Dear reader, please tread with grace and restraint, for it is
likely that you will have 10 entirely different songs to contribute to this
list. And you will be absolutely correct in that assessment too. The purpose of
lists such as these is not to rate or rank or reach any kind of consensus. The
spirit here isn’t competitive, especially in a world where we all have access
to some 45 million songs on our phones, as also the opportunity to develop, direct,
and curate our listening habits based exactly on what we might like. Instead,
it is to guide others to new music, to aid the process of discovery, and to personally
discover something new in the process as well. With that out of the way, here
are the 10 best songs that were released in 2018, and the writer of this piece
can safely say that there is not a single song out there which can top any one
of these.
--
Courtney
Barnett – Charity
Courtney Barnett is a treasure, for she brings to the world joy and
hope, perhaps even happiness, with her music. Barnett sing-speaks over folksy
guitar lines, interspersing a postmodern sense of casual detachment, wit, and
irony with an intimate, rambly, endearing, confessional, storytelling mode of
delivery; it’s a unique style that’s won the Aussie singer-songwriter many
loyal fans. Her second album, 2018’s Tell
Me How You Really Feel, sees Barnett taking a slightly more measured, maybe
even polished, approach, yet it retains the carefree essence that props up her
music. It remains as thrilling and free as ever.
‘Charity’, unlike her chattier, more ponderous treks, is focused
and structurally concise, though her ability to pack in generous textual detail
between the lines—even within confined structures—shines through here as well.
It has a huge chorus, with a very high singalong quotient, and big guitars and
drums. Again, it’s superficially a whopping alternative rock song, almost
Nirvana-like in spirit, but Barnett elevates, or resists, or inverts,
conventional genre labels through her signature creative voice. “You don’t have
to pretend you’re not scared / everyone else is just as terrified as you”, she
sings, reminding the listener, and herself, to take a breath.
--
Childish
Gambino – This Is America
‘This Is America’ is an Important song; for an American audience,
it’s arguably the most important song
of the year. In an exhausting and increasingly volatile year—you know,
politically and shit—Childish Gambino released what has to be described as a
Statement, a critique of modern society at large. Its fiery video, which is
almost impossible to separate from the song itself (and has some 440 million
views on YouTube and over half a million comments) leaves a chilling impact
with the sardonic commentary it offers on racism and gun culture in America.
The song, too, shuttles in moods from the joyful, frolicking cold open to an
increasingly sinister trap rhythm that drives it toward its intended goal. The
contrast, aesthetically, is so perfectly in sync with the meaning of the words
here. Each time Childish Gambino takes a gun and shoots someone in the video,
the song flips, ditching its playful energy emphatically as he declares, over a
drilling bassline: “This is America / Don’t catch you slippin’ up / Look at how
I’m livin’ now / Police be trippin’ now / Yeah, this is America.”
--
Thom
Yorke – Unmade
With the reluctant admission that Radiohead as a band no longer
rule the world of radical experimentation—that most of their latter-day forays
are still broadly challenging and ever so scintillating, but somewhat
self-limiting in design—there’s no denying that Thom Yorke is a beautiful
bastard. Even in 2018, he’s messing about like he always has, as the score for
horror remake Suspiria so clearly
displays. But we’re reserving a spot on this list for one of the few song-songs from the soundtrack,
‘Unmade’. It’s classic Yorke: some background strings and a mischievous,
flittering piano line, over which Yorke juggles both his regular human voice
and his superhuman falsetto, assuring the listener that “there’s nothing under
my sleeves”. Tangentially, I happen to believe that Yorke has one of the most
sublimely ‘musical’ voices ever and, as he ages—he’s 50 now—the slight cracks
and shivers that have started to appear add an entire new dimension to his
melodies, a quality he seems to have harnessed in his new works.
--
Jonny
Greenwood – House Of Woodcock
While we’re on the subject, ‘House Of Woodcock’ is gorgeous and
ever so fluffy. Delightful piano melodies hold this piece together, keeping at
bay the threat of the big strings and the wailing violas in the back,
showcasing yet another side to Greenwood’s formidable compositional repertoire.
Greenwood, also known as the floppy-haired guitar player from Radiohead, has in
his own right become one of the most important voices in film music, thanks in
no small part to his regular collaborations with filmmaker Paul Thomas
Anderson. The latest in that very fruitful partnership is the Daniel Day-Lewis
(of “SLLLRRRP I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!” fame) starrer Phantom Thread, the soundtrack for which sees Greenwood deviating
from his previously established trope of resonant tension for a more expansive,
big-hearted, colourful, sort of cloud-like motif here.
--
Aphex
Twin – T69
Like all things Aphex Twin, ‘T69’, too, is a clusterfudge. A
journey into parts of the brain that should ideally remain sealed shut. There’s
the dizzying video with its rapidfire technicolour visualisations, which—to my
untrained eyes—seems to illustrate the slow collapse of a digital civilisation.
(Just to drive home the point, the video is made by Weirdcore.)
Then the song itself, which begins like any garden-variety Aphex
Twin blip-bloopy song would, with a shit-ton of breakbeats and stuttering
sounds and all those accompanying shenanigans. But then it persists, piling on
layer upon sonically protesting layer, building up a mood of palpable tension
that really needs breaking. Which the song duly does, pricking it casually in
its final third, morphing into a more serene, more relaxed entity, and offering
the listener some comfort and respite—a breather, perhaps—at the end of an
exacting excursion.
--
Vennart
– Immortal Soldiers
‘Immortal Soldiers’ is a fucking whirlwind. It’s hard to quite
capture the immensity of the song, part of the new solo album by former Oceansize
frontman and strident cult hero for a very vocal generation of fans of
alternative and progressive rock, Mike Vennart. But let’s give it a try nevertheless.
Loosely, it qualifies as progressive, psychedelic-ish, alternative guitar rock.
There’s so much to unpack here in terms of songwriting craft, or arrangement,
or structure, or the interplay between the instruments and the voice, or that
absurd mid-song departure into a startlingly unexpected direction—it’s one of
those special songs inside which you discover something new with each
subsequent listen.
But let’s skip all that. What sets apart ‘Immortal Soldiers’, for
me at least, is that, underneath it all lies just a really great song written
with absolute honesty. It has heart. In a vocal performance that must rank somewhere
near the top of a two-decade-long career, Vennart goes all out, singing with a
kind of primeval emotion—roaring out each syllable, amping up his already hyperarticulate
style of delivery—that eludes description. It’s one of those things you just
end up feeling.
--
Mogwai –
Scrap
Yet another entry from the world of film music. I guess the jig is
up: I listen to lots of film scores. Though in fairness, Scottish post-rock
band Mogwai’s regular work often overlaps with their film work, to the point
where it’s hard to tell which is which. ‘Scrap’, from their soundtrack for KIN, loosely recalls elements from their
phenomenal Les Revenants album, as a
kind, compassionate spread of piano notes washes over everything. Underneath it
lie the synths, adamant tremolo-picked guitar notes, this stubborn, horn-like
effect, drums played with great care and restraint, all in nonchalant interplay
with each other. The song comes together and falls apart at various different
points, treading around a deliberate path with a detached purposelessness. And just
before that point of completion, it stops. It finishes. ‘Scrap’ isn’t even
three minutes long, which is a shame, but in that short burst alone it creates
its own world.
--
Mitski –
A Pearl
There’s something surreal about Mitski’s voice. She has a Beatles-esque
flair for bright, well-crafted melodies plotted out over the guitar or piano. The
undercurrent of sadness and self-reflection, both in her words and her
unpredictable delivery, often hides the sheer calmness with which she sings. That
dichotomy, that principal contrast which feels critical to any understanding of
the Japanese-American singer-songwriter’s fascinating career trajectory, often
makes for an uneasy (and rewarding) experience. On the hook-heavy ‘A Pearl’,
she describes a toxic, abusive relationship—“Sorry I don’t want your touch,”
she sings, “it’s not that I don’t want you / Sorry I can’t take your touch”—
with a piercing determination, even as the song around her disintegrates. From
its innocuous openings, sung over guitar chords strummed casually, the song
continues to build and crumble, peaking with a loud, alt-rock chorus backed by howling
guitars and Mitski Miyawaki’s intense, steely delivery.
--
Low – Fly
Marking their 25th anniversary, Low gave us the exquisite and
much-revered Double Negative this
year, a fluid, 11-song exploration of florid ambient pop punctuated by lo-fi,
desolate, static interjections and departures. All the while, the synergic
harmonies of founding members and husband-wife duo Alan Sparhawk and Mimi
Parker form the heart of this record.
It’s one of those albums that flows seamlessly from one song to the
next, best appreciated as a large whole, rather than a collection of individual
songs. That said, it does have plenty of standout singles too, one of which
happens to be ‘Fly’. This one, with a slightest of nods to trip-hop, is driven
by Parker’s choral delivery and the gently insistent percussion at the back.
“Well, I don’t know / And I don’t mind / Take my weary bones / And fly”, she
sings. And she means it.
--
Arctic
Monkeys – Tranquility Base Motel & Casino
The Monkeys, and their greasy frontman in particular, have this
special talent of seeming like trendy, manipulative, cunning, chameleon-like, slithering,
wind-up-merchant knobheads. And somehow still writing nauseatingly sincere and
honest songs. And still writing songs that rock. I can never decide between
being a loyal champion of the band and the fun routes they often head off into,
or a lifetime skeptic barking relentlessly at their whole shtick. They ditched
the rock this year, going instead for a sexier, shimmering, speakeasy energy, alienating
plenty of fans in the process. The titular single is both proof of concept of
the leftfield direction the new record takes, as well as a droopy reminder that
Alex Turner and friends remain really very gifted songwriters.
--
An edited version of this first appeared in Open magazine.
