Year in Review 2018: Music

Best Albums I Missed in 2017

• Awake and Pretty Much Sober — Violents + Monica Martin

One of my pet peeves with pop music is that a lot of pop artists are actually really good singers, but are frequently putting out songs that don’t serve their voices (and also have crappy lyrics but I guess that’s a separate issue). Fortunately, producer/songwriter Jeremy Larson, a.k.a. Violents, knows how to truly collaborate with a talent like Martin (best known for leading the folkpop outfit, PHOX). Martin’s voice is always at the forefront of the mix, and the melodies give her plenty to work with. There’s a richness to her vocals that I don’t hear much in pop music, and I think it’s that juxtaposition that makes this album so great.

• DAMN. — Kendrick Lamar

There’s that line in the pilot of Sherlock where Lestrade says Sherlock is “a great man. Someday he might even be a good one.” That’s kind of how I feel about To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN. TPAB is a great album, but when I got to the end I was so caught up in analyzing it that I couldn’t remember if I actually liked the music. DAMN. is a good album (a really good album), which is pretty impressive for something that’s so high concept that it’s sequenced front-to-back and back-to-front. And where TPAB felt like the hard-won masterpiece of a tortured genius, DAMN. feels like an album he actually enjoyed making.

• A Deeper Understanding — The War On Drugs

“I resist what I cannot change,” sings Adam Granduciel on “Pain.” There’s a clear connection between that refrain and the song’s title, and it’s this kind of coming-to-grips that enacts the title of the album. It’s an album that could soundtrack the third act opener of a movie where our hero, after a journey of self-exploration and/or moment of revelation, looks upon their life through the lens of this new understanding. Like any moment of change it is both sad and exhilarating, which is pretty much the defining qualities of washed-out electric guitars, shimmering and roaring out into the night (it’s night, obviously, in this scene). This is an album for driving through the night to get back the town you left behind, or to get to the city you were never brave enough to venture to before. It’s like shoegaze’s more dramatic cousin. (EDIT: So, I thought about just excising this line, but I think it’s a funny mistake so I’m leaving it in. Basically, I heard the term “shoegaze” at around the same time I started listening to Hotel Lights, and somehow those two things got connected in my brain, and for years I thought shoegaze was, like, quiet folkpop or something. Eventually I started listening to The Twilight Sad and found out the actual meaning of shoegaze. So yeah, that line was really just comparing The War on Drugs to Hotel Lights.)

• No Dogs Allowed — Sidney Gish

There’s a tendency to believe that music with a humorous streak belongs solely on a novelty album presented by Dr. Demento. While Gish certainly can make you laugh, there’s a talent here that goes beyond novelty. Gish is clearly a Shel Silverstein fan and, like Silverstein, her absurdism serves as a filter for a deep well of humanity. (And, for the record, I do like novelty songs.)

• Reservoir — Gordi

Though her lush production and gift for melody are not insignificant factors in what makes Gordi’s music so good, the key is undeniably her voice. Her voice has depth, a combination of power and vulnerability that makes for a sonically and emotionally rich performance. It’s even more impressive in live performances, so do yourself a favor and look those up; I’d recommend starting with her unbelievably beautiful performance of Linkin Park’s “In The End”, or her set on KEXP.

Best Discoveries of 2018

• Alvvays

• Bad Veins

• The Birthday Suit

• Buck Meek

• The Fruit Tree Foundation

• Haley Heyndrickx

• Katie Von Schleicher

• Lisa LeBlanc

• Lomelda

• Mal Blum

• Partner

• Remember Sports

• Say Sue Me

• Snail Mail

• Special Explosion

• Tristen

Best Albums of 2018

• Book of Travelers — Gabriel Kahane

On Book of Travelers Kahane takes up the mantle of the folksingers, troubadours, and epic poets of ages past. This is music as storytelling, based on Kahane’s thirteen-day, 8,980-mile train ride around the country and the stories he heard from fellow travelers along the way. It’s also a document of the political moment, as Kahane was inspired by the 2016 election to take this trip, seeking understanding.

• boygenius — boygenius

boygenius is Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, two of whom appeared on last year’s list and one of whom appears just a few entries down. It’s pretty much what you would expect the three of them to put out, and while that means there aren’t really any surprises on here, it also means it’s consistently good. (I couldn’t find a single boygenius studio recording on YouTube so you’ll just have to suffer through this beautiful live-in-studio rendition of “Ketchum, ID.”)

