The 2018 end of the year music lists thread

Resident Advisor - 2018's Best Albums
https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3384

great to see some love for fatima in there, that's a really enjoyable record imo

i truly love the hardanger fiddle. its absence in these lists smacks of small-minded prejudice and is quite creepy tbh

cosign

Opium Hum's Top 40 (Not Black Metal or Doom Metal Edition):

40. Lawrence – Illusion
39. E L U C I D – Shit Don't Rhyme No More
38. Donny McCaslin – Blow.
37. Ripped to Shreds – 埋葬
36. Wata Igarashi – Niskala
35. Less Bells – Solifuge
34. Vessel – Queen of Golden Dogs
33. City Hunter – Deep Blood
32. Dead Can Dance – Dionysus
31. Arp – Zebra
30. Ilyas Ahmed – Closer to Stranger
29. Undersave – Sadistic Iterations... Tales of Mental Rearrangement
28. GosT – Possessor
27. Conway – Everybody Is F.O.O.D.
26. Lisa Gerrard & David Kuckhermann – Hiraeth
25. Marissa Nadler – For My Crimes
24. Nahja Mora – As Death
23. Kamaal Williams – The Return
22. Emma Ruth Rundle – On Dark Horses
21. Rival Consoles – Persona
20. Conner Youngblood – Cheyenne
19. Andrew W.K. – You're Not Alone
18. Scorched – Ecliptic Butchery
17. Anenon – Tongue
16. Heads. – Collider
15. The Caretaker – Everywhere at the End of Time - Stage 4
14. Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
13. R+R=NOW – Collagically Speaking
12. Brigid Mae Power – The Two Worlds
11. Pusha T – Daytona
10. Father John Misty – God's Favorite Customer
9. Autechre – NTS Sessions 1-4
8. Steve Tibbetts – Life Of
7. Beach House – 7
6. Kelly Moran – Ultraviolet
5. Nine Inch Nails – Bad Witch
4. Tor Lundvall – A Dark Place
3. Mount Eerie – Now Only
2. Oneohtrix Point Never – Age Of
1. Low – Double Negative

http://opiumhum.blogspot.com/2018/12/my-40-favorite-albums-of-2018-not-black.html

Bit of a weird list, all things considered, which is at it should be.

Here's the full RA albums list:

Autechre - NTS Sessions 1-4
Julia Holter - Aviary
Fatima - And Yet It's All Love
Leon Vynehall - Nothing Is Still
Lucrecia Dalt - Anticlines
Various - 15 Years Of The Bunker
Varg - Nordic Flora Pt. 5: Crush
Sarah Davachi - Gave In Rest
Various - Don't Mess With Cupid, 'Cause Cupid Ain't Stupid
Robyn - Honey
serpentwithfeet - soil
Christoph De Babalon - If You're Into It, I'm Out Of It
Demdike Stare - Passion
Anthony Naples - Take Me With You
Jlin - Autobiography
Silvia Kastel - Air Lows
Martyn - Voids
Pendant - Make Me Know You Sweet
Yves Tumor - Safe In The Hands Of Love
Surgeon - Luminosity Device
Grouper - Grid Of Points
DJ Healer - Nothing 2 Loose
Prime Minister Of Doom - Mudshadow Propaganda
Marie Davidson - Working Class Woman
De Leon - De Leon
Blawan - Wet Will Always Dry
Hunee - Hunchin' All Night
SOPHIE - Oil Of Every Pearl's Un-Insides
DJ Koze - Knock Knock
Tirzah - Devotion
Shinichi Atobe - Heat
Specter - Built To Last
Objekt - Cocoon Crush
Borusiade - A Body
JK Flesh - New Horizon
Tim Hecker - Konoyo
Various - Kulør 001
Deena Abdelwahed - Khonnar
HVL - Ostati
Skee Mask - Compro

https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3384

Anthony Naples - Take Me With You

^^
this is a good one, I think they only just reviewed it yesterday.

What would a surprising list from a mainstream publication even look like in 2018?

Would have liked to see Sons of Kemet or Makaya McCraven over Kamasi Washington as the the jazz pick but glad someone made it on

I just listened to SoK for the first time this morning and was glad to have something to scratch my Melt Yourself Down itch, and then of course I checked the personnel list.

lots of women over 35

to be fair to pfork, that was one of the few lists i've seen with both the neneh and cat power records in it. low and robyn too, but yeah, that's still not a lot

xp
what's kind of odd about Kamasi Washington being the anointed jazz pick for non-jazz pubs is that both those albums are much easier to digest than KW's

was bummed i didn't get to blurb anything for the pfork albums list but this was the second year in a row my list was radically different from the final lol

I thought Julia Holter might qualify but she's 34

I imagine Meghan Remy of US Girls is getting pretty close as well

tbh not a lot of ppl over 35 of any klnd on the Pfork list

absence of roisin murphy on most tracks lists is a global scandal tbh

Also a gross neglect of k-pop and happy hardcore.

what's kind of odd about Kamasi Washington being the anointed jazz pick for non-jazz pubs is that both those albums are much easier to digest than KW's

I actually feel like KW's uncompromising, exhaustive maximalist aesthetic is part of what non-jazz pubs admire about him. He seems like a "visionary" and reminds them of Coltrane. (I prefer the McCraven album, too.)

