Top Five Albums
1. They Might Be Giants - I Like Fun
After 36 years as a band, John Flansburgh and John Linnell owe their fans NOTHING. Yet, despite this unspoken agreement between them and their followers, they’ve delivered their best album in years. The Else was great, Nanobots was fantastic, but I Like Fun tops them both.
Standouts: Let’s Get This Over With, The Bright Side, Last Wave
Reznor and Ross exhibit a new sense of crisis, despair, and continued evolution. Bad Witch finds new depths and redefines what Nine Inch Nails can mean.
Standouts: Ahead of Ourselves, Over and Out
The exact opposite of last year’s guest-choked Humanz, this is the closest thing to pure Gorillaz since their debut almost two decades ago. It also happens to be a perfect summer album and one of their best live shows to date.
Standouts: Humility, Tranz, Idaho, Souk Eye
Mother Feather has boldly taken the next step towards their inevitable world domination. Bear witness to the unbridled fury and fervor of Ann Courtney, Lizzie Carena, and their army of Mother Feathers behind them. Also: if you’ve never seen Mother Feather live, then you are missing out on what it means to truly live.
Standouts: Snakebite, Shake Your Magic 8 Ball, Constellation Baby, Supernatural
This acoustic rearrangement of last year’s superb Masseduction shows just how solid Annie Clark’s songs are. Stripped of everything but a piano and her voice, some tracks are even more effective here than in their original state.
Standouts: Slow Disco, Savior, Fear The Future, Hang On Me
Live
The live shows that stand out from this year include Eels at Brooklyn Steel, Mother Feather at Knitting Factory, Thom Yorke at Kings Theatre, Garbage at Kings Theatre, Beck at Madison Square Garden, and four nights of Nine Inch Nails at Radio City Music Hall and Kings Theatre.
I dug the vibe of Eels, the power of Mother Feather, the nostalgia of Garbage (they performed all of Version 2.0 as well as a bunch of b-sides from that era), and the presentation of Thom Yorke (I cannot imagine what doing drugs would be like at that show). However, it came down to Beck versus Nine Inch Nails.
In the end (after not that much deliberation, let's be honest) it goes to Nine Inch Nails.
While I was utterly blown away by the musicianship and production that went into Beck's debut at MSG, along with my finally comprehending what Colors was all about, not to mention the fucking proximity (we were second or third row), this was just a really great Beck show. He played his hits and ended, as he has almost every time I've seen him live, with "Where It's At". But Nine Inch Nails...? Over the course of four nights, I saw dozens of unique songs, some of which hadn't been played in ten years, some of which hadn't been played in twenty five years, some of which hadn't been played ever, specifically "The Perfect Drug", which is not only my favorite Nine Inch Nails song, but a song I never expected to be played live. Not only that, but it was executed flawlessly. While the production wasn't anywhere near what NIN is capable of, I found myself not giving a shit because I was too busy reeling from hearing music live that, up to that point, had only existed on wax.
This was the Nine Inch Nails tour that shall override every complaint I ever have about Nine Inch Nails tours from here on out.
Meh
I think this is pretty self explanatory, but hey, sometimes stupid people come here.
This is just something that left virtually no impression on me, so much so that it stood out. And that "honor" goes to the return of Cake. They released a new song called "Sinking Ship" which is nothing new, lyrically or musically (although I like some of the keys). After this release, they announced they're planning on "releasing more singles leading up to a new album in 2019". My first thought when I saw this business plan: Just get it over with, guys.
I'll definitely listen to new Cake, but I feel like I'm done giving a shit about them.
Biggest Surprise
While the variety of NIN's Cold and Black and Infinite tour was pretty spectacular, I've got to give this to Gorillaz's The Now Now. Normally, fans get a Gorillaz album and then Damon Albarn goes off for five years and does Blur or some other solo/supergroup thing that might or might not result in anything excellent, but just a year after Humanz, Albarn goes ahead and redeems himself with this album. Not only is it not Humanz, it's a return to the days of the Gorillaz playing on a Gorillaz album.
Biggest Disappointment
Except for the tiny handful of great tracks on it, overall I was let down by Thom Yorke's first foray into film scoring. I think this would have been a difficult score for anyone, and the fact that it was his first? Ballsy. Sadly, it didn't do it for me. It felt too unfocused and loose. I'll need to give the film another watch and see if things shake out differently, but in my mind this was going to be huge and it did not break my world.
2018 Favorite Songs
Hopes for 2019
There is no hope for 2019.
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