19. Mozzy f/ Kae One: Big Facts
18. Parks Burton: Don’t Stare
17. Ariana Grande: Successful
16. The Beths: Happy Unhappy
15. Shannon & the Clams: If You Could Know
14. Kelela f/ Princess Nokia, Junglepussy, Cupcakke & Ms. Boogie: LMK (What’s Really Good Remix)
13. Kacey Musgraves: High Horse
12. The Mixtapers: Flowers
11. Cuco f/ Clairo: Drown
10. Shawn Wasabi f/ Raychel Jay: Squeez
8. YG f/ 2 Chainz, Big Sean & Nicki Minaj: Big Bank
7. Blood Orange: Charcoal Baby
6. Famous Dex f/ A$AP Rocky: Pick It Up
4. Christine & the Queens f/ Dām Funk: Girlfriend
3. SOB x RBE f/ Kendrick Lamar: Paramedic!
2. Dirty Projectors: I Feel Energy
(Capsule reviews of the top ten below)
10. Shawn Wasabi f/ Raychel Jay: “Squeez.” Shawn Wasabi is a techstep producer from Salinas, CA with an apparent fixation on food themes (“Otter Pop,” “Marble Soda” and “Burnt Rice” are his top songs on Spotify). As for Raychel Jay, the only other track I can find of hers is an awful, twee ukulele ditty called “I don’t like U.” On “Squeez,” the two pair up for a track that sounds like PC Music producing Charli XCX, all bubblegum glitch and giggly, spoken raunch. It’s glossy as hell, like American K-pop, with a beat that sinks its fangs deep in your brain and sucks away your ability to be critical of its over-the-top cheese. With just enough quirk from its unique squeaky-fiddle coda, it’s simple, saccharine pop music junk food at its finest.
9. Teyana Taylor: “Hurry.” Taylor’s 7-song record went double wood this year for reasons completely unbeknownst to me. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a part of a recent wave of artists trying to bring real, soulful R&B back to the top of the pops. “Hurry” is a great example of this, featuring a soft and understated beat by Kanye, Mike Dean and BoogzDaBeast, a beautifully controlled vocal performance from Taylor herself, and a groove steady enough to ride off into the sunset. Kanye also turns in his only verse of the record, which is surprisingly good by 2018 Kanye standards. The whole album clocks in at 23 minutes, so it’s an easy one to run back, but “Hurry”’s got replay value far beyond that. Why the charts didn’t agree with me is up for debate.
8. YG f/ 2 Chainz, Big Sean & Nicki Minaj: “Big Bank.” I don’t like Big Sean. If you search my twitter name and the word “Sean” (you can’t search for “Big Sean” because I used to call him Small Sean or Smedium Sean a lot because I am very witty and cool), you’ll find dozens of slanderous tweets with me criticizing his often-terrible flow. Still, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes. He’s in top form for most of his verse, dropping gems like “I’m rare as affordable healthcare/or going to wealth from welfare,” but he can’t stop himself from ruining an otherwise great verse with the abysmal final couplet “3 coins, that’ll pay your whole semester/but you gotta ride it better than a Tesla,” which literally means absolutely nothing. Then Nicki hops on for a verse that’s mostly her saying “back again” like 400x. If neither of those two can tank this beat, you know it’s gotta be hard as hell.
7. Blood Orange: “Charcoal Baby.” I wrote a lot about the subject matter of Negro Swan in my little blurb about it in my Best Albums writeup so I won’t regurgitate that here, but suffice it to say that “Charcoal Baby” is its centerpiece. It’s only right, then, that the record’s name comes from its lyrics. “No-one wants to be the odd one out at times/no-one wants to be the negro swan. Can you break sometimes?” The pathos and anxiety that color a lot of the record are underlined here by my absolute favorite sound on the album, the beautifully out-of-tune guitar. Because Dev Hynes is a smart producer, he balances warbling licks by embedding them in an ocean of vaporwave synths. As the track reaches its end, he puts a bow on it with a staccato saxophone riff that begs for replays. I’m more than happy to oblige.
6. Famous Dex f/ A$AP Rocky: “Pick It Up.” I’m gonna give you this information right up front because I didn’t have it when I fell in love with this song: Famous Dex is a woman-beating pile of shit. When this came to light in 2018, he was alleged to have pointed a gun at a number of UC Irvine students after they petitioned to have him removed from a show he had been scheduled to perform at the school. So….not great. But at the time when I heard it, this was just a silly, cartoonish romp over a burbling beat with a nursery rhyme melody and some of the funniest braggadocio of the year (“I’m whippin the wrist; I’m fuckin your bitch and I’m up in your fridge”). It’s a saccharine, addictive beat, and unlike with Kodak Black’s “Zeze,” I didn’t know about the scumminess of its progenitor until it was burrowed deep into both my subconscious and my Spotify play counts. Flame me, drag me, cancel me… I throw myself at the mercy of the internet courts.
