ILM’s Top 77 Albums of 2018

decent chance we get another TFS album this year so looking forward to having this fight again in 12 months

utterly bored by this album, though I liked the EP

https://i.imgur.com/VfrgHju.jpg
#26: Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog - 398 points – 13 votes

hop along: bark your head off, dog

Jayson Greene: "The album as a whole feels warmer, more spacious. The songs on Painted Shut were doled out like 10 fist-shaped car door dents, but Bark Your Head Off, Dog moves at an agitated hum."

Owen Maxwell: "Introducing strings, electronics and a whole range of new sonic experiences into their voice, the band manages to avoid simple novelty by finding interesting ways to use each new idea. Though it’s not totally breaking new ground, for Hop Along this is an amazing step in a new direction for them as a band."

liked this less than the previous, still great though. voted for "Prior Things"

i wanted to like this but her melodies are just too indirect for me, in that particular emo sort of way

Awesome! I really fell in love with Hop Along this year.

https://i.imgur.com/snLCvoL.jpg
#25: Pusha T - DAYTONA - 410 points – 12 votes - 2 first place votes

Clayton Purdom: "It’s all dope-boy come-up stories, subliminal shit-talk, and luxury at a level only possible to convey via fine-art name-dropping and whatever the fuck a “caviar facial” is. For the first time since going solo, it all feels of a piece."

Marshall Gu: "Another rare instance of an artist coming up with a classic a decade after what seemed like the peak of his career (Clipse’s Hell Hath No Fury), and the only thing that could’ve made it better was if he pre-released “Infrared” so that Drake could’ve responded and we could’ve had an album with “The Story of Adidon” on it."

gross

both of those are really good

whiney, did you honest expect Cardi's album to be as good as it is?

― alpine static, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 3:42 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No I didn't!

RBCF album grew on me after a while although the production is a bit too tidy imo. The ep's were much better.

thats 3 more of my votes we're in the black folks

this is not for me, but horrifying to think that kanye put out two other albums that were significantly worse though

being 20 minutes long is a big part of its appeal i think, not even a backhanded compliment

hey two of my top 5 placed! AM and HA.

i understand that people might've liked the new hop along album less than painted shut, but painted shut was a once-in-a-lifetime tornado of awesomeness that only a handful of bands ever approach in their careers. bark is merely excellent and the second best album of last year.

the monkeys album is really good you guys, but you gotta really fall into the vibe. it's not a record for casual listening

https://i.imgur.com/DtkliP4.jpg
#24: SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides - 413 points – 15 votes - 1 first place vote

SOPHIE

Jessie Jeffrey Dunn: "In its flows and breakings, it echoes and repeats a fractured self, locating this fracture as something aimed toward futurity, toward a new image of pop music, toward a new mode of being and becoming, toward a new way of moving limbs on a dancefloor with others. It’s incredible."

Sasha Geffen: "The experimental music of SOPHIE relaxes into new forms on her debut album. It is sprawling and beautiful, while still keeping the disorienting, latex-pop feel of her fascinating production technique."

wild record, this is a nice placement for it

some of this was really lovely but the more industrial parts like "ponyboy", "faceshopping" and "whole new world/pretend world" were absolutely not for me

I think I gave "Faceshopping" some points

this is good but imo slightly inconsistent, didn't vote for it but when it's good it is very good. certainly one everybody should check out

lmao, faceshopping is the highlight for me!

I voted for this

ponyboy & faceshopping are the sort of thing i wish i cld send back in time to my 16yo self to blow his young mind

One of those records where I didn’t listen to it very much since I wasn’t often in the mood for it — but when I did it absolutely blew my mind

Faceshopping/Immaterial/Whole New World were three of the best tracks of the year.

also the best music to make milkshakes to

voted 'immaterial'

Yeah Immaterial is amazing too

also the best music to make milkshakes to

particularly if you have an old rackety milkshake maker so you can perform accompaniment

When I finally got round to listening to this it was a lot less annoying than I'd expected but also sort of harrowing? Like pop songs trapped in big metal cages.

Daytona my #1, cool sounding fun album, what more could I want

being 20 minutes long is a big part of its appeal i think, not even a backhanded compliment

― ciderpress, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 10:51 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally

pusha record being this high sucks ass

what fucking horrible cover art btw can't be said enough

https://i.imgur.com/cZraaFp.jpg
#23: Kali Uchis - Isolation - 430 points – 13 votes

Kali Uchis

Madison Desler: "For an album that’s 15 tracks to be this consistently good is a rarity, an anomaly, and an artistic triumph that should place it on every Best Of list at the end of the year. For Uchis to accomplish this while still holding on to seemingly all the cards, is even more rare, perhaps signaling a legend in the making."

Felipe Q. Noguiera: "Like Beck or Outkast, she's a pop weirdo who works grooves that seem vintage and futuristic at the same moment. She grabs splashes of funk, bossa, reggaeton and soul and blankets them with a sunbaked, psychedelic wooziness"

Pusha T makes albums so he can stop at #25 in ILM polls

oh hell yeah re Kali Uchis. The dullest track is the Damon Albarn collab, naturally.

the big shrieking noises on the noisy trax kind of sound like processed versions of the sort of noises you hear on new songs of the humpback whale, they are so intense

oh damn i was wrong about the aal record. it's pretty ok

sweetener so dramatically worse than dangerous woman i still can't believe ppl rate it so high

mostly i just want a whole album of "is it cold in the water?" and "infatuation" from sophie, or maybe a few more "nothing left to say"/"ehhh"s? "bipp" was fantastic but i don't need any more of that

kali uchis album was solid but i never managed to get too into it, my favourite track is still the intro

Definitely too deep into the rollout now, but was there some reason this Emma Ruth Rundle album didn't get the same traction the last one did? I actually liked it more, I think.

it's better than the last one and honestly a wonderful record, i couldn't fit it in my ballot

Great to see McCraven place. Blistering and spacious and all that. I liked Tropical Fuck Storm well enough but don't think it sustained itself across a full album. This might be my attention span.

the attention span for mccraven but not tfs? ;)

i the attention span for mccraven but not tfs? ;)

Heh. Fair point. Jazz though, innit - the spaces of jazz admit the listener. Gnarled rock music (however much it veers towards the spacious) is more demanding, more wearing.

fair! will give the mccraven a listen on my imminent commute

isolation is so good, she can do so many things so well

https://i.imgur.com/bROQ5lY.jpg
#22: Let's Eat Grandma - I'm All Ears - 431 points – 14 votes - 1 first place vote

Let's Eat Grandma

Stephen Butchard "Through all the eccentricities and quirks, it should be said that ‘I’m All Ears’ manages to be a gloriously readable pop album on first listen. For a band hailed as cult heroes one album in, this is the boldest statement they’ve made so far."

Matthew Neale: "Like a magic eye puzzle falling into place, ‘I’m All Ears’ has only slightly shifted the band’s focus, but suddenly it all makes sense."

This is a good run. I voted for Hop Along, SOPHIE and Kali Uchis. Really happy to see Kali this high. I'd started to think she might miss out as there wasn't a whole lot of action on her thread. She was comfortably in my top five all year and sounded especially great over the summer. I like the way she pulled off so many different genres so convincingly. Excited to hear what she does next.

can we not

that name is such a dealbreaker that I don't care what it sounds like

promising thread titles that turn out to be on ILM