highlight spectacular work. The format for this is identical to the Rap Up, save the awards at the end. I am also only doing a top 50 here, despite how much I wanted to expand it. I hope your favorite music makes the list, and if it doesn’t, I hope you find something new. For this post, I am counting down from albums 50-21. So here we find ourselves with Wild Pink’s sophomore album, Yolk in the Fur.

Wild Pink - Yolk in the Fur

50. Wild Pink – Yolk in the Fur

From the opening track, Wild Pink’s Yolk in the Fur feels as breezy and blissful as a dream. The slow-moving guitar and John Ross’ soft vocals evoke the feeling of flying and taking in the world beneath you. On the title track, the progression of the guitar and drums from the methodical beginning to the jangling middle inspire joy. There’s a thread of warmth that runs through the record. The softness and subtlety of Yolk in the Fur also bursts at the seam with feeling. Even when the stumbling blocks come, they just serve to add to the emotional tenor packed tightly in each song, making the payoff that much more comforting.

49. Kadjha Bonet – Childqueen

48. LUMP – LUMP

Laura Marling’s voice stitches together the fabric of these beats often electrified by the bass guitar. That is precisely where the record starts. LUMP’s debut is predicated on that hypnotic droning sound create by the bass on tracks like “Hand Hold Hero” and “Curse of the Contemporary.” When the bass isn’t bolstered by the guitar, that drone is supplied by synths on songs such as “May I Be the Light” (where Marling also may give her best vocal performance of the record). The album is short and sweet growing more expansive as it continues to the point where you are nearly disappointed when it ends. LUMP feels like the start of something special, even if that something special ends after 32 minutes.

47. Matt Maltese – Bad Contestant

Kathryn Joseph - From Where I Want The Wake Is

46. Kathryn Joseph – From Where I Want the Wake Is

This album is equal parts comforting and exhausting in its pursuit of shining a light in the darkness. For as much as the instrumentals are carried by the haunting piano chords, Kathryn Joseph’s vibrato will leave you shaken. It adds an unmistakable emotional gravity to every single moment of each track. You feel as though she is on the precipice of a breakthrough or a breakdown at any given moment. The title track feels more like the former, as though there is something comforting about the shakiness. It is an entirely different story on “Tell My Lover.” The way the instrumental comes crashing like a wave over Kathryn’s vocals as she inaudibly wails sounds as though she’s drowning. It is an album that rests firmly somewhere in the darkness. Every once in a while though, Kathryn Joseph turns on her flashlight to guide you.

45. boygenius – boygenius EP

44. Beach House – 7

43. Natalie Prass – The Future and The Past

Natalie Prass’ The Future and The Past is an apt name for an album that simultaneously embraces sounds of old and new. It draws on both R&B and funk sounds to create a beautiful palette for Prass to color with her songwriting and vocals. The guitars on “Never Too Late” sound like something you might here on an Earth, Wind, & Fire track. An understated component of the record is the way Prass creates an additional rhythm on top of instrumentals through her cadence. “Short Court Style” exemplifies this through the way she bounces around the bridge into the chorus. The album slows down on tracks like “Ship Go Down” which draws even more to Prass’ enchanting songwriting. All of these elements come together like a whirlwind, one that picks up from the moment you press play and doesn’t toss you till the guitar and piano instrumental outro on “Ain’t Nobody.”

42. Neko Case – Hell-On

41. Troye Sivan – Bloom

Ezra Furman - Transangelic Exodus

40. Ezra Furman – Transangelic Exodus

One of the most thematically unique records in this countdown, Ezra Furman devises a concept record about falling in love with an angel and being on the run. While that sets the stage for an out-of-this-world experience, it also anchors itself quite nicely as an analogy to modern times. Throughout the course of the record, Ezra bends genres to his will. Some tracks have art pop vibes similar to St. Vincent (“Suck the Blood from My Wound”), others sound like machinations from the Tom Waits’ House of Horrors (“Driving Down to L.A.”), and even strings that might come from an Arcade Fire record (“Love You So Bad”). As if the conceptual story and the genre-bending was not enough to convince you to spin this record, the way Ezra plays with his own voice and cadence from track to track adds a layered depth to already imaginative sounds. There are multiple levels to unpack on Transangelic Exodus that just seem to get better over time.