• Can’t Wake Up — Shakey Graves

It’s been four years since the last Shakey Graves album, and really, it’s probably good he waited this long. And The War Came is damn near perfect, and it would have overshadowed anything he put out in the year or two afterward. As it is, Can’t Wake Up has room to breathe, and it’s a neat little gem of an album. In some ways it harkens back to the slightly darker, slightly weirder sound of Roll The Bones, his 2011 debut, especially on songs like “Excuses” and “Aibophobia,” but with a broader sonic palette than the sparse, lo-fi aesthetic of that first album, leaning more toward the guitar-rock side of things. It’s maybe not as rich an emotional journey as ATWC, but it’s a heck of a fun ride.

• Dance Music — Mastersystem

I thought about delving into the complex emotional relationship I have with this album, but that just didn’t feel appropriate for this context. That being said, it’s impossible for me to separate the album from those emotions, so that kind of left me with no way to write about it at all, at least not here. But for what it’s worth, I really do think it was one of the best albums of the year.

• Historian — Lucy Dacus

“Night Shift,” besides being arguably the best song on the album, is also a good illustration of how this album’s title plays out in the music. It’s got a patience to it, an attention to detail as Dacus lays out the entire story, methodically and honestly. It’s only once she’s done that that she gets to the crux of the song, and allows the music to swell to that final chorus. In the tradition of oral history, there’s also a sense of community here; songs like “Addictions” and “Nonbeliever” focus on other people’s stories, and “Yours & Mine” suggests that Dacus feels responsible for the histories she’s documenting.

• Late Stage Capitalism — Jeremy Messersmith

This isn’t the first time Messersmith has brought his Harry Nilsson-esque pop stylings to the banal and mundane drudgery of everyday life—in some ways you could see Late Stage Capitalism as a sequel to 2008’s The Silver City. But where that album feels like a largely empathetic collection of slice-of-life vignettes, this album is sharper, more satirical. It also features some of Messersmith’s most consistently good songwriting to date.

• Lost Friends — Middle Kids

“Edge of Town” was one of my favorite songs last year, and Middle Kids’ full length debut delivers more of what that song did so well: a reverb-laden, guitar-driven sound that’s a throwback to both the 70’s and the 00’s (think Fleetwood Mac meets The Killers, which is also the name of my new novel), all centered around Hannah Joy’s expressive vocals and well-crafted choruses that you can’t help but sing along to.

• Offerings — Typhoon

“Listen / Of all the things you’re about to lose / This will be the most painful.” That’s a heck of a way to start off a heck of an album, a lyrically and musically dense journey through a devastating loss of the self. And you really should listen; as each song flows inexorably into the next (it is a concept album, in case that wasn’t clear) you might miss some of the best parts if you’re not paying attention. For example, right at the beginning of “Empiricist” a distorted voice says, “On the first day, God created everything there ever was / On the second day, God came to take it all back / Piece by piece,” which is just, I mean, it’s, dang, that’s just a great line. Like, White Lighter (2013) was impressive but this is on a whole other level. When I’m writing these I usually skim through the album, listening to a few seconds of each song to remind me of the general sound and structure, so usually the only song I’ll listen to all of is the one I’m using as the preview, and sometimes not even all of that—point is, I listened to the whole album for this. Because you can’t not. Really there’s just so much going on here it’s real good and will make you feel things the end.

Wait, not the end, I also want to point that there are a lot of repeating motifs throughout the album (and I’m a sucker for a good motif), including that first line, which we eventually learn is part of a longer piece:

“The spiral is unspooling, the center couldn’t hold
We choked on our inheritance, and hell on earth is cold
I forgive you, brothers, sisters, thread my neck into the noose
It’s my only offering, and I pray that you refuse
Of everything that you’re about to lose
This will be the most painful”

I mean just do yourself a favor and listen to this album it’s pretty darn amazing.

• Superorganism — Superorganism

Superorganism is a group of people from around the world that basically started a band because they all hung out and talked about memes. As the song says: “A superorganism is a creature made up of many different individuals. Thanks to technological systems, you are me and I am you…. It is no longer clear where one human ends and another human begins.” Which is maybe a heavy thesis statement for a weird, Web 2.0-inspired pop band (something something vaporwave?), but hey, they make it work. Also they did this sort of guerilla music performance in a cafe for La Blogothèque and there’s this older French couple who clearly have no idea what’s going on and it’s great.

Honorable Mentions

• Eurus — The Oh Hellos

• Bark Your Head Off, Dog — Hop Along

• Tell Me How You Really Feel — Courtney Barnett

Best Holdovers From 2017

• Belong — San Fermin

• Clear Language — Balmorhea

• Out in the Storm — Waxahatchee

• Three Futures — Torres

• Turn Out the Lights — Julien Baker

• What Now — Sylvan Esso