Music of 2018
2018 was a really great year for music. I had a hard time sorting out the order for a lot of these, but mostly I suspect people read these kinds of lists just to see how many albums they know show up, so maybe the order doesn’t actually matter. Like most years I’m going to list my favourite 15 albums from the past year in ascending order. I’ll include a link to one song I think you should check out if you’re not familiar with the band. There’s a lot less metal this year than in most other recent years. I don’t know if that’s because I missed out on a bunch of great metal albums or if there just wasn’t as much good heavy music this year, but whatever the reason this list tends more towards the indie rock end of my tastes. But all the albums here are really good, or I wouldn’t suggest they’re worth your time.
All of these records are available on Bandcamp, both to purchase and to listen to in full even if you haven’t purchased them. Bandcamp is much better for artists than other platforms (they only take a 10% cut of sales, whereas services like Spotify pay artists virtually nothing) and I think it’s better for listeners too, because you can usually listen to entire albums for free before deciding if you want to pay for them. So I’m linking to Bandcamp for all of these albums, which means you can usually click through and listen to more music by that artists if your interest is piqued.
15. Grid of Points by Grouper
14. On Dark Horses by Emma Ruth Rundle
13. Clean by Soccer Mommy
12. I’m the Devil and I’m OK by Split Cranium
11. Bark Your Head Off, Dog by Hop Along
10. Desolation by Khemmis
9. self-titled by Bliss Signal
8. Hope Downs by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
7. The Scars of Man by Panopticon
[Note: This is a double album. The first half is black metal and the second half is Americana. I still haven’t listened to the second half. But the black metal part is really good.]
6. Semicircle by The Go! Team
5. Dance on the Blacktop by Nothing
4. Double Negative by Low
3. Joy as an Act of Resistance by Idles
2. Love Will Die and Time Will Bury It by Rolo Tomassi
1. Myra by Spurv
