Best of 2018

Favorite Albums of 2018:
01. Tune-Yards - I can feel you creep into my private life 
02. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs
03. Tancred - Nightstand
04. Ought - Room Inside The World
05. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!
06. Flasher - Constant Image
07. Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour
08. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs
09. Spirit of the Beehive - Hypnic Jerks
10. Young Guv - 2 Sad 2 Funk

Off the top of my head this is the first time I can remember my favorite album coming out in January. I listened to Icfycimpl a lot last winter and thought it was really interesting, despite previously being allergic to Tune-Yards. The more I listened to it, the longer the streak of great songs grew. I got back to hitting this album hard around September, and the streak is still growing to the point that almost every song on the album is an A. It's not apparent at first, but to me there are a few surprising melodic similarities to Beauty Pill. On the surface, it's a sample-heavy electronic pop album, but there are elements of a specific style of clean, discordant indie rock that I love. By the middle of this year I thought that there were not going to be any 2018 albums that I loved, but I'm happy to say I was wrong.

Favorite Songs of 2018:
01. Tancred - "Apple Tree Girl"
02. Ought - "Desire"
03. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "Hunnybee"
04. MGMT - "When You Die"
05. Drake - "In My Feelings"
06. The 1975 - "I Couldn't Be More In Love"
07. Field Music - "Count It Up"
08. Calvin Harris/Dua Lipa - "One Kiss"
09. Flasher - "Business Unusual"
10. Sitcom - "Still Life"



Favorite older/non-2018 albums:
PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
King Krule - The Ooz
Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom
Leonard Cohen - New Skin For The Old Ceremony
Blur - 13
Ben Kweller - Sha Sha
Frank Ocean - Blonde
(*I just checked and two of these were on last year's post...apparently it's getting harder to tell the years apart)

2018 Albums I liked:
St. Vincent - MassEducation
Field Music - Open Here
Joyce Manor - A Million Dollars To Kill Me
Sitcom - Be The One You Love
Hurry - Every Little Thought
Wild Nothing - Indigo
Open Mike Eagle - What Happens When I Try to Relax
Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel
Bonny Doon - Longwave
MGMT - Little Dark Age
The 1975 - ABIIOR
 
Albums by artists I like that I didn't really listen to more than once or twice:
Drake - Scorpion
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Sparkle Hard
Fucked Up - Dose Your Dreams
Kurt Vile - Bottle It In
Stove - Stove's Favorite Friend
Ovlov - Tru
Tony Molina - Kill The Lights
Speedy Ortiz - Twerp Verse

Three best events of 2018:
1. All In @ The Sears Centre, Chicago 09/01/18
2. My Bloody Valentine @ The Rivera, Chicago 07/27/18
3. King Krule/Standing On The Corner @ St. Andrew's Hall 04.28.18

Other stuff:
Health - quit pop this summer; ran a ton, including 13 miles one Saturday in October which still shocks me
Work - super challenging; got better at my job, learned a lot, but it was a difficult year
Fam - Grease, XBox, Minecraft, The Good Place
Fun - played music for Something Rad/improv, put out an album and did a music video, 2 Rapid Eye Movement shows, curling, Cranbrook, Radiohead @ LCA, Renaissance Festival, Niagara Falls, Legoland

Solid year of existence, somewhat derivative. 6.8.