Top 5 Albums of 2018

I opened my first and second best albums posts by moping about each year’s respective gloom, invoking some silver lining that great art emerged in the midst. While I can empathize with my 26- and 27-year-old selves’ suggestion that music is medicine, I’ve decided to try and start evaluating time by its culture first. Two-thousand-eighteen was great! A magic MasterCard gave us entrance to the movies every day for a spell; streaming platforms pushed television series even further forward; and, to the point, a whole new year’s worth of recorded music was entered into the modern canon. Were these triumphs reduced by a trashy man with a disdain for his country and lust for discord? Nah. Let’s talk more about those records.

5. Tell Me How You Really Feel by Courtney Barnett, May 18, Milk!/Mom + Pop/Marathon

Consider your high school crush: easy going, lackadaisically cool, irreverently witty. That’s Courtney Barnett’s genre of music. Throw in some grit and there’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, her sophomore studio album. Lyricism alone earns the rank in my list—and more on that shortly—but that’s not to say the musical framework here is second-rate. I’ve heard Barnett be compared to Bob Dylan, but where Dylan’s execution is subtle, Barnett is thorough. “Hopelessness” is a textbook opener—soft vocals and dreamy bass give way to guitar feedback and rumbling drums, setting the stage for energy to follow. Headbanging tracks two and three “City Looks Pretty” and “Charity” accordingly deliver. The pace slows a little in “Need a Little Time,” a haunting introspection that builds into a powerhouse, host to quips like “Shave your head to see how it feels / Emotionally it’s not that different.” Next, in the post-punkish “Nameless Faceless,” clever writing cuts hard: “I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup, and spit out better words than you.” I just analyzed the first five songs in a row, and could keep going, but you get the idea. Courtney Barnett is a wordsmith rocker (changed my mind about the genre, patent pending) and Tell Me How You Really Feel is chock-full of word candy and jam-outs alike.

4. God’s Favorite Customer by Father John Misty, June 1, Sub Pop/Bella Union

Father John Misty’s scatterbrained songwriting is on full display on God’s Favorite Customer. Dark lyrics in front of spirited performance is the blueprint. Even when somber message outperforms lovely composition, as in on “The Palace,” at the album’s center, a commanding, Beatles-esque pick-me-up like “Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All” comes in to carry momentum to a climax. Speaking of McCartney, the bassline in the closer “We’re Only People” sounds like a vaulted Abbey Road track. But for all of Father John Misty’s classic feeling, he (real name: Josh Tillman) deftly resonates in 2018. My favorite example: in the alt-catchy “Mr. Tillman,” our antihero observes his antics from a hotelier’s perspective, “Okay, did you and your guests have a pleasant stay / What a beautiful tattoo that young man had on his face.”

3. Bark Your Head Off, Dog by Hop Along, April 6, Saddle Creek

Hop Along’s name has never been more fitting than on Bark Your Head Off, Dog. It’s an album rich with punk passion entrenched in warm, textured melodies; I have fun counting the guitar riffs converging in its many hip-gyrating bouts. The same goes for Frances Quinlan’s vocals—soft and sweet here, vigorous and gravely there, often doubled in production to swelling grandiosity. You bop, dance, fall in. It’s an exhilarating listen, yet conscious not to overwhelm. Performance is strong and stories are epic. Often one powerhouse begets another—in “One That Suits Me,” Quinlan serenades and howls about peace and war; in “What the Writer Meant,” she grapples at theology. But there are softer sides, too, like periodic orchestral strings, that breathe delicacy into this work and let it air. The end product feels full—fully, an album.

2. Daytona by Pusha T, May 25, G.O.O.D./Def Jam

This is a short album, so I’ll try to keep it brief. Pusha T accomplishes in Daytona what rappers have missed for years: slick yet rugged hip hop. Kanye West’s best 2018 production work (more juxtaposed adjectives: masculine, radiant) is garnished by Push’s alliterative swagger. It’s a straight-up (except the references over my head) rap album: no gimmicks, hard content, flow and beats that dance in chiseled harmony. They’re all bangers, but the stand-out is “Come Back Baby,” a West fan’s dream track with soul-sampled lavishness, and where streets meet meter. Okay, that wasn’t as concise as Pusha T, but can you blame me?

1. Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe, April 27, Wondaland/Bad Boy/Atlantic

There was a time, not too far back there in this cub critic pursuit, when I’d never rank a pop album number one. Then came Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer. Well, hopefully I matured before that—dismissing music with mass appeal is pretentious and misguided. Guard down, I enjoy every moment of Dirty Computer. To be fair, there’s more substance and flavor here than typical top 40; inspirations appear in all sorts of sounds. “Make Me Feel” is proudly Prince, “I Like That” is Beyoncé at her best, “Americans” is the theme in a triumphant ’80s flick. What do Brian Wilson, Grimes, and Pharrell have in common? Guest appearances on Dirty Computer. Point is, Monáe fuses diversity into a remarkably accessible and cohesive record. Having scratched the surface of genre and production, let’s incorporate some content. Her discourse is topical, identity-driven, and provocative, which makes for a novel contrast with the instrumentation. For example, the most contemporary sounding is “Screwed,” but its lyrics would never fly on the radio. The melodies are in-your-face anthemic and could soundtrack, oh, I don’t know, an energy drink commercial, but are paired with barefaced pro-sex subject matter. It’s fun. Or—political? “Let’s get screwed, I don’t care / You fucked the world up now, we’ll fuck it all back down / Let’s get screwed, I don’t care / We’ll put water in your guns, we’ll do it all for fun.” There’s a lot like this—celebration of culture, confrontation of injustice—and I think it’s the perfect musical expression for 2018.

This piece may drown in the trend of ranking albums ever popular this time of year, but that’s okay. I love these records and spent invigorating sessions listening and dusting off the proverbial pen. I think it’s wonderful how creativity spreads like that. Happy New Year!