39. Tim Hecker – Konoyo

Much of Hecker’s Konoyo churns like existential machinations driven by some combination of electronic and industrial sounds. Though it is not an unfathomable sound, it is one that begs the question how Hecker figures to combine the sounds that he does. The opener (“This life”) comes across as beautifully daunting and precisely controlled. After this track, Konoyo’s sonic palette expands and contracts along the thumping mechanized sounds and dark ambience. It is also one of the most accessible industrial records I have ever heard. It is soaked with darkness interrupted by boisterous, constantly evolving sounds such as the progression on “Keyed out.” Konoyo is an album befitting the soundtrack of Netflix’s German television show, Dark. The show is about the nature of time itself and how such a construct plays into our understanding of the world. I make no bones about projecting as to what mood Hecker was trying to achieve, but the existential tones feel ever-present, even in the album’s lighter moments. Without ever uttering a word, Hecker seems to be asking some of life’s most unanswerable questions.

38. Iceage – Beyondless

Half Waif - Lavender

37. Half Waif – Lavender

There are few albums in this countdown as intimate as Half Waif’s Lavender. The instrumentals never feel particularly far from the listener. They never get too big with just enough progression to mimic the emotional peaks and valleys of Half Waif herself. Her cadence is soft, measured, and powerful. Each note contains a piercing tenderness. She glides on top the instrumentals as though they are guiding her to the place she has been looking for. The way she draws out notes on “Keep It Out” over the simple melodic drum pattern in the beginning of the track is enchanting. “Lavender Burning” is the opening track and sets the tone for the entire record. It hauntingly captures the hollowness of loneliness through lines such as “I miss New York and that’s the loneliest feeling/To be on a road and not know where it’s leading.” Lavender is a slow burn of intimate emotion packed into 38 minutes.

36. Amanda Shires – To the Sunset

35. Snail Mail – Lush

Often times when I am thinking about what makes an album, movie, or television show ‘good,’ I consider my own enjoyment of it. There are certainly other levels to the various art forms, but criticism at its core for me starts with my level of enjoyment. The actual criticism comes from exploring the facets of that enjoyment. All of this is to say, I enjoyed the hell out of Snail Mail’s Lush. The evolution of Lindsey Jordan’s guitar (the leader singer as well) from “Speaking Terms” into “Heat Wave” made me fall in love. The jangling, bouncing guitar on “Speaking Terms” morphs from that sound into this cutting, blistering guitar on “Heat Wave.” Even on a fourth listen, I find myself gravitating toward both of those tracks because of that progression. “Stick” so wonderfully captures the earnestness in the vocal performance and songwriting of Lindsey Jordan throughout this record. It is hard not to walk away from Lush completely taken by Jordan’s ability to craft a tight album bursting at the seams with sentimentality.

34. Mount Eerie – Now Only

33. Ought – Room Inside the World

Low - Double Negative

32. Low – Double Negative

The first time I listened to Low’s Double Negative, it didn’t click with me. The second time I listened I was taking a road trip. It was quite foggy that day. It was a dark sky for midday. I could see in front of me, but everything felt foreboding including the periodic rainstorm. This album might qualify as the soundtrack to a drive like that. From its opening moments, Double Negative is a walk through an apocalyptic wasteland, sorting through the wreckage and debris to see what’s left. To find something of meaning in destruction and despair. The bass on “Fly” mimics that of an arrhythmic heartbeat. It starts to feel as though you are just walking alone through nothingness. Suddenly Alan Sparhawk’s falsetto sets the whole song in motion, giving the listener chills. Tracks like “Always Up” and “Dancing and Fire” feels like small distillations of the enormous themes evoked in the auditory vastness of Double Negative. Each feels as though they occupy and evoke some intermediary between life and death. The heaviness of Double Negative doesn’t come in the form of a gut punch but a meditative slight of hand. An awakening induced by the droning void of each instrumental and the evocative, mercurial vocals.

