Top Albums 2018

I didn’t listen to a lot of new music this year, so the list is filled with stuff I couldn’t avoid hearing about and listening to and/or that reflects a generally backward-looking orientation to music. It was a year of 90s-2000s rap, Puccini and old red dirt country.

Roughly in order of hours listened:

DIME TRAP  — TI

It’s not the 90s again, but TI did some decent work, and “Wraith” is on repeat a lot.

Be The Cowboy  — Mitski

Apparently, this was everyone’s favorite album. And yeah, I agree.

Freak Yourself Out — Lake Street Dive

The only flaw is that there aren’t enough songs.

Golden Hour — Kacey Musgraves

Again, everyone loved this, and so did I.

Dancehall Dreamin’: A Tribute to Pat Green – Various

Hard to argue with a bunch of today’s Texas country stars playing covers of Pat Green songs.

Things Change – American Aquarium

The only thing that dings this album is the bandmembers keep changing and you can kind of tell.

Freak Yourself Out — Lake Street Dive

LSD is in fine form on this EP.

boygenius – boygenius (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus)

Lady supergroup that includes Julien Baker, sign me up.

Hyperchromatica – Kyle Gann

Kyle’s trying to bring “microtonality into the mainstream”…not sure that is gonna happen, but this is palatable.