100 Albums That Made Me Feel Things: A “Best” Of 2018 List
#76 — #100
Navigate The List
Preamble / #51 — #75 / #26 — #50 / #25 — #1
The Albums
100. S. Carey — Hundred Acres
S. Carey is best known as the drummer and backup vocalist for Bon Iver, so you won’t be surprised to know that Hundred Acres sounds like vast, bittersweet, and often wintery landscapes.
Favorite track: “Fool’s Gold”
99. Foxing — Nearer My God
Conor Murphy’s dynamic, steely vocal performance is the centerpiece of this emotionally turbulent collection of indie rock ballads.
Favorite track: “Heartbeats”
98. Loma — Loma
Loma is the side project of Austin’s beloved Jonathan Meiburg, who is best known as the head of Shearwater. You can hear his songwriting presence in every track on Loma — in the swoops, the held notes, the melancholy — despite the fact that he cedes the vocal duties to the exquisitely capable Emily Cross.
Favorite track: “Joy”
97. Royce da 5'9" — Book of Ryan
Royce’s newest collection demonstrates not only that his lyrical dexterity is still stunning — the first four or five tracks are especially memorable in terms of his flow— but also that he comes from a place of deep vulnerability and honesty, as he works out the difficulty of processing traumatic things he witnessed and experienced in his youth. (Note: This album contains extremely detailed and explicit stories involving alcoholism, abuse, murder, and other potentially triggering subjects.)
Favorite track: “Caterpillar”
96. Arctic Monkeys — Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
Tranquility is an often silly, always surprising collection of enjoyable down-beat music from previous punksters Arctic Monkeys. It sounds like a hotel lobby in a good way, and includes many of the weirdest lyrics of the year, including “Good morning, cheeseburger!”
95. Bun B — Return of the Trill
If you enjoy Southern hip-hop, you’ll be pleased that Bun B put out a very solid solo album way later in his career than haters would have expected. It’s hilarious (for example, when he tells pharmaceutical companies to “stop being a bitch”) and the beats are thick and meaty like the air in East Texas. Also, Big K.R.I.T. appears in multiples songs, which is great news.
Favorite track: “Outta Season”
94. Mutual Benefit — Thunder Follows The Light
Mutual Benefit churned out more solid chamber rock this year, with banjo, violin, and wind instruments aplenty, as well as lyrics that are metaphorically political if you care to pay attention, or atmospheric if you’re too tired for that shit right now.
Favorite track: “Shedding Skin”
Also read: my review of “Shedding Skin” as part of Frontrunner Magazine playlist
93. Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper — A Star Is Born
This album was not supposed to be good — it’s a soundtrack from a remake — but it somehow managed to make me tear up multiple times even though I didn’t see the movie. All in all, it’s definitely worth waiting patiently through Bradley’s parts to get to the handful of touching, powerful moments in which we get to hear the very talented Lady Gaga doing what she truly wants to be doing with her voice.
Favorite Track: “Shallow”
92. Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quarter — Landfall
Laurie Anderson, one of my biggest artistic heroes, collaborated with the renowned Kronos Quartet on this crushing, beautiful soundscape that aims to capture the feelings after Hurricane Sandy.
91. Metro Boomin — Not All Heroes Wear Capes
When you see Metro Boomin’s name on something, it is always a good sign, and his first solo album is no exception. We get a lot good — if not amazing — verses from most of the usual suspects: Young Thug, Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Swae Lee, and more.
90. Swizz Beatz — Poison
Swizz Beatz is arguably one of the most influential hip-hop producers of all time, so you’ll likely recognize his name if you have followed hip-hop closely at any point in the last 20 years or so. On this star-studded collection — which includes veterans like Lil Wayne and Nas, but also exciting newer names like Giggs — his enthusiasm is totally infectious and sometimes hilarious. Plus, there is a 2 Chainz song, “Stunt,” which samples The Bulgarian Women’s Choir.