5. Mitski: “Nobody.” I didn’t know I missed Stereolab until I heard “Nobody,” the best song on Mitski’s critically beloved Be the Cowboy. The four-on-the-floor disco groove, the lounge lizard piano, the arpeggiating melody and plain, unadorned vocal are all pulled straight from the Stereolab playbook. But unlike those elements that recall Dots and Loops, Mitski’s sardonic delivery of these deeply emotional lyrics is all 2018. The mission statement is clear from the song’s first three seconds: a sustained piano chord rings out as Mitski almost speaks: “My god, I’m so lonely.” That the song is so fun, danceable, and relentlessly catchy while being a paean to pain is a perfect articulation of our detached, laughing-to-keep-from-crying internet existence. Add a “Love On Top” number of key changes to wrap it all up and you’ve got one of the absolute peaks of this year in music.
4. Christine & the Queens f/ Dam Funk: “Girlfriend.” The young LA funk kingpin Dam Funk produced “Girlfriend” and it shows. His syrupy synths and laser 808 drums are all over the place, and the catchiest keyboard solo of the year wraps up the song’s last minute, but it never feels like his track. Instead, French dance guru Héloïse Letissier (better known as the Christine of Christine & the Queens) dominates end to end. With her thick French accent and aggressively syncopated delivery, you may miss some of the year’s best lyrics (“Boys are loading their arms, girls gasp with envy/F-For whom are they mocking endlessly?”), but what you do catch is Letissier’s powerhouse personality. Dabbling with a butch, gender-fluid persona called Chris (also the name of her album), she sputters and spits at every hater and judgement she encounters. The whole record is strong but “Girlfriend” is its clear standout. I dare you to listen without grooving.
3. SOB x RBE f/ Kendrick Lamar: “Paramedic!” Although I had the pleasure of seeing Black Panther at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland the week before its release, I did not become aware of the soundtrack’s best song until I saw it as the backdrop for this incredible Ysabelle Capitule routine. The YouTube clip was shot at a convention in Santa Clara, and the crowd encircling the dancers seem as hype about the song as they are about the choreography itself. When the routine reaches its climax with the line “Fist in the air, I ain’t finna put my hands up” I lost my mind along with the rest of the onlookers. But long before that I was hooked by the track, instantly recognizable as the work of a Bay Area artist. The dancing, the crowd, the beat, the delivery of emcee Slimmy B— the Bay is bleeding through every part of this video. The sound of Bay Area rap is colored by some of the most inimitable flows of anyone, ever: the likes of E-40, Yukmouth, Messy Marv, Mac Dre, Lil B… these are people with cartoon character personalities who are as likely to cut you as they are to pass you the blunt. SOB x RBE are from Vallejo, and they were baptized in the waters of Mac Dre and E-40 at a very young age. That Kendrick selected them to participate in the soundtrack of one of the biggest movies of the year is a testament to their artistic value as well as that of their rap legend forefathers. Their two 2018 records, Gangin’ and Gangin’ II are both great, but for me, nothing slaps harder than “Paramedic!” Get familiar, these young bloods are on that next shit.
2. Dirty Projectors f/ Amber Mark: “I Feel Energy.” Of the many collaborators on Lamp Lit Prose, Amber Mark is maybe the least-known, but she’s also probably the best suited to Longstreth’s tastes. A strong, unique singer and beatsmith, her artful R&B sounds like the exact expression of what has driven and inspired him since he first started making music. This year, their surprise partnership produced the most surprising song of the year, the addictive and endlessly fun “I Feel Energy.” These are words I never thought I’d write, but: it’s basically Dirty Projectors doing a Michael Jackson song. For years, Longstreth has pledged allegiance to the female voice, citing Beyonce as a primary influence and surrounding himself with powerful female musicians, but the grit he adds when he spits “sometimes I get so depressed, and I just can’t move/don’t cry- they’ll make you feel like you’re dead, and it’s never gonna improve” is pure King of Pop. Mark provides the response to Longstreth’s call, balancing his climbing vocals with the high-flying clouds for which they strive. The tricky, polyrhythmic bassline is answered likewise by horns that sound unmistakably like the marching band of an HBCU. Fun details abound, adding up to a formula for pure earworm excellence.
1. Snail Mail: “Heat Wave.” Every now and then you hear a song that’s perfect in every way. And sometimes you can’t even articulate what elevates it beyond the realm of “really good,” but in your heart you just know how it makes you feel. “Heat Wave” was like that for me this year. A wistful, breezily melancholic ode to love lost, it’s packed full of quotable couplets: “Heat wave, nothing to do/woke up in my clothes having dreamt of you,” “Passing faces where you’ve been/same old world you’ve been sleepin’ in,” “I hope that the love that you find/swallows you wholly, like you said it might.” These lines are casually poetic, articulating the exact feeling of being stuck in limbo between writing off an ex and holding onto your love for them. Underneath it all is a top-shelf band who knows just how to propel a piece forward without getting in its way, the most tastefully loose crunchy guitars and perfectly-placed drums. When Lindsay Jordan wonders “Green Eyes, what could ever be enough?” she may as well be asking me personally how many times I’ll spin the record without getting tired of it. I don’t know the answer, but I know I’m not even close.
