Favorite Music of 2018

I listened to a ton of jazz this year, much more so than in previous years. I think I'm becoming one of Those People, which is fine, but given how much my siblings and I made fun of my dad for listening to jazz when we were growing up, it seems just the teensiest bit like some cosmic prank. Maybe free will really is an illusion, and we are all genetically predetermined to eventually fall into the same patterns of musical tastes as our parents. If so, I dread the CCM and Jim Croce phrase that will one day awaken in me from my mother's share of the DNA.

In all seriousness, here are my favorite albums of the year. As I've done the past few years, I've linked to my original reviews of albums, in case you'd like to read my initial thoughts in my weekly reviews posts. And as always, I feel compelled to mention that it is physically impossible to have listened to every music release, and some genres especially (e.g. metal and hip-hop) got short shrift this year from me. So be sure to fill me in on what I missed! Or to tell me how wrong I am! Or to send help to rescue me from my jazz impulses!

Favorite Albums:

1. Let's Eat Grandma: I'm All Ears

Sometimes, it's not until I've lined up all the albums I've listened to in a year that I realize what my favorite is. It's not as if I've ever not loved I'm All Ears. It's great. But it's still something of a surprise to see it land here. But no matter. This is good music for goth indie kids, and great music for all-around nerds like yours truly.

[Read original review]

2. Sleep: The Sciences

I'm really not much of a metal guy, and The Sciences was the only metal release I bought this year. But it owns. The tongue-in-cheek "marijuanaut" mythology, the heavy, heavy riffs—I dig it.

[Read original review]

3. Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet: Landfall

Eerie, spacious, apocalyptic: pretty much everything you'd want from a collaboration between Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet. I've probably spent more time thinking about "Nothing Left But Their Names" than any other one composition all year.

[Read original review]

4. Szun Waves: New Hymn to Freedom

Astral jazz. I'm still not exactly sure how to describe it. I'ms till sure it owns.

[Read original review]

5. Noname: Room 25

I didn't listen to a ton of hip-hop this year, and my impression from people who do follow hip-hop more closely is that this was a bit of an off-year for the genre, Cardi B excepted (and I'm still pretty miffed that Cardi B's album never came out on CD, meaning I didn't really get to dive into it much). But Noname's album is really good! And if you're cheap, you can get it for free on her Bandcamp page!

[Read original review]

6. Father John Misty: God's Favorite Customer

I think this is the only 2018 album I gave an A grade on the blog. Grades are weird. I don't think any less of this album now, but somehow, an A doesn't feel right anymore (nor the #1 slot that would necessitate). But anyway, it's still very good. FJM pulling way back on the smirking and the social commentary and instead making a deeply personal record that sounds like the White Album but is a tight Revolver-esque single LP. Probably my favorite lyrics of the year, and certainly the one most likely to make me cry.

[Read original review]

7. R+R=Now: Collagically Speaking

Probably the best recent example of jazz's ongoing attempt to position itself within contemporary pop music discourse, fusing trap and R&B with a real jazz-head lineup of Robert Glasper, Christian Scott, and Terrace Martin.

[Read original review]

8. Harriet Tubman: The Terror End of Beauty

This jazz trio is back, serving up more of their electric Miles-style fusion. This time around feels particularly indebted to John McLaughlin's work, suffused with squalling electric guitars fed through some rather cosmic pedal effects. Very cool stuff.

9. Helena Hauff: Qualm

I never got a chance to formally review this, but here it is: the rare electronica album to make it onto one of my year-end lists. This Hamburg-born, UK-based DJ still makes her brand of house music on analog machines, which I suppose could be regarded as something of a throwback. And, I mean, we're not in cutting-edge Arca territory or anything. But it's anything but resting on nostalgic laurels. This is exploratory music, setting its horizons wide. And even if it had been done before, just try telling me that "Hyper-Intelligent Genetically Enriched Cyborg" isn't great.

10. Thom Yorke: Suspiria: Music For The Luca Guadagnino Film

I'll be perfectly honest: this moody, ambient-leaning 81-minute OST is on this list almost entirely on the virtues of 6 songs and about 29 minutes of music: "Suspirium," "Has Ended," "Open Again," "Unmade," "Volk," and "Suspirium Finale." But WHAT VIRTUES. Almost definitely the best music of Thom Yorke's solo career.