31. Grouper – Grid of Points

30. Robyn – Honey

Talk about an enormous tonal shift from the last album explored in the countdown. Where Double Negative evokes the feeling of despair and an attempt to find, well, anything therein, here we have Robyn. A spectacularly fun electronic dance record driven by its zest for life. In fact, the album is not just driven by life but it exudes it. Listening to these instrumentals you cannot help but move your head. Listening to Robyn belt out on “Because It’s In The Music” will put a smile on your face. Honey is a rare record where you feel each track from its opening “Missing U” to its closing “Ever Again.” Spin this record and let the whole damn thing surge through your veins. You will not regret it.

Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog

29. Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog

The depth of layers to the instrumentals on Hop Along’s Bark Your Head Off, Dog is endlessly fascinating to me. However, that is not the reason I continue to come back to the album (I mean, okay it’s definitely part of it, but bear with me here). The first time I heard Frances Quinlan on “One That Suits Me” I knew this was going to be a band I was going to follow for a long time. Her pacing through the track is mesmerizing. She knows just when to punch through the notes, sounding as though she is grimacing through singing. She also knows when to let it rip, hit a vibrato, and drag out short syllables to draw the listener’s attention. That particular song is an absolute masterclass in how to understand songwriting as far beyond just the words that are being sung. All of this excitement on my part and I have not even touched her guitar playing skills. Look, apparently if you do not give Hop Along’s Bark Your Head Off, Dog a shot, I am going to come to your house and talk about how much I like Frances Quinlan for at least 30 more minutes.

28. Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour

If you listened to me talk about music this year, you had to know that I was going to write about this album. I love Kacey Musgraves. I am not even going to pretend to be ‘objective’ about this album (which, criticism in some ways feels inherently subjective, but I suppose that’s a conversation for another time). That is what I love about this project. It is not just about honing my writing skills or trying to – at some point – make something out of this website and these projects. At the heart of it all, I do this because I love it. If I didn’t, there’s no way I could’ve listened to 240+ albums last year. Of course, I was excited to listen to Father John Misty’s new record, Kamasi Washington’s new record, and more but there were few this year I hyped up more than Golden Hour. I was not disappointed. On subsequent listens though, Golden Hour just got better. Golden Hour is Kacey somehow mixing sounds from country, pop, and electronic music and coming out the other side with an enormously heartfelt album that could comfort you on the loneliest of winter nights.

Virginia Wing - Ecstatic Arrow

27. Virginia Wing – Ecstatic Arrow

This is my Yasiel Puig throw from deep right field trying to catch a runner breaking for home. Virginia Wing’s Ecstatic Arrow is an odd amalgamation of sounds and themes that somehow work incredibly well together. On first listen, my reaction was something along the lines of “this is good, but what am I listening to…?” On the second listen, I came to thoroughly enjoy the way the instrumental and vocal explorations play Frogger with your focus. You are not sure what part of the song to listen to at any given point. On “Second Shift,” sometimes I gravitate toward the horns, sometimes those electronic noises, sometimes Alice Merida Richards hypnotic vocals, and even that infectious drum beat from time to time. Would you believe me if I told you each track was that layered and enormously diverse in sound? Stick with Ecstatic Arrow, it’ll take you on a synthpop fever dream.

26. Lucy Dacus – Historian

25. Leon Vynehall – Nothing is Still

24. Tirzah – Devotion

The opening notes of the opening track on Tirzah’s Devotion hooked me. The electronic keyboard notes that evoke the sounds of a harp were enough for me to spin it back. Then when Tirzah’s vocals come in a droning, affectionless, potent tone, I was swept away. The texture of the production on Devotion is more than enough to satisfy an empty stomach. From “Basic Need” to “Affection” to “Fine Again” to “Gladly” alone, you are eating a four-course meal. The keyboard is an appetizer, the drum kicks follow suit, the synth starts to fill you up, and then Tirzah’s vocals on top of it all are just dessert. The record is hypnotizing. You’ll turn it on the first time and before you realize 38 minutes have passed without you thinking about anything but just how beautiful this is.

23. Years & Years – Palo Santo

22. Jon Hopkins – Singularity

21. Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer

The top 20 awaits us next and promises to hold even more great records (if you read my blurb on Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, you’d probably wonder how that was possible). There is much to digest just from this group of albums: the dance sounds of Robyn to Virginia Wing’s eclectic synthpop to Tim Hecker’s industrial instrumentals. Did your favorite album make this section of the list? Do you think Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour should be number one? (I really won’t let it go, it’s a great record). Let me know!

As always, thanks for reading.