Favorite track: “Stunt”
89. How To Dress Well — The Anteroom
How To Dress Well, a.k.a. Tom Krell, has been making extremely passionate music about what it’s like to be a brain in a body for about a decade now. The Anteroom is his most emotionally dense, most sonically experimental work yet, but it continues to be anchored by his unmistakable meandering falsetto that I have so grown to love.
Favorite track: “Nonkilling 6 / Hunger”
88. Freddie Gibbs — Freddie
Freddie Gibbs always gives you the same thing. It’s hard as fuck. It’s not pretty. His flow (and face) remind you a little bit of 2Pac. Man — I’m not complaining.
Favorite track: “Weight”
87. Poliça & s t a r g a z e — Music for the Long Emergency
Minneapolis indie group Poliça collaborated with an experimental German chamber ensemble for this album, the title track of which is a 10-minute-long piece about climate change.
Favorite track: “Agree”
86. Hatchie — Sugar & Spice EP
This five-track EP is an extremely promising first release from Australian dream-pop artist Hatchie.
Favorite track: “Try”
85. Rich Homie Quan — Rich As In Spirit
From the man who gave us two extremely catchy hit singles in which the gimmick is that it is hard to describe emotions (“Type of Way” and “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)”) comes his best work yet: a deeply reflective, emotionally cogent, musically consistent collection of low-key Atlanta-style trap.
Favorite track: “Reflecting”
84. J Balvin — Vibras
J Balvin’s name is already synonymous with the powerful wave of Latino pop rap/Reggaeton that has recently swept the country, but Vibras demonstrated to critics that he is capable of filling an entire album with quality tracks.
Favorite track: “Mi Gente”
83. Rico Nasty — Nasty
On top of Rico’s hard, honest verses and boundless sass, her performance on this album is particularly notable for her idiosyncractic, often hilarious ad-libs and compelling vocal personas.
Favorite track: “Bitch I’m Nasty”
82. Beach House — 7
Every track on Beach House’s seventh album is exactly what the fans want. As with each new album, there are just enough new sound textures here to keep it interesting, but really we don’t want it to be too interesting: we just want more of the sound that has made Victoria and Alex one of the most successful indie groups of the last 10 years.
Favorite track: “Lemon Glow”
81. Shame — Songs of Praise
Shame‘s stories focus on those who have been forgotten or downtrodden, and they are told through a lot of different-colored genre-lenses: in a jam-packed 38 minutes, you’ll hear punky screaming, new-wavy rhythm-talking, gleaming Smithsy guitar, Slowdive-y reverb, brief moments of metal, and more.
Favorite track: “Angie”
80. Bombino — Deran
Bombino is a guitarist and vocalist whose music blends traditional Northern African (Tuareg) traditions with Western influences like blues and rock. This is happy music that will have you grooving around the room.
79. Rich Krueger — Life Ain’t That Long
Rich Krueger’s lyrics are conversational and often funny; they are premeditated stream-of-consciousness-sounding jaunts packed with references to his musical heroes and stories of all kinds of weird and/or lonely people.
Favorite track: “Ain’t It So Nice Outside Today”
Also read: my full-length interview feature with Rich Krueger
78. Valley Maker — Rhododendron
Valley Maker is the brainchild of Seattle-based songwriter Austin Crane; it is melancholy but steady Americana-soaked dad-rock that is tempting to compare to The War On Drugs or Kurt Vile, but is very much its own thing.
Favorite track: “Beautiful Birds Flying”
77. Mac Miller — Swimming
The late Mac Miller’s final album is an exceptional collection of songs, and in my opinion his strongest. It’s effective not only in its lucid, candid lyrical content but also in its elusively catchy beats and hooks.
Favorite track: “Self Care”
76. Cloud Nothings — Last Building Burning
Last Building Burning skews more experimental than Cloud Nothings’ last two albums, which means it’s less likely to get stuck in your head, but it also includes some of their most transcendently intense rock-out sessions yet.
Favorite track: “Leave Him Now”