Great 2018 Songs Not On These Albums:

Beach House: "Dive"—Beach House didn't exactly re-invent themselves this year, but they did manage to take their music in the most interesting direction (meaning, any direction at all) in years, chopping up their usual sounds into dance beats and odd structures and strange acoustics. "Dive" is the perfect execution of this new inspiration, beginning as what sounds like a spaced-out, Beach-House-y version of Belle & Sebastian's "Electronic Renaissance" before, at its midpoint, exploding like a turning kaleidoscope into an anthemic collision between shoegaze and Arcade Fire indie pomp. It's awesome.

Daughters: "Long Road, No Turns"—A venomously sarcastic explosion of a song reminiscent of the 1980s' No Wave, but lyrically, it's all 2018: "It may please your heart to see some shackled, wrists and throat naked as the day they were born, but no one's going to do that for you." Whether you read that politically or personally, the power of the lines is unshakable.

Ariana Grande: "thank u, next"—Sweetener was a really good pop album, but nothing there comes within spitting distance of this non-album single, a track that stands alongside Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone," and Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" as one of the great breakup songs of the 21st century. In the grand tradition of the best breakup songs, it postures confidence and dismissal (that chorus, y'all) while being laced with crippling sadness. Skip the Mean Girls music video, though, because that's so uninspired baloney.

Jenny Hval: "The Long Sleep"—The centerpiece of Hval's excellent 2018 EP is a 10-minute, hypnotic ambient track. Hval remains one of the best at finding the cavernous unexplored spaced in indie rock, and this is a great exhibition of that.

Carly Rae Jepsen: "Party for One"—Quit teasing us, Carly; where's that new LP??

Janelle Monáe: "Pynk (feat. Grimes)"—Unfortunately, not a ton has stuck with me from Dirty Computer (a first for me and a Monáe album). The two exceptions are great exceptions indeed: the slinky Prince-esque banger "Make Me Feel" and this, the tender, soaring PC Music-ish pop gem. They're both good, but if I'm going to be only giving props to one, it's gotta be "Pynk." Maybe it was just the music video.

Preoccupations: "Espionage"—Preoccupations seems to have become one of those bands that everyone kind of agrees puts out good music but to whom nobody really gives the time of day. Maybe it's because they're a post-punk guitar-rock band, and 2018 just isn't the year for that. But it's too bad, because their music pretty much owns, especially "Espionage," which is propulsive and brooding in that specific combination that only post-punk can really evoke.

Pusha T: "What Would Meek Do (ft. Kanye West)"—Outside of the political ramifications (which are bad), one of the most unfortunate things about Kanye West's on-again/off-again MAGA embrace is that it overshadowed some of the actually really good work that came out of the Wyoming sessions. Pusha T's DAYTONA is front-to-back strong, but my favorite is, unsurprisingly, the one with the beat based off a Yes sample, because I am nothing if on-brand. Also, though I might be falling victim to the very same Kanye-based overshadowing that I just complained about, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it's got what's probably Kanye's best, most thoughtful verse of the year, wherein he wonders if his MAGA stunts will protect him from racial profiling. Like... I dunno, y'all. It's good.

Robyn: "Missing U"—For me, Robyn continues to be mostly a singles artist, which is fine, because the singles are great. This one in particular. Crying in the club with the best of them.

Jeff Rosenstock: "USA"—A 7-minute punk-rock epic that ends with everyone shouting "Et tu, USA." It's kind of shameless, but it's also kind of great.

Sons of Kemet: "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman"—Probably the most energetic jazz release I heard this year was Your Queen Is a Reptile, a fusion of jazz, worldbeat, and black nationalism. Presumably with this song, they are talking about the abolitionist hero and not the jazz trio featured on the albums section of this list, but I'd accept either answer.

SOPHIE: "Immaterial"—I was thinking that SOPHIE's demented, bludgeoning pop(?) album, OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-SIDES was going to make my top 10 albums, but then the CD release of the album was pushed back, and I didn't get a chance to dive in as deeply as I would have needed to justify that top-10 spot. But anyway, here's the album's catchiest, sunniest song, which I like a ton.

Spiritualized: "On the Sunshine"—Pretty much classic Spiritualized, if a tad less tortured (so, good for Jason Pierce). You've got Pierce's droning vocals, the swelling guitars, the eclipsing feedback, the wild brass. My thing exactly.

St. Vincent: "Fast Slow Disco"—Annie Clark's lone full-length release this year was a slow, acoustic re-imagining of last year's Masseduction tracks, but her best work this year is in the exact opposite direction: "Fast Slow Disco," a faster, poppier, dancier, better iteration of what was already one of Masseduction's standouts. Bonus points for the excellent music video.