x-post--Looks like the Rosalia cut is the only non-English language track in the Pitchfork top 100 tracks.

xps i was a little disappointed BTS didn't show up on any tracks lists seeing as they've actually made it in america now & "idol" was such a triumph imo - organically blending into gqom into their sound for something that doesn't really sound much like anything else in either korean or american pop at the moment

they did show up on the noisey albums list i guess but i don't really rate the album

DJ Booth - 50 Best Hip-Hop and R&B Albums of 2018, Ranked
https://djbooth.net/features/2018-12-11-best-albums-2018-ranked

maura's point is undeniable, but yeah my version of a genuinely surprising list would be one that had multiple albums from outside the anglosphere.

jaymc: I agree it makes sense in that way. But I think they're doing their readers a disservice by limiting their presentation of jazz to that particular aesthetic. Just speaking personally I'm not sure I've heard every track on the KW yet, while I've listened to all of Universal Beings lots (SoK being even more digestible).

absence of roisin murphy on most tracks lists is a global scandal tbh

― my name is leee john, for we are many (NickB), Tuesday, December 11, 2018 9:30 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed, although I think the lack of an album and no clear big single probably caused vote-splitting

The contemporary 'classical' music scene now features plenty of incredible women composers and musicians over 35, far more than a decade ago. It's not exactly mainstream, though…

wow this Tierra Whack "album" is powerfully annoying

katherine i'm appealing to the UN to have plaything officially recognised as the top roisin tune of 2018

denied, it's "all my dreams"

maura's point is undeniable, but yeah my version of a genuinely surprising list would be one that had multiple albums from outside the anglosphere.

― rob

i don't know, rym list culture goes pretty heavily outside the anglosphere, to me it would be pretty easy to put together a list of non-english 2018 records

much harder for me to put together a list of records by over-35 women, and it would include stuff like bettye lavette's record of dylan songs

part of that difficulty though is that i don't read press releases and so i have no idea how old the women making the records i listen to are. if it's instrumental i don't even know the gender of the person making it, unless they have a name my american ass recognizes as female.

what's kind of odd about Kamasi Washington being the anointed jazz pick for non-jazz pubs is that both those albums are much easier to digest than KW's
I actually feel like KW's uncompromising, exhaustive maximalist aesthetic is part of what non-jazz pubs admire about him. He seems like a "visionary" and reminds them of Coltrane. (I prefer the McCraven album, too.)

― jaymc, Tuesday, December 11, 2018 8:35 AM (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't mean to diss Kamasi, I like him a lot...all three of the albums are great though I prefer the other two, I mean the larger problem is there's only one slot for one capital-J jazz album

I mean an easy way to put together a list of records by over-35 women is to follow women throughout their careers

There's just so much music now! from all over the world, all kinds of genres, the idea that any list of 50 albums can even come close to capturing a year in music in the post streaming era is just foolish

these lists feel less important than ever, but maybe more useful, like i feel like i'm just looking at different playlists and it gives me stuff to look up at work

on another note I am genuinely stunned that the Janelle album is being snubbed more or less across the board

someone should do some analytics on first-half / second-half of year release date breakdowns for EOY placements

What would a surprising list from a mainstream publication even look like in 2018?

lots of women over 35
― maura

Hi guys, if 2019's ILX EOY doesn't feature my band of five over-35yo women (and one under-35yo woman) I'll kick all yr asses. ^__^

the janelle album's only been snubbed by p4k really, it's #1 on this aggregate: https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2018/

Speaking of women over 35, I didn't see Tracey Thorn's album on the Pitchfork list -- unless I missed it.

While we're at it, here are a few excellent 2018 classical releases showcasing works by women over 35:

Anna S. Þorvaldsdóttir - Aequa
Cassandra Miller - Just So: String Quartets
Eva-Maria Houben - Breath for Organ
Laura Schwendinger - Quartets
Linda Catlin Smith - Wanderer
Sarah Nemtsov - Amplified Imagination
Séverine Ballon - Inconnaissance
Suzanne Farrin - La dolce morte

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4f/Celine_Dion_Live_2018_Official_Photo.jpg/250px-Celine_Dion_Live_2018_Official_Photo.jpg

Hi guys, if 2019's ILX EOY doesn't feature my band of five over-35yo women (and one under-35yo woman) I'll kick all yr asses. ^__^

yay!!! it’s my number one already and i haven’t even heard a note

I only count 4 men definitively over 35 on the Pfork list (Kamasi, DJ Koze, Jon Hopkins, Alan of Low)

and no Soto you did not miss Tracey, she's not there

celine dion looks so much like liz phair in that photo!

(she also had a single from the Deadpool 2 soundtrack btw, so that's a shoo-in for the singles poll)

the old geezer quotient is definitely down this year

surely young people have generally been doing more interesting stuff in popular music than old people? there's more young musicians than old musicians too afaik (at least at the rehearsal spaces I've been to)

I think it's safe to say that has always been the case.

You must not live in NYC

I only count 4 men definitively over 35 on the Pfork list (Kamasi, DJ Koze, Jon Hopkins, Alan of Low)

― resident hack (Simon H.), Tuesday, December 11, 2018 10:43 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pusha

Well spotted.

The guys from Sleep have to be too

I just remembered there was a Tune-Yards album this year and it's nowhere to be seen on even the most half-heartedly compiled indie list.