Top 100 Songs of 2018

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best songs of 2018 Shame60. Shame – “Tasteless”

from Songs of Praise (Dead Oceans)

If you’re alive in 2018, you’re likely in one of two camps: You’re constantly outraged or you’ve completely detached. Shame seem to tackle both in “Tasteless,” the searing standout from their debut album Songs of Praise, with a series of disembodied one-liners that seem to summarize the short-attention-span hellscape we’ve landed on: “It was over before it began,” “An internal crisis glued to an ego’s need,” “Pick me,” “I like you better when you’re not around.” Sure, they might seem like they don’t give a shit, but the UK band’s scathing wit, paired with a driving post-punk melody, only goes to show that they give all the shits. – Jeff Terich


Yob interview 201859. Yob – “Beauty in Falling Leaves”

from Our Raw Heart (Relapse)

Prior to the release of Our Raw Heart, Yob released “The Screen,” one of their thorniest, most abrasive tracks in quite some time. It felt like a curious pivot after the transcendent, soaring “Marrow” from 2014, but it may very well have been a necessary palate cleanser before revealing the breathtaking “Beauty in Falling Leaves.” Showcasing a tender side even by Yob’s idiosyncratic standards, “Beauty” is reflective and patient, as much a heavy dream pop song as it is doom metal. There’s fear and darkness in frontman Mike Scheidt’s voice as he sings of “Looming fears of the wilt/Shadows at the door,” likely referencing a life-threatening health scare before the album was written. But this is a song about life and not death, an expression of great joy that comes from truly understanding darkness. – Jeff Terich


Kacey Musgraves Golden Hour review58. Kacey Musgraves – “Golden Hour”

from Golden Hour (MCA Nashville)

There’s a fine line Kacey Musgraves rides, tiptoeing her songwriting somewhere between pure country and absolute dreamland. “Golden Hour” hits that dreamy button full throttle, chock full of velvety F sharp and G sharp minor chords. While it didn’t necessarily get the same attention as her discoball-sparkle single “High Horse,” this track is the album’s namesake, clearly holding special meaning. Recently on her Instagram, Musgraves waxed poetic on her sister’s photography, reminiscing about the shoot for the Golden Hour cover, and how it really was shot during the one hour of the day where the sunlight most accurately captures the feeling of listening to Musgraves’ voice. – Virginia Croft


9-21-prince57. Prince – “Why the Butterflies”

from Piano and A Microphone 1983 (Warner Bros.)

The news of a vaulted Prince album was certainly headline worthy, and Piano and a Microphone is exactly that. The session, previously released only as a bootleg, caught Prince at an unusual creative crossroad (1983), sandwiched between the release of 1982’s 1999 and 1984’s Purple Rain. The empty nature of Piano and a Microphone is captured eloquently on the closer, “Why the Butterflies,” where Prince’s croons are upheld by a couple of snaps and a few slams of the piano—it’s also the blueprint of what was to come, as Prince would quickly become—and was already becoming—one of the most revered artists in the history of recorded music. – Timothy Michalik


Kamasi Washington new album Heaven and Earth56. Kamasi Washington – “Fists of Fury”

from Heaven and Earth (Brainfeeder)

Renowned and celebrated for his warm, soul-infused jazz epics, Kamasi Washington’s opening track to the enormous Heaven and Earth was an early signal of him taking things to almost Biblical proportions. With operatic dynamic shifts, full backing choir and band, sparkling piano solos and of course Washington’s ever-present saxophone, the central melody plays out almost as an unrestrained and politically charged Disney call to arms as it cries, “I use hands to help my fellow man; and when I’m faced with unjust injury, then I change my hands to fists of fury.” – William Lewis


Chvrches Love Is Dead review55. Chvrches – “Get Out”

from Love is Dead (Glassnote)

Love is Dead didn’t garner anywhere near the praise earned by CHVRCHES’ first two albums, with detractors bemoaning its adherence to the Glaswegian electronic pop trio’s established formula. But CHVRCHES’ established formula fucking rules, so who cares? “Get Out” perfectly exemplifies this with its rich synth riffs and rhythmic turns on a dime, and also showcases the strongest vocals yet of frontwoman Lauren Mayberry’s tenure with the band. It’s an anthem of women assuming agency amid intrapersonal and societal pressures and telling the forces opposing them to fuck off. – Liam Green


Charly Bliss Heaven Essential Track54. Charly Bliss – “Heaven”

(Barsuk)

After reclaiming the fuzzy power pop of the ’90s alt-rock era and making it somehow sound even better on debut album Guppy—an LP we should all be ashamed didn’t make Treble’s 2017 best albums list—New York’s Charly Bliss made a brief encore with “Heaven.” Three and a half minutes of perfectly booming pop and crunchy guitars, it’s a song that feels like a stoned summer day doing nothing in particular and feeling pretty good about it. This may or may not be a window into where Charly Bliss is headed, but I’m sure as hell ready to follow.  – Jeff Terich


Pusha T Daytona best albums of 2018 so far53. Pusha T – “Infrared”

from DAYTONA (Def Jam)

The closing track to Pusha T’s phenomenal DAYTONA, a record that showed that Push’s hard luxury coke raps could be appended to Kanye West’s most surreal and abstract arthouse production and still work. Given the quality of the rap beef “Infrared” created in its wake, in which Drake flailed in response and Pusha T revealed to the world that Drake had a hidden child, it’s hard to argue with the song’s logic. – Langdon Hickman


palewaves52. Pale Waves – “Kiss”

from My Mind Makes Noises (Dirty Hit)

When I’ve described Pale Waves to my friends, I’ve said they’re a bit like if Chrvches made an album with Robert Smith, which is in large part because of how the band combines guitar melodies with the infectious vocals. “Kiss,” true to its name, is certainly a suited anthem for summer love (and it soundtracked my own this summer), like the bulk of their songs it is written in such an airtight manner that it’s a song worth returning to over and over. It’s not just what’s in fashion right now; it does, in fact, live inside your head. – Wil Lewellyn


uzi51. Lil Uzi Vert – “New Patek”

(Atlantic)

What is a Patek, you ask? It’s short for Patek Philippe, a luxury brand of watches whose price tags put most others to shame with a capital fucking $. Having made such a big musical impact (and so many stacks) in such a short time, our rapper hero from Philly gets to rattle off all of the now-passé companies who fail to earn the prime real estate of his wrist. Kinda like Gritty, it might be glorifying ugliness but it’s too damn good to hate. – Adam Blyweiss


lala50. Lala Lala – “Destroyer”

from The Lamb (Hardly Art)

The muffled guitar rumblings that commence Lala Lala’s “Destroyer,” kicked into place by driving drum kicks, prepare Lillie West to explode into a chorus that kicks the listener to the floor: “You are the reason / My heart went behind my back.” West’s self-deprecation is a notable attribute of The Lamb, but there is nothing quite as powerful on the album as the opener, “Destroyer.” The subtle, winding guitar that accompanies West is emotive guitar-work at its finest, caught between the elements of noisy-pop and intimate, reflective songwriting. “Destroyer” relays the greatest trope of emotional articulation imaginable: “Write it down, what you are reading / It turns to text, it loses its meaning.” – Timothy Michalik


Gouge Away Burnt Sugar review Album of the Week49. Gouge Away – “Ghost”

from Burnt Sugar (Deathwish Inc.)

Gouge Away started out, ostensibly, as a hardcore band. Now they write songs like “Ghost,” a sludgly, slow-burner of an anthem that pulls on hardcore aesthetics like taffy until the circle pit becomes some kind of psychedelic vortex. Christina Michelle still throat-shreds her way through a white-knuckle chorus of remarkable intensity, but “Ghost” is less about aggression and more about the almost unbearable tension before it breaks. When the explosion happens, it’s not just a well-earned climax, it feels like an act of survival. – Jeff Terich


thug48. Young Thug – “High”

from On the Rvn (300)

“High” is not merely a standout of Young Thug’s idiosyncratic On the Rvn EP but also his entire career. Thugger’s rap-as-demented-crooner approach has obvious inspiration points and can be hit-or-miss, but on “High” (like outstanding albums Barter 6 and JEFFERY) it works distinctly as his own. Over a well-clipped Elton John sample, Thug proclaims his professional and personal resilience in a more vulnerable, honest manner than ever before (ill-fitting moments of gun talk notwithstanding, but that’s a tangent for another day) and points toward further triumphs down the road. – Liam Green


Tim Hecker Konoyo review47. Tim Hecker – “This Life”

from Konoyo (Kranky)

Tim Hecker’s compositions seem to take on life of their own; universes set in motion by his touch and left to their own devices. The anticipation of this year’s Konoyo was first satiated by “This Life,” a track that showcased Hecker’s mastery over sound, texture and melody in all its experimental glory. It unfolds carefully, the alien echoes that open slowly expanding with gentle basslines and abstract synthesized melodies. It’s strange and unsettling, but also deeply moving as it builds its own world of sadness and loss—as though adrift in the lonely expanse of space. Put simply, it feels alive, and that in itself is testament to Hecker’s remarkable ability as an artist. – William Lewis


Yo La Tengo There's a Riot Going On review46. Yo La Tengo – “For You Too”

from There’s a Riot Going On (Matador)

Three-decade dream-pop veterans Yo La Tengo’s fifteenth studio album didn’t make great waves but was quietly well received by critics and fans alike—a summation of the band’s career, really. But amid the unassuming flow of the record were unquestionable standouts, single “For You Too” far from least among them. From the relentless fuzzed-out bassline that drives the song forward offset by the gentle echoes of reverb-drenched arpeggiated guitar and Ira Kaplan’s soft and pleading vocals, its shoegaze stylings envelop a sincere beauty that recalls the gloried genesis of the dream-pop movement and provide a rare moment of serenity in the modern bustle. – William Lewis


Parquet Courts new album Wide Awake45. Parquet Courts – “Wide Awake!”

from Wide Awake! (Rough Trade)

There’s something hollow and self-congratulatory about someone who insists upon pointing out how “woke” they are. Thus, Parquet Courts give us “Wide Awake!” toward the end of their most political LP to date, a jokey anthem that skewers self-righteous self-awareness against a backdrop of cowbells, whistles, and an incredibly groovy bassline. In its repetition and reflexive parody, it’s a natural successor to their groundbreaking “Stoned and Starving”—but even catchier. What are you, sleeping on this song? – Sam Prickett


Tribulation Down Below review44. Tribulation – “Nightbound”

from Down Below (Century Media)

That Down Below yielded the release of four singles tells you a lot about Tribulation. The Swedish gothic metal band are burning holes through their fretboards cranking out theatrically spine-tingling bangers. “Nightbound” is arguably not the catchiest of the bunch, but it’s by far the most climactic, their old-school heavy metal arpeggios guiding a bat-infested spiral staircase toward the best chorus in any metal song this year. It’s a rock anthem, wrapped in black metal aesthetics, wrapped in a vampire’s cape—a prime soundtrack for blasting inside a velvet-lined, beer-stocked coffin. – Jeff Terich


Fucked Up new album 201843. Fucked Up – “Dose Your Dreams”

from Dose Your Dreams (Matador)

There’s an overarching concept surrounding Fucked Up’s Dose Your Dreams, which is ostensibly an odyssey of self-realization via drug use and romance. There’s also a complicated storyline surrounding main character David—who both is and isn’t the title character from 2011’s David Comes to Life. But you don’t need any of that to understand the buoyant emotion behind the double-LP’s title track, which closes out the album’s first half on a joyous, disco-influenced high. Damian Abraham’s guttural howl has never felt so transcendent. – Sam Prickett


travis-scott-astro42. Travis Scott – “Sicko Mode”

from ASTROWORLD (Epic)

Structurally, this collab between Travis Scott and Drake takes place across three distinct movements. Drake’s intro verse is lyrically choppy, with a dreamy backbeat of whining synths and distended notes flowing into a trap beat that ends seemingly as soon as it begins. Where the song takes off is Scott’s signature smooth and crisp flow against an acidic bass surrounded by dizzying layers of deceptive electronics. This is not to discredit the warped voice effects of numerous collaborators falling in and out of the track providing a much weirdly relevant feeling of anxiety. Time signature changes, constant callbacks, “Sicko Mode” is layer upon layer of immaculate production and earworm goodness. – Brian Roesler


best albums of 2018 John Coltrane41. John Coltrane – “Impressions (Take 3)”

from Both Directions At Once (Impulse!)

It’s hard to believe that this year we stumbled upon an untouched album from one of music’s greatest performers. Harder still, that thrown together in a day’s lost session it shows insight into the genius of Coltrane and his famous quartet. Even harder still, that the biggest thrill in the tracklist is this early version of a massive improvisational favorite, with the band whittled down to a piano-free trio and the music whittled down to four-and-a-half minutes of tight, transitional bebop. – Adam Blyweiss

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