Underworld & Iggy Pop: "Bells & Circles"—"Losing My Edge," but ragging on Baby Boomers. Iggy Pop gives a hilarious vocal performance as a ranting, great-uncle-like character who complains that nowadays "nobody wants you to be able to do the things that make you feel good," like smoking on airplanes and sexually harassing airplane stewardesses. The lyrics turn increasingly crazed and surreal as the driving Underworld beat becomes more and more sinister. Profoundly funny and disquieting at the same time.

U.S. Girls: "Time"—It was a great year for female-fronted indie rock, and if I hadn't been such a loser listening to so much jazz, more of it would have made it onto my album list. You can't do much better than this careening closer to U.S. Girl's In a Poem Unlimited.

Kamasi Washington: "Will You Sing"—Speaking of closing tracks, here's the finale to Kamasi Washington's epic Heaven and Earth. As Washington steps further away from the Coltrane-style hard bop he cut his teeth on and more toward ornate, symphonic jazz, he's sounding more and more like Ennio Morricone, and "Will You Sing" is Washington's very own "Ecstasy of Gold."

Kanye West: "Lift Yourself"—Maybe Kanye just did it for the memes. But I'm serious when I say that this is a legitimately great piece of avant-garde hip-hop. There's a playfulness on display here, and not just with the literal scat lyrics but with how the song plays with its structure and its central soul sample in a way that feels fresh and interesting and fun. Kanye is at the nexus of a lot of what is terrible about 2018, and his position there is almost entirely his own fault, which is both infuriating and dispiriting (and worrying, given his recent statements about his stance toward his medication). But I am at least grateful that he left us this before he completely jumped off the deep end.

Mini Reviews for December 10-16, 2018

It's 2018-catch-up time, y'all.

Movies

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I'm not an avowed superhero movie hater, but I have been pretty frustrated at the Marvel corner of the genre's insistence on doubling down on some of the more irritating aspects of superhero comics (the convoluted interconnectivity of stories, the increasingly burdensome continuity, the reliance on "game changing" plots that just actually mask a commitment to the storytelling status quo) while ignoring some of the best elements (the visual splendor, the playful fluidity of characters and storytelling types allowed by decades of different writers piling storylines onto the same universe). Into the Spider-Verse reverses this to great effect, being not just the best-looking superhero movies of this year (of all time??) but also being the one superhero movie that truly capitalizes on the fact that, by golly, comics are weird as hell so let's just lean into that as hard as we can and see what happens. It's great. Visually, it's the rare polygonal, computer-animated feature that actually uses CG animation for every inch of possibility that the format is worth. The film's mixed-media, collage approach is some of the most formally radical animation I've ever seen in a mainstream American animated feature; it's closer to the work of Masaaki Yuasa than anything I can think of in North America, and the film's climax, which is basically a fight scene set within a complete abstraction of computer rendering, filled with free-floating polygons and digital noise, feels entirely without precedent. On a storytelling level, Into the Spider-Verse feels a lot like The Lego Batman Movie's approach to superhero mythology, diving right into the weirdest, most uncool corners of the superhero's past with gleeful abandon—it's one thing to make fun of the way the Amazing Spider-Man storylines have trended toward wallowing self-pity; it's an entirely different ballgame even to acknowledge the existence of Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, and that's the game Into the Spider-Verse is playing. Like Lego Batman, there are parts of this plot that feel like they're held together with string, and the movie is, frankly, overstuffed to the point of shortchanging far more characters than I'd like. But to its credit, it's also got much more serious things on its mind than Lego Batman, using this bizarre confluence of all the various Spider-Man bric-a-brac not just to tell a compelling story for the in-movie characters (Miles Morales's plot is legitimately moving in a way that gets at the real heart of Spider-Man like no other film since the second Sam Raimi Spider-Man film) but also to gently nudge its own fandom into realizing how absurd it is to gripe about the changing (and diversifying) superhero landscape when there are things like Spider-Ham and Spider-Man Noir rumbling out there in canonized past that so-called purists want to preserve; what the film does with Kingpin is as effective (and subtle) a take on white male internet rage as anything I've seen recently—take that, Ralph Breaks the Internet! Grade: A-

The Favourite (2018)

Watching this movie, I thought for sure it was using quasi-historical figures to make a parable about modern authoritarianism and the self-motivated sycophancy politics that springs up in its wings. But no, this movie is shockingly historical, at least more so than I realized when I was watching it—emotionally ill-adjusted tyrants and their aspiring puppet masters are just evergreen, I guess. But anyway: you could do a lot worse with adapting the Queen Anne/Sarah Churchill/Abigail Hill scenario for the screen than the razor-witted insult comedy fronting a deeply twisted sexual power game that The Favourite is: All About Eve for the 18th century, you could say. The three leads (Olivia Colman as the queen, Rachel Weisz as Sarah, Emma Stone as Abigail) are all tremendous, chewing over the screenplay's wicked turns of phrase with visible delight; the costumes and set design are exquisite; the camerawork, restless and often filtered through a fish-eye lens that serves the pervert the setting's ostensible "high class" even further than the characters themselves do, feels like a pointed subversion of Barry Lyndon, the inevitable (only?) 18th-century-set film to which this one will inevitably be compared; the film's disdain for the monarchy and aristocracy is never not great. This movie ticks a lot of my boxes, and if it's sadistic to say I had a great time with it, I think I at least had an engaging time with it, which is more than I can say for The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Grade: B+

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)

The other heavily-CGI Jungle Book movie of recent years. Disney being Disney of course was able to muscle its way into a mainstream theatrical release, leaving this one to float around from medium to medium before landing on Netflix, and while I remember Disney touting the 2016 Favreau adaptation as something of a return to the darker tone of the original Kipling book, don't be fooled: Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is far more in-tune with Kipling's sensibilities than anything Disney could muster. There are no songs, only the folk-myth power hierarchies and jungle battles that Kipling evoked of his beloved (if patronized) India. It's a strange and somewhat ethereal movie grounded only by its strikingly brutal PG violence, though there are some tonal and structural issues; people forget that Kipling's Jungle Book is essential a short story cycle, and Mowgli sometimes struggles to figure out how to stitch those stories together into a coherent film—the iconic monkey palace scene feels entirely expendable and disconnected from the larger thrust of the plot. If I were making this, I'd abandon the idea of a coherent plot altogether and just go full anthology film. But I didn't make the film, so here we are. More fascinatingly flawed than truly "good," but probably worth a watch anyway for those interested in the project of adapting Kipling to screen. Grade: B-

Shirkers (2018)

The opening minutes of Shirkers—a montage of abstract footage, often upside-down and/or reversed and/or in photonegative—promise a much more formally wild film than we ultimately get, which is both disappointing and something of a relief (I love me some avant-garde, but on a school night? In this economy?). What Shirkers actually is is something like a cross between a personal essay and a twisty docu-drama mystery not all that different from this year's Three Identical Strangers or 2009's Art of the Steal), in which Singapore-born filmmaker Sandi Tan recounts the very strange saga of how her debut feature was stolen by a French-New-Wave-obsessing con man. It's as much an autobiography as it is a mystery, and the best parts of the movie have nothing to do with the central yarn at all and have more to do with Tan's friends (who were involved with the making of her debut) reminiscing about their prickly relationship with Tan herself. Grade: B

The Meg (2018)

Everyone's least-favorite part of Titanic is the framing device where all the douchey treasure hunters are using the submersible to explore the ocean depths, but let me ask you this: what if we made a whole movie about that framing device? Not sold? Well, what if we added a gigantic prehistoric shark to the mix? Hm? HMM?? This is definitely a "They don't make 'em like they used to" type of movie, though I suppose your excitement about this particular film is based on how much you wish they still made dumb '90s action movies. I'm mostly ambivalent, but there is something charmingly quaint about it all. Grade: C+

The Voices (2014)

A strange little black comedy whose tonal slips effortlessly (and disorientingly) among actual horror, indie-dramedy quirk, animal reaction shots, and borderline-surreal gore humor. It doesn't cohere at all, but it's an interesting little experiment with a knock-out performance by an unsettling Ryan Reynolds (maybe not his BEST role, but certainly his most impressive). It also saves its most sublime surprise for the end, with the credits, "Directed by Marjane Satrapi." I guess I knew in theory that she did more than Persepolis, but I'll be damned if I could have guessed that her name was going to pop up here, of all places. Grade: B-

Music

Szun Waves - New Hymn to Freedom (2018)

Sorta this jazz-fusion/space-rock/ambient thing. You know, for as much as I listen to jazz, I still really don't have the vocabulary to describe it very well, and that goes doubly for some of the more fusion-y, unconventional stuff, of which New Hymn to Freedom definitely qualifies. Consisting of six entirely improvised compositions performed by a trio—Luke Abbott on synths, Laurence Pike on drums, Jack Wyllie on saxophone—it's a real journey, feeling like the intersection of Sun Ra and Aphex Twin and John Coltrane. In fact, the opening motif of "Constellation," the first track, feels like a synth version of Coltrane's "Acknowledgement" from A Love Supreme, and if you can imagine A Love Supreme as filtered through those influences and slowed down a bit, you'd have a pretty good idea of what to expect here. Whatever it is, I like it a lot. Grade